‘Don’t be savage, Kenrick,’ said the Vicar. ‘A young lady’s nerves are a delicate piece of mechanism, and a trifle will put them out of order. The settlements had better stand over till to-morrow morning. We can all meet here at ten.’
‘But I want to know why she is ill, or out of spirits,’ urged Kenrick. ‘Has Mr. Namby seen her?’ he asked abruptly of Madame Leonard.
‘No. She is hardly so ill as to need medical advice. She wants repose, to be left to herself for a little while, not to be worried about business matters. She wished to have no marriage settlement. The whole thing is an annoyance to her.’
‘She wished to play the fool,’ muttered Mr. Scratchell, ‘but I wasn’t going to let her make ducks and drakes of the whole of her property.’
They all went away after a little more talk, Kenrick in a bad temper. This was like his welcome at Southampton, when, with a heart burning with eager love, he had found only coldness and restraint in his betrothed. She had been kinder, and had even seemed happy in his society of late; but there had been moments of coldness, days on which she had been absent-minded and fitful.
‘I am a fool to love her as I do,’ he thought, as he walked silently back to the Vicarage, while Mr. Dulcimer chewed the cud of his afternoon readings, and debated within himself the motive of Ovid’s exile—a favourite subject of meditation with him, as being a key-note to the domestic history of Augustus, and a social mystery upon which a man might muse and argue for ever without coming any nearer an absolute conclusion.
‘I am a fool to make myself miserable about her,’ mused Kenrick. ‘Why cannot I think of my marriage as a mere matter of convenience—the salvation of a fine old estate—as other people do?’
The tea party at the Vicarage had not been lively. Cyril looked ill, and had little to say for himself.
‘You are overworked at Bridford,’ said the Vicar, decisively. ‘The place is killing you. I must have you back here, Cyril. There is quite work enough to be done, and you may indulge in your new-fangled ways as much as you like, for I know you are too sensible to consider outward fripperies an essential part of an earnest service. You shall do what you like with the choir, and have as many services at unearthly hours of the morning as you please. But you shall not kill yourself in that polluted town.’
‘I am more useful there than I could ever be here,’ urged Cyril.