Antony Crespin’s wife was unhappy; she needed no added heartache, but she might have been unhappier yet, had she seen her husband as Dr. Traherne saw him.
Certainly the world would be a far duller place if we all were as fair-minded as Basil Traherne, and if life carried no privilege and zest of censure. You’d be less contented and comfortable, if you did not think that you were better than I am, and I should be less comfortable and contented, if I did not know that I am better than you are.
CHAPTER XV
The priest still apologized to the stone. The people still jabbered and watched. Crespin smoked on, and Traherne stood quietly studying the place—the lay of its land, the stand of the rocks, the length and strength of the castle walls.
“Do you think I could sit on this stone without giving offense to the deities?” Lucilla called to them over her shoulder.
Traherne answered her after a glance at the flat rock to which she pointed—a slab of flint quite without vestments of green or of paint.
“Oh, yes, that seems safe enough. I don’t know,” he continued, joining her where she sat, but not sharing her seat, and speaking in a tone that Crespin could not fail to hear, “how to apologize for having got you into this mess.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Dr. Traherne,” she answered cheerfully. “Who can foresee a Himalayan fog?”
“The only thing to do was to get above it, and then, of course, my bearings were gone.” He still spoke apologetically—and unconsciously he dropped his voice as he said it, as every man’s instinct is when he says even the most trivial things to the one woman. Crespin caught the tone’s lowering, and shifted about a little where he sat, and listened the more intently.
“Now that we are safe,” Lucilla’s voice was not lowered at all, “I should think it all great fun, if it weren’t for the children.”