"The business of getting a suitable companion, and the pleasure or
duty of relieving poor people, are two different things, Lydia."
"True, Lucian. When will Miss Goff call?"
"This evening. Mind; nothing is settled as yet. If you think better
of it on seeing her you have only to treat her as an ordinary
visitor and the subject will drop. For my own part, I prefer her
sister; but she will not leave Mrs. Goff, who has not yet recovered
from the shock of her husband's death."
Lydia looked reflectively at the little volume in her hand, and
seemed to think out the question of Miss Goff. Presently, with an
air of having made up her mind, she said, "Can you guess which of
Goethe's characters you remind me of when you try to be worldly-wise
for my sake?"
"When I try--What an extraordinary irrelevance! I have not read
Goethe lately. Mephistopheles, I suppose. But I did not mean to be
cynical."
"No; not Mephistopheles, but Wagner--with a difference. Wagner
taking Mephistopheles instead of Faust for his model." Seeing by his
face that he did not relish the comparison, she added, "I am paying
you a compliment. Wagner represents a very clever man."
"The saving clause is unnecessary," he said, somewhat sarcastically.
"I know your opinion of me quite well, Lydia."
She looked quickly at him. Detecting the concern in her glance, he
shook his head sadly, saying, "I must go now, Lydia. I leave you in
charge of the housekeeper until Miss Goff arrives."
She gave him her hand, and a dull glow came into his gray jaws as he
took it. Then he buttoned his coat and walked gravely away. As he
went, she watched the sun mirrored in his glossy hat, and drowned in
his respectable coat. She sighed, and took up Goethe again.
But after a little while she began to be tired of sitting still, and
she rose and wandered through the park for nearly an hour, trying to
find the places in which she had played in her childhood during a
visit to her late aunt. She recognized a great toppling Druid's
altar that had formerly reminded her of Mount Sinai threatening to
fall on the head of Christian in "The Pilgrim's Progress." Farther
on she saw and avoided a swamp in which she had once earned a
scolding from her nurse by filling her stockings with mud. Then she
found herself in a long avenue of green turf, running east and west,
and apparently endless. This seemed the most delightful of all her
possessions, and she had begun to plan a pavilion to build near it,
when she suddenly recollected that this must be the elm vista of
which the privacy was so stringently insisted upon, by her invalid
tenant at the Warren Lodge. She fled into the wood at once, and,
when she was safe there, laughed at the oddity of being a trespasser
in her own domain. She made a wide detour in order to avoid
intruding a second time; consequently, after walking for a quarter
of an hour, she lost herself. The trees seemed never ending; she
began to think she must possess a forest as well as a park. At last
she saw an opening. Hastening toward it, she came again into the
sunlight, and stopped, dazzled by an apparition which she at first
took to be a beautiful statue, but presently recognized, with a
strange glow of delight, as a living man.