Soon his longing for Barbara's soothing intimate presence became intolerably intense. For the first time since they had come to know one another well, Berwick deliberately tried to analyse his feeling towards her. He was not in love with Barbara Rebell—of that he assured himself with a certain fierceness. He thought of what he had said to her to-night. In a sense he had told her the exact truth. He had never offered any other women the friendship he had asked her to accept. He had always asked for less—or more—but then, looking back, he could tell himself that there was no one woman who had ever roused in him the peculiar sentiment that he felt for Mrs. Rebell. The feeling he now experienced was more akin, though far deeper and tenderer in texture, to the fleeting fancy he had had for that pretty débutante whom Arabella had so greatly feared. But, whereas he had borne the girl's defection, when it had come, with easy philosophy, he knew that his relation to Barbara was such that any defection there would rouse in him those primeval instincts which lead every day to such sordid tragedies in that class where the passion of love is often the only thing in life bringing hope of release and forgetfulness from ignoble and material cares.
Berwick had many faults, but personal vanity was not one of them. He considered Oliver Boringdon more a man to attract women than he was himself, and he had thought his friend lamentably backward in making use of his opportunities. Now, the knowledge that Boringdon was daily in Mrs. Rebell's company was distinctly disturbing. Was Barbara the type of woman—Berwick knew there were many such—who make a cult of sentimental friendships? Then he felt deeply ashamed of the thought, and in his heart he begged her forgiveness.
A Frenchman, once speaking to him of an acquaintance whose unhappy passion for a celebrated beauty was being much discussed, had observed, "Il l'a dans la peau! Dans ces cas-là il n'y a rien à faire!" He had thought the expression curiously apt, and he remembered it to-night. More than once during the last few days he had found himself planning his immediate future entirely by the light, as it were, of Chancton Priory. By every post he was refusing invitations, and avoiding coming political engagements. But there was one great exception. Even while speaking to Arabella at the ball, he had been wondering whether he could persuade her to secure Mrs. Rebell's inclusion in a very small and entirely political house-party in Scotland, the occasion of which was a series of important political meetings, and to which both brother and sister had been for some time pledged. It would be good to be away with Barbara, among strangers, far from Chancton and from Chillingworth.
Berwick hated Chillingworth. When there he felt himself to be the unwelcome guest of the man who had built the huge place, and whose personality it seemed to express and to perpetuate, as houses so often do the personality of their builders. The creator of Chillingworth had been an acute early Victorian manufacturer, a worthy man according to his lights, and a pillar of the Manchester School. He had taken fortune at the flood, and his late marriage to a woman of slightly better birth and breeding than his own had produced the sickly, refined daughter whom Berwick had married.
Chillingworth seemed plastered with money. Every room bore evidence of lavish expenditure; money spent on furniture, on pictures, on useless ornaments, during a period of our history when beauty seemed wholly in eclipse; and this was all the more pitiable because the house was gloriously placed on a spur of the down, and the views from its windows rivalled those of Chancton Priory.
Even had Berwick wished to do so, he could not have made any serious alterations to the place, for the trustees of his marriage settlement were the very people, distant relatives of his wife's, whose children would benefit were he to forfeit his life interest in her fortune. To these people Chillingworth spelt perfection, and was a treasure-house of beautiful, because costly, objects of art. Occasionally, perhaps once in two years, its present owner would fill the great mansion for a few weeks with men and women—political acquaintances and their wives—to whom an invitation to James Berwick's Sussex estate gave pleasure, but otherwise he was little there, and the neighbourhood had long since left off wondering and exclaiming at his preference for Chancton Priory.
"If Miss Berwick sends over for a carriage, the French brougham which was used last night is not to go."
"Very good, Sir." And then, after a short pause, "Anything wrong with the carriage, Sir?"
"No. By the way, it may be required at Chancton. I have told Madame Sampiero that she may have the use of it for the lady who is staying there. Where's Dean?"