The latter looked at him with intensified interest this morning, in the
mood which is altogether peculiar to woman's nature, and which, when
reduced into plain words, seems as impossible as the penetrability of
matter--that of entertaining a tender pity for the object of her own
unnecessary coldness. The imperturbable poise which marked Winterborne
in general was enlivened now by a freshness and animation that set a
brightness in his eye and on his cheek. Mrs. Melbury asked him to have
some breakfast, and he pleasurably replied that he would join them,
with his usual lack of tactical observation, not perceiving that they
had all finished the meal, that the hour was inconveniently late, and
that the note piped by the kettle denoted it to be nearly empty; so
that fresh water had to be brought in, trouble taken to make it boil,
and a general renovation of the table carried out. Neither did he
know, so full was he of his tender ulterior object in buying that
horse, how many cups of tea he was gulping down one after another, nor
how the morning was slipping, nor how he was keeping the family from
dispersing about their duties.
Then he told throughout the humorous story of the horse's purchase,
looking particularly grim at some fixed object in the room, a way he
always looked when he narrated anything that amused him. While he
was still thinking of the scene he had described, Grace rose and
said, "I have to go and help my mother now, Mr. Winterborne."
"H'm!" he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly upon her.
She repeated her words with a slight blush of awkwardness; whereupon
Giles, becoming suddenly conscious, too conscious, jumped up, saying,
"To be sure, to be sure!" wished them quickly good-morning, and bolted
out of the house.
Nevertheless he had, upon the whole, strengthened his position, with
her at least. Time, too, was on his side, for (as her father saw with
some regret) already the homeliness of Hintock life was fast becoming
effaced from her observation as a singularity; just as the first
strangeness of a face from which we have for years been separated
insensibly passes off with renewed intercourse, and tones itself down
into simple identity with the lineaments of the past.
Thus Mr. Melbury went out of the house still unreconciled to the
sacrifice of the gem he had been at such pains in mounting. He fain
could hope, in the secret nether chamber of his mind, that something
would happen, before the balance of her feeling had quite turned in
Winterborne's favor, to relieve his conscience and preserve her on her
elevated plane.