And though she told herself things were going just as she wished, there was a little sigh in her heart as she kissed her sister on their way downstairs.
Chapter Six.
A Cavalier Reception.
“Fell his warm wishes chilled by wintry fear,
And resolution sicken at the view:
As near the moment of decision drew.”
Trans. of Dante.
But things seldom turn out as even the most reasonable people expect. Much more than two or three weeks elapsed before Godfrey Auriol came down to Faxleham again. This was owing to a complication of circumstances—unusual pressure of business on him, for one thing, Lotty Morison’s catching the measles for another; and the difficulties in the way were yielded to more easily than might have been the case had the same urgency existed for bringing matters to a decision. But Mr Ingram Morison and his wife were early in the summer obliged to go for several months to an out-of-the-way part of Ireland, where some of Mrs Morison’s family lived, on account of sudden and serious trouble among them. So the question he, and, indeed, she, too, had so much at heart, was left dormant for the time, and Nina heard no more, except a few words of explanation which Godfrey enclosed to her in a letter to Miss Branksome.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Perhaps, had he known it, Godfrey did not lose in the good graces of his cousins during these rather dull and monotonous weeks. Nina, for more reasons than one, longed to see him, and would have made him most heartily welcome had he appeared. And even Lettice, though she had sturdily refused all offers of introductions to any families in the neighbourhood, would in her heart have been glad of some break in the tranquil round of their daily life.
She was disappointed, too, that Godfrey did not seem more eager to see Nina again, and there were times when Nina’s rather troubled and anxious expression made her tremble for the success of her scheme.
“If that Philip Dexter were to appear just now, there is no saying what influence he might again acquire over her,” she said to herself. “It is very stupid of Godfrey.”