“It is Indian work!” said Sir William, and was not even heard, she so gloated on it, delicately raising a fold, touching the ruffled sleeve with awe and fairy fingers that scarcely brushed it. He repeated his words.
“Indian!” she said at last in a low breathless voice, and again was silent. Then turned with her soul in her eyes.
“I choke when I would thank you. What words can I find? Oh, you good kind friend! Indeed I will love and serve you all my days. And this is for Greville’s sake, for what have I ever done or could do to deserve it? Pay you—indeed I will, and gladly!”
And flung her arms about his neck and bestowed a little shower of hearty kisses on his elderly cheek. Sweet it might be and was, but scarcely complimentary in the deeper sense, for Greville was in every kiss. Still it was a good beginning and all that could be expected. And then she must know the price and quake when she was reluctantly told twenty-five guineas, which, indeed, was a high price for that time and place. And then the talk slid into glowing descriptions of the future and how Galluci, the world-famed singing-master, was to come next day to begin tuition, and how he had promised the King—the King, mark you!—that he should see her Attitudes when a few more had been planned for which Sir William had ideas which he was burning to discuss with her. And how—
But this can be imagined, and how the warm cordiality, the generous kindness and admiration touched her heart. If one considers it, this Emma had been rifled but never wooed. Willett-Payne, Fetherstonehaugh, had plundered her and with the roughness of freebooters. She had flung herself on Greville’s half-reluctant compassion and such wooing as had passed between them was on her aide, and coldly accepted often enough. He was Olympian, remote, at best. But this great gentleman wooed her; at first, she believed, as a frightened child is wooed by a kind guardian, but certainly with passionate admiration of charms which if Greville had noticed he never dwelt on; and every grace responded as snow-drenched flowers lift their heads to the sun. He had the gift, practised on so many women, to make her feel herself enchanting, and the more she felt it the more she charmed and captured him.
But, for all, when he went away to send a word to England of her coming, even with her eyes on the white satin gown, that kind voice in her ear, she sat and sighed for the lost lover and would have given all for one sight of his cold smile, one touch of his reluctant hand.
CHAPTER XI
ADVANCE AND RETREAT
Sir William for the first time in his life fell in love. Her smile curled about his heart, her maidenly advances and retreats enchanted him. In vain Greville, not daring to write his indignation at the Embassy arrangement, shot little shafts of caution and warning. They were unheeded. Lalage, sweetly laughing, sweetly speaking, was beside him and letters were trifles. He persuaded himself that Greville had never understood her and that he did; mere conjectures then might be put smilingly aside.
In careful French, lest it should by any chance come under her prying eyes, Greville wrote to the rash man, as he considered him:
“If one admits the tone of virtue without its reality one is simply duped, and I naturally see everything in its true light as I have always done.” Sir William thought, but did not retort, that Greville’s utter lack of idealism entirely unfitted him for judging an inspiration like Emma’s; that—oh, fallacy of lovers!—the body might be debauched and dragged through the mire and the white maiden soul sit smiling secure in its fastness. That is, of course, in Emma’s case, hers only. At such a possibility for any other woman he himself would have laughed with Greville. His replies evaded those points that were full of real anxiety as to her happiness. Did Greville believe her faithful heart could ever change from its devotion to him? What could be done to wean her from that hopeless passion? It was clear there could be no hope for any other man unless it disappeared, and he was sure that the shock when she knew the facts would be dreadful. Greville, horrified at her being so seriously taken, wrote back under the difficulty that his praises of Emma now recoiled on himself. If he had dwelt on her absence of coquetry, her freedom from giddiness, her strong good sense, how was he now to convey the caution that she was merely a woman of easy virtue and the more dangerous because of her extraordinary attractions? He felt himself involved in contradictions, but did his best. And first he reassured Sir William.