Mrs. Robinson's faithful affection for this old servant was one of the best traits in a somewhat capricious if generous character, the more so that the maid by no means always approved of even her mistress's most innocent actions and associates. Thus, she had first felt a rough contempt, and later a fierce dislike, of poor Melancthon Robinson.
There were two people, both men, whom Motey would have been willing to see more often with her mistress.
The one was David Winfrith, who, if now a successful, almost it might be said a famous man, had played a rather inglorious part in Penelope's first love affair. The other was young Lord Wantley, of whom the old nurse had constituted herself the champion in the days when her master and mistress had merely regarded the presence of the nervous, sensitive boy as an unpleasant duty.
Mrs. Mote's liking for these two young men was completely subordinate to her love for her nursling; she would cheerfully have seen either of them undergo the most unpleasant ordeal had Penelope thereby been saved the smallest pain or hurt. In fact, it was because she well knew how stanch a friend Winfrith could be, and how useful, in perhaps a slightly whimsical way, Lord Wantley had more than once proved himself in his cousin's service, that she would have preferred to see more of these two and less of certain others.
Ah, those others! There had always been a side of Mrs. Robinson's nature which thirsted for sentimental adventure, and yet of the three women who in their several ways loved her supremely—her mother, Cecily Wake, and the old nurse—only the last was really aware of this craving for romantic encounter. Mrs. Mote had too often found herself compelled to stand inactive in the wings of the stage on which her mistress was wont to take part in mimic, but none the less dangerous, combat, for her to remain ignorant of many things, not only unsuspected, but in a sense unthinkable, by either the austere mother or the girl friend.
Perhaps this blindness in those who yet loved her well was owing to the fact that, in the ordinary sense of the term, Penelope was no flirt. Indeed, those among her friends who belonged to a society which, if over-civilized, is perhaps the more ready to extend a large measure of sympathy to those of its number who feel an overmastering impulse to revert, in affairs of the heart, to primitive nature, regarded the beautiful widow as singularly free from the temptations with which they were themselves so sorely beset.
Doubtless because she was herself so physically perfect, physical perfection held for Penelope none of that potent, beckoning appeal it so often holds for even the most refined and intelligent women. Rather had she always been attracted, tempted, in a certain sense conquered, by the souls of those with whom her passion for romance brought her into temporary relation. Even as a girl she had disdained easy conquest, and at all times she had been, when dealing with men, as a skilful musician who only cares to play on the finest instruments. Often she was surprised and disturbed, even made indignant, both by the harmonies and by the discords she thus produced; and sometimes, again, she made a mistake concerning the quality of the human instrument under her hand.
II
As Mrs. Mote sat by her open window, her eyes seeking to distinguish among those walking on the terrace below the upright, graceful form of her mistress, she deliberately let her thoughts wander back to certain passages in her own and Mrs. Robinson's joint lives. In moments of danger we recall our hairbreadth escapes with a certain complacency; they induce a sense of sometimes false security, and just now this old woman, who loved Penelope so dearly, felt very much afraid.
The memory of two episodes came to still her fears. Though both long past, perhaps forgotten by Penelope, to Mrs. Mote they returned to-night with strange, uncomfortable vividness.