She had made a discovery--one which to a girl of honest nature was
almost appalling. She had looked into her heart, and found that her
early interest in Giles Winterborne had become revitalized into
luxuriant growth by her widening perceptions of what was great and
little in life. His homeliness no longer offended her acquired tastes;
his comparative want of so-called culture did not now jar on her
intellect; his country dress even pleased her eye; his exterior
roughness fascinated her. Having discovered by marriage how much that
was humanly not great could co-exist with attainments of an exceptional
order, there was a revulsion in her sentiments from all that she had
formerly clung to in this kind: honesty, goodness, manliness,
tenderness, devotion, for her only existed in their purity now in the
breasts of unvarnished men; and here was one who had manifested them
towards her from his youth up.
There was, further, that never-ceasing pity in her soul for Giles as a
man whom she had wronged--a man who had been unfortunate in his worldly
transactions; while, not without a touch of sublimity, he had, like
Horatio, borne himself throughout his scathing "As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing."
It was these perceptions, and no subtle catching of her husband's
murmurs, that had bred the abstraction visible in her.
When her father approached the house after witnessing the interview
between Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond, Grace was looking out of her
sitting-room window, as if she had nothing to do, or think of, or care
for. He stood still.
"Ah, Grace," he said, regarding her fixedly.
"Yes, father," she murmured.
"Waiting for your dear husband?" he inquired, speaking with the sarcasm
of pitiful affection.
"Oh no--not especially. He has a great many patients to see this
afternoon."
Melbury came quite close. "Grace, what's the use of talking like that,
when you know--Here, come down and walk with me out in the garden,
child."
He unfastened the door in the ivy-laced wall, and waited. This
apparent indifference alarmed him. He would far rather that she had
rushed in all the fire of jealousy to Hintock House, regardless of
conventionality, confronted and attacked Felice Charmond unguibus et
rostro, and accused her even in exaggerated shape of stealing away her
husband. Such a storm might have cleared the air.
She emerged in a minute or two, and they went inside together. "You
know as well as I do," he resumed, "that there is something threatening
mischief to your life; and yet you pretend you do not. Do you suppose I
don't see the trouble in your face every day? I am very sure that this
quietude is wrong conduct in you. You should look more into matters."