“Dolff,” said Mrs. Harwood, “that is surely a new style for you. I don’t remember ever hearing you sing songs like these before.”
“I have been having some lessons,” said Dolff; “they are all the rage just now. You never learn anything else in Oxford.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Harwood; but she said no more, and Dolff, who did not care very much for her opinion, turned to Janet.
“You don’t do yourself justice, Miss Summerhayes,” he said. “You played that first-rate. You must have heard Arthur Roberts, or some of them, to do it as well as that.”
“No,” said Janet, “I never heard of Arthur Roberts. Who is he?” a question which made Dolff laugh—“scream with laughing,”—he said to himself.
“Oh, you are original! Who is Arthur Roberts?—that is a good one! Who is Shakespeare? You might just as well ask one question as the other. But you play as if—as if you had been all your life at the Vic. I never heard any one play so well before.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
It was not till some evenings after this that Mr. Charles Meredith made his appearance again.
To tell the truth, he had been a little alarmed by his position in respect to Miss Harwood. The applause they had received at the concert, which somehow enveloped both of them in a sort of unity—a oneness which was embarrassing, and provoked inquiries and looks of intelligence, glances and hints of all sorts—had given him a little shock. It had not affected Gussy in the same way, for Gussy was far more deeply and truly touched than her partner in that success. She had given up her whole being to him with the unreasonable confidence which is sometimes to be seen in an otherwise unimaginative and unemotional woman, never doubting from the first the object of his attentions, feeling that he could have but one reason for his frequent visits, and that the gradual manner in which she herself had been separated and swept up, as it were, into his identity, was the natural result of a strong and certain desire on his part to attract and appropriate her—an unquestionable feeling to which her gradually elicited responses were natural and fitting. It never occurred to Gussy, who was a little narrow, as was natural to her education and circumstances, but very sensible and just, that Meredith’s sentiments, which had been so distinctly shown, could be anything but definite and certain. To her there appeared nothing accidental, nothing fortuitous, in the way in which it had all come about. Gradually he had secured the entrée and the complete freedom of intercourse which is not very common in English houses. There had been a break during his absence in the country, but this break had been followed by a return to all the old habits, by the resumption of all his claims upon her attention and sympathy, those claims to which she had already responded in all sincerity and good faith. Gussy had no sensation of having gone a step further than she had been led and persuaded to go. She had no doubt whatever that of this intercourse, which he had so sought, so organized, so firmly established, every step was intended. He had set himself, she believed, to win her love, to gain her heart. What other reason could there be? It was all his doing. He it was who had pressed for each new extension of privilege: for what?—for no conceivable reason save one, that he loved her, and desired to make her love him.
Such was Gussy’s theory. She had been first flattered, then touched by these assiduities, and finally, there being no reason whatever against it, she had yielded to the gradually growing response in her own bosom. She was not unaware that this might attain to greater potency than the demand which had evoked it, for he was a man, about in the world, and having a great many things to distract him, whereas she was a woman with nothing particular in her mind save this new interest which filled her thoughts night and day. There was no doubt that it might grow more engrossing than his love. She was aware of the danger, and quite reasonable about it; but his had been the first—his had been the foundation of all. She was not ashamed of loving him, nor even of the impatience that now devoured her to have him speak and put the whole on the footing of a known and established certainty. It wanted that, at the point to which the matter had now reached. As soon as they had once understood each other, all would be well. Understood each other! Yes, they did so already; but it was necessary that it should be clear—spoken out—settled. Gussy could not tell what it was that restrained her lover. But she was restless and a little impatient, knowing that, by this time, the certainty ought to be fully comprehended of all, and the result known.