"
Words which cost Victoria a good deal. If what she now believed was the
truth, how monstrous that her Harry should be kept dangling here! Her
pride was all on edge. But Harry ruled her. She could make no move till
his eyes too were opened.
Meanwhile, on all counts, Faversham was the enemy. To that _chasse_ first
and foremost, Victoria vowed herself.
* * * * *
"Well, what do you think of her?" said Tatham, good-humouredly, as he
raised his hat to Felicia and his mother disappearing in the car. "She's
more alive to-day; but you can see she has been literally starved. That
_brute_ Melrose!"
Lydia made some half audible reply, and with a view to prolonging his
_tete-a-tete_ with her, he led her strolling along the road, through a
golden dusk, touched with moonrise. She followed, but all her pleasant
self-confidence with regard to him was gone; she walked beside him,
miserable and self-condemned; a theorist defeated by the incalculable
forces of things. How to begin with him--what line to take--how to undo
her own work--she did not know; her mind was in confusion.
As for him, he was no sooner alone with her than bliss descended on him.
He forgot Faversham and the Melroses. He only wished to talk to her, and
of himself. Surely, so much, "friendship" allowed.
He began, accordingly, to comment eagerly on her letters to him, and his
to her, explaining this, questioning that. Every word showed her afresh
that her letters had been the landmarks of his Scotch weeks, the chief
events of his summer; and every word quickened a new remorse.
Pages:
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344