Without Freke’s keen perceptions, Throckmorton knew enough to doubt whether he ought to congratulate or curse himself if he won Jacqueline; and that he could win her, his own good sense told him soon enough. Jacqueline’s nature was so impressionable that a strong determination could conquer her at any time and at any thing for a season. Throckmorton, tramping about the country roads with his gun on his shoulder; having jolly bachelor parties at Millenbeck, which were confined strictly to the Severn neighborhood; in church on Sunday, half-listening to Morford’s pyrotechnics in the pulpit; smoking at unearthly hours in his own den; riding hard after the hounds—the thought of Jacqueline was never far away, and never without a suspicion of pain and dissatisfaction. He was not given to paltering with himself, and nothing could utterly blind his strong common sense—a common sense that was so imperative to be heard, so difficult to answer, so impossible to evade. It was not in him to surrender his judgment absolutely. He faced bravely the discrepancy in their ages, but he soon admitted to himself that there were other incongruities deeper and more significant than that. Nevertheless, although Reason might argue and preach, Love carried the day. Throckmorton reminded himself that miracles sometimes happened in love. He did not suffer himself to think what Jacqueline would be twenty years from then. Time is always fatal to women of her type. Even her beauty was essentially the beauty of youth. In twenty years she would be stout and florid. Here Throckmorton, in his reflections, unexpectedly went off on Judith. Hers was a beauty that would last—the beauty of expression, of esprit. Then his thoughts, with a sort of shock, reverted to Jacqueline.
As for Freke, Throckmorton did not once connect him with Jacqueline. Freke was a black sheep, and, as Throckmorton devoutly and thankfully remembered, the daughter of General and Mrs. Temple would not be likely to regard a divorced man as a single man. So, in the course of two or three weeks, Throckmorton had gone through all his phases, and had made up his mind. He could not but laugh at Mrs. Temple’s unsuspecting security. She had always regarded Jacqueline as a child, and indeed regarded her very little in any way.
This excellent woman, whose gospel was embodied in her duty to her husband and her children, had always been a singularly unjust mother; but she thought herself the most devoted mother in the world, because she regularly superintended Jacqueline’s changes of flannels, and made her take off her shoes when she got her feet wet. Both Mrs. Temple and the general were absolutely incapable of entertaining the idea that Freke was growing fond of Jacqueline; and Freke was not only astute enough to keep them in the dark, but to keep Judith, too, who fondly imagined that she herself had reduced Freke to good behavior as regarded Jacqueline. Freke’s estimate of the two young women had not changed in the least—only Jacqueline was come-at-able and Judith was not—and he loved to cross Judith and vex her, and give her pin-sticks as well as stabs in return for the frank hatred she felt for him. She had elected her own position with him—so let her keep it.
It never took Throckmorton long to act on his determinations. Jacqueline saw what was coming. He had a way of looking at her that forced her to look up and then to look down again. He said little things to her, instinct with meaning, that brought the blood to her face. He performed small services for her that were merely conventional, but which were from him to her acts of adoration. And Judith saw it all.
He did not have to wait long for an opportunity. One evening he went to Barn Elms. The general was threatened with a return of his gout, which had got better, and Mrs. Temple had imprisoned him in the “charmber,” where she mounted guard over him. Only Jacqueline and Judith, with little Beverley, who had been allowed to stay up until eight o’clock, as a great privilege, were in the drawing-room when he walked in. The boy and Throckmorton were such chums that there was no hope of getting Beverley off under a half-hour. He stood between Throckmorton’s knees, perfectly happy to be with him, asking endless questions in a subdued whisper, and frowning out of his expressive eyes when Throckmorton wanted to know when his mother intended to cut off his long, yellow curls, so that he would be a real boy. Judith, sitting in her usual place, smiling and calm, soon settled that the winged word would be spoken that night. What better chance would Throckmorton have than when she should be gone to put the child to bed? She watched the tall clock on the high mantel with a fearful sinking of the heart, that drove the color out of her face. Presently it was half-past eight.
“Come, dearest,” she said to the child.
Beverley held back.
“I don’t want to go with you,” he said. “I want to stay and play.”