“So long as you live, Grizel, it isn’t possible that I could change. A man who had once loved you could never be satisfied with an ordinary woman. And I am a man now, not a boy. Even—even if I were alone again—”
She leant forward in a quick caress.
“You are not going to be alone! I am not going to leave you, Honey! If I were, I should not ask for promises. It’s because I intend to live on to eighty or ninety, that I’m anxious. I couldn’t bear it if you grew cool and cold. I wouldn’t try to bear it! Prosaic matrimony would drive me to the devil. I can’t tell you what sort of devil,—there might be several, but a devil it would certainly be. But if you’ll love me, dear, I’ll grow nearer the angels!”
He laid his head beside hers on the cushion, and they sat silently, through blessed moments of communion. In heart and love they were at one, but their thoughts carried them on different voyages. When he spoke again, it was to say in tones of kindly toleration:
“Don’t be too hard on the poor Squire. He’s a good fellow, and, as you say, there are all sorts. Presumably she loved that sort. She chose him, you know.”
“Unfortunately she didn’t. She chose a waking man, who fell asleep the moment he’d got her, and has slept on steadily ever since. He was in love, you see, and love galvanised him into a show of life, and poor, dear Cassandra saw the miracle, and believed it was going to last. You’re a man, my dear, and you’re an author, and you write very clever books, but you don’t realise for a moment how intoxicating it is for a woman to hold the reins in her own hands, while a lord of creation kneels trembling at her feet! It’s the one little time of her life when she is master, and it goes to her head. He tells her that she is the sun, and the moon, and the eleven stars, and that his only object in life is to adore her for evermore, and that if she won’t have him he’ll pine away and die on Wednesday week, and the poor dear thing believes every word, and is so touched to find herself of such importance after being just an ordinary, superfluous girl, that she will promise anything he likes to ask. I am talking, of course,” said Grizel markedly, “of country girls! Girls like Cassandra, shut up in moated granges a dozen miles from the nearest anywhere. Not of myself! It was no novelty to me to have men squirming!”
“What a very undignified word! Don’t dare to apply it to me. I’ll kneel, as much as you like, but I refuse to squirm!” Martin stretched himself, and rose to his feet. Grizel was better, beginning to talk in her natural vein, and his conscience began to prick him about his guest. “Do you think you could manage to get a little deep now! I really ought to look after poor old Raynor.”
Grizel accorded a gracious permission, and submitted meekly to an irritating process which Martin called “making her comfortable.” When the door was closed behind him, she deftly rearranged all the accessories which he had misplaced, and composed herself for the long-deferred rest, but it was not to be. In less than five minutes a knock sounded at the door, and after a moment’s pause was repeated in a more insistent fashion.
“Come in!” cried Grizel clearly, and Teresa’s head peeped enquiringly round the corner of the door.
“You are alone?” she asked. “I hoped you would be. I couldn’t rest, and I knew you couldn’t either. Do you mind if I sit down and talk a few minutes?”