CHAPTER XIII.

"Philistia, be thou glad of me!"


Grandcourt having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth, showed a power
of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was hardly a
day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her, or prove by
emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. His cousin, Mrs.
Torrington, was now doing the honors of his house, so that Mrs. Davilow
and Gwendolen could be invited to a large party at Diplow in which there
were many witnesses how the host distinguished the dowerless beauty, and
showed no solicitude about the heiress. The world--I mean Mr. Gascoigne
and all the families worth speaking of within visiting distance of
Pennicote--felt an assurance on the subject which in the rector's mind
converted itself into a resolution to do his duty by his niece and see
that the settlements were adequate. Indeed the wonder to him and Mrs.
Davilow was that the offer for which so many suitable occasions presented
themselves had not been already made; and in this wonder Grandcourt
himself was not without a share. When he had told his resolution to Lush
he had thought that the affair would be concluded more quickly, and to his
own surprise he had repeatedly promised himself in a morning that he would
to-day give Gwendolen the opportunity of accepting him, and had found in
the evening that the necessary formality was still unaccomplished. This
remarkable fact served to heighten his determination on another day. He
had never admitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but--heaven
help us all!--we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection
to a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like a
spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally sure
that the blind worm can not bite us mortally, but it would be so
intolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look--we decline
to handle it.

He had asked leave to have a beautiful horse of his brought for Gwendolen
to ride. Mrs. Davilow was to accompany her in the carriage, and they were
to go to Diplow to lunch, Grandcourt conducting them. It was a fine mid-
harvest time, not too warm for a noonday ride of five miles to be
delightful; the poppies glowed on the borders of the fields, there was
enough breeze to move gently like a social spirit among the ears of uncut
corn, and to wing the shadow of a cloud across the soft gray downs; here
the sheaves were standing, there the horses were straining their muscles
under the last load from a wide space of stubble, but everywhere the green
pasture made a broader setting for the corn-fields, and the cattle took
their rest under wide branches. The road lay through a bit of country
where the dairy-farms looked much as they did in the days of our
forefathers--where peace and permanence seemed to find a home away from
the busy change that sent the railway train flying in the distance.

But the spirit of peace and permanence did not penetrate poor Mrs.
Davilow's mind so as to overcome her habit of uneasy foreboding. Gwendolen
and Grandcourt cantering in front of her, and then slackening their pace
to a conversational walk till the carriage came up with them again, made a
gratifying sight; but it served chiefly to keep up the conflict of hopes
and fears about her daughter's lot. Here was an irresistible opportunity
for a lover to speak and put an end to all uncertainties, and Mrs. Davilow
could only hope with trembling that Gwendolen's decision would be
favorable. Certainly if Rex's love had been repugnant to her, Mr.
Grandcourt had the advantage of being in complete contrast with Rex; and
that he had produced some quite novel impression on her seemed evident in
her marked abstinence from satirical observations, nay, her total silence
about his characteristics, a silence which Mrs. Davilow did not dare to
break. "Is he a man she would be happy with?"--was a question that
inevitably arose in the mother's mind. "Well, perhaps as happy as she
would be with any one else--or as most other women are"--was the answer
with which she tried to quiet herself; for she could not imagine Gwendolen
under the influence of any feeling which would make her satisfied in what
we traditionally call "mean circumstances."

Grandcourt's own thought was looking in the same direction: he wanted to
have done with the uncertainty that belonged to his not having spoken. As
to any further uncertainty--well, it was something without any reasonable
basis, some quality in the air which acted as an irritant to his wishes.

Gwendolen enjoyed the riding, but her pleasure did not break forth in
girlish unpremeditated chat and laughter as it did on that morning with
Rex. She spoke a little, and even laughed, but with a lightness as of a
far-off echo: for her too there was some peculiar quality in the air--not,
she was sure, any subjugation of her will by Mr. Grandcourt, and the
splendid prospects he meant to offer her; for Gwendolen desired every one,
that dignified gentleman himself included, to understand that she was
going to do just as she liked, and that they had better not calculate on
her pleasing them. If she chose to take this husband, she would have him
know that she was not going to renounce her freedom, or according to her
favorite formula, "not going to do as other women did."

Grandcourt's speeches this morning were, as usual, all of that brief sort
which never fails to make a conversational figure when the speaker is held
important in his circle. Stopping so soon, they give signs of a suppressed
and formidable ability so say more, and have also the meritorious quality
of allowing lengthiness to others.

"How do you like Criterion's paces?" he said, after they had entered the
park and were slacking from a canter to a walk.

"He is delightful to ride. I should like to have a leap with him, if it
would not frighten mamma. There was a good wide channel we passed five
minutes ago. I should like to have a gallop back and take it."

"Pray do. We can take it together."

"No, thanks. Mamma is so timid--if she saw me it might make her ill."

"Let me go and explain. Criterion would take it without fail."

"No--indeed--you are very kind--but it would alarm her too much. I dare
take any leap when she is not by; but I do it and don't tell her about
it."

"We can let the carriage pass and then set off."

"No, no, pray don't think of it any more: I spoke quite randomly," said
Gwendolen; she began to feel a new objection to carrying out her own
proposition.

"But Mrs. Davilow knows I shall take care of you."

"Yes, but she would think of you as having to take care of my broken
neck."

There was a considerable pause before Grandcourt said, looking toward her,
"I should like to have the right always to take care of you."

Gwendolen did not turn her eyes on him; it seemed to her a long while that
she was first blushing, and then turning pale, but to Grandcourt's rate of
judgment she answered soon enough, with the lightest flute-tone and a
careless movement of the head, "Oh, I am not sure that I want to be taken
care of: if I chose to risk breaking my neck, I should like to be at
liberty to do it."

She checked her horse as she spoke, and turned in her saddle, looking
toward the advancing carriage. Her eyes swept across Grandcourt as she
made this movement, but there was no language in them to correct the
carelessness of her reply. At that very moment she was aware that she was
risking something--not her neck, but the possibility of finally checking
Grandcourt's advances, and she did not feel contented with the
possibility.

"Damn her!" thought Grandcourt, as he to checked his horse. He was not a
wordy thinker, and this explosive phrase stood for mixed impressions which
eloquent interpreters might have expanded into some sentences full of an
irritated sense that he was being mystified, and a determination that this
girl should not make a fool of him. Did she want him to throw himself at
her feet and declare that he was dying for her? It was not by that gate
that she could enter on the privileges he could give her. Or did she
expect him to write his proposals? Equally a delusion. He would not make
his offer in any way that could place him definitely in the position of
being rejected. But as to her accepting him, she had done it already in
accepting his marked attentions: and anything which happened to break them
off would be understood to her disadvantage. She was merely coquetting,
then?

However, the carriage came up, and no further _tete-a-tete_ could well
occur before their arrival at the house, where there was abundant company,
to whom Gwendolen, clad in riding-dress, with her hat laid aside, clad
also in the repute of being chosen by Mr. Grandcourt, was naturally a
centre of observation; and since the objectionable Mr. Lush was not there
to look at her, this stimulus of admiring attention heightened her
spirits, and dispersed, for the time, the uneasy consciousness of divided
impulses which threatened her with repentance of her own acts. Whether
Grandcourt had been offended or not there was no judging: his manners were
unchanged, but Gwendolen's acuteness had not gone deeper than to discern
that his manners were no clue for her, and because these were unchanged
she was not the less afraid of him.

She had not been at Diplow before except to dine; and since certain points
of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, Lady Flora
Hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had dispersed, and
the sun was sloping toward four o'clock, that the remaining party should
make a little exploration. Here came frequent opportunities when
Grandcourt might have retained Gwendolen apart, and have spoken to her
unheard. But no! He indeed spoke to no one else, but what he said was
nothing more eager or intimate than it had been in their first interview.
He looked at her not less than usual; and some of her defiant spirit
having come back, she looked full at him in return, not caring--rather
preferring--that his eyes had no expression in them.

But at last it seemed as if he entertained some contrivance. After they
had nearly made the tour of the grounds, the whole party stopped by the
pool to be amused with Fetch's accomplishment of bringing a water lily to
the bank like Cowper's spaniel Beau, and having been disappointed in his
first attempt insisted on his trying again.

Here Grandcourt, who stood with Gwendolen outside the group, turned
deliberately, and fixing his eyes on a knoll planted with American shrubs,
and having a winding path up it, said languidly--

"This is a bore. Shall we go up there?"

"Oh, certainly--since we are exploring," said Gwendolen. She was rather
pleased, and yet afraid.

The path was too narrow for him to offer his arm, and they walked up in
silence. When they were on the bit of platform at the summit, Grandcourt
said--

"There is nothing to be seen here: the thing was not worth climbing."

How was it that Gwendolen did not laugh? She was perfectly silent, holding
up the folds of her robe like a statue, and giving a harder grasp to the
handle of her whip, which she had snatched up automatically with her hat
when they had first set off.

"What sort of a place do you prefer?" said Grandcourt.

"Different places are agreeable in their way. On the whole, I think, I
prefer places that are open and cheerful. I am not fond of anything
sombre."

"Your place of Offendene is too sombre."

"It is, rather."

"You will not remain there long, I hope."

"Oh, yes, I think so. Mamma likes to be near her sister."

Silence for a short space.

"It is not to be supposed that _you_ will always live there, though Mrs.
Davilow may."

"I don't know. We women can't go in search of adventures--to find out the
North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in the
East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to
transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we
can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about the plants;
they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them have got
poisonous. What do you think?" Gwendolen had run on rather nervously,
lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her.

"I quite agree. Most things are bores," said Grandcourt, his mind having
been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track. But, after
a moment's pause, he continued in his broken, refined drawl--

"But a woman can be married."

"Some women can."

"You, certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel."

"I am not sure that I am not both cruel and obstinate." Here Gwendolen
suddenly turned her head and looked full at Grandcourt, whose eyes she had
felt to be upon her throughout their conversation. She was wondering what
the effect of looking at him would be on herself rather than on him.

He stood perfectly still, half a yard or more away from her; and it
flashed through her mind what a sort of lotus-eater's stupor had begun in
him and was taking possession of her. Then he said--

"Are you as uncertain about yourself as you make others about you?"

"I am quite uncertain about myself; I don't know how uncertain others may
be."

"And you wish them to understand that you don't care?" said Grandcourt,
with a touch of new hardness in his tone.

"I did not say that," Gwendolen replied, hesitatingly, and turning her
eyes away whipped the rhododendron bush again. She wished she were on
horseback that she might set off on a canter. It was impossible to set off
running down the knoll.

"You do care, then," said Grandcourt, not more quickly, but with a
softened drawl.

"Ha! my whip!" said Gwendolen, in a little scream of distress. She had let
it go--what could be more natural in a slight agitation?--and--but this
seemed less natural in a gold-handled whip which had been left altogether
to itself--it had gone with some force over the immediate shrubs, and had
lodged itself in the branches of an azalea half-way down the knoll. She
could run down now, laughing prettily, and Grandcourt was obliged to
follow; but she was beforehand with him in rescuing the whip, and
continued on her way to the level ground, when she paused and looked at
Grandcourt with an exasperating brightness in her glance and a heightened
color, as if she had carried a triumph, and these indications were still
noticeable to Mrs. Davilow when Gwendolen and Grandcourt joined the rest
of the party.

"It is all coquetting," thought Grandcourt; "the next time I beckon she
will come down."

It seemed to him likely that this final beckoning might happen the very
next day, when there was to be a picnic archery meeting in Cardell Chase,
according to the plan projected on the evening of the ball.

Even in Gwendolen's mind that result was one of two likelihoods that
presented themselves alternately, one of two decisions toward which she
was being precipitated, as if they were two sides of a boundary-line, and
she did not know on which she should fall. This subjection to a possible
self, a self not to be absolutely predicted about, caused her some
astonishment and terror; her favorite key of life--doing as she liked--
seemed to fail her, and she could not foresee what at a given moment she
might like to do. The prospect of marrying Grandcourt really seemed more
attractive to her than she had believed beforehand that any marriage could
be: the dignities, the luxuries, the power of doing a great deal of what
she liked to do, which had now come close to her, and within her choice to
secure or to lose, took hold of her nature as if it had been the strong
odor of what she had only imagined and longed for before. And Grandcourt
himself? He seemed as little of a flaw in his fortunes as a lover and
husband could possibly be. Gwendolen wished to mount the chariot and drive
the plunging horses herself, with a spouse by her side who would fold his
arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. Certainly,
with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma
dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault
before Grandcourt. He was adorably quiet and free from absurdities--he
would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make.
But what else was he? He had been everywhere, and seen everything. _That_
was desirable, and especially gratifying as a preamble to his supreme
preference for Gwendolen Harleth. He did not appear to enjoy anything
much. That was not necessary: and the less he had of particular tastes, or
desires, the more freedom his wife was likely to have in following hers.
Gwendolen conceived that after marriage she would most probably be able to
manage him thoroughly.

How was it that he caused her unusual constraint now?--that she was less
daring and playful in her talk with him than with any other admirer she
had known? That absence of demonstrativeness which she was glad of, acted
as a charm in more senses than one, and was slightly benumbing. Grandcourt
after all was formidable--a handsome lizard of a hitherto unknown species,
riot of the lively, darting kind. But Gwendolen knew hardly anything about
lizards, and ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities. This
splendid specimen was probably gentle, suitable as a boudoir pet: what may
not a lizard be, if you know nothing to the contrary? Her acquaintance
with Grandcourt was such that no accomplishment suddenly revealed in him
would have surprised her. And he was so little suggestive of drama, that
it hardly occurred to her to think with any detail how his life of thirty-
six years had been passed: in general, she imagined him always cold and
dignified, not likely ever to have committed himself. He had hunted the
tiger--had he ever been in love or made love? The one experience and the
other seemed alike remote in Gwendolen's fancy from the Mr. Grandcourt who
had come to Diplow in order apparently to make a chief epoch in her
destiny--perhaps by introducing her to that state of marriage which she
had resolved to make a state of greater freedom than her girlhood. And on
the whole she wished to marry him; he suited her purpose; her prevailing,
deliberate intention was, to accept him.

But was she going to fulfill her deliberate intention? She began to be
afraid of herself, and to find out a certain difficulty in doing as she
liked. Already her assertion of independence in evading his advances had
been carried farther than was necessary, and she was thinking with some
anxiety what she might do on the next occasion.

Seated according to her habit with her back to the horses on their drive
homeward, she was completely under the observation of her mamma, who took
the excitement and changefulness in the expression of her eyes, her
unwonted absence of mind and total silence, as unmistakable signs that
something unprecedented had occurred between her and Grandcourt. Mrs.
Davilow's uneasiness determined her to risk some speech on the subject:
the Gascoignes were to dine at Offendene, and in what had occurred this
morning there might be some reason for consulting the rector; not that she
expected him anymore than herself to influence Gwendolen, but that her
anxious mind wanted to be disburdened.

"Something has happened, dear?" she began, in a tender tone of question.

Gwendolen looked round, and seeming to be roused to the consciousness of
her physical self, took off her gloves and then her hat, that the soft
breeze might blow on her head. They were in a retired bit of the road,
where the long afternoon shadows from the bordering trees fell across it
and no observers were within sight. Her eyes continued to meet her
mother's, but she did not speak.

"Mr. Grandcourt has been saying something?--Tell me, dear." The last words
were uttered beseechingly.

"What am I to tell you, mamma?" was the perverse answer.

"I am sure something has agitated you. You ought to confide in me, Gwen.
You ought not to leave me in doubt and anxiety." Mrs. Davilow's eyes
filled with tears.

"Mamma, dear, please don't be miserable," said Gwendolen, with pettish
remonstrance. "It only makes me more so. I am in doubt myself."

"About Mr. Grandcourt's intentions?" said Mrs. Davilow, gathering
determination from her alarms.

"No; not at all," said Gwendolen, with some curtness, and a pretty little
toss of the head as she put on her hat again.

"About whether you will accept him, then?"

"Precisely."

"Have you given him a doubtful answer?"

"I have given him no answer at all."

"He _has_ spoken so that you could not misunderstand him?"

"As far as I would let him speak."

"You expect him to persevere?" Mrs. Davilow put this question rather
anxiously, and receiving no answer, asked another: "You don't consider
that you have discouraged him?"

"I dare say not."

"I thought you liked him, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, timidly.

"So I do, mamma, as liking goes. There is less to dislike about him than
about most men. He is quiet and _distingue_." Gwendolen so far spoke with
a pouting sort of gravity; but suddenly she recovered some of her
mischievousness, and her face broke into a smile as she added--"Indeed he
has all the qualities that would make a husband tolerable--battlement,
veranda, stable, etc., no grins and no glass in his eye."

"Do be serious with me for a moment, dear. Am I to understand that you
mean to accept him?"

"Oh, pray, mamma, leave me to myself," said Gwendolen, with a pettish
distress in her voice.

And Mrs. Davilow said no more.

When they got home Gwendolen declared that she would not dine. She was
tired, and would come down in the evening after she had taken some rest.
The probability that her uncle would hear what had passed did not trouble
her. She was convinced that whatever he might say would be on the side of
her accepting Grandcourt, and she wished to accept him if she could. At
this moment she would willingly have had weights hung on her own caprice.

Mr. Gascoigne did hear--not Gwendolen's answers repeated verbation, but a
softened generalized account of them. The mother conveyed as vaguely as
the keen rector's questions would let her the impression that Gwendolen
was in some uncertainty about her own mind, but inclined on the whole to
acceptance. The result was that the uncle felt himself called on to
interfere; he did not conceive that he should do his duty in witholding
direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this kind. Mrs. Davilow
ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would be safer to say
nothing--Gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like to say willful). But
the rector's was a firm mind, grasping its first judgments tenaciously and
acting on them promptly, whence counter-judgments were no more for him
than shadows fleeting across the solid ground to which he adjusted
himself.

This match with Grandcourt presented itself to him as a sort of public
affair; perhaps there were ways in which it might even strengthen the
establishment. To the rector, whose father (nobody would have suspected
it, and nobody was told) had risen to be a provincial corn-dealer,
aristocratic heirship resembled regal heirship in excepting its possessor
from the ordinary standard of moral judgments, Grandcourt, the almost
certain baronet, the probable peer, was to be ranged with public
personages, and was a match to be accepted on broad general grounds
national and ecclesiastical. Such public personages, it is true, are often
in the nature of giants which an ancient community may have felt pride and
safety in possessing, though, regarded privately, these born eminences
must often have been inconvenient and even noisome. But of the future
husband personally Mr. Gascoigne was disposed to think the best. Gossip is
a sort of smoke that comes from the dirty tobacco-pipes of of those who
diffuse it: it proves nothing but the bad taste of the smoker. But if
Grandcourt had really made any deeper or more unfortunate experiments in
folly than were common in young men of high prospects, he was of an age to
have finished them. All accounts can be suitably wound up when a man has
not ruined himself, and the expense may be taken as an insurance against
future error. This was the view of practical wisdom; with reference to
higher views, repentance had a supreme moral and religious value. There
was every reason to believe that a woman of well-regulated mind would be
happy with Grandcourt.

It was no surprise to Gwendolen on coming down to tea to be told that her
uncle wished to see her in the dining-room. He threw aside the paper as
she entered and greeted her with his usual kindness. As his wife had
remarked, he always "made much" of Gwendolen, and her importance had risen
of late. "My dear," he said, in a fatherly way, moving a chair for her as
he held her hand, "I want to speak to you on a subject which is more
momentous than any other with regard to your welfare. You will guess what
I mean. But I shall speak to you with perfect directness: in such matters
I consider myself bound to act as your father. You have no objection, I
hope?"

"Oh dear, no, uncle. You have always been very kind to me," said
Gwendolen, frankly. This evening she was willing, if it were possible, to
be a little fortified against her troublesome self, and her resistant
temper was in abeyance. The rector's mode of speech always conveyed a
thrill of authority, as of a word of command: it seemed to take for
granted that there could be no wavering in the audience, and that every
one was going to be rationally obedient.

"It is naturally a satisfaction to me that the prospect of a marriage for
you--advantageous in the highest degree--has presented itself so early. I
do not know exactly what has passed between you and Mr. Grandcourt, but I
presume there can be little doubt, from the way in which he has
distinguished you, that he desires to make you his wife."

Gwendolen did not speak immediately, and her uncle said with more
emphasis--

"Have you any doubt of that yourself, my dear?"

"I suppose that is what he has been thinking of. But he may have changed
his mind to-morrow," said Gwendolen.

"Why to-morrow? Has he made advances which you have discouraged?"

"I think he meant--he began to make advances--but I did not encourage
them. I turned the conversation."

"Will you confide in me so far as to tell me your reasons?"

"I am not sure that I had any reasons, uncle." Gwendolen laughed rather
artificially.

"You are quite capable of reflecting, Gwendolen. You are aware that this
is not a trivial occasion, and it concerns your establishment for life
under circumstances which may not occur again. You have a duty here both
to yourself and your family. I wish to understand whether you have any
ground for hesitating as to your acceptance of Mr. Grandcourt."

"I suppose I hesitate without grounds." Gwendolen spoke rather poutingly,
and her uncle grew suspicious.

"Is he disagreeable to you personally?"

"No."

"Have you heard anything of him which has affected you disagreeably?" The
rector thought it impossible that Gwendolen could have heard the gossip he
had heard, but in any case he must endeavor to put all things in the right
light for her.

"I have heard nothing about him except that he is a great match," said
Gwendolen, with some sauciness; "and that affects me very agreeably."

"Then, my dear Gwendolen, I have nothing further to say than this: you
hold your fortune in your own hands--a fortune such as rarely happens to a
girl in your circumstances--a fortune in fact which almost takes the
question out of the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your
acceptance of it a duty. If Providence offers you power and position--
especially when unclogged by any conditions that are repugnant to you--
your course is one of responsibility, into which caprice must not enter. A
man does not like to have his attachment trifled with: he may not be at
once repelled--these things are matters of individual disposition. But the
trifling may be carried too far. And I must point out to you that in case
Mr. Grandcourt were repelled without your having refused him--without your
having intended ultimately to refuse him, your situation would be a
humiliating and painful one. I, for my part, should regard you with severe
disapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own coquetry and
folly."

Gwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. The
ideas it raised had the force of sensations. Her resistant courage would
not help her here, because her uncle was not urging her against her own
resolve; he was pressing upon her the motives of dread which she already
felt; he was making her more conscious of the risks that lay within
herself. She was silent, and the rector observed that he had produced some
strong effect.

"I mean this in kindness, my dear." His tone had softened.

"I am aware of that, uncle," said Gwendolen, rising and shaking her head
back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. "I am not foolish.
I know that I must be married some time--before it is too late. And I
don't see how I could do better than marry Mr. Grandcourt. I mean to
accept him, if possible." She felt as if she were reinforcing herself by
speaking with this decisiveness to her uncle.

But the rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own
meaning from those young lips. He wished that in her mind his advice
should be taken in an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such as
are presupposed in the advice of a clergyman, although he may not consider
them always appropriate to be put forward. He wished his niece parks,
carriages, a title--everything that would make this world a pleasant
abode; but he wished her not to be cynical--to be, on the contrary,
religiously dutiful, and have warm domestic affections.

"My dear Gwendolen," he said, rising also, and speaking with benignant
gravity, "I trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty
and affection. Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a
woman, and if your marriage with Mr. Grandcourt should be happily decided
upon, you will have, probably, an increasing power, both of rank and
wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. These considerations
are something higher than romance! You are fitted by natural gifts for a
position which, considering your birth and early prospects, could hardly
be looked forward to as in the ordinary course of things; and I trust
that, you will grace it, not only by those personal gifts, but by a good
and consistent life."

"I hope mamma will be the happier," said Gwendolen, in a more cheerful
way, lifting her hands backward to her neck and moving toward the door.
She wanted to waive those higher considerations.

Mr. Gascoigne felt that he had come to a satisfactory understanding with
his niece, and had furthered her happy settlement in life by furthering
her engagement to Grandcourt. Meanwhile there was another person to whom
the contemplation of that issue had been a motive for some activity, and
who believed that he, too, on this particular day had done something
toward bringing about a favorable decision in _his_ sense--which happened
to be the reverse of the rector's.

Mr. Lush's absence from Diplow during Gwendolen's visit had been due, not
to any fear on his part of meeting that supercilious young lady, or of
being abashed by her frank dislike, but to an engagement from which he
expected important consequences. He was gone, in fact, to the Wanchester
station to meet a lady, accompanied by a maid and two children, whom he
put into a fly, and afterward followed to the hotel of the Golden Keys, in
that town. An impressive woman, whom many would turn to look at again in
passing; her figure was slim and sufficiently tall, her face rather
emaciated, so that its sculpturesque beauty was the more pronounced, her
crisp hair perfectly black, and her large, anxious eyes what we call
black. Her dress was soberly correct, her age, perhaps, physically more
advanced than the number of years would imply, but hardly less than seven-
and-thirty. An uneasy-looking woman: her glance seemed to presuppose that
the people and things were going to be unfavorable to her, while she was,
nevertheless, ready to meet them with resolution. The children were
lovely--a dark-haired girl of six or more, a fairer boy of five. When Lush
incautiously expressed some surprise at her having brought the children,
she said, with a sharp-toned intonation--

"Did you suppose I should come wandering about here by myself? Why should
I not bring all four if I liked?"

"Oh, certainly," said Lush, with his usual fluent _nonchalance_.

He stayed an hour or so in conference with her, and rode back to Diplow in
a state of mind that was at once hopeful and busily anxious as to the
execution of the little plan on which his hopefulness was based.
Grandcourt's marriage to Gwendolen Harleth would not, he believed, be much
of a good to either of them, and it would plainly be fraught with
disagreeables to himself. But now he felt confident enough to say
inwardly, "I will take, nay, I will lay odds that the marriage will never
happen."