Juanita was fond of her uncle, as she called this distant cousin of hers, to distinguish him from the younger generation, and she was pleased to be sitting by him, and hearing all the news of the county town and the county people who were his clients, and in many cases his friends. It may be that his cousinship with Lord Cheriton had gone as far as his professional acumen to elevate him in the esteem of town and county, and that some people who would hardly have invited the provincial solicitor for own sake, sent their cards as a matter of course to the law lord’s cousin. But there were others who esteemed Matthew Dalbrook for his own sterling qualities, and who even liked him better than the somewhat severe and self-assertive Lord Cheriton.
While Juanita talked confidentially to her kinsman, and while Sir Godfrey discussed the latest theory about the sun, and the probable endurance of our own little planet, with Janet and Sophia, Theodore sat at the bottom of the table, silent and thoughtful, watching the lovely animated face with its look of radiant happiness, and telling himself that the woman he loved was as far away from him sitting there, within reach of his touch, within the sound of his lowest whisper, as if she had been in another world. He had borne himself bravely on her wedding-day, and smiled back her happy smile, and clasped her hand with a steady grin of friendship; but after that ordeal there had been a sad relapse in his fortitude, and he had thought of her ever since as a man thinks of that supreme possession without which life is worthless—as the miser thinks of his stolen gold—or the ambitious man of his blighted name.
Yes, he had loved her with all the strength of his heart and mind, and he knew that he could never again love with the same full measure. He was too wise a man, and too experienced in life, to tell himself that for him time could have no healing power—that no other woman could ever be dear to him; but he told himself that another love like unto this was impossible, and that all the future could bring him would be some pale faint copy of this radiant picture.
“I suppose it’s only one man in fifty who marries his first love,” he thought; and then he looked at Godfrey Carmichael and thought that to him overmuch had been given. He was a fine young fellow, clever, unassuming, with a frank good face; a man who was liked by men as well as by women; but what had he done to be worthy of such a wife as Juanita? Theodore could only answer the question in the words of Figaro, “He had taken the trouble to be born.”
That one thoughtful guest made no difference in the gaiety of the luncheon table. Matthew Dalbrook had plenty to say to his beautiful cousin, and Juanita had all the experiences of the last season to talk about, while once having started upon Sir William Thomson and the ultimate exhaustion of the sun’s heat, the sisters were not likely to stop.
CHAPTER V.
“Poor little life that toddles half an hour,
Crowned with a flower or two, and there an end—”
Sir Godfrey’s device for diverting his wife’s mind from the morbid fancies of the previous night answered admirably. She left Dorchester in high spirits, after having invited her cousins to Cheriton for tennis and lunch on the following day, and after having bade an affectionate good-bye to Theodore, who was to start on his holiday directly he could make an end of some important business now in hand. His father told him laughingly that he might have gone a week earlier had he really wanted to go.
“I believe there must be some attraction for you in Dorchester, though I am not clever enough to find out what it is,” said Mr. Dalbrook, innocently, “for you have been talking about going away for the last fortnight, and yet you don’t go.”