She was very glad Marius was happy; it was as pleasant to watch his eager joy in life as to survey the content of a loving dog; and as sad to see him miserable as to behold an animal in distress.
Susannah had much the same faith in his Aspasia as he himself possessed. She considered him likely enough to come across his fate early—likely enough to love, to be loved, to satisfy, and be satisfied.
He was simple, she thought—no makings of a rake in him. Honest and brave he was, but no more to be compared with Rose.
She kept her thoughts from the Earl, and fell to, somewhat desperately, considering his wife. Miss Lavinia Hilton, daughter of merchant, child of a parvenu, Countess of Lyndwood now—the wife of Rose!
The thing was so monstrous that it must be taken without exclaim, naturally, or it became a horror unendurable, a wonder all credulity strained at. He, so fastidious, asking for wit as well as beauty, breed as well as grace, polish as well as youth—mated to a melancholy schoolgirl whose father had spent his life in the countinghouse!
To Susannah this was a picture to be ignored, not even glanced at—to contemplate it was to behold the cruel elements of tragedy.
Susannah dropped her skirt, closed her parasol, and looked at the two long-stemmed roses she carried, holding them up against the fading blue sky.
A little further and she came into view of the house; its brick front was warmed by the universal glow of the setting sun. On the terrace in front bloomed peonies and Turks' caps, the stone vases held trailing masses of geraniums, scarlet amid their bright leaves. All was peaceful, stately, and beautiful. "What a home for her to come to!" thought Susannah.
She went slowly to the front where the magnificent lawn, broken with one dark cedar-tree, reached to the fountains and the lake where the white swans glittered, and as she neared the wide steps, a coach and six, swinging on its leathers, came up the chestnut drive.
It drew up with a scramble of the horses' hoofs on the gravel. The first thing to strike Miss Chressham was that this equipage was not belonging to the new Countess. She had seen it last year in London. Her second thought was that he could never have kept it but for the Hilton money.