On the identical afternoon that Mrs. Marjoy was waxing charitable over the moral deficiencies of her acquaintances, Gabriel and his sister Judith were sessioned in the little red drawing-room at the hall. John Strong had driven into Rilchester, leaving the pair to no unwelcome solitude. Saltire Hall seemed to breathe anew through its quaint casements and antique galleries when its most Victorian master had vanished for a season.
Now Judith Strong was the one woman in the world who reclaimed her brother from the charge of callow pessimism. She was one of those grave, lovable, stately beings who shed over the world a lustre of truth. With hair of red gold, eyes dark and contemplative, a complexion delicately pale, she bore upon her face the benign and tender divineness of a young Madonna. Her soul was clear and calm as a crystal sky. A sympathetic wisdom had dowered her with a charm that graced her womanhood like a crown of pearls. To Gabriel she was sister, friend, and mother. The two loved each other with an inseparable tenderness that was, indeed, Christian. Judith had learned to comprehend the subtler instincts of her brother’s nature. He was no ordinary man, in her opinion, and she was jealous for his happiness as for her own faith. But for Judith Saltire would have been a dry desert to the man’s soul.
They had been singing together that afternoon certain old ballads and glees that would have kindled the Pepysian ardor. Judith’s long, lithe fingers were magical on the keys. Her whole being begot music. Gabriel had listened to her playing that afternoon with infinite sympathy of soul. She seemed as spiritual to him, as he sat in the window-seat and watched her, as some fair woman stolen from Rossetti’s brain.
They partook of tea together by the open window, where roses nodded against a gossamer veil of gold. Gardens stretched below into the wastes of the woods, a dim maze of yews and lilacs, laurels and stately firs. It was like some Tuscan landscape spread in quaint loveliness upon one of Angelico’s frescoes. Mystery brooded on the air. The warm hush of the summer noon was unbroken save by the distant sound of reaping in the meadows.
Judith and her brother were in a solemn humor. Music had inspired them to still thought and tenderness of mood. Brother and sister, woman and man, they were glad of each other’s sympathy, grateful for solitude and unbroken union of soul. Judith had long been troubled in her heart for her brother’s future. She knew too well the sensitive necessity that watched over such a mind as his. All women are fearful of prophesying pain for those they love. And Judith feared in measure for her brother.
“Gabriel,” she said, anon, with her stately and simple directness of expression, “it is strange to me that you do not tire of this place and the sameness of its ways. Small decorums and small circles seem so foreign to your nature. It is a year since you were in Italy. You must chafe at times in Saltire. I should have thought liberty essential to a man of your temper.”
Her brother smiled at her with an amused melancholy that often found expression on his face.
“You mean that I am too much here?” he said.
“Not for us, dear. But you are a man of talent, and—”
She hesitated a moment, gazing with an intensity of thought into the blue distance.