CHAPTER XXX.
[A CLOSE OBSERVER].
When Rose and Lettice went their way, the three cavaliers found their occupation gone. They stood an instant looking after the retreating fair, then turned to face one another; but there was no satisfaction in view of the witnesses of their discomfiture--each felt small, rather, and perhaps a little ridiculous. The only plaster for their grazed self-love was absence from the witnesses; and accordingly each turned on his heel, going off in quest of some new interest, and diverging as widely from the other two as was possible.
Joseph strolled despondently back toward the stunted grove, to which twice already he had bent his steps, but had not reached. He had borne up bravely enough under Rose's disclosure at the moment. In the thick of the fight one generally does bear up. The excitement of combat stirs the blood, and blows fall scarcely heeded on him who struggles hard to have his way. It is when the battle is over, that the wounds begin to smart, when the stricken have leisure to feel them. And Joseph was wounded sore. It crushed him to think that anything could be said in derogation of the peerless one whom he had found to fit into' the long-vacant shrine, where the beloved of his youth had sat, and whose memory, still hovering there, had made it a holy place. There seemed impiety in associating the new avatar of his love with the ribald vulgarities of the divorce court, in dragging the blossom of his worship through its noisome mire. Yet was she the less precious because her lines had fallen haplessly? Does a jewel lose worth for having fallen in the kennel? He told himself this, and repeated it over and over. He vowed that her need of sympathy and support, was a claim the more upon his honour, and that the claim should be satisfied; but still it was painful to think that the name of his wife to be, had been bandied from mouth to mouth as one of the motley crew who shock chaste ears with their clamour to be relieved from obligations which if was their own free choice to undertake. It dimmed the bright promise of that future in which he had been basking so unsuspiciously, but it should not appal him. He would steadfastly look forward to all being well; his own faith and hope would of themselves contribute to a happy consummation; and for Rose, how much she must have suffered!--how much she needed him!
He had reached the grove at last. His feet were on the turf, and he was strolling upwards through the trees, buried in deep and not too sweet reflections.
"Alone, Joseph?" There was much in the tone to irritate. It contained a suggestion of pity, combined with the "I thought as much," or "I told you so," with which intimate friends are wont to rub up our little sorenesses, and make them smart. It was his sister-in-law who spoke--Susan--who already had expressed her disapproval of his intended change in life, and who could not be expected to regret any little unsmoothness in the current of his love. She had risen from a corner of shade in which she had been encouraging the faltering advances of Walter Petty to closer intimacy with her girl Margaret. The two seemed fairly well tackled in conversation, now, and she felt free to devote a little attention to Joseph and his concerns. She took his arm, and accommodated her pace to his for a little turn, ignoring the sudden tightening of his features into an impatient frown.
"'The course of true love,' &c.--you know the rest, Joseph. Where there is disparity, one must be prepared for little contretemps. One cannot expect young girls to accommodate themselves at once to the steady jog-trot of their seniors. They would not be so attractive, I daresay, if one could. She certainly----"
"What are you talking about, Susan?"
"You do not know, eh? Or rather you think I do not know? I have seen everything--more than you have yourself. I was sitting up here in the shade, when you were called away a while ago."
"Yes, I was called away. It was annoying, I confess; but I got back when I had completed my little matter of business. I see nothing in that which calls for your condolence."