Martin’s start of surprise held no sign of pleasure. He appeared to be on the point of an objection, when Grizel’s calm acquiescence closed his lips:
“Yes—I’d like to! We’ll try the study first.”
“We shan’t need a fire to-day... I’m afraid it will be dull for you, but I can give you a good book.”
The words fell mechanically from Martin’s lips, but it was Katrine who flushed with resentment; Grizel smiled on, unperturbed. An hour afterwards she was sleeping like a child on her bedroom sofa, and Katrine peeping in to say good-bye, asked herself amazedly if such composure could exist side by side with any deep feeling. “If I—” the very suggestion made her heart leap, she looked on the sleeping face with a stirring of indignation. Martin’s life, and her own, shaken to their foundations, while Grizel slept! For a moment she wrestled with the temptation to shake the still form into consciousness, then turning slowly, left the room.
Half an hour later Grizel opened her eyes, and sat up on her couch. There was no intermediary stage of heaviness and confusion, with the very opening of her lids she was vividly, composedly awake. She rose, sauntered to the glass, and surveyed herself with critical detachment. Her cheeks were flushed with sleep, her hair ruffled into a disorder undeniably becoming. Her lips parted in a smile of transparent pleasure, then deliberately she took the brush and smoothed back the curling ends, which being done she seated herself by the open window, took up a book, and read composedly until the pink had faded from her cheeks. It was a pale, orderly, infinitely less attractive Grizel who tapped at Martin’s door, and seated herself by his desk.
“I’ve come, you see! You didn’t want me, but I wanted to come, and I always do what I want—”
“Grizel! that’s not true,” protested Martin hastily. He was still sitting in his swivel writing-chair, turned sideways from the desk so that he could see her face. A few scattered sheets of MS lay before him, but the ink was dry on the last words. When Grizel had entered the room, it had been to find him gazing blankly into space. It was not obvious against which part of Grizel’s declaration his protest was directed, nor did she trouble to enquire. Folding her hands she looked in his eyes with childlike directness and said simply:
“Martin—I want to talk! You have said nothing about my position, but I am waiting to hear what you think! I came down on purpose to talk.”
“But, Grizel, what is there to say?” Martin spoke in quick practical accents, his eyes sedulously avoiding hers. “I have not congratulated you, because it hardly seemed that congratulations were deserved. On the other hand, I cannot condole. Lady Griselda’s mind had been failing for years. I cannot believe that she was fully responsible when she concocted—”
“You are wrong there. She was perfectly clear. I have always expected some arrangement of the sort. She loved me; she was anxious for my happiness. If it could be happily arranged she wished me to inherit the money, but she had been an heiress herself, and had suffered by it, and she was sharp enough to estimate the sincerity of the men who hung around me. It’s quite simple, Martin, if you remember the clue. If I choose to remain single, I enjoy everything that her money can give; if I marry, I marry a man who wants me, not my wealth; Grizel Dundas,—herself—not what she can bring.”