“But Audley lives in another world.”
“The more likely to have attractions for her!”
“But surely he’ll look for—for something more,” Basset stammered.
“For a rich wife? For an alliance, as the saying is? And sleep ill of nights? And have bad dreams? No, he is no fool, if you are. He sees that if he marries the girl he makes himself safe. He makes himself safe! After me, it lies between them.”
“I take it that he does think himself safe.”
“Not he!” Audley replied. He was stooping over the ashes, warming his hands, but at that he jumped up. “Not he! he knows better than you! And fears! And sleeps ill of nights, d—n him! And dreams! But there, I must not excite myself. I must not excite myself. Only, if he once begins, he’ll be no laggard in love as you are! He’ll not sit puling and peeping and looking at the back of her head by the hour together! He’ll be up and at her—I know what that big jowl means! And she’ll be in his arms in half the time that you’ve taken to count her eyelashes!” He turned in a fresh fit of fury and seized his candle. “In his arms, I tell you, fool, while you are counting her eyelashes. Well, lose her, lose her, and I never want to see you again, or her! Never! I’ll curse you both!”
He stumbled to the door and went out, a queer, gibbering, shaking figure; and Basset had no doubt at such moments that he was mad. But on this occasion he was afraid—he was very much afraid, as he sat pondering in his chair, that there was method in his madness!
CHAPTER XIII
PETER PAUPER
The impression which the events of the evening had made on Mary’s mind was still lively when she awoke next day. It was not less clear, because like the feminine letter of the ’forties, crossed and recrossed, it had stamped itself in two layers on her mind, of which the earlier was the more vivid.
The solitude in which her days had of late been spent had left her peculiarly open to new ideas, while the quiet and wholesome life of the Gatehouse had prepared her to answer any call which those ideas might make upon her. Rescued from penury, lifted above anxiety about bed and board, no longer exposed to the panic-fears which in Paris had beset even her courageous nature, Mary had for a while been content simply to rest. She had taken the sunshine, the beauty, the ease and indolence of her life as a convalescent accepts idleness, without scruple or question.