The return drive, as it is quicker, being all downhill, so is it a more silent one than that to the villa had been. Byng, indeed, is as gaily willing to be fondled by Cecilia as he was on his way up; but there is a mixture of maidenly reserve and sub-tender reproach in her manner which makes their relations somewhat strained. The afternoon's pleasuring has had a jading effect upon Amelia's spirits, as, after having been sucked dry on the subject of Sybilla's maladies, and afterwards at once shaken off, by her female acquaintance, she has not been fortunate enough to meet with anyone else to exchange talk with, and has sat in disconsolate yet patient loneliness on a stone bench, afraid to stir from the spot where he had left her, lest she might miss her lover, of whom, however, she has unaccountably seen nothing, until when the Angelus is ringing, and the shadows spreading, he has come to give her curt notice, with half-averted face, that the fiacre is at the door. In point of fact, he has been too conscious of the disorder of his features to dare to expose them sooner than he can help to her fond scrutiny. He would give anything to be able to sit beside, instead of opposite to her during their drive home, as a profile is a much less tell-tale and more governable thing than a full face; and he is painfully conscious that as often as she imagines she can do it without being detected by him, she is stealing looks of inquiring anxiety at him. He tries to put her off the scent by spasmodic comments upon the entertainment that they have just quitted; and she does her best to keep up the ball of conversation, since she sees that it is his wish. But in vain. Each forced remark falls still-born, leading to nothing. It is Cecilia who at last succeeds in giving a fillip to the languid talk.
"I did not know that Mrs. Roche was a cousin of your beauty, Miss Le Marchant," she says suddenly, growing tired of her pensive attitude, and addressing herself to Jim.
He starts guiltily. "Did not you?"
He must look odd; for even Cecilia's large and preoccupied cow eyes rest upon him with an expression of surprise.
"I wonder why she was not there to-day."
It is not exactly a question, yet her great shallow orbs do not seem to be going to leave his face until he makes some response. He forces himself to do so.
"I understood Miss Le Marchant to say that they are not going out just now."
"And why are not they, pray?" inquires Cecilia, in an injured voice, as if the retirement from the world of the two ladies in question were a personal injury to herself; "they are not in mourning, all their gowns are coloured ones, and they do not look as if they had bad health—perhaps, however" (after a moment's thoughtful attempt to find a solution)—"perhaps, however, they may have something—one never knows—people have such unexpected diseases nowadays—hysteria, perhaps, or fits."
At this ingenious suggestion Jim is conscious of a writhing motion passing over the stalwart form of Byng beside him. In his own brain, if there is room for anything but the desire to evade Amelia's eyes, is a dim sense of relief at a suggestion so grotesquely wide of the mark as that made by the younger Miss Wilson. In perfect innocence of the effect produced upon her companions by her bright hypothesis, Cecilia goes on to remind her sister of the parallel case of a very handsome girl whom they had once reckoned among their acquaintance, and who was periodically being found by her family with her head under the fender. But Amelia rises but faintly to the reminiscence, and the remainder of the drive is accomplished in a general silence.