‘Of course: there is nothing else to go to here—even for Roundheads.’
‘If you mean ME by that, you are very much mistaken,’ said she testily.
‘The Roundheads were your ancestors, and they knocked down my ancestors’ castle, and broke the stained glass and statuary of the cathedral,’ said De Stancy slily; ‘and now you go not only to a cathedral, but to a service of the unreformed Church in it.’
‘In a foreign country it is different from home,’ said Paula in extenuation; ‘and you of all men should not reproach me for tergiversation—when it has been brought about by—by my sympathies with—’
‘With the troubles of the De Stancys.’
‘Well, you know what I mean,’ she answered, with considerable anxiety not to be misunderstood; ‘my liking for the old castle, and what it contains, and what it suggests. I declare I will not explain to you further—why should I? I am not answerable to you!’
Paula’s show of petulance was perhaps not wholly because she had appeared to seek him, but also from being reminded by his criticism that Mr. Woodwell’s prophecy on her weakly succumbing to surroundings was slowly working out its fulfilment.
She moved forward towards the gate at the further end of the square, beyond which the cathedral lay at a very short distance. Paula did not turn her head, and De Stancy strolled slowly after her down the Rue du College. The day happened to be one of the church festivals, and people were a second time flocking into the lofty monument of Catholicism at its meridian. Paula vanished into the porch with the rest; and, almost catching the wicket as it flew back from her hand, he too entered the high-shouldered edifice—an edifice doomed to labour under the melancholy misfortune of seeming only half as vast as it really is, and as truly as whimsically described by Heine as a monument built with the strength of Titans, and decorated with the patience of dwarfs.
De Stancy walked up the nave, so close beside her as to touch her dress; but she would not recognize his presence; the darkness that evening had thrown over the interior, which was scarcely broken by the few candles dotted about, being a sufficient excuse if she required one.
‘Miss Power,’ De Stancy said at last, ‘I am coming to the service with you.’