"My dear Arthur, how you do agonize yourself!" says Dorian. "She has her father, and about as comfortable a time altogether as I know of."
"She reminds me of some lowly wayside flower," goes on the old man, musingly, heedless of the brilliant interlude, "raising its little head sadly among gay garden-plants that care not for her, whilst beyond the hedge that bounds her garden she can watch her own species grow and flourish in wild luxuriance. Her life can scarcely be called happy. There must always be a want, a craving for what can never be obtained. Surely the one that could bring sorrow to that pure heart, or tears to those gentle eyes, should be----"
"Asphyxiated," puts in Dorian, idly. He yawns languidly and pulls the head off a tall dandelion, that adorns the wayside, in a somewhat desultory fashion. The color in the older man"s cheeks grows a shade deeper, and a gesture, as full of impatience as of displeasure, escapes him.
"There are some subjects," he says, with calm severity, "that it would be well to place beyond the reach of ridicule."
"Am I one of them?" says Dorian, lightly. Then, glancing at his uncle"s face, he checks himself, and goes on quickly. "I beg your pardon, I"m sure. I have been saying something unlucky, as usual. Of course I agree with you on all points, Arthur, and think the man who could wilfully bring a blush to Ruth Annersley"s cheek neither more nor less than a blackguard _pur et simple_. By the by, that last little homely phrase comes in badly there, doesn"t it? Rather out of keeping with the vituperative noun, eh!"
"Rather," returns Sartoris, shortly. He drops his nephew"s arm, and walks on in silence. As a rule, Dorian"s careless humor suits him; it amuses and adds a piquancy to a life that without it (now that Dorian"s society has become indispensable to him) would prove "flat, stale, and unprofitable." But to-day, he hardly knows why,--or, perhaps, hardly dares to know why,--his nephew"s easy light-heartedness jars upon him, vexing him sorely.
As they turn the corner of the road and go down the hill, they meet Horace, coming towards them at a rapid pace. As he sees them, he slackens his speed and approaches more slowly.
"Just as well I met you," he says, with an airy laugh, "as my thoughts were running away with me, and Phoebus Apollo is in the ascendant: veritably he "rules the roast." This uphill work is trying on the lungs."
"Where have you been?" asks Dorian, just because he has nothing else to say, and it is such a bore to think.
"At Gowran."
"Ah! I"m going there now. You saw Clarissa, then?" says Sartoris, quickly. "When do you return to town, Horace?"
"To-morrow, I think,--I hope," says Horace; and, with a little nod on both sides, they part. But when the bend in the road again hides him from view, it would occur to a casual on-looker that Horace Brans...o...b.."s thoughts must once more have taken his physical powers into captivity, as his pace quickens, until it grows even swifter than it was before.
Sartoris goes leisurely down the hill, with Dorian beside him, whistling "Nancy Lee," in a manner highly satisfactory to himself, no doubt, but slightly out of tune. When Sartoris can bear this musical treat no longer, he breaks hurriedly into speech of a description that requires an answer.
"What a pretty girl Clarissa Peyton is! don"t you think so?"
When Dorian has brought Miss Lee to a triumphant finish, with a flourish that would have raised murderous longings in the breast of Stephen Adams, he says, without undue enthusiasm,--
"Yes, she is about the best-looking woman I know."
"And as unaffected as she is beautiful. That is her princ.i.p.al charm.
So thoroughly bred, too, in every thought and action. I never met so lovable a creature!"
"What a pity she can"t hear you!" says Brans...o...b... "Though perhaps it is as well she can"t. Adulation has a bad effect on some people."
"She is too earnest, too thorough, to be upset by flattery. I sometimes wonder if there are any like her in the world."
"Very few, I think," says Dorian, genially.
Another pause, somewhat longer than the last, and then Sartoris says, with some hesitation, "Do you never think of marrying, Dorian?"
"Often," says Brans...o...b.., with an amused smile.
"Yet how seldom you touch on the matter! Why, when I was your age, I had seen at least twenty women I should have married, had they shown an answering regard for me."
"What a blessing they didn"t!" says Brans...o...b... "Fancy, twenty of them! You"d have found it awkward in the long run, wouldn"t you? And I don"t think they"d have liked it, you know, in this illiberal country.
So glad you thought better of it."
"I wish I could once see you as honestly"--with a slight, almost unconscious, stress on the word--"in love as I have been scores of times."
"What a melancholy time you must have put in! When a fellow is in love he goes to skin and bone, doesn"t he? slights his dinner, and refuses to find solace in the best cigar. It must be trying,--very; especially to one"s friends. I doubt you were a susceptible youth, Arthur. I"m not."
"Then you ought to be," says Sartoris, with some anger. "All young men should feel their hearts beat, and their pulses quicken, at the sight of a pretty woman."
"My dear fellow," says Brans...o...b.., severely, removing his gla.s.s from his right to his left eye, as though to scan more carefully his uncle"s countenance, "there is something the matter with you this morning, isn"t there? You"re not well, you know. You have taken something very badly, and it has gone to your morals; they are all wrong,--very unsound indeed. Have you carefully considered the nature of the advice you are giving me? Why, if I were to let my heart beat every time I meet all the pretty women I know, I should be in a lunatic asylum in a month."
"Seriously, though, I wish you would give the matter some thought,"
says Lord Sartoris, earnestly: "you are twenty-eight,--old enough to make a sensible choice."
Brans...o...b.. sighs.
"And I see nothing to prevent your doing so. You want a wife to look after you,--a woman you could respect as well as love,--a thoughtful beautiful woman, to make your home dearer to you than all the amus.e.m.e.nts town life can afford. She would make you happy, and induce you to look more carefully to your own interests, and----and----"
"You mean you would like me to marry Clarissa Peyton," says Dorian, good-humoredly. "Well, it is a charming scheme, you know; but I don"t think it will come off. In the first place, Clarissa would not have me, and in the next, I don"t want to marry at all. A wife would bore me to death; couldn"t fancy a greater nuisance. I like women very much, in fact, I may say, I am decidedly fond of a good many of them, but to have one always looking after me (as you style it) and showing up my pet delinquencies would drive me out of my mind. Don"t look so disgusted! I feel I"m a miserable sinner; but I really can"t help it.
I expect there is something radically wrong with me."
"Do you mean to tell me"--with some natural indignation--"that up to this you have never, during all your wanderings, both at home and abroad, seen any woman you could sincerely admire?"
"Numbers, my dear Arthur,--any amount,--but not one I should care to marry. You see, that makes such a difference. I remember once before--last season--you spoke to me in this strain, and, simply to oblige you, I thought I would make up my mind to try matrimony. So I went in heavily, heart and soul, for Lady f.a.n.n.y Hazlett. You have seen Lady f.a.n.n.y?"
"Yes, a good deal of her."
"Then you know how really pretty she is. Well, I spent three weeks at it; regular hard work the entire time, you know, no breathing-s.p.a.ce allowed, as she never refuses an invitation, thinks nothing of three b.a.l.l.s in one night, and insisted on my dancing attendance on her everywhere. I never suffered so much in my life; and when at last I gave in from sheer exhaustion, I found my clothes no longer fitted me.
I was worn to a skeleton from loss of sleep, the heavy strain on my mental powers, and the meek endurance of her ladyship"s ill tempers."
"Lady f.a.n.n.y is one woman, Clarissa Peyton is quite another. How could you fail to be happy with Clarissa? Her sweetness, her grace of mind and body, her beauty, would keep you captive even against your will."
Dorian pauses for a moment or two, and then says, very gently, as though sorry to spoil the old man"s cherished plan,--
"It is altogether impossible. Clarissa has no heart to give me."
Sartoris is silent. A vague suspicion of what now appears a certainty has for some time oppressed and haunted him. At this moment he is sadly realizing the emptiness of all his dreaming. Presently he says, slowly,--
"Are you quite sure of this?"
"As certain as I can be without exactly hearing it from her own lips."
"Is it Horace?"
"Yes; it is Horace," says Brans...o...b.., quietly.
CHAPTER VI.
"Tread softly; bow the head,-- In reverent silence bow, No pa.s.sing bell doth toll, Yet an immortal soul Is pa.s.sing now."--CAROLINE SOUTHEY.