"I make none."
"Then go your way, and let me go mine." She snatched away her hand,
touched the pony with the whip, and left him standing there, holding
the reversed glove.
Melbury's first impulse was to reveal his presence to Fitzpiers, and
upbraid him bitterly. But a moment's thought was sufficient to show
him the futility of any such simple proceeding. There was not, after
all, so much in what he had witnessed as in what that scene might be
the surface and froth of--probably a state of mind on which censure
operates as an aggravation rather than as a cure. Moreover, he said to
himself that the point of attack should be the woman, if either. He
therefore kept out of sight, and musing sadly, even tearfully--for he
was meek as a child in matters concerning his daughter--continued his
way towards Hintock.
The insight which is bred of deep sympathy was never more finely
exemplified than in this instance. Through her guarded manner, her
dignified speech, her placid countenance, he discerned the interior of
Grace's life only too truly, hidden as were its incidents from every
outer eye.
These incidents had become painful enough. Fitzpiers had latterly
developed an irritable discontent which vented itself in monologues
when Grace was present to hear them. The early morning of this day had
been dull, after a night of wind, and on looking out of the window
Fitzpiers had observed some of Melbury's men dragging away a large limb
which had been snapped off a beech-tree. Everything was cold and
colorless.
"My good Heaven!" he said, as he stood in his dressing-gown. "This is
life!" He did not know whether Grace was awake or not, and he would not
turn his head to ascertain. "Ah, fool," he went on to himself, "to
clip your own wings when you were free to soar!...But I could not rest
till I had done it. Why do I never recognize an opportunity till I
have missed it, nor the good or ill of a step till it is
irrevocable!...I fell in love....Love, indeed!-"'Love's but the frailty of the mind
When 'tis not with ambition joined;
A sickly flame which if not fed, expires,
And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires!' Ah, old author of 'The Way of the World,' you knew--you knew!" Grace
moved. He thought she had heard some part of his soliloquy. He was
sorry--though he had not taken any precaution to prevent her.
He expected a scene at breakfast, but she only exhibited an extreme
reserve. It was enough, however, to make him repent that he should
have done anything to produce discomfort; for he attributed her manner
entirely to what he had said. But Grace's manner had not its cause
either in his sayings or in his doings. She had not heard a single word
of his regrets. Something even nearer home than her husband's blighted
prospects--if blighted they were--was the origin of her mood, a mood
that was the mere continuation of what her father had noticed when he
would have preferred a passionate jealousy in her, as the more natural.