Even at the age of thirty most men of any personal attractions have some romantic memories. Lavendar had his share, but somehow that morning he was disconcertingly candid to himself. It may have been the sudden change from London air and London noise; something in the clear transparency of the April day, in the flute-like melody of the birds’ song, in the dream-like beauty of the scene before him, that made all the moth and rust that had consumed the remembrances of the past more apparent. There was little of the treasure of heaven there,––it had mostly been nonsense or vanity or worse. He wanted, oh, how he wanted, to be able just for once to surrender himself to what was absolutely ideal; to have a memory when he was an old man, of something that had no fault in it.
“No, I’ve never been really in love,” he said to himself, “I may as well confess it; and I daresay I never shall be, but marry on an impulse like most men, make the best of 59 it afterwards, and have a sort of middle-class happiness in the end of the day.”
“One, Two, Three,” said the church clock from the ancient tower, booming out the note, and Lavendar started, and rubbed his hands across his dazzled eyes. “Luncheon is a late meal in that awful house, if I remember,” he said, “but it must be over by this time. I really must go in. Let me collect my thoughts; the business is ‘just things in general,’ but especially the sale of some cottage or other and the land it stands on. Yes, yes, I remember; the papers are all right. Now for the old ladies.”
He made his entrance into the Manor drawing room a few minutes later with a charming smile.
Mrs. de Tracy actually walked a few steps to meet him, with a greeting less frigid than usual.
“I’m glad to see you, Mark,” said she. “Bates said you preferred to walk from the station.”
Mark turned his kind eyes on Miss Smeardon, and held her knuckly hand in his own almost tenderly. It was a very bad habit, which had led to some mischief in the past, that when he was sorry for a thing he wanted to be very kind to it; and this made him unusually pleasing, and dangerous!
“Business first and pleasure afterwards; excellent maxim!” he said to himself half an hour later, as he removed the dust of travel from his person, preparatory to an interview with Mrs. de Tracy. “Now for it!”
He liked the drawing room at Stoke Revel and always wished it had other occupants when he entered it. This afternoon it seemed particularly agreeable, the open windows letting in the slanting sunshine and a strong scent of jonquils and sweet briar.