However, there it was. This little struggling artist had refused Harry;
and she had refused Duddon.
For one could not be so absurd as to ignore _that_. Victoria, sitting in
the shade beside Lady Barbara, who had gone to sleep, looked dreamily
round on the rose-red pile of building, on the great engirdling woods,
the hills, the silver reaches of river--interwoven now with the dark
tree-masses, now with glades of sunlit pasture. Duddon was one of the
great possessions of England. And this slip of a girl, with her home-made
blouses, and her joy in making twenty pounds out of her drawings,
wherewith to pay the rent, had put it aside, apparently without a
moment's hesitation. Magnanimity--or stupidity?
The next moment Victoria was despising her own amazement. "One takes
one's own lofty feelings for granted--but never other people's! She says
she doesn't love him--and that's the reason. And I straightway don't
believe her. What snobs we all are! One's astonishment betrays one's
standard. Gerald says, 'What have the poor to do with fine feelings?' and
I detest him for it. But I'm no better."
Suddenly, on the other side of the yew hedge behind her--voices. Harry
and Lydia Penfold, in eager and laughing discussion. And all at once a
name reached her ears:
"Lydia"--pronounced rather shyly, in Tatham's voice.
"_Lydia!"_ No doubt by the bidding of the young lady.
"I did not know I was so old-fashioned," thought Lady Tatham indignantly.
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