"I don't want what you call 'fun,' Eva,"—she said—"I want love! Love seems to me the only good thing in life. Do you understand? You ask me why I left my aunt—it was to escape a loveless marriage,—a marriage that would be a positive hell to me for which neither wealth nor position could atone. As for 'living good,' I am not trying that way. I only want to understand myself, and find out my own possibilities and limitations. And if I never do win the love I want,—if no one ever cares for me at all, then I shall be perfectly content to live and die unmarried."
"What a fate!" laughed Lady Beaulyon, shrugging her white shoulders.
"A better one than the usual divorce court result of some 'society' marriages,"—said Maryllia, calmly—"Anyhow, I'd rather risk single blessedness than united 'cussedness'! Let us go down to dinner, Eva! On all questions pertaining to 'Souls' and modern social ethics, we must agree to differ!"
XX
For the next fortnight St. Rest was a scene of constant and unwonted excitement. There was a continual coming and going, to and from Abbot's Manor,—some of the guests went away to be replaced by others, and some who had intended to spend only a week-end and then depart, stayed on, moved by unaccountable fascination, not only for their hostess, but for the general pleasantness of the house, and the old-world, tranquil and beautiful surroundings of the whole neighbourhood. Lord Charlemont and Mr. Bludlip Courtenay had brought their newest up-to-date motor-cars with them,—terrible objects to the villagers whenever they dashed, like escaped waggons off an express train, through the little street, with their horns blowing violently as though in a fog at sea. Mrs. Frost was ever on the alert lest any of her smaller children should get in the way of these huge rubber-tyred vehicles tearing along at reckless speed,— and old Josey Letherbarrow resolutely refused to go outside his garden gate except on Sundays.
"Not but what I ain't willin' an' cheerful to die whenever the Lord A'mighty sends for me;"—he would say—"But I ain't got no fancy for bein' gashed and jambled."
'Gashed and jambled,' was his own expression,—one that had both novelty and suggestiveness. Unfortunately, it happened that a small pet dog belonging to one of the village schoolboys, no other than Bob Keeley, the admitted sweet-heart of Kitty Spruce, had been run over by Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, as that gentleman, driving his car himself, and staring indifferently through his monocle, had 'timed' his rush through the village to a minute and a half, on a bet with Lord Charlemont,—and 'gashed and jambled' was the only description to apply to the innocent little animal as it lay dead in the dust. Bob Keeley cried for days,—cried so much, in fact, over what he considered 'a wicked murder' that his mother sent for 'Passon' to console him. And Walden, with his usual patience, listened to the lad's sobbing tale:
"Which the little beast wor my friend!" he gasped amid his tears— "An' he wor Kitty's friend too! Kitty's cryin' 'erself sick, same as me! I'd 'ad 'im from a pup—Kitty carried 'im in 'er apron when 'e was a week old,—he loved me—yes 'e did!—an' 'e slept in my weskit iviry night of 'is life!—an' he 'adn't a fault in 'im, all lovin' an' true!—an' now 'e's gone—an'—an'-I HATE the quality up at the Manor—yes I do!—I HATE 'em!—an' if Miss Vancourt 'adn't never come 'ome, my doggie 'ad been livin' now, an' we'd all a' bin 'appy!"
Walden patted the boy's rough towzled head gently, and thought of his faithful 'Nebbie.' It would have been mere hypocrisy to preach resignation to Bob, when he, the Reverend John, knew perfectly well that if his own canine comrade had been thus cruelly slain, he also would have 'hated the quality.'
"Look here, Bob," he said at last,—"I know just how you feel! It's just as bad as bad can be. But try and be a man, won't you? You can't bring the poor little creature back to life again,—and it's no use frightening your mother with all this grief for what cannot be helped. Then there's poor Kitty—SHE 'hates the quality';—her little heart is sore and full of bad feelings—all for the sake of you and your dog, Bob! She's giving her mother no end of trouble up at the Manor, crying and fretting—suppose you go and see her? Talk it over together, like two good children, and try if you can't comfort each other. What do you say?"