"Oh, well, one can always forget them again," she said.
"With the proper a.s.sistance," he agreed, smiling. "And after all she"s very accommodating. If you do what she wants, she doesn"t care a hang about your private reasons."
"I call that unscrupulous," Christine objected.
"Oh, yes, the most immoral old hussy that ever was!" he laughed. "I love her for that. In her matrimonial advertis.e.m.e.nt the woman is always rich, beautiful, and amiable!"
"And the man handsome, steady, and constant!"
"So we pay the fees--and sometimes get the article."
"Sometimes," said Christine. "Of course we always suit the description ourselves?"
"A faith in one"s self--secure, impregnable, eternal--is the one really necessary equipment."
"So you"ve found?"
"Don"t be personal--or penetrating, Christine. The forms of faith vary--the faith remains."
Christine looked up at him again. Something in her eyes made him pat her lightly on the shoulder.
"Oh, it"s all very well," she murmured in rueful peevishness, "but I shan"t be able to stand too much happiness here."
"Think of the others," he advised, "and you"ll regain the balance of your judgment."
To think of the others was decidedly a good thing. Reason dictated the survey of a wider field, the discovery and recognition of an average emerging from the inequalities. The result of such a process should be either a temperate self-satisfaction or a clear-sighted resignation; you would probably find yourself not much above nor much below the level thus scientifically demonstrated. But the ways of science are not always those of the heart, and that we are less miserable than some people is not a consolation for being more unhappy than others--least of all when the happy are before our eyes and the wretched farther off. Neither the preacher of Grantley"s doctrine nor its hearer was converted. Grantley still wanted the best, and Christine, asking nothing so very great, was the more aggrieved that she was denied even what she demanded.
Kate Raymore"s day came. Only Jeremy accompanied the family to meet the boat. Kate said they would want somebody to bustle about after the luggage. In truth, Jeremy seemed to her already as one of her own house.
But he did not seem so to himself. Eva had been very wayward, full of admiration for Mr. Mallam, and on the strict defensive against Jeremy"s approaches. He was so distressed and puzzled that he might have comforted even Christine Fanshaw, and that he was in fact exceedingly bad company for anybody. But the party did not ask for conversation. A stillness fell on them all as they waited for the boat, Kate clasping her husband"s arm tight while her eyes were fixed on the approaching ship.
The boy came down the gangway and saw them waiting. He was a good-looking young fellow, tall and slim, with curly hair. Joy and apprehension, shame and pride, struggled for mastery on his face. Kate saw, and her heart was very full. His fault, his flight, his banishment, were vivid in his mind, and, to his insight, vivid in theirs too. But there was something else that his eyes begged them to remember--the struggle to retrieve himself, the good record over-seas, the thought that they were to be together again for a while without fear and without a cloud between them. Their letters had breathed no reproach, and had been full of love. But letters cannot give the a.s.surance of living eyes.
He still feared reproach; he had to beg for love, and to fear to find it not unimpaired.
"My boy!" whispered Kate Raymore as she clasped him to her arms.
"You"re looking well, Charley," said Raymore, "but older, I think."
Yes, he was older; that was part of the price which had fallen to be paid, and the happiness of reunion could not avail against it. His own hand had overthrown the first glory of his youth; it had died not gradually, but by a violent death--the traces were on his face. There was a touch of awe in Eva"s eyes as she kissed her brother--the awe evoked by one who had fallen, endured, and fought. He had to pay the uttermost farthing of his debt.
Yet the joy rose supreme, deeper and tenderer for the grief behind it, for the struggle by which it was won, because it came as a victory after a heavy fight. To Kate it seemed as though he had suffered for their sakes as well as for his own sin, since in sorrow over him and his banishment their hearts had come closer together, and love reigned stronger in their home. A strange remorse struck her and mingled with her compa.s.sion and her gladness as she held her son at arm"s length and looked again in his eyes. It was hard to keep track of these things, to see how the good and the evil worked, to understand how no man was unto himself alone, and not to accuse of injustice the way by which one paid for all, while all sorrowed for one.
As they turned away to the carriage, Eva touched Jeremy on the arm. He turned to find her smiling, but her lips trembled.
"If I drive back with them, I shall cry, and then I shall look a fright," she whispered. "Besides they"d rather have him to themselves just now. Will you walk back with me?"
"All right," said Jeremy curtly.
His feelings, too, had been touched, so that his manner was cool and matter-of-fact almost to aggressiveness. He preferred to make nothing at all of walking back with Eva, though the way was long, and the winter sun shone over the sea and the downs, the wind was fresh and crisp, and youthful blood went tingling through the veins.
"It"s cold driving, anyhow," he added, as an after-thought.
It was not cold walking, though, or Jeremy did not so find it. It was in his mind that now he had his chance, if he could find courage to use it and to force an issue. For him too Charley and Charley"s sorrow had done something. They had induced in Eva a softer mood; the armour of her coquetry was pierced by a shaft of deep feeling. As they walked she was silent, forgetting to torment him, silently glad of his friendship and his company. She said nothing of Dora Hutting"s good-fortune or of Mallam"s good looks now. She was thinking of her mother"s face as she welcomed Charley, and was musing on love. It was Jeremy"s moment, if he could make use of it. But in this mood she rather frightened him, raising about herself defences different from the gleaming barrier of her coquetry, yet not less effective. He feared to disturb her thoughts, and it seemed to him that his wooing would be rude and rough.
Suddenly she turned to him.
"You"ll be friends with Charley, won"t you? Real friends, I mean? You won"t let what--what"s happened stand in the way? You see, he"ll be awfully sensitive about it, and if he fancies you"re hanging back, or anything of that kind----"
Her eyes were very urgent in their appeal.
"Of course I shall be friends with him; I shouldn"t dream of----"
"I"m sure you"ll like him for his own sake, when you know him. And till then, for mother"s sake, for our sake, you"ll be nice to him, won"t you?"
"Do you care particularly about my being nice to him?"
"Of course I do! We"re friends, you see."
Jeremy"s fear wore off; excitement began to rise in him; the spirit of the game came upon him. He turned to his work.
"Are we friends?" he asked. "You"ve not been very friendly lately."
"Never mind me. Be friendly with Charley."
"For your sake?"
"For our sake, yes."
"I said, for your sake."
A smile dimpled through Eva"s gravity.
""Your" is a plural, isn"t it?" she asked.
"Then--for thy sake?" said Jeremy. "That"s singular, anyhow."
"Oh, for my sake, then, if you think it worth while."
"I don"t think anything worth while except pleasing you, Eva. I used to manage it, I think; but somehow it"s grown more difficult lately."
He stopped in his walk and faced her. She walked on a pace or two, but he would not follow. Irresolutely she halted.
"More difficult? Pleasing me grown more difficult?"
"Well, pleasing you as much as I want to, I mean." Jeremy in his turn smiled for a moment; but he was in deadly earnest again as he stepped up to her and caught hold of her hands. "Now"s the time," he said. "You"ve got to say yes or no."
"You haven"t asked me anything yet," she murmured, laughing, her eyes away from him and her hands in his.
"Yes, I have, dozens of times--dozens and dozens. And I"m not going to ask it again--not in words, anyhow. You know the question."