He was so full of his grievance that he did not trouble to exchange the customary civilities with the artist. Instead, he broke into a torrent of abuse against the Wiltons, Lady Marjorie Stonor, and even Karne himself, for having combined to lead his fiancée astray. He had been up to Woodruffe that morning, he said, in order to give the Wiltons a piece of his mind, and to implore Celia not to persist in her tomfoolery; but the girl was as obstinate as a mule.
“Did you tell her what the consequence of her act will be, so far as money is concerned?” asked Karne, who was not favourably impressed with Salmon’s blustering manner.
“Yes, of course; but that didn’t seem to make the slightest difference. She just went a bit white, and looked at me in a queer sort of way; then said some stuff about ‘renunciation,’ and that was all. It’s my opinion that those Wiltons must have worked upon her until her mind has become diseased; and the sooner she gets away from them, the better. I have never heard of such an idiotic affair in my life.”
Celia did not look, however, as if she possessed a morbid or diseased mind. Her brother went over to Woodruffe in the afternoon, and found her playing tennis. The exercise had lent a healthy glow to her cheeks; and she looked much better and brighter than when he had last seen her in London.
The Wiltons received him kindly, although they were not sure whether his visit were hostile as Mr. Salmon’s had been, or whether he was disposed to be friendly; but their doubts were set at rest when he cordially invited Enid to accompany Celia back to the Towers for the fortnight before her rehearsals for the Haviland play began, and the invitation was accepted with alacrity.
After tea they tactfully left the brother and sister alone, thinking, with kindly consideration, that the two would have much to say to each other. They were not mistaken. Herbert immediately began to ply Celia with a volley of questions; and was some little time in eliciting all the information he desired. Then he bade her consider well the gravity of her intended action—an action that would cut her adrift from her own people, and make her, for ever, an outcast in Israel.
“Do you know what your father would do, if he were alive?” he said seriously. “He would sit shiva,[15] and mourn for you as one dead.”
But he did not blame her, nor did he cavil at her faith. He was kind, even sympathetic; and all he asked her to do, for the present, was to wait awhile.
Celia, however, would not hear of procrastination in this matter; for the Rev. Ralph Wilton was about to return to his parish, and she particularly desired him to assist at the baptismal ceremony before he left. Besides, there was nothing to be gained by waiting, she declared; her mind was fully made up, her determination taken.
Herbert then advanced the monetary consideration, urging her not to yield to a rash impulse she would probably live to regret; but, as he had expected, this plea influenced her not at all.