“Come, Jacqueline,” cried Freke, rising, “let us go for a walk. I don’t know whether Throckmorton will permit this after you are married. Marriage, my dear little girl, is more of a yoke than a garland. I am well out of mine, thank Heaven!”
Judith cast a beseeching look at Jacqueline, but Freke had fixed his eyes commandingly on her. That was enough. Jacqueline rose and went out to get her hat.
Judith sat quite silent. She rarely spoke to Freke when she could help it.
“What do you think of this ridiculous marriage?” he asked.
“I, at least, don’t think it ridiculous. There are incongruities much worse than a difference in age.”
“Yes, I understand,” assented Freke, with meaning. “I have found it so. If I were as free as Throckmorton, though, I would be in no hurry to put my head in the noose.”
“You said just now you were free.”
“Did I? Well, in fact I am free in some States and not in others. You people down here seem to regard me as an escaped felon. That sort of thing doesn’t exist any longer in civilized communities.” Judith made no reply. She hated Freke with a kind of unreasoning hatred that put a guard upon her lips, lest she should be tempted to say something rash. And in a moment Jacqueline was back, and, with a defiant look at Judith, went off with Freke. Freke caught a glance from Judith’s eyes as they went out. The fact that it expressed great anger and contempt for him did not make him overlook that her eyes were remarkably full of fire and the turn of her head something beautiful.
“Judith is a thoroughbred—there’s no mistake about that,” he said to Jacqueline—and kept on talking about Judith until he reduced Jacqueline to a jealous silence, and almost to tears—when a few words of praise restored her to complete good humor. Throckmorton never played off on her like this—it was quite opposed to his directness and straightforwardness.
Freke was more constantly at Barn Elms than ever before. It often occurred to Judith that he took pains to keep secret from Throckmorton all the time he passed with Jacqueline. Sometimes she even suspected that Jacqueline had some share in keeping Throckmorton in the dark, so constant was Freke’s presence when Throckmorton was absent, and so unvarying was his absence when Throckmorton was present.