So Mr. Monckton hardened his heart against his beautiful young wife, and set himself sternly and indefatigably to watch her every look, to listen to every intonation of her voice, to keep a rigorous guard over his own honour and dignity.
Poor Eleanor was too innocent to read all these signs aright; she only thought that her husband was changed; that this stern and gloomy companion was not the same Gilbert Monckton whom she had known at Hazlewood; not the patient “guide, philosopher, and friend,” whose subdued bass voice, eloquent in the dusky evenings long ago—a year is very long to a girl of eighteen—in Mrs. Darrell’s simple drawing-room, had seemed a kind of intellectual music to her.
Had she not been absorbed always by that one thought, whose intensity had reduced the compass of her mind to a monotone, the young wife would very bitterly have felt this change in her husband. As it was she looked upon her disappointment as something very far away from her; something to be considered and regretted by-and-by; by-and-by, when the grand business of her life was done.
But while the gulf between the young wife and her husband every day grew wider, this grand business made no progress. Day after day, week after week passed by, and Eleanor Monckton found herself no nearer the end.
She had paid several visits to Hazlewood; she had acted her part to the best of her abilities, which were very mediocre in all matters where deception is necessary; she had watched and questioned Launcelot Darrell; but she had obtained no vestige of proof to set before Maurice de Crespigny when she denounced his niece’s son.
No; whatever secrets were hidden in the young man’s breast, he was so guarded as to baffle Eleanor Monckton at every point. He was so thoroughly self-possessed as to avoid betraying himself by so much as a look or a tone.
He was, however, thrown a good deal in Eleanor’s society, for Mr. Monckton, with a strange persistence, encouraged the penniless artist’s attentions to Laura Mason; while Launcelot Darrell, too shallow to hold long to any infatuation, influenced upon one side by his mother, and flattered upon the other by Laura’s unconcealed admiration, was content, by-and-by, to lay down his allegiance at this new shrine, and to forgive Mrs. Monckton for her desertion.
“Eleanor and my mother were both right, I dare say,” the young man reflected, contemplating his fate with a feeling of despondent languor. “They were wiser than I was, I dare say. I ought to marry a rich woman. I could never drag out an existence of poverty. Bachelor poverty is bad enough, but, at least, there’s something artistic and Bohemian about that. Chambertin one day, and vin ordinaire the next; Veuve Clicquot at the Trois Frères or the Café de Paris to-night, and small beer in a garret to-morrow morning. But married poverty! Squalid desolation instead of reckless gaiety; a sick wife and lean hungry children, and the husband carrying wet canvases to the pawnbroker! Bah! Eleanor was right; she has done a good thing for herself; and I’d better go in and win the heiress, and make myself secure against any caprice of my worthy great-uncle.”
It was thus that Launcelot Darrell became a frequent visitor at Tolldale Priory, and as, at about this time, Mr. Monckton’s business became so unimportant as to be easily flung entirely into the hands of the two junior partners, the lawyer was almost always at home to receive his guest.
Nothing could have been more antagonistic than the characters of the two men. There was no possibility of sympathy or assimilation between them. The weakness of one was rendered more evident by the strength of the other. The decided character of the lawyer seemed harsh and rigid when contrasted with the easy-going languid good-nature of the artist.