"Yes," Reynold replied, in an absent tone. "Such an offer couldn't come from the other side."
The words were a simple statement of fact, the utterance was absolutely expressionless, but a sudden flame leapt into Kate's eyes. "Answer when and as you please!" she cried. Her son said nothing.
He was waiting at the time to hear about a tutorship which had been mentioned to him. The matter was not likely to be settled immediately, and the next morning he appeared with his bag in his hand, and announced that he was going into the country for a few days, and would send his address. In due time the letter came with "Mitchelhurst" stamped boldly on it, like a defiance.
When Barbara Strange bade young Harding go and make his fortune, she did not know the curious potency of her advice. The words fell, like a gleam of summer sunshine, across a world of stony antagonisms and smouldering fires. And, with all the bright unconsciousness of sunshine, they transformed it into a place of life and hope. She had called her little cross her talisman, but Harding's talisman—for there are such things—was the folded letter in his pocketbook. As she stood beside him, flushed, eager, radiant, pleading with him, "Could not you care for Mitchelhurst, if—" she awakened a sudden craving for action, a sudden desire of possession in his ice-bound heart. To any other woman he could have been only Reynold Harding, a penniless tutor, recognised, perhaps, as a kind of degenerate offshoot of the Rothwell tree. But to Barbara he was the one remaining hope of the old family of which she had thought so much; he was the king who was to enjoy his own again, and her shining glances bade him go and conquer his kingdom without delay. And in Mitchelhurst Church, as he stood among his dead people, with the rain beating heavily on—
"The lichen-crusted leads above,"
he had made up his mind. He would cast in his lot with the Hardings till he should have earned the right to come back to the Rothwells' inheritance. He would do it, but not for the Rothwells' sake—for a sweeter sake—breathing and moving beside him in that place of tombs. He looked up at the marble countenance of his wigged ancestor, considering it thoughtfully, yet not asking himself if that dignified personage would have approved of his resolution. Reynold, as he stared at the aquiline features, wondered idly whether the lean-faced gentleman had ever known and loved a Barbara Strange, and whether he had kissed her with those thin, curved lips of his. Of course they were not as grimy and pale in real life as in their sculptured likeness. And yet it was difficult to picture him alive, with blood in his veins, stooping to anything as warm and sweet as Barbara's damask-rose mouth. It seemed to Reynold that only he and Barbara, in all the world, were truly alive, and he only since he had known her.
When he went back into the lanes alone, after leaving her at the gate, the full meaning of the decision which had swiftly and strangely reversed the whole drift of his life rushed upon him and bewildered him. He hastened away like one in a dream. It was as if he had broken through an encircling wall into light and air. Ever since his boyhood he had held his fancy tightly curbed, he had reminded himself by night and day that he had nothing, was nothing, would be nothing; in his fierce rejection of empty dreams he had chosen always to turn his eyes from the wonderful labyrinthine world about him, and to fix them on the dull grey thread of his hopeless life. Now for the first time in his remembrance he relaxed his grasp, and his fancy, freed from all control, flashed forward to visions of love and wealth. He let it go—why should he hinder it, since he had resolved to follow where it led? In this sudden exaltation his resolution seemed half realised in its very conception, and as he gathered the berries from the darkening hedgerows he felt as if they were his own, the first-fruits of his inheritance. He hurried from briar to briar under the pale evening sky, tearing the rain-washed sprays from their stems, hardly recognising himself in the man who was so defiantly exultant in his self-abandonment. Nothing seemed out of reach, nothing seemed impossible. When the darkness overtook him he went back with a triumphant rhythm in his swinging stride, feeling as if he could have gathered the very stars out of the sky for Barbara.
This towering mood did not last. It was in the nature of things that such loftiness should be insecure, and indeed Reynold could hardly have made a successful man of business had it been permanent. It would not do to add up Barbara and the stars in every column of figures. But the very fact of passing from the open heavens to the shelter of a roof had a sobering effect, the process of dressing for dinner recalled all the commonplace necessities of life, and in his haste he had a difficulty with his white necktie, which was distinctly a disenchantment. The shyness and reserve which were the growth of years could not be shaken off in a moment of passion. They closed round him more oppressively than ever when he found himself in the yellow drawing-room, face to face with Mr. Hayes, and, being questioned about his walk, he answered stiffly and coldly, and then was silent. Yet enough of the exaltation remained to kindle his eyes, though his lips were speechless, when he caught sight of Barbara standing by the fireside, with a cluster of blood-red berries in her hair, and another nestling in the dusky folds of lace close to her white throat. The vivid points of colour held his fascinated gaze, and seemed to him like glowing kisses.
He had a game of chess with his host after dinner. As a rule he was a slow and meditative player, scanning the pieces doubtfully, and suspecting a snare in every promising chance. But that evening he played as if by instinct, without hesitation. Everything was clear to him, and he pressed his adversary closely. Mr. Hayes frowned over his calculations, apprehending defeat, though the game as yet had taken no decisive turn. Presently Barbara came softly sweeping towards them in her black draperies, set down her uncle's coffee-cup at his elbow, and paused by Harding's side to watch the contest. Her presence sent a thrill through him which disturbed his clear perception of the game. It made a bright confusion in his mind, such as a ripple makes in lucid waters. He put out his hand mechanically towards the pawn which he had previously determined to move.