Thus it was that the Vicar of St. Elizabeth’s had never shrunk from acknowledging Mrs. Hillersdon as his personal friend, had never feared to sit at her board, or to be seen with her in public; and in the work of Louise Lorraine’s rehabilitation Clement Cancellor had been a tower of strength. And now this latest mark of friendship, this visit to her country home, and this appearance in the noble old Abbey Church at her solicitation, filled her cup of pride. These starched county people who had shunned her hospitalities were to see that one of the most distinguished preachers in the High Church party had given her his friendship and his esteem.
It had been something for her to have the Prince at Riverdale: it was still more to her to have Clement Cancellor.
Pamela was in a flutter of excitement all Saturday morning, in the expectation of Castellani’s reappearance in the afternoon. She had heard Mr. Cancellor preach, and was delighted at the idea of seeing him in the pleasant intimacy of afternoon tea. Had there been no such person as Castellani, her spirits would have been on tip-toe at the idea of conversing with the fashionable preacher—of telling him in a reverent under-tone of all those deep emotions his eloquence had inspired in her. But the author of Nepenthe possessed just that combination of qualities which commands the admiration of such a girl as Pamela. That exquisite touch on the piano, that perfect tenor voice, that exotic elegance of dress and figure, all had made their mark upon the sensitive plate of a girl’s ardent fancy. “If I had pictured to myself the man who wrote Nepenthe, I should have imagined just such a face, just such a style,” thought Pamela, quite forgetting that when first she had read the book she had made a very vivid picture of the author altogether the opposite of César Castellani—a dark man, lean as a whipping-post, grave as philosophy itself, with sombre black eyes, and ebon hair, and a complexion of antique marble. And now she was ready to accept the Italian, sleek, supple, essentially modern in every grace and attribute, in place of that sage of antique mould.
She went dancing about with the dogs all the morning, inciting the grave Kassandra to unwonted exertions, running in and out of the drawing-room, making an atmosphere of gaiety in the grave old house. Mildred’s heart ached as she watched that flying figure in the white gown, youth, health, joyousness, personified.
“O, if my darling were but here, life might be full of happiness again,” she thought. “I should cease to weary myself with wondering about that hidden past.”
Do what she would her thoughts still dwelt upon the image of that wife who had possessed George Greswold’s heart before her. She knew that he must have loved that other woman whom he had sworn before God’s altar to cherish. He was not the kind of man to marry for any motive but a disinterested love. That he had loved passionately, and that he had been wronged deeply, was Mildred’s reading of the mystery. There had been a look of agony in his countenance when he spoke of the past that told of a sorrow too deep for words.
“He has never loved me as he once loved her,” thought Mildred, who out of the wealth of her own love had developed the capacity for that self-torture called jealousy.
It seemed to her that her husband had taken pains to avoid the old opportunities of confidential talk since that revelation of last Sunday. He had been more than usually engaged by the business details of his estate; and she fancied that he made the most of all those duties which he used once to perform with the utmost despatch, grudging every hour that was spent away from the home circle. He now complained of the new steward’s ignorance, which threw so much extra work upon himself.
“After jogging on for years in the same groove with a man who knew every rood of my land, and the idiosyncrasies of every tenant, I find it hard work teaching a new man,” he told his wife.