They said no more on the matter, but Rose had learnt something that made the lips of her soul curl maliciously.
"Always the pretty face!" she thought. "Fools! And we plain women have to look on, while a man squanders himself on a thing with soft eyes and an artful mouth. I'm plain, but am I going to be ousted by some treacle-and-honey chit with eyes like blackberries? This nonsense——!"
Rose had a sense of her limitations. That is what made her bitter.
[XV]
Nance made her way through Buckhurst Wood, pushing aside the fresh green hazel boughs till she reached a ride that ran eastward under the overhanging branches of the oaks. It was a woodland gallery hung with arras of green and gold, the sunlight streaming in through innumerable windows. The rank grass about the hazel stubs was threaded with wild flowers. Patches of blue sky showed between the golden branches of the oaks.
Nance was both angry and perplexed, an astonishment to herself in the contradictory discontent that mocked her pride. She had not pitied Jasper Benham when they had been face to face. She had resented his pertinacity. It had been easier to believe that he was playing the part that he had played with other women.
Yet something within her spoke up for Jasper now that he could not defend himself in person. Nance had had but a glimpse of Rose Benham, but it had been enough to challenge her dislike. She was sorry for the man, having an instinctive foreknowledge of how such a woman would shape in the middle ways of life. Yet Nance caught herself up in the thick of these thoughts, and refused to be lured into possible justifications. Nance was a little hard, as girls are apt to be. She liked her beliefs and convictions carved in ivory, immutable and flawless. There were so many things she did not know, so many things she did not understand. She believed in a kind of superhuman honour that could never change, never be bent into the making of crooked excuses.
But she did feel bitter and lonely, in spite of her pride. Something had been awakened in her that spring, a richness of thought and of feeling, a going-out of her spirit toward mystery and joy. She remembered days when she had thought of this man with a swift, shy thrill of tenderness. There had seemed a strength about him, a brave, brown-faced kindness that had compelled her to muse and to remember. That was why she felt bitter and resentful. She would smile peevishly over the thought of the red scarf and the cunning use he had made of it. Now and again she had found herself doubting the truth of her father's words, but she could find no reason for his wishing to mislead her. The smart of the thing remained, the raw consciousness that this man had been treating her as one adventure in a succession of adventures. She resented this bitterly. It was the one emotion that had made her determine to thrust the whole affair out of her life.
Nance made her way homeward by a number of familiar lanes and field-paths, for she had wandered extensively since Anthony Durrell had taken Stonehanger. It was when she was following the path that led from the direction of Rookhurst over Stonehanger Common, that De Rothan overtook her and dismounted to walk at her side. He had seen the girl's figure moving along the field-paths as he had ridden along the road.
"My homage to you, Mees Nance. It may be that I shall find your father at Stonehanger. I hope the beacon-fire did not keep you awake last night."