"I shall never ask Anthony's," said Lady Jane. "And I do not pretend to repent. But he will marry that man's daughter in spite of me, and I shall be punished. Go now, Kitty. If Anthony has come in, send him to me."
Lady Kitty went. As the door closed behind her, after a last glimpse of the erect figure, she had an odd fancy about a picture she remembered to have seen of a ship going down at sea with all its flags flying.
CHAPTER XIV.
"IT IS TOO LATE."
But as the days passed the happiness which Pamela had expected did not come. Perhaps at first the atmosphere of approval in which she lived made a species of false happiness; but in a very short space of time things became workaday, and the future, with a husband old enough to be her father, showed itself naked of glamour.
Her soul was loyal to her betrothed, though her heart betrayed her. She kept perpetually within her sight his unselfishness, his patience, his simple-mindedness, his devotion. And yet, if her bridegroom were to be no paladin at all, but a certain ordinary young gentleman of ordinary good looks and good qualities, instead of Lord Glengall, how wildly happy she could have been! It was something she dared not think upon—what might have been, instead of what was going to be.
It was another hot summer, and Pamela's step grew languid, and her eyes had heavy rings about them. Her white cheeks, that were so firm and full of health, lost something of their glow.
She spurred herself up to be brisk and cheerful, and apologised for her flagging energy with accusations against the weather. And all the time Lord Glengall watched her with the anxiety of a loving dog in his eyes.
They were to be married at the beginning of September, to have a month's honeymoon at Killarney, and then to take Mr. Graydon abroad, that so he might escape the damp of the Irish winter.
In August, Pamela was to go to Dublin to see about her frocks. They were not to be very many nor very magnificent. Afterwards, said her bridegroom, there would be a visit to Paris, and plenty of shopping.