Frightened—yes. The girl hated that evening half-hour and would give a great deal to avoid it, but the terror that she showed did not bring her any closer to her grandmother's power; she stood outside and away.
The Duchess had attempted to influence the girl's brain, to catch some trait, some preference, some dislike, that she could hold and use.
Still Rachel's soul was beyond her grasp, beyond even her guessing at. But she knew Roddy Seddon—she knew Roddy Seddon as no one knew him. And Roddy Seddon knew her.
Even when he was a boy he had known her as no one else knew her. He had seen through all her embroideries and disguises, had known where she was theatrical and why she was so, had discovered her plots and prides, her defeats and victories—and together they two, Pagan to the very bone of them, had laughed at a credulous, superstitious world.
The London that knew Roddy Seddon thought him a country bumpkin with dissipated tastes and an amiable heart. But she knew him better than that. He was not clever—no. He was amazingly innocent of books, he had no intellectual attainments whatever—yet had he received any kind of education, she knew that he might have had one of the finest brains in the country.
He had preferred dogs and horses and the simple enjoyments of his sensations.
Bowing to the outward rules and laws of the modern world he was less modern than anyone she had ever known.
Pagan—root and branch Pagan. In his simplicities, in his complexities, in his moralities and immoralities, in his kindnesses and cruelties—Pagan.
When they were together it was astonishing the number of trappings that they were able to discard. They were Pagan together.
But Rachel? Rachel?