'It's so far!—in winter,' said Nelly a little guiltily. 'I go to
Grasmere in summer.'
'Oh! don't apologise—to a heathen like me! I'm only too thankful to find you alone. Is your sister here?'
'Yes. But we've made a room for her in one of the outhouses. She works there.'
'What at? Is she still learning Spanish?' asked Marsworth, smiling, as he followed Nelly into the little white drawing-room.
'I don't know,' said Nelly, after a moment, in a tone of depression.
'Bridget doesn't tell me.'
The corners of Marsworth's strong mouth shewed amusement. He was not well acquainted with Bridget Cookson, but as far as his observation went, she seemed to him a curious specimen of the half-educated pretentious woman so plentiful in our modern life. In place of 'psychology' and 'old Spanish,' the subjects in which Miss Cookson was said to be engaged, he would have liked to prescribe for her—and all her kin—courses of an elementary kind in English history and vulgar fractions.
But, for Nelly Sarratt, Marsworth felt the tender and chivalrous respect that natures like hers exact easily from strong men. To him, as to Farrell, she was the 'little saint' and peacemaker, with her lovingness, her sympathy, her lack of all the normal vanities and alloys that beset the pretty woman. That she was not a strong character, that she was easily influenced and guided by those who touched her affections, he saw. But that kind of weakness in a woman—when that woman also possesses the mysterious something, half physical, half spiritual, which gives delight—is never unpleasing to such men as Marsworth, nor indeed to other women. It was Marsworth's odd misfortune that he should have happened to fall in love with a young woman who had practically none of the qualities that he naturally and spontaneously admired in the sex.
It was, however, about that young woman that he had come to talk. For he was well aware of Nelly's growing intimacy with Cicely, and had lately begun to look upon that as his last hope.
Yet he was no sooner alone with Nelly than he felt a dim compunction. This timid creature, with her dark haunting eyes, had problems enough of her own to face. He perceived clearly that Farrell's passion for her was mounting fast, and he had little or no idea what kind of response she was likely to make to it. But all the same his own need drove him on. And Nelly, who had scarcely slept all night, caught eagerly at some temporary escape from her own perplexities.
'Dear Mrs. Sarratt!—have you any idea, whether Cicely cares one brass farthing for me, or not?'