"
"I say, don't let's believe that till we know!"
When his mother left him, Tatham took his way to the moor, and spent
an uncomfortable hour in rumination. Lydia had spoken of Faversham once
or twice in her early letters from the south; but lately there had been
no references to him at all. Was she disappointed--or too much
interested?--too deeply involved? A vague but gnawing jealousy was
fastening on Tatham day by day; and he had not been able to conceal it
from his mother. Lydia was free--of course she was free! But friends have
their right too. "If she is really going that way, I ought to know,"
thought poor Tatham.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Lydia herself would have been hard put to it to say whither she
was going. But that moral and intellectual landscape which had lain so
clear before her when she left Green Cottage was certainly beginning to
blur; the mists were descending upon it.
She spent the August and September days working feverishly hard in
Delorme's studio, and her evenings in a pleasant society of young
artists, of both sexes, all gathered at the feet of the great man. But
her mind was often far away; and rational theories as to the true
relations between men and women were neither so clear nor so supporting
as they had been.
She had now two intimate men friends; two ardent and devoted
correspondents. Scarcely a day passed that she was not in touch with both
of them. Her knowledge of the male temperament and male ways of looking
at things was increasing fast.
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