Brenda was aghast. She tried to say that her main objection to the engagement was the insufficient knowledge of each other possessed by the contracting couple; and that, if they were to be separated during the whole of their betrothal, and married with little chance of improving acquaintance, she felt considerable anxiety for their chances of future happiness.
It ended by Lady Burmester taking up the cudgels definitely on behalf of Romance. She naturally felt it most unlikely that, quite apart from the question of position, any girl could ever possibly repent marriage with her boy. She seemed inclined to treat Mrs. Helston's hesitation as an implied slight upon an exemplary son.
When Brenda found that Melicent herself was against her, she surrendered. The arrangement was in truth just what the girl had wished for. Her engagement would be merely nominal for the next three months while Lone Ash was in building. It would be there, an impregnable barrier against Hubert Mestaer, and in no sense a drag upon herself. The calmness with which she faced the idea of parting from her lover added the final touch to Mrs. Helston's conviction that there was something desperately wrong. She began to think she must be mistaken in her girl after all. Was her head really turned on finding herself the chosen of one of the county eligibles? It must be so. Doubtless the girl herself did not realise it. Excitement lent a glamour to the situation, and Melicent, like many another silly maid, mistook the glitter for the rainbow glory of the wings of the Love-god whom she had never seen.
Not even her husband could understand the full depth of Brenda's disappointment. It seemed to her that she would have to learn Melicent all over again. She brooded over the subject continually, searching and searching for a motive for conduct which nobody but herself found in the least unnatural.
CHAPTER XXVII
THREE MONTHS' TRUCE
"Red marble shall not ease the heartache..."
"Why should I rear me halls of rare
Design, on proud shafts mounting high?
Why bid my Sabine vale good-bye
For doubled wealth and care?"
—C. S. CALVERLEY.
There was, however, much in Melicent's new position which was irksome, and to her inexperience, wholly unexpected. She had not foreseen that the event would make a stir in the county, and bring her into a prominence much accented by the fact that she was a qualified architect, now occupied in building a gentleman's country-seat.
Sir Joseph's paternal kiss was an infliction which positively scared her; and the influx of congratulatory visitors still worse.