He echoed her words as if almost paralyzed by horror.
“Not as I used to care. One’s taste changes as life goes on. Lately I have read nothing but Victor Hugo, and Keats, and Shelley.”
“Very well in their way, but not half cheery enough for a lonely little woman beside the Fowey river. You ought to have had Allegra. It would have been better for you and better for her. She is tired of the Art school; and the other pupils are tired of her. They are very fond of her; but she has done all the work twice over, and there is nothing more for her to do, unless we meant her to enter the Royal Academy and go in seriously for art, Mrs. Meynell tells me. According to that lady’s account my sister must be an Admirable Crichton in petticoats.”
“I have no doubt she is very clever and very nice; but, as I could not have you, I preferred being alone,” answered Isola.
She was walking slowly by his side along the closely shaven grass, and every now and then she stretched out a hand that looked semi-transparent, and gathered a flower at random, and then plucked off its petals nervously as she walked on. Her eyelids were lowered, and her lips were tightly set. Martin could but think there was a vein of obstinacy in this bewitching wife of his—a gentle resistance which would tend to make him her slave rather than her master in the days to come. He saw with pain that her cheeks were hollow and pinched, and that her complexion had a sickly whiteness. She had fretted evidently in those long months of solitude, and it would take time to bring back the colour and gaiety to her face. As for dulness, well, no doubt Fowey was ever so much duller than Dinan, where there were officers and tennis-parties and afternoon tea-drinkings, and a going and coming of tourists all the summer through, and saints’ days, and processions, and fêtes and illuminations in the market square, beneath the statue of Duguesclin.
“And how did the world use you, Isola?” he asked presently. “Was everybody kind?”
“Oh yes, people were very kind; especially Mrs. Baynham and Mrs. Crowther. They sent me ever so many invitations, and wanted me to go on their day every week.”
“And I hope you accepted their invitations.”
“I went to Mrs. Baynham’s sometimes on her day; but I didn’t care about going to Glenaveril. It is all too grand and too fine—and I don’t like Mr. Crowther.”
“He was always courteous to you, I hope?”