Morning again—a hazy, glorious August morning. When Wellfield threw open his window, a draught of air scented with everything that is sweetest and most exquisite was borne into the room. The heavy trees outside stood motionless; the dazzling spikes of gladiolus, and the parterres of geraniums looked dim in the morning mist which still hung white and palpable over the course of the river. Each day that Jerome passed here was fairer than the last; each morning and each evening made more palpable to him what a goodly heritage had departed from him, and fallen to the lot of others. This may have influenced his course: who shall say what and where is the first upspringing of that current which, slight at first, presently grows so strong as to sway our actions and decide our ‘will’ to some particular course?
On going downstairs, he found the breakfast-table spread, and Mr. Bolton seated at it. Nita was standing in the window, the newspaper in one hand, while the other caressed the head of her great dun-coloured mastiff, Speedwell—another dear friend who, like nature, ‘never would betray the heart that loved’ him. Mr. Bolton made a measured apology for beginning his breakfast, adding that he had to go to Burnham by the nine o’clock train, but would be in to dinner in the middle of the day, and he hoped Mr. Wellfield would do just what was agreeable to him, and Nita would do her best to entertain him.
With which Nita also advanced, looking rather pale, but also almost pretty. She laid down the paper, remarking:
‘There’s nothing in it, papa. The market is up, and there is a leading article absolutely annihilating the Opposition, so let that content you until this evening.’
‘I suppose it must,’ said he, rising; and wishing them good-morning, he departed.
Nita, when breakfast was over, proposed a tour round the garden, she had some orders to give the gardener, and must go to the farm, or perhaps he would prefer to stay indoors.
‘I should prefer to go with you if I may,’ he said; and they strolled out together.
Nita appeared quite at home outside the house. During their progress round the garden Jerome grew more interested in her, and with him, to be interested in a woman was to do his utmost to make himself interesting to her. Nita was not aware of this idiosyncrasy; and a man cannot say to a woman, ‘Do not make yourself interesting to me, or I shall try in turn to captivate you.’ The rules of etiquette do not allow such a statement, but when a man’s heart is given in one direction, he may intimate that fact, and make it quite palpable to another woman, without absolutely saying in so many words, ‘I am engaged; do not fall in love with me,’ and he may do this without hurting her feelings or her self-respect. Jerome Wellfield did not do this.
‘There is a farm belonging to the Abbey,’ observed Nita, ‘and papa leaves all the management of it to me: he only cares for his books when he leaves business, so I have the farm and the gardens and the house—indeed, everything connected with our life here—to look after.’