CHAPTER XIV
INSTANTANEOUS CONVERSION
"I was a moody comrade to her then,
For all the love I bore her....
... This had come to be
A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate
To wreak, all things together that a man
Needs for his blood to ripen....
... In those hours no doubt
To the young girl, my eyes were like my soul,—
Dark wells of death-in-life that yearned for day."—
—D. G. Rossetti.
A pencil note was brought downstairs to the master by Grover, who wore a demure look, as though she guessed how novel and charming a pastime to the woman-hater was this playful exchange of love-letters.
He was seated at the lunch-table when the little envelope was handed to him, and a surly self-consciousness kept him from opening it until Hemming had retired, which conduct on his part caused amused nudgings between the servants outside.
Please come to tea at four.—Virginia.
Such was the extent of the "love-letter" when he had opened it.
He shrugged his shoulders. He did not want to have tea with her in the least. However, it would have a good effect upon the household—keep up the fiction of their mutual desire for each other's society.
At a few minutes after four, he knocked at her door. Grover had just arranged the tea-table close to the bed, and was putting away one or two things before leaving the room. Virginia blushed brightly as her jailer entered, but gave him a timid smile of welcome. She told Grover, with whom she was evidently on the best of terms already, to set a chair for him, directed the closing of one window, lest there be too much draught; and so did the honours until the maid, benevolently smiling, had disappeared.
The bride knew that even a minute's hesitation would make her too nervous to speak, so she said at once: "It was kind of you to send for the doctor, but indeed there was no need. I shall be well in a very few days. I feel rested already."