Part 17 (1/2)
A long pause followed. It was the crowning vexation of a tiresome morning; but Paul did not wish to say anything that he would afterwards regret.
”It's a decided step, Sally; I wonder if you have thought it over enough? You will probably wake up from this religious craze to find yourself bound down to a creed which your reason rejects.”
”It is conviction, not a craze,” said Sally. ”I have thought about little else for a whole year, and my mind is quite made up.”
”Very well, then; I have nothing more to say. You are of age, and must decide such things for yourself; but you've sprung it upon me somewhat suddenly, Sally. I suppose it was by Mr. Curzon's advice that you kept your change of opinion dark?”
”Oh dear no! he wished me to tell you weeks ago. But I've been so happy, I cared so much, I felt as if I could not discuss things with any one who differed from me.”
”Then we won't discuss it,” Paul said, drawing a long breath. ”What time does the thing come off? I'll go down and order the fly; I can't let you walk up to church like that.”
”May is going to call for me; she is coming to the service.”
”Miss Webster!” said Paul, with a rather incredulous laugh. ”I should not have thought it was at all in her line.”
”She's glad; she thinks I'm right,” said Sally, gently.
It was on the tip of Paul's tongue to ask Sally if she had heard anything of May's rumoured engagement to Sir Cecil Bland; but some fear lest the answer should be in the affirmative held him back. When the carriage from the Court drew up at the gate, he went down to put Sally in, and was rewarded by a friendly nod and smile from May.
”Aren't you coming, too?” she asked boldly. ”It would make Sally so happy if you did.”
Paul shook his head. ”I don't understand these things; I leave them to those that do.”
”I promise to bring her back safely, and I am coming to tea,” went on May, gliding over his refusal. ”I've never seen that new wing of yours since it was finished. Cottage, indeed! I call it quite a mansion!”
with a glance at the addition which had been lately built on to the Macdonald's house, making it about double its original size.
”A mansion you would not care to inhabit, I expect; but it will do capitally for Sally and me,” said Paul.
”I'll decide that when I've seen it. Good-bye, then, till we meet later. Tell Dixon to drive to the church, please.”
Paul gave the order, and went back to his new sitting-room, seating himself before his office table, as he called the one which was placed in the bow window. He opened his business ledgers, and congratulated himself on the fact of having a long, quiet afternoon of undisturbed work before him; but one more trivial interruption occurred before he was entirely left to himself. Mrs. Macdonald knocked at the door and stood before him arrayed in her Sunday best.
”Shall you be wanting anything, sir?”
”Nothing whatever, Mrs. Macdonald.”
”If not, I would like to go to the church to see Miss Sally and the Bishop. I'd slip out quiet before the end, so as not to keep the ladies waiting for their tea.”
”Go by all means,” said Paul, smiling a little over the commotion created by a Bishop and his lawn sleeves, and a flock of girls in white dresses and caps.
Then his thoughts reverted to Sally's face, with its sweet seriousness of expression, as she had started for the church, and from Sally he pa.s.sed on to May; and there his mind lingered. She was beautiful--beautiful beyond compare; and to-day there had been an added grace of tenderness in her manner to Sally: a protecting, motherly care, as if she would s.h.i.+eld her from his want of sympathy. She seemed so much older than Sally, and yet there were but four years between them.
He pictured the room as it would appear when she entered it, and he settled which of the two easy-chairs he would draw nearer to the fire, and where he would sit himself, so that he could watch the firelight playing on her face; and then---- He covered his face with his hands and shut out the light, the better to understand the cause of the fierce pain that was gnawing at his heart.
It did not take him long to discover what had happened. He, Paul Lessing, a man who had knocked about the world and had mixed with all sorts and conditions of men and women, whose pulses had hitherto never quickened their beating at the touch of a woman's hand or the sound of a voice, found himself, at thirty-one, as helplessly and ridiculously in love as any lad of twenty.
With a smothered exclamation, he pushed back his chair, and began a restless walk up and down the room. Was ever a grown man guilty of such egregious folly before? A great gulf separated him and the woman of his dreams: a gulf that could never be bridged over. In tastes and in circ.u.mstances they were separated far as the poles. His love was perfectly hopeless; and yet the notion of her marrying another, and removing herself entirely out of his reach, was intolerable to him.
But, as an effectual cure of his madness, he knew that it was the best thing that could happen to him. The remedy was a sharp one, but it would be complete.
”A few days must settle it, and, until then, I need not meet her,” said Paul, aloud. ”I won't stay in this afternoon; business can take me to the farm.”