"I cannot bear to see you in such trouble," he said, with involuntary tenderness in his tone.
"I knew you would be sorry for us," she returned simply, not moving away from him, but taking the sympathy as though it belonged to her of right. "It was so good of you to come all this distance just for papa and me."
CHAPTER XIV.
"IT MUST BE YEA, YEA, OR NAY, NAY, WITH ME."
"Silent she had been, but she raised her face;
'And will you end,' said she, 'this half-told tale?'"
Jean Ingelow.
Garth felt a little excited as he went up to the porch-room to dress for dinner; to put on his war-paint as he told himself with a little grimace. Garth was a handsome man, and he never looked better than when he was in evening dress. Though he had less personal vanity than most men, he was in some measure conscious of his advantages, and on this occasion he was a little fastidious as to the set of his collar and the manipulation of his tie.
The porch-room had always been allotted to him on the rare occasions when he slept at the vicarage. The best bed-room was always apportioned to more formal guests, but Garth much preferred his old quarters. The little room with its pink and white draperies fragrant with lavender, and its lozenge-paned lattice swinging open on the roses and clematis, and other sweet-smelling creepers, always reminded him of Dora. There was a portrait of her in crayons hanging over the mantel-shelf, taken when she was many years younger, with golden hair floating round her like a halo, the round white arms half hidden under a fleecy scarf—a charming sketch half idealized, and yet true to the real Dora. Garth leant his arms against the high wooden mantelpiece and contemplated the drawing for some minutes.
"She is prettier than ever to-night," he soliloquized. "No one would think she was seven-and-twenty to look at her this evening. She is just the woman never to look her age; she is so thoroughly healthy in her tone of mind; she has none of the morbid fancies and over-strained nerves that make other women so haggard and worn. Look at Langley, for example, getting grey at thirty. Poor dear Langley! that was a bad business of hers and Chester's.
"And then Dora always dresses so perfectly; there is a good deal in that, I believe. Many pretty women are slovens or absolutely tasteless. I should hate that in my wife. I never saw Dora look otherwise than charming, this evening especially. She never wears things that rustle or fall stiffly, she and Miss Marriott are alike in that. By-the-bye, how that girl looked at me this afternoon as she handed me back Dora's letter. There was a sort of pained, beseeching expression in her eyes that I could not make out, and which haunts me rather. I have a notion that she is not quite so happy as she used to be, and yet it must be my fancy. Well, I won't think about that this evening, I am always questioning Miss Marriott's looks. I want to make up my mind if it would not be as well to say something to Dora; if things are to be it would be just as well to feel one's way a little. I have a notion this shilly-shallying may lead to some sort of mischief presently. I never knew quite how I stand with her and what is expected of me. If a thing is to be done one need not take all one's life doing it," finished Garth, pulling himself together with a quick movement as though he would shake the courage and determination into him.
"Men make their own fate, it is for them to choose; no one need make mistakes with their eyes open." Why did that speech of Queenie's suddenly recur to him? "If they make a poor thing of their own life it is not for them to complain." The little protest came to him almost painfully as the gong sounded, and he went down-stairs.