She was obliged to remain a while in the shade to wipe the tears from her face when he strode off to join the other gentlemen coming back from their shooting. He never looked back.
Next day in the hall, Mrs. Hart curtseyed charmingly to Mr. Greville’s bow as he said farewell, half deafened by Sir Harry’s ringing exhortations to return in February.
CHAPTER III
THE EXPLOSION
Greville did not return in February. He had other and more important invitations and time a little dulled the strong impression Emily Hart had made upon him. She had written more than once, dutiful ill-spelt letters, monuments of labour—love’s labour, and not wholly lost.
He had also seen her twice, for she insisted with Sir Harry on coming up to London to visit her mother, a simple, good-natured old body, now decorated with the remarkable name of Mrs. Cadogan (Heavens knows why!) and, through Greville’s own influence, serving as cook in the family of one of the numerous Hamilton and Greville connections. He had not wholly approved of the step of coming to London. Her enthusiasm and energy, far from warming his tepid blood, rather alarmed him than otherwise. He declined to see her but in Mrs. Cadogan’s presence and, though condescending and encouraging on the moral-immoral lines, was guarded. That anxiety for her mother’s company might mislead Sir Harry but could not himself. Months passed after the last visit with a letter or two, and then a silence. It certainly did not flatter him to believe he might be forgotten and that she was adjusting herself so comfortably to Sir Harry that outside interests were fading. Yet it might be so. The brief letters certainly showed no sign of study or improvement—she must therefore value his exhortations more lightly. That irked him somehow. It touched both curiosity and vanity, and breaking his almost invariable rule he wrote her a few friendly lines—no more.
He sat one morning in his London house in his embroidered Turkish dressing-gown, arranging a small cabinet of gems and intaglios belonging to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, for which he had made himself responsible on their arrival in London. His letter acknowledging them lay on the table beside him.
“My dear Hamilton,” it began, for so he always called this almost brother-uncle, “I never saw anything more beautiful than this Medusa on agate. Your usual good fortune always attends you—” and so forth. His whole mind was on this as he moved and replaced the beautiful fossils of antique art with delicate fingers. He wished, indeed, at least a part of them were his own, for a schedule of expenses had given him some discomfort the night before, and it was clearly a choice between cutting down certain luxuries and selling one or two treasures to make both ends meet. A younger son of a great family is often face to face with these little difficulties. It is hard to be the same flesh and blood as the elder brother and see all the money, land, and nearly all the consideration flow in that channel, leaving the younger dry.
“A rich wife? True—but then—”
The gems occupied him now. He was bending over the cabinet in deep attention when his man brought in a post letter, ill-scrawled and sealed, with drops of wax about it as if the sender had suffered from extreme haste and agitation.
It fell into that calm, retired atmosphere of extreme culture and quiet like a meteor from another and more volcanic world of upheavals, but it did not hurry Charles Greville though he knew the hand. He still continued his delicate work until all were neatly sorted, the cabinet locked and the key in his pocket. And not till then did he slit the paper with a silver knife, and spread the big sheet open before him. The postmark was Chester, which somewhat surprised him.