Despard a.s.serted that n.o.body knew how it was spelled, and that, from the necessities of human nature, it was simply impossible to tell whether it was _gauger_ or _guager_. This brought out Thornton again, who mentioned several law papers in which the word had been correctly written by his clerks. Despard challenged him on this, and, because Thornton had to confess that he had not examined the word, dictionary in hand, he claimed a victory over him.
Thornton, at this, looked away, with the smile of a man who is talking unintelligible things to a child.
Then followed a long conversation between Despard and Mrs. Thornton about religion, art, music, and a miscellaneous a.s.semblage of other things, which lasted for a long time. At length he rose to go. Mrs.
Thornton went to a side-table and took up a book.
"Here," said she, "is the little book you lent me; I ought to have sent it, but I thought you would come for it."
"And so I will," said he, "some day."
"Come for it to-morrow."
"Will you be at home?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "MRS. THORNTON, WALKING TO THE WINDOW, LOOKED OUT."]
"Yes."
"Then of course I"ll come. And now I must tear myself away. Good-night!"
On the following day, at about two o"clock, Despard called again. Mrs.
Thornton had been writing, and the desk was strewn with papers.
"I know I am disturbing you," said he, after the usual greetings. "I see that you are writing, so I will not stay but a moment. I have come, you know, after that little book."
"Indeed, you are not disturbing me at all. I have been trying to continue a letter which I began to my brother a month ago. There is no hurry about it."
"And how is Paolo?"
"I have not heard for some time. I ought to hear soon. He went to America last summer, and I have not had a word from him since. My letter is of no importance, I a.s.sure you, and now, since you are here, you shall not go. Indeed, I only touched it a minute ago. I have been looking at some pictures till I am so begrimed and inundated with dust that I feel as though I had been resolved into my original element."
And she held up her hands with a pretty gesture of horror.
Despard looked at her for a moment as she stood in her bright beauty before him. A sudden expression of pain flashed over his face, succeeded by his usual smile.
"Dust never before took so fair a form," he said, and sat down, looking on the floor.
"For unfailing power of compliment, for an unending supply of neat and pretty speeches, commend me to the Rev. Courtenay Despard."
"Yet, singularly enough, no one else ever dreamed that of me."
"You were always so."
"With you."
"In the old days."
"Now lost forever."
Their voices sank low and expressive of a deep melancholy. A silence followed. Despard at last, with a sudden effort, began talking in his usual extravagant strain about badgers till at last Mrs. Thornton began to laugh, and the radiancy of their spirits was restored. "Strange,"
said he, taking up a prayer-book with a peculiar binding, on which there was a curiously intertwisted figure in gilt. "That pattern has been in my thoughts and dreams for a week."
"How so?"
"Why, I saw it in your hands last Sunday, and my eyes were drawn to it till its whole figure seemed to stamp itself on my mind. See! I can trace it from memory." And, taking his cane, he traced the curiously involved figure on the carpet.
"And were your thoughts fixed on nothing better than that?"
"I was engaged in worship," was the reply, with marked emphasis.
"I must take another book next time."
"Do not. You will only force me to study another pattern."
Mrs. Thornton laughed lightly, and Despard looked at her with a smile.
"I"m afraid your thoughts wander," she said, lightly, "as mine do. There is no excuse for you. There is for me. For you know I"m like Naaman; I have to bow my head in the temple of Baal. After all," she continued, in a more serious voice, "I suppose I shall be able some day to worship before my own altar, for, do you know, I expect to end my days in a convent."
"And why?"
"For the purpose of perfect religious seclusion."
Despard looked at her earnestly for a moment. Then his usual smile broke out.
"Wherever you go let me know, and I"ll take up my abode outside the walls and come and look at you every day through the grating."
"And would that be a help to a religious life?"
"Perhaps not; but I"ll tell you what would be a help. Be a Sister of Charity. I"ll be a Paulist. I"ll devote myself to the sick. Then you and I can go together; and when you are tired I can a.s.sist you. I think that idea is much better than yours."
"Oh, very much, indeed!" said Mrs. Thornton, with a strange, sad look.
"I remember a boy and girl who once used to go hand in hand over yonder sh.o.r.e, and--" He stopped suddenly, and then hastily added, "and now it would be very sad, and therefore very absurd, in one of them to bring up old memories."
Mrs. Thornton suddenly rose, and, walking to the window, looked out. "I wonder if it will rain to-day!" she said, in a sweet voice, full of a tremulous melancholy.
"There are very dark clouds about," returned Despard, mournfully.
"I hope there will not be a storm," she rejoined, with the same sadness.
Her hands were held tightly together. "Some things will perish if a storm comes."
"Let us pray that there may be calm and peace," said Despard.
She turned and looked at him for a moment. Strange that these two should pa.s.s so quickly from gayety to gloom! Their eyes met, and each read in the face of the other sadness beyond words.
CHAPTER XIV.