“And Lacrima—poor little Lacrima!—have you decided what we must do to intervene in her case?”
“I think it may be said,” responded the scholar gravely, “that we have hit upon an effective way of stopping that marriage. But perhaps it would be pleasanter and easier for you to remain at present in ignorance of our precise plan. I know,” he added, smiling, “you do not care for hidden conspiracies.”
Vennie frowned. “I don’t see why,” she said, “there should be anything hidden about it! It seems to me, the thing is so abominable, that one would only have to make it public, to put an end to it completely.
“I hope”—she clasped her hands—“I do hope, you are not fighting the evil one with the weapons of the evil one? If you are, I am sure it will end unhappily. I am sure and certain of it!”
She spoke with a fervour that seemed almost prophetic; and as she did so, she unconsciously waved—with a pathetic little gesture of protest—the bunch of dead grasses which she held in her hand.
Mr. Taxater walked gravely by her side; his profile, in its imperturbable immobility, resembling the mask of some great mediæval ecclesiastic. The only reply he made to her appeal was to quote the famous Psalmodic invocation: “Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam.”
It would have been clear to anyone who had overheard his recent conversation with Luke, and now watched his reception of Vennie’s instinctive protest, that whatever the actions of this remarkable man were, they rested upon a massive foundation of unshakable philosophy.
There was little further conversation between them; and at the vicarage gate, they separated with a certain air of estrangement. With undeviating feminine clairvoyance, Vennie was persuaded in the depths of her mind that whatever plan had been hit upon by the combined wits of the theologian and Luke, it was one whose nature, had she known it, would have aroused her most vehement condemnation. Nor in this persuasion will the reader of our curious narrative regard her as far astray from the truth.
Meanwhile the two brothers were also returning slowly along the road to Nevilton. Had Mr. Clavering, whose opinion of the younger stone-carver was probably lower than that of any of his other critics, seen Luke during this time, he might have formed a kindlier judgment of him. Nothing could have exceeded the tact and solicitude with which he guided the conversation into safe channels. Nothing could have surpassed, in affectionate tenderness, the quick, anxious glances he every now and then cast upon his brother. There are certain human expressions which flit suddenly across the faces of men and women, which reveal, with the seal of absolute authenticity, the depth of the emotion they betray. Such a flitting expression, of a love almost maternal in its passionate depth, crossed the face of Luke Andersen at more than one stage of their homeward walk.