HAVING warmed his feet to his own entire satisfaction, Horace turned
round from the fireplace, and discovered that he and Lady Janet were
alone.
"Can I see Grace?" he asked.
The easy tone in which he put the question--a tone, as it were, of
proprietorship in "Grace"--jarred on Lady Janet at the moment. For
the first time in her life she found herself comparing Horace with
Julian--to Horace's disadvantage. He was rich; he was a gentleman of
ancient lineage; he bore an unblemished character. But who had the
strong brain? who had the great heart? Which was the Man of the two?
"Nobody can see her," answered Lady Janet. "Not even you!"
The tone of the reply was sharp, with a dash of irony in it. But where
is the modern young man, possessed of health and an independent income,
who is capable of understanding that irony can be presumptuous enough
to address itself to _him?_ Horace (with perfect politeness) declined to
consider himself answered.
"Does your ladyship mean that Miss Roseberry is in bed?" he asked.
"I mean that Miss Roseberry is in her room. I mean that I have twice
tried to persuade Miss Roseberry to dress and come downstairs, and tried
in vain. I mean that what Miss Roseberry refuses to do for Me, she is
not likely to do for You--"
How many more meanings of her own Lady Janet might have gone on
enumerating, it is not easy to calculate. At her third sentence a sound
in the library caught her ear through the incompletely closed door and
suspended the next words on her lips. Horace heard it also. It was the
rustling sound (traveling nearer and nearer over the library carpet) of
a silken dress.
(In the interval while a coming event remains in a state of uncertainty,
what is it the inevitable tendency of every Englishman under thirty to
do? His inevitable tendency is to ask somebody to bet on the event.
He can no more resist it than he can resist lifting his stick or his
umbrella, in the absence of a gun, and pretending to shoot if a bird
flies by him while he is out for a walk.) "What will your ladyship bet that this is not Grace?" cried Horace.
Her ladyship took no notice of the proposal; her attention remained
fixed on the library door. The rustling sound stopped for a moment. The
door was softly pushed open. The false Grace Roseberry entered the room.
Horace advanced to meet her, opened his lips to speak, and
stopped--struck dumb by the change in his affianced wife since he had
seen her last. Some terrible oppression seemed to have crushed her. It
was as if she had actually shrunk in height as well as in substance. She
walked more slowly than usual; she spoke more rarely than usual, and in
a lower tone. To those who had seen her before the fatal visit of the
stranger from Mannheim, it was the wreck of the woman that now appeared
instead of the woman herself. And yet there was the old charm still
surviving through it all; the grandeur of the head and eyes, the
delicate symmetry of the features, the unsought grace of every
movement--in a word, the unconquerable beauty which suffering cannot
destroy, and which time itself is powerless to wear out. Lady Janet
advanced, and took her with hearty kindness by both hands.