“Oh, after what you've said about the matter that can wait,” replied Sylvester, hurriedly, and he left his friend to his artistic solitude.
Roderick felt somewhat ashamed and somewhat relieved after his burst of confidence. To cry defeat after the first reverse seemed the part of a craven. Thus were women not won. He determined to return to the attack, to choose his time more wisely. A week later he caught Ella in a brighter mood. He had exerted himself to please, to kindle her enthusiasms, which shone from cheeks and eyes. He struck the personal chord, watched eagerly, seemed to perceive it vibrate through her. Then he urged once more. She changed suddenly, held out a warning hand.
“Not that again, Roderick,” she said. “You must not make me dread your coming. Some women yield to insistence; it only hardens me. I thought you knew me better.”
“Then the Colony shall start at Christmas; I swear it,” he cried magniloquently, and the remainder of the interview flowed more smoothly.
It is all very well to command events. But whether they will obey is a different matter. During the last few weeks Roderick had succeeded in his design to quash the Colony in so far as to alienate several hesitating supporters. To win these back was no easy matter. Moreover, his old power of persuasion seemed to have failed him. There was a period when he had deluded himself into the belief that the Colony was a practicable scheme. But the moment it had appeared contrary to his own interest and he had regarded it dispassionately, he despised it from the depths of his soul as an inane chimera. To have to simulate a burnt out enthusiasm was irksome; he failed to carry conviction. And meanwhile he was a prey to gnawing anxiety. How was he to replace the three thousand pounds? He anathematised the feminine temperament.
The feminine temperament, however, was not in that state of dispassionate, yet unreasoning decision in which he imagined it to be. These were unhappy days for Ella. She seemed to have become to herself a vague entity wandering in a land of shadows, forced by some unknown power therein to wander, and finding her only hope of salvation in one elusive light that gleamed fitfully in the distance. Her aunt, being a practical woman, was quick to notice the habitual contraction of her brow and the wearied preoccupation in her eyes. Nowadays she openly mocked at the Colony. On such occasions Ella fired up, defended it with the fierceness of a forlorn hope. Lady Milmo was puzzled. She even went the length of consulting Sylvester, surprising him considerably by a morning call in Weymouth Street.
“The Colony's a fraud, and she knows it's a fraud,” she said, in the vernacular of her class. “And yet she pins her immortal soul to it. Why doesn't she marry the man and be done with it? But no—she won't do that. She's making herself ill because the Colony isn't likely to come off, which is distinctly good business, and what on earth she can find to interest her in the rubbishy scheme, goodness only knows. If she only painted, or wrote poetry, or out-Wagnered Wagner in immortal tunelessness, one could perhaps understand. But she's no more artistic than you are.”
“I know I'm a Philistine,” smiled Sylvester, at the tribute of the artless lady. “Is that why you 've come to me?”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” returned Lady Milmo. “Now can't you put some sense into her, or get that dear Mr. Lanyon to do so? It's my impression she isn't in love with him one little bit.”
“Then, for Heaven's sake, my dear Lady Milmo,” said Sylvester, earnestly, “do all you can to impress that fact upon him!”