‘It is bad to sit aloft in meaningless exclusiveness.’
‘I daresay it is. It is the only kind of thing I care for, here. I hate district visiting, and people who make themselves common, too.’
‘You could not make yourself common if you tried, and it would put more interest into your life.’
‘No, it would disgust me; that would be all. Every night I should think of all the horrid scenes and horrid people I had seen in the day. I should be always seeing you mixed up with them, and I should get to think you as horrid as they were—you need not look at me in that way. It’s my nature.... Oh, I daresay you are quite right, Michael—indeed, you always are—but I don’t take any interest in those things, and I don’t want to. I prefer to remain as I am.’
‘As I am,’ was exquisite enough in its refinement, hauteur, and beauty. Had any one else so spoken, Michael would clearly have discerned, and probably pointed out, an odious spirit of pride and exclusiveness. As it was Magdalen, he thought, certainly, that she was unreasonable, but he found the unreasonableness agreeable; he liked the shape which it took—that of fastidiousness—and was not disposed to quarrel with it. The rare and wonderful creature was his own; he had never even yet felt as if he fairly understood that fact, or could think enough of it. He suggested, with a smile lighting up the dark gravity of his face, that he should drive her round some day in his dog-cart, when he had not many places to call at. She slightly lifted her eyebrows, and drew out the silk with which she was embroidering.
‘No, sir. When you have a half holiday, and wish to devote it to me, I will drive you out, or ride with you. At other times—I know it is not intellectual, or humane, but it is so—I prefer the wood-walk in the park; I will remain at home.’
She did remain at home, and took her monotonous strolls along the woodland path, or might now and then be seen, alone, in an open carriage, pale and tranquil and indifferent-looking, enveloped in her dark furs and feathers, with a huge light gray fur rug filling up the rest of the carriage, and this even on days when the wind was keen and the frost biting. She was well aware that not one woman in twenty could have driven about Bradstane in winter, in an open carriage, without her countenance assuming rainbow hues. She could drive thus, and return home without a red nose or blue cheeks; and it gave her a negative, cynical pleasure to do it, and watch other people on foot, or sealed up in stuffy broughams with both windows shut.
The evening before the luncheon already spoken of, Michael was with her, and she asked him if he were going to be present at it.
‘No,’ said he; ‘I’m engaged at the time, but Gilbert is going.’
‘Gilbert! why, he surely does not generally go.’