But though Leam remembered this in after-days as the weird prophecy of what was to come, at the time those burning beds of flowers simply pleased her with their brilliant coloring; and she sat in her accustomed place on the garden-chair, under the cut-leaved hornbeam, and looked at the garden stretching before her with the fresh, surprised kind of admiration of one who had never seen it before—as if it told her something different to-day from what it had in times past; as indeed it did.
Presently Edgar came down from the Hill. He had not told his people yet of the double bond which he designed to make between the two houses. He thought it was only fitting to wait until Sebastian had returned and he had gained the paternal consent in the orthodox way. And the false air of secrecy which this temporary reticence gave his engagement gave it also a false air of romance which exactly suited his temperament in the matter of love. Perhaps for the woman destined to be his wife he would have preferred to dispense with this characteristic of his dealings with those other women, her predecessors, not destined to be his wives. All the same, it was delightful, as things were, to come down to Ford House on this sultry day and sit under the shadow of the hornbeam, with Leam looking her loveliest by his side, and butterfly-like Fina running in and out in the joyous way of a lively child fond of movement and not afflicted with shyness; delightful to feel that he was enacting a little poem unknown to all the world beside—that he was the magician who had first wakened this young soul into life and taught it the sweet suffering of love; and delightful to know that he was king and supreme, the only man concerned, with not even a father to share, just yet, his domain.
Edgar, at all times charming, because at all times good-humored and not inconveniently in earnest, when specially pleased with himself was one of the most delightful companions to be found. He had seen much, and he talked pleasantly on what he had seen, whipping up the surface of things dexterously and not forcing his hearers to digest the substance. Hence he was never a bore, nor did he disturb the placid shallows of ignorance by an unwelcome influx of information. He had just so much of the histrionic element, born of vanity and self-consciousness, as is compatible with the impassive quietude prescribed by good-breeding, whereby his manner had a color that was an excellent substitute for sincerity, and his speech a pictorial glow that did duty for enthusiasm when he thought fit to simulate enthusiasm. He had, too, that sensitive tact which seems to feel weak places as if by instinct; and when he was at his best his good-nature led him to avoid giving pain and to affect a sympathetic air, which was no more true than his earnestness. But it took with the uncritical and the affectionate, and Major Harrowby was quoted by many as an eminently kind and tender-hearted man.
To women he had that manner of subtle deference and flattering admiration characteristic of men who make love to all women—even to children in the bud and to matrons more than full-blown—and who are consequently idolized by the sex all round. And when this natural adorer of many laid himself out to make special love to one he was, as we know, irresistible. He was irresistible to-day. He was really in love with Leam; and if his love had not the intensity, the tenacity of hers, yet it was true of its kind, and for him very true.
But he was not so much in love as to be unconscious of the most graceful way of making it; consequently, he knew exactly what he was doing and how he looked and what he said, while Leam, sitting there by his side, drinking in his words as if they were heavenly utterances, forgot all about herself, and lived only in her speechless, her unfathomable adoration of the man she loved. Her life at this moment was one pulse of voiceless happiness: it was one strain of sensation, emotion, passion, love; but it was not conscious thought nor yet perception of outward things by her senses.
If yesterday at Dunaston had been a day of blessedness, this was its twin sister, and the better favored of the two. There was a certain flavor of domesticity in these quiet hours passed together in the garden, interrupted only by the child as she ran hither and thither breaking in on them, sometimes not unpleasantly when speech was growing embarrassed because emotion was growing too strong, that seemed to Leam the sweetest experience which life could give her were she to live for ever; and the sunless stillness of the day suited her nature even better than the gayer glory of yesterday. To-day, too, it was still more peace in her inner being and still less unrest. The more accustomed she was becoming to the strange fact of loving and being loved by a man not a Spaniard, and one whom mamma would neither have chosen nor approved of, the more she was at ease both in heart and manner, and the more exquisite and profound her blessedness. And who does not know what happiness can do for a girl of strong emotions, naturally reserved, by circumstances friendless, by habit joyless, and how the soul of such a one seems to throw off its husk like the enchanted victim of a fairy-tale when the true being that has been hidden is released by love? It is a transformation as entire as any wrought by magic word or wand; and it was the transformation wrought with Leam to-day. She was Leam Dundas truly in all the essential qualities of identity, but Leam Dundas with another soul, an added faculty, an awakened consciousness—Leam set free from the darkness of the bondage in which she had hitherto lived.
"You look like another being: you have looked like this ever since you told me you loved me," said Edgar, drawing himself a little back and gazing at her with the critical tenderness of a man's pride and love. "You are like Psyche wakened out of her sleep, and for the first time using your wings and living in the upper air."
The metaphor was a little confused, but that did not signify. The whole image was essentially Greek to Leam, and she only knew that it sounded well and did somehow apply to her—that she had just awakened out of sleep, and was for the first time using her wings and living in the upper air.
"I have not really lived till now," she answered. "And now things seem different."
"In what way?" asked Edgar, smiling.