“No,” said Frances, very decidedly. “I am much stronger than Constance. She might have some patience with—with—what was fanciful; but I should have none.”
“With what was fanciful? Then you think I am fanciful?” said Claude, raising himself up from his feeble attitude. He laughed a little, quite undisturbed in temper by this reproach. “I wish other people thought so; I wish they would let me stay comfortably at home, and do what everybody does. But, Miss Waring, you are not so sympathetic as I thought.”
“I am afraid I am not sympathetic,” said Frances, feeling much ashamed of herself. “Oh, Mr Ramsay, forgive me; I did not mean to say anything so disagreeable.”
“Never mind,” said Claude. “When people don’t know me, they often think so. I am sorry, because I thought perhaps you and I might agree better. But very likely it was a mistake. Are you feeling the draught again? It is astonishing how a draught will creep round, when you think you are quite out of the way of it. If you feel it, you must not run the risk of a cold, out of consideration for me.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
“She thinks I am fanciful,” he said.
He was sitting with Lady Markham in the room which was her special sanctuary. She did not call it her boudoir—she was not at all inclined to bouder; but it answered to that retirement in common parlance. Those who wanted to see her alone, to confide in her, as many people did, knocked at the door of this room. It opened with a large window upon the lawn, and looked down through a carefully kept opening upon the sea. Amid all the little luxuries appropriate to my lady’s chamber, you could see the biggest ships in the world pass across the gleaming foreground, shut in between two massifs of laurel, making a delightful confusion of the great and the small, which was specially pleasant to her. She sat, however, with her back to this pleasant prospect, holding up a screen, to shade her delicate cheek from the bright little fire, which, though April was far advanced, was still thought necessary so near the sea. Claude had thrown himself into another chair in front of the fireplace. No warmth was ever too much for him. There was the usual pathos in his tone, but a faint consciousness of something amusing was in his face.
“Did she?” said Lady Markham with a laugh. “The little impertinent! But you know, my dear boy, that is what I have always said.”
“Yes—it is quite true. You healthy people, you are always of opinion that one can get over it if one makes the effort; and there is no way of proving the contrary but by dying, which is a strong step.”
“A very strong step—one, I hope, that you will not think of taking. They are both very sincere, my girls, though in a different way. They mean what they say; and yet they do not mean it, Claude. That is, it is quite true; but does not affect their regard for you, which, I am sure, without implying any deeper feeling, is strong.”