David, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not notice his sister's careless mien, but the mother observed the independent and boyish swing of her daughter's shoulders, and resented it with a slightly reproving glance after they were seated.
Laura lifted her eyebrows and one shoulder with an irritating half shrug. "What is it, mamma?" she asked, but Lady Thryng allowed the question to go unheeded, and turned her attention to the two gentlemen during the rest of the meal.
All through dinner David was haunted by Cassandra's talk with him, the night he dreamed she was being swept out of his arms forever by a swift, cold current which, from a little purling stream high up on a mountain top, had become a dark, relentless flood, overwhelming them utterly. What was she doing now? Did she know she was in that terrible flood? Was she really being swept from him? Ah, never, never! He would not allow it, if he must break all hearts but hers.
The meal progressed sombrely and heavily, with much ceremony, although they were so few. Was his mother practising for the future that she kept such rigid state? He suspected as much, and that Laura was being trained to the right way of carrying herself, but that and the real sorrow of the family over their bereavement made a most oppressive atmosphere. Might this be the shadow Cassandra had seen lying across their future? Only a passing cloud—a vapor; it must be only that.
Laura and her mother withdrew early, leaving David and the lawyer together, when Mr. Stretton immediately launched into talk of David's prospects and resources. In spite of himself, the gloom of the dinner hour slipped from him, and soon he was taking the liveliest interest in what might be possible for him here and now.
Although not one to be easily turned from a chosen path by outside influence, David yet had that almost fatal gift of the imaginative mind of seeing things from many sides, until at times they took on a kaleidoscopic reversibility. Now this unlooked-for development of his life opened to him a vista—new—and yet old, old as England herself.
While digging deep into the causes of his former discontent, he had come to strike his spade upon the rock foundations whereon all this complicated superstructure of English society and national life was builded. He saw that every nobleman inherited with his title and his lands a responsibility for the welfare of the whole people, from the poorest laborer in the ditch or the coal mine, to the head wearing the crown; and that it was the blindness of individuals like himself or his uncle before him, their misuse or unscrupulous indifference to and abuse of power, which had brought about those conditions under which the masses were writhing, and against which they were crying out. He saw that it was only by the earnest efforts of the few who did understand—the few who were not indifferent—that the stability of English government was still her glory.
At last he rose and lifted his arms high above his head, then dropped them to his side. "I see." He held up his head and looked off as he had done when he stood on the prow of the steamship, with the salt breeze tossing his hair. "A little of this came to me as I crossed the ocean, when I saw the green slopes of England again. I knew I loved her, and the old feeling of impotence that hounded me in the past, when I could do nothing but rebel, slipped from me. I felt what it might be to have power—to become effective instead of being obliged to chafe under the yoke of an imposed submission to things which are wrong—things which those who are in power might set right if they would. I believe, for a moment, Mr. Stretton, I felt it all."
He paused and bowed his head. All at once in the midst of his exaltation, he saw Cassandra standing white and still, as he had seen her on the hilltop before their little cabin, looking after him when he bade her good-by; and just as he then turned and went swiftly back to her, so now in his soul he turned to her yearningly and took her to his breast. Still penetrating the sweet, white halo of this vision, he heard the voice of Mr. Stretton deferentially droning on.
"And with your resources—the wealth which, with a little care and thought just now at this crucial moment, will be yours—"