‘A fine girl!’ said he to himself, as he walked very slowly down the avenue: he did not feel, now, in such a desperate hurry to shake the dust of the place from his feet. ‘What a blending of fire and softness, of vigour and gentleness! No weak-willed fool would have spoken in that way. It was not a spiritless acquiescence in evil because she really had no power to cope with it. It is that she understands something of what is below the surface. She has found out the best way to meet it. “I came here looking for joy. I have found sorrow.” How noble she did look as she said it! Well, may she find strength too, to carry her sorrow wisely and well. It is the best any of us can ask for in this world.’
But he pondered the theme in every variety of aspect on his homeward way. He wondered what she would do after he had left her—how pass the dreary evening, alone and uncheered, in the great, desolate house. At this idea Michael suddenly felt a wave of exceeding great pity and compunction sweep over his soul. Well might she say, ‘I have found sorrow.’ What else could one, nurtured as she had been, look for, in that house and its associations? He suddenly became conscious how very bad it was for a young woman to sit alone and brood over troubles—bad for both mental and bodily health. And he fell to wondering who, in all the social circles of Bradstane and its neighbourhood could in some way play the part to her of friend or associate.
Of course, what he pictured her as doing was entirely different from what she really did. After he had left the room, she stood looking at the door which had closed after him, and listened to his footsteps for the few short moments during which it was possible to hear them. Then, suddenly, with a quick, restless movement she began to pace the room. Backwards and forwards she went, with an uneasy step, for some time, till, in the gathering dark, Barlow came in with a lamp, and with a taper lighted some candles which stood on the mantelpiece. He soon went away again, and the illumination he had made would have revealed her to any one who had happened to be there, with a face pallid but excited, and a strange unusual light in her eyes. She made a pause in her walk, moved uncertainly once or twice, and then walked up to the mantelpiece. She was not now thinking of the ill news and the trouble which had, as it were, stalked into her life, but of him through whom, indirectly, she had become acquainted with them. What did it all mean? and herself of two days ago, where was it? Was it laughter or tears now struggling within her—pleasure or pain? Something had happened to her, that she felt, and she would always be different from what she had been before. Had she been lifted up, or struck down? She could not tell, she had not the faintest idea, but she felt Michael’s voice thrilling again through every nerve, till at last the sensation of the mastery he had gotten over her became almost unbearable. If he had thus laid her under a spell which she felt to be almost terrible in its strength and intensity, what of herself? She was not yet so lost in her own subjective sensations as to be unable to take his into consideration, and at this moment she suddenly lifted her eyes and looked at her own reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece—her lips parted, and a new searching eagerness in her expression.
‘He saw my face this afternoon, clearly enough,’ something within her seemed to say, with an uncontrollable frankness, for which her usual self was in no wise accountable. It was as if a voice apart, and yet belonging to her, spoke, and she had to listen. Some phase of her own nature which had never yet addressed itself to her, appealed to her now, crying aloud, so that other voices were stilled; it made itself imperiously audible.
‘He saw it. Did it please him, I wonder? What did he think of it? What does he think of me? I would give all the world, if I had it, to know.’
But the reflection of herself which she saw, only flung her own doubt and wonder and groping speculation back into her own face, and presently she sat down again, muttering, ‘I wish I had never seen him.’
Then, at last, the wished-for tears broke forth, and she whispered to herself between them, ‘He is good, he is good, he is good! I know he is.’
Good or bad, he had that day planted a thorn in her breast, and it grew apace.
CHAPTER XXI
WORK AND WAGES
Three weeks of unmitigated, solid, hard work followed in Michael’s life upon these two eventful afternoons—not work of a kind to make him forget whatever transient gleam of a different world might have crossed his path. It was not the art that can make poverty rich, and turn prose into poetry; it was not the science which can possess and absorb and fascinate a man, and charm him away from outside influences, so as to be a formidable rival to even a well-loved human being. It was none of that, but one continual, mechanical grind amongst prosaic and often sordid surroundings, accomplished without excitement or glamour, at the expense of considerable physical wear and tear and weariness. After such a day’s work as this, he would come in to his home and his friend. If he was not too tired, there was always plenty to occupy his time in the shape of reading, connected with his profession; very often more visits to pay during the evening; very occasionally a dinner-party at some house in the neighbourhood, where he met the same people he had been meeting ever since he had begun to go to local dinner-parties, and heard the same topics discussed that always were discussed in Bradstane. His nearest approach to a social and domestic evening was when he, being very tired, would indulge himself in the luxury of a sofa and a pipe, and Roger, putting away his books, would sit down to the piano and play, or sing, or improvise for an hour or two for his benefit. During moments of frivolity and relaxation like these, he often caught himself thinking of Eleanor Askam, as she thanked him, in her sweet tired voice, for his escort, or stood before him with steadfast gaze, saying, ‘I came looking for joy. I have found sorrow.’ They were both situations in such sharp contrast with the rest of his existence, that it can scarcely be matter for surprise if he dwelt upon them rather often in recollection. He did not, however, think of them as anything more than passing incidents, to which it was pleasant to revert in memory; not as epochs or turning-points in his mental or emotional condition. During these weeks it happened that he never once met Eleanor, or perhaps his eyes might have had the scales lifted from them. He heard of her sometimes, as was natural. And one day, at a house where he was lunching, some girls were discussing her and her claims to beauty. They agreed that these claims were quite undeniable; they admired her exceedingly. She was very original-looking, as well as beautiful, and yet not in the least odd.