And there was another thing: where had old Welbore and Kitty Blount kept her all this time? And why wasn't she married, a girl like that? She came next to Mrs. Scales, he supposed. Well, but there was another, younger still, married only the other day—to an army man. He remembered Welbore chirping about it at a Board meeting. What was that in the Bible—what was it? Ha!—“But thou hast kept the good wine until now.” By George, he must remember that for old Welbore. And now he came to think of it, old Jack Etherington had come in one morning full of Percival's daughter—“A lovely gal”—he had said, that old Jack—“colour of a Mildred Grant—quiet as the truth.”
Such were the ruminations of Cyrus Worthington at his own garden-party, and he pursued them at favoured moments—with his glass of port at dessert, with his last cigar, with his whisky night-cap. In the city next day he rallied Thomas Welbore, who betrayed unlimited relish for the diversion; and within a few days more he left a card in Charles Street and took a late train to Walton-on-Thames. Asked in due course to dinner, he handed Sanchia to the table, and spent the evening by her side. He begged her better acquaintance with his daughters, made the most of that which he had with Melusine Scales, and ended a successful adventure by winning Lady Maria's acceptance “for herself and her young friend,” of a banquet at the Cooper's Company of which he was warden. The occasion was a great one-a foreign potentate, the Prime Minister, Lord Mayor, and Sheriffs. The Coopers were to distinguish themselves, or be extinguished. He could promise them of the best. Sanchia, new to courtship, was quietly elated, and her amusement did nothing to diminish her elation. She had never been wooed before: there had been nothing of the kind in those shuddering days when she and Ingram, trembling in each other's sight, had mutely cried across the waste of London for balm upon their wounds. The flattery of attentions had never been hers, nor the high credit of admiration so respectful as the good merchant's. He esteemed her the fairest and holiest of women, was as timid as a boy in her company, gasped like a fish and grew unmannerly hot; but I defy a young woman to be anything but gratified. Miranda shunned Caliban; but had she not rather he had been there to be shunned?
Thus, under Lady Maria's watchful eye, the thing proceeded, and Mr. Worthington, within an ace of committing himself, scared his family. The climax was reached at Kissingen, whither the infatuated gentleman had followed his charmer.
She was very kind to him, but perfectly clear that she could not, and would not, make him the happiest of men. She said that she was flattered, which I believe to have been true, though he deprecated the phrase. “My dear young lady—ha! I must really be allowed—I assure you that you overwhelm me. Flattered—oh, Lord!” He limped the conclusion, and left for England that night.
She felt the thing to have been rather ridiculous, and yet she was pleased. She was gently elated, and had a kindly eye for herself as she dressed before her glass. Power lay with her; she could choose and weigh, accept or refuse. She was loveworthy yet. In spite of her disaster, a man had sought her. Others would do that same, moved by what had moved him. Shining eyes, body's form, softness, roundness—she had hardly thought of these things before, nor looked at them with an eye to their value. Mr. Worthington's ardent glances had illuminated her own, and by-and-by she found, oddly enough, that they threw a backward beam, and illuminated others. She found herself smiling tenderly as she thought of Jack Senhouse, and repeating some of that poetry which he had literally poured into her lap. It was so long ago! But when she remembered how much it had puzzled her, she now found that she was not puzzled by it at all.
Your eyes are twin mountain lakes, and the lashes of them
Like the swishing sedge
That hideth the water's edge....
Were her eyes, then, so fair! Mr. Worthington had found them so. Others would—others had.
“Thy face drinketh the light,”—he had written that of her—and now she knew that he had believed it. Had Nevile felt these things? Could Nevile—as she knew him? Her lip curved back. If she could not think of herself without thinking of Nevile—who wanted to mangle her—better take the veil.
But she felt the strange reality behind that wild and adoring passion of Jack Senhouse's, which had made him so incalculable a mixture. He advised her, and adored, he received her confidences, and emptied verses out of his heart into her lap. And she had had nothing to give him, who had given her all! All indeed; for now she saw that he had loved her beyond measure, reason, or stint.
There had been that last of his letters—a despairing cry from Chanctonbury, written when she was Nevile's shadow, and he hers. She felt stabbed to the heart to remember how perfunctorily she had read that. How did it go? What had he said? She could not recall the words, but their sense beat upon her. Oh, he had set her too high! He had called her Artemis—the chaste, the bright. Artemis the Bright had been one of his names for her—and Queen Mab another. He had set her too high! And how far had she fallen? She bowed her burning head, and even as she did so, remembered another phrase of his, sent with flowers—a line from the Anthology, begging her to grant his rose “the grace of a fair breast.” No longer fair, no longer fair—except to Nevile, who craved it—and to a Mr. Worthington.