Laurence looked for and found these objects, a prey at once to surprise and to a sense of happy familiarity. He was perfectly acquainted with this room—but why or how he knew not. He was filled, too, by a singular sense of expectation. It was to him as though some exquisite presence had but lately quitted this apartment and might, at any instant, return to it. He apprehended something tenderly, delectably feminine. The china ornaments, and many little fanciful silver toys, spoke of a woman's taste. So did a tambour frame, and an ivory work-box, the lid of it open, disclosing dainty property of gold thimble, scissors, cottons, and what not—and a half-finished frill of cobweb-like India muslin, a little, gold-eyed needle sticking in the mimic hem. On the small table beside the work-box lay a white vellum-bound copy of the Vita Nuova of Dante, and the Introduction to the Devout Life of St. Francis de Sales.
Perplexed by his own sensations, possessed too by a sudden, gentle reverence and longing which he could not explain, Laurence touched the pretty trifles in the work-box; fitted the thimble on the tip of his little finger; turned the pages of the Dante, and read how the poet came near swooning at first sight of the maiden of eight years old whom, though she was never destined to be his mistress or wife, he loved ever after, and made immortal in immortal verse. He unlocked the worn red-velvet violin case and drew the bow—not for the first time—he could have sworn not—across the wailing strings. What did it all mean? Yes, what, indeed,—in the name of common-sense, of New York and Newport, of his golf and polo, and cotillions, of crowded opera-house and shouting racecourse? In the name, too, of those hard, brilliant, dying eyes, and that cold, hungry intellect upstairs, what did it mean? He had no recollection of having been into this room on his former visits to Stoke Rivers in his boyhood. And yet, of course, he must have been here—otherwise? But then this overmastering sense of expectation, this apprehension of an exquisite feminine presence, this—
"Upon my word, I'm playing the fool to some purpose," he said, half aloud.
He crossed the room, threw wide the French window and went onto the head of the semicircular flight of stone steps without. The wind buffeted him roughly. The rain spattered in his face. On the left, the lawns were divided from the downward slope of rough park and woodland by a sunk fence. Beyond was outspread an extensive tract of rolling, wooded country—red and white hamlets half buried among trees, here and there the spire of a village church, flat, green pastures lying along the valleys, brown patches of hop-garden and ploughland, and uplifted against the grey, storm-drifted horizon a windmill crowning some conspicuous height. Suddenly the cry of hounds, running, saluted Laurence's ear. Then the whole pack, breaking covert, crossed the open park. The field followed, horses pulling, riders leaning forward, squaring their shoulders to the wind—a flash of scarlet, chestnut, black and bay, behind the dappled joy of the racing pack.
For a moment the strange influences of this strange day made even the merry hunt appear to Laurence as the pageant of an uneasy dream. But soon the honest outdoor life claimed him again, forcing him back upon unquestioned realities. He closed the French window behind him, stood on the wet steps spending some anxious moments in the lighting of a cigar, and then strolled, hatless, round to the stables to make inquiry as to what his uncle might own in the matter of horseflesh.
IV
In the afternoon Laurence drove over to Bishop's Pudbury, some eight miles distant from Stoke Rivers. An English soldier—by name Bellingham—whom he had known in New York, and who had married a Miss Van Renan, a cousin of Virginia—had taken a house there for the hunting season. His wife had impressed upon Laurence the duty of making an early call on these connections—he being the bearer of certain gifts to a small daughter of the family, Virginia's godchild. A revulsion in favour of the ordinary ways of ordinary modern life, in favour, indeed, of that very Commonplace of which last evening he had supposed himself so unwilling an exponent, was upon him. He wanted to get in with his accustomed habits, his accustomed outlook, again. The last twenty-four hours had been somewhat of a strain, and Laurence was as lazy as are most healthy Englishmen. He hated energising, specially of the super-induced, involuntary sort. And Mrs. Bellingham's society would be helpful. She was an agreeable woman, of this world worldly. He could have a good, square gossip with her. She was possessed, moreover, of a cult for Virginia—for her beauty, her clothes, her social ability. And in the back of his mind, somehow, Laurence was conscious that it would be an excellent thing for him to hear Virginia's praises sounded loudly. Mrs. Bellingham would count his blessings to him. That recital would be at once humbling and bracing—altogether salutary. But, unfortunately, neither the lady nor her husband were at home; so he could but deposit Virginia's immaculate parcels, tied with flaring bows of amber ribbon, and drive homeward through the rolling Sussex country—now engulfed in its deep, narrow lanes, now climbing its breezy, wooded hills, catching glimpses of the smooth, open downs ranging away to Beachy Head, and of the grey turmoil of the dirty Channel sea.
All this was not very exciting, it must be owned, but it afforded him relief from the singular sensations he had experienced during the morning. He came into the house in excellent spirits, bringing the clean chill of the March evening along with him—came in to meet the same dry, dead atmosphere, the same dark, glossy walls, and rich, sombre colours, the same at once unemotional yet almost voluptuous suggestion from objects of art. A lonely dinner followed, admirably served by two silent, middle-aged men-servants. Their faces were sallow and without expression, their manner was correct to the point of absolute nullity of character, they moved as automata. The dinner itself was a little chef-d'œuvre, and was served on remarkably handsome silver plate. As centre-piece, three dancing female figures in silver-gilt—copied apparently from those on some Etruscan vase—supported a cut-glass bowl, in which floated fantastic orchids, some mottled, dull, brown-green, toad-like, some in long sprays of mauve, or tiger-colour, striped with glossy black. These last gave off a thick musky scent.
Towards the end of the meal Renshaw, the butler, delivered a note to him, which Laurence read not without kindly amusement. It was from the curate-in-charge—the Rector of Stoke Rivers preferring to dwell amid the social excitements of Cheltenham, and but rarely, on the plea of bad health, visiting the parish. Laurence judged the curate-in-charge to be a very young man. His letter ran thus:—