Loe raamatut: «A Double Knot», lehekülg 10

Volume Two – Chapter One. The Story – Years Ago – (Continued).
Mr Montaigne Establishes a Bond of Sympathy

Mr Paul Montaigne was one of those quiet, bland gentlemen who, apparently without an effort, seemed to know everything that went on in his immediate neighbourhood. He never asked questions, but waited patiently, and the result was that, drawn, perhaps, by his quiet, persuasive way, people told him all he wanted to know.

Somehow, he had the knack of winning the confidence of women, and if he had been a confessor his would have been an easy task.

There were those who said that he was a Jesuit, but when it came to his ears he merely smiled pityingly, and made a point of attending church at all the week-day services, and repeating the responses in a quiet, reverent way that, combined with his closed eyes, gave him the aspect of true devoutness.

How he lived none knew, but it was supposed that he had an income from a vineyard in Central France, one which he had inherited from his father, an English gentleman who had had a taste for wine-growing.

Mr Paul Montaigne never contradicted the rumour, and he never entered into particulars about his past. He had been the friend of the mother of Clotilde and Marie. He had brought the children over to England when quite a young man, with a very French look and a suggestion of his being a student at a French religious seminary. He had brought letters of introduction with him, and he had been in England ever since.

Time seemed to have stood still with Paul Montaigne. Certainly, he was just a shade stouter, and there were a few bright, silvery-looking hairs about his temples; in other respects he looked quite a young man, for his smoothly-shaven face showed scarcely a line, his dark eyes were bright, and his black brows were as smoothly arched as if drawn with a pair of compasses.

Upon that smooth face there was always a pensive, half-sad smile, one which he seemed to be constantly trying to wipe off with his soft, plump, well-shaped, and very white hand, but without success, for the smile was always there – the quiet, beseeching smile, that won so many women’s confidence, but sometimes had the contrary effect upon the sterner sex.

Those who said that he was a student were to some extent right, for his modest lodgings at Teddington were well furnished with books, and he was a familiar object to many, as with his white hands clasped behind him he walked in his semi-clerical habit to and from the Palace at Hampton Court – through Bushey Park, and always on the same side of the road, making a point of pausing at the inlet of the Diana Pool to throw crumbs of bread to the eager fish, before continuing his walk in by the Lion Gate into the Palace gardens to the large fountain basin, where the great gold and silver fish also had their portion.

He never spoke to anyone; apparently nobody ever spoke to him, and he went his way to and fro, generally known as “the priest,” making his journeys two or three times a week to call at the apartments of the Honourable Misses Dymcox to see his young pupils, as he called them, and to converse with them to keep up their French.

Upon these occasions he partook of the weak tea handed round by Joseph, and broke a portion off one of the thin biscuits that accompanied the cups. In fact, he was an institution with the Dymcox family, and had been duly taken into the ladies’ confidence respecting the movement proposed by Lady Littletown.

“My dear ladies,” he had responded, “you know my position here – my trust to the dead; I watch over the welfare of their children, and you tell me this is for their well-being. What else can I say but may your plans prosper?”

“But I would not mention it to the children, Mr Montaigne,” said Miss Philippa.

“I mention it! My dear madam, all these years that you have known me, and is my character a sealed book to you still?”

“For my part, I don’t like him,” said Joseph once to Markes, and he was politely told not to be a fool. Cook, however, who had a yearning after the mysterious, proved to be of a more sympathetic mind, and when Joseph told her his opinion, that this Mr Montaigne was only a Jesuit and a priest in disguise, cook said she shouldn’t a bit wonder, for “them sort often was.”

Now, cook had not seen Mr Montaigne, so her judgment should be taken cum grano, as also in the case where Joseph declared Mr Montaigne to be “a deep ’un,” when she declared that was sure to be the case.

On the night of the dinner-party at Hampton, the carriage – to wit, Mr Buddy’s fly – had no sooner departed than Markes announced her intention of going next door to see Lady Anna Maria Morton’s maid; at which cook grunted, and, being left alone, proceeded to take out a basket from the dresser drawer, and seated herself to have what she called a couple of hours’ good darn.

One of those hours had nearly passed, and several black worsted stockings had been ornamented with patches of rectangular embroidery, when the outer door-bell rang.

“If that’s one of them dratted soldiers calling with his impudence, he’ll get sent off with a flea in his ear,” cried cook.

She bounced up angrily, and made her way to the door. It was no gallant Lancer in undress uniform and a cane under his arm, but Mr Paul Montaigne, whom cook at once knew by his description.

“The ladies in?” he said quietly.

“No, sir; which, please, they’ve gone to dine at Lady Littletown’s.”

“To be sure, yes, I had forgotten,” he said, smiling nicely – so cook put it – at the plump domestic. “But never mind, I will have a few minutes’ chat with Miss Clotilde and Miss Marie.”

“Which they’ve gone as well, sir.”

“To be sure, yes, I ought to have known,” said the visitor absently, “I ought to have remembered; and is Miss Ruth gone as well?”

“Oh no, sir; she’s in the schoolroom all alone!”

“Indeed!” said Mr Montaigne, raising his eyebrows. “Ah, well, I will not disturb – and yet, I don’t know; I am rather tired, and I will have a few minutes’ chat with her before I walk back.”

“Such a nice, mild-spoken kind of gentleman, though he had rather a papish look,” said cook; and she ushered the visitor into the empty drawing-room, going directly after to tell Ruth.

It was growing dark, and Ruth, who was in bad spirits at having been left alone, felt a kind of shrinking, she could not have told why, from meeting Mr Montaigne.

He had always been quiet and paternal in his treatment, and she had, as a rule, shared the lessons of Clotilde and Marie; but, somehow, Ruth was one of the women whose confidence he had never won.

“Ah, Ruth, my child,” he said, advancing with quiet, cat-like step as she entered, and his voice sounded soft and velvety in the silence of the gloomy place, “and so you are all alone?”

“Yes; I will ring for candles,” she said hastily.

“No, my child, it is not necessary,” he replied, taking her hand, and leading her to the stiff, formal old sofa at the side of the room. “I had forgotten that the dinner-party was this evening, or I should not have walked over. As it is, dear child, I will sit down and rest for ten minutes, and then stroll back.”

“Would you like a cup of tea made for you? cook would soon have it ready,” asked Ruth.

“Oh no, no, my child,” he said softly, as he sat there, evidently forgetting that he still retained the little white hand, which, after an effort to withdraw, Ruth felt obliged to let rest where it was, prisoned now between both of Mr Montaigne’s soft sets of well-cared-for fingers, as he spoke.

“What a calm, delicious repose there always seems to be here, Ruth, within these Palace walls! The gay, noisy throng of pleasure-seekers come from the busy hive of industry, and flit and flutter about the park and gardens; their footsteps echo through the state chambers, as they gaze at the relics of a bygone time, and their voices ring with merry, thoughtless jest; but, somehow, their presence never seems to penetrate to these private apartments, where all is calmness, purity, and peace.”

“Yes; I often wonder at the way in which we seem to escape hearing them as we do,” replied Ruth, making an effort to respond; for her heart was beating painfully, and she was afraid that the visitor might note the tremor in her voice.

“Peace and repose,” he said softly, as he played with the hand he held. “The world seems far away from you here, and I often envy you the calm, unruffled existence that you enjoy. But tell me, child, did you feel disappointed at not forming one of the party this evening?”

“I – I must confess that I should have liked to go,” faltered Ruth.

“Well, yes, it was very natural,” he replied; and as Ruth glanced quickly at him, she felt that there was a grave smile upon his face. She could barely see it, for the room was growing darker, and now, for a few moments, her tremor began to increase.

“But Clotilde and Marie are older than I, and it was only natural that they should be preferred. And then, Mr Montaigne, they are so beautiful.”

“Not more beautiful than you are, Ruth.”

“Mr Montaigne!”

She made an effort to withdraw her hand, but it was tightly retained.

“Not more beautiful in person, less beautiful in mind and temperament, my child,” continued Montaigne. “Don’t try to withdraw your hand; I wish to talk seriously to you.”

Ruth felt that to struggle would be unseemly, and though she felt an undefined dread of her position, her reason seemed to combat what she was ready to condemn as fancy, and Mr Montaigne had known her from, and still addressed her as, a “child.”

“I should feel deeply disappointed if it were not so, Ruth; for I look upon you as one whose mind I have helped to train, whose growing intellect I have tried to form, and bias towards a love of the beautiful and pure and good.”

Ruth felt more at her ease, and less troubled that the visitor should retain her hand.

“I have, I think – nay, I boldly say – led your mind in its studies, and guided your reading,” continued Montaigne in the same low, bland voice, every tone of which was musical, deep, and sweet. It had not a harsh, jarring tone, but all was carefully modulated, and lent a charm to what he spoke.

Ruth murmured something about feeling very grateful, and wished that he would go.

“Tell me, child,” he said gently, and now one soft hand glided to Ruth’s wrist, and a finger rested upon her pulse, probably that the mental physician might test the regularity of the beats produced by his long-administered moral medicine, “what are you reading now?”

“‘Froissart’s Chronicle,’” replied Ruth.

“An excellent work – one which leads the mind to an appreciation of chivalry and the noble deeds of the past. Any work of fiction?”

“Ye-es,” faltered Ruth; “I have read part of a novel.”

“That the Misses Dymcox placed in your hands?”

“No,” faltered Ruth, speaking like a found-out child. “Ought I to tell you, Mr Montaigne?”

“Assuredly, my child. What should you keep from me?”

“It was a work by George Eliot that Clotilde had obtained from the library.”

“Unknown to her aunts?”

“Yes, Mr Montaigne; but please don’t be angry with her.”

“No, my child, I will not.”

“Clotilde did not like it, and threw it aside, and I happened to see it; but I have not read much.”

“They get novels, then?” said Mr Montaigne.

“They will be very angry with me for telling you, Mr Montaigne.”

“I shall not tell them, dear child; perhaps it is natural. What is Clotilde reading now?”

“A French story, ‘Annette’.”

“In-deed!” said Montaigne softly; and he drew his breath between his teeth. “And have you read it, child?”

“No, Mr Montaigne. Miss Philippa expressly forbade our ever reading French novels; she said they were bad.”

“Well – yes – perhaps, my child; but your pure, sweet young mind would eliminate the evil, and retain only the true and good. I should not debar you from such works. So you young ladies obtain novels from the library?”

“I do not,” said Ruth simply. “But pray do not ask me such things, Mr Montaigne; it makes me seem to be tale-bearing about my cousins.”

“Don’t be afraid, my child,” continued Montaigne; “let there be more confidence between us. Believe me, Ruth, you may trust me always as your best friend, and one to whom your welfare is very, very dear.”

“Thank you, Mr Montaigne,” faltered Ruth; “I will try to think of you as you wish. Will you let me ring for candles now?”

“Oh no, it is not necessary, my dear; I am going directly. Come, Ruth, my child, why do you shrink away? Am I so very dreadful, my little girl? There, sit still,” he said in a whisper. “I shall have to make you a prisoner, while I read you a lesson on obedience and duty to those who have your welfare at heart.”

Ruth was growing alarmed, for he had softly passed one arm round her little waist, and in spite of her feeble struggles drawn her to his side.

“There, my child, now I feel as if you were my own loving, dutiful little girl whom I had adopted; and I am going to cross-examine you like a father confessor,” he continued playfully. “Ruth dear, I hope this little heart is in safe-keeping.”

“I – I do not understand you, Mr Montaigne,” cried Ruth, whose womanly instincts were now alarmed.

“Will you loose me, please, and let me ring for the candles? It is quite dark.”

“But you are not afraid of being in the dark, my child,” he whispered; “and – hush! not a word.”

He laid his hand upon her lips, for just then Markes’ voice was heard outside.

“Ruth! Miss Ruth!”

“Sit still, foolish child!” he whispered, holding her more tightly; “that woman would perhaps chatter if she knew you were here like this with me.”

A chill of horror came over Ruth, and she sat like one paralysed, as the handle turned, the door opened, and Markes looked into the darkened room.

“Why, where has the girl gone?” she muttered angrily.

She went away directly, and a moment or two later her voice was heard crying:

“She isn’t in the drawing-room, cook.”

“You had better go up to your own room, child,” said Montaigne softly. “I will go now. Do not trouble about this; for I think it weak to trust servants, whose ignorance and prejudice often lead them to wrong ideas. Good-night, my child. You have neither father nor mother, but remember that while Paul Montaigne lives you have one who is striving to fill the place of both, as he tries to watch over you for your good.”

He had allowed her to rise now, but he still retained her hand as he stood beside her, his words for the moment disarming the resentment in her breast.

“Good-night, my dear child. I shall let myself out after you have reached your room. Good-night – good-night. Nay, your lips, Ruth, to me.”

Before she had well realised the fact, he had folded her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers. Then, loosening her from his embrace, he let her go, and, trembling and agitated as she had never been before, she ran quickly to her room.

Innocent at heart, and unskilled in the ways of the world as girl could be, as she seated herself upon the edge of the bed she ran rapidly over what had taken place.

She did not like Mr Montaigne, and his acts towards her that night made her tremble with indignation; but these thoughts were met by another current, which seemed to tell her that she was misjudging him. He had spoken to her as to one who was very dear to him. His words had been those of a father to his child; and why should she resent it? Mr Montaigne was not a young man, and it might seem to him that their positions had in no wise changed since she, a trembling, heart-broken little girl, fresh from a wretched home, had sat and listened to his soft, bland voice, followed his instructions, and had her curls smoothed by his soft white hand.

“But I am a woman grown now, and it is dreadful,” she cried, bursting into a passion of indignant tears. “I don’t like it. I will speak to Miss Philippa. I don’t think it is right.”

“Are you there, Miss Ruth?”

“Yes, Markes.”

“Oh, that’s right. I thought you was lost. Cook told me you were in the drawing-room when I came in. There, child, don’t sit and mope in the dark because you did not get asked to the party. You’ll be a woman soon, my dear, and maybe they’ll find you a husband like the rest.”

“Child!” Yes, it was always “child”; but the girl’s heart rebelled against the appellation. These elderly maidens could not think of her as one whose mind was ripening fast, in spite of the sunless seclusion in which she lived.

“I’ll tell Markes,” she thought, as her heart throbbed with the recollection of that which had passed. But no; she could not. There was something repellent in this woman’s ways, and at last, with her brain in a tumult with conflicting ideas, Ruth sought her pillow, while Paul Montaigne, with a curious smile upon his face, was still pacing his room after his dark walk back to Teddington, one hand clasping the other, as if he still held Ruth’s.

“No,” he said, “she will not say a word. It is not likely. There is a bond of sympathy between us now.”

He walked up and down a little longer, and then stood still, talking softly – half aloud.

“Woman is our master, they say; but let her be led to compromise herself, however slightly, and she becomes the slave. Poor little Ruth, she is very innocent and sweet.”

Volume Two – Chapter Two.
Love Paints and Decorates

The change at the Honourable Misses Dymcox’s home was something so startling that Ruth was almost bewildered. Even on the following morning at breakfast, after Joseph had brought in the urn, the alteration had begun.

The wine of the last night’s party might have been fancied to be still having its influence, the ladies were so much less austere.

“I’m very, very glad you enjoyed yourselves so much, my dears,” said the Honourable Philippa, smiling.

“You feel none the worse, my loves?” said the Honourable Isabella.

“Oh no, aunt,” said Clotilde; “I feel better. Don’t you, Marie?”

“Oh yes,” said that young lady; “it was a delightful party.”

“It was, my dears,” said the Honourable Philippa, letting the water from the urn run over the top of the teapot. “Bless me, how careless! I am glad I consented to allow you both to go, for you see how necessary to a proper state of existence a due amount of money becomes.”

“How admirably dear Lady Littletown manages her income!” said the Honourable Isabella.

“Yes, and how needful a good income really is! Yes, it was a very distingué dinner. Marie, my child, Lord Henry Moorpark is most gentlemanly, is he not?”

“Oh yes, I like him very much,” replied Marie, with animation, and a slight flush in her cheek, for she had been suddenly appealed to when thinking about Marcus Glen, and the way he had glanced at her more than once. “He seems a very nice old gentleman.”

“Hem!” coughed the Honourable Philippa austerely. “I do not think him old.”

“Certainly not!” exclaimed the Honourable Isabella; “hardly elderly.”

“Decidedly no,” continued the Honourable Philippa. “By the way, Clotilde, my love, you found Mr Elbraham very pleasant?”

“Oh yes, aunt.”

“I am glad of it,” said the Honourable Philippa, smiling graciously, while Ruth, open-eyed and listening, went on with her breakfast, wondering at the change. “He is the great financier – enormously wealthy. I hear that he is to be made a duke by the Austrian emperor. He is already a chevalier.”

“Indeed, aunt?” said Clotilde, who also was thinking of Captain Glen.

“Yes, my dear; his houses are a marvel, I believe, for their wealth and display.”

“Is he a Jew, aunt?” said Marie innocently.

“My dear child, no! How can you ask such a question, Marie? I have heard something about his family being of Hebrew descent – Eastern Hebrew descent – Elbraham, Abraham, very ancient, no doubt; but I don’t know for certain, and really I do not care to know: for what does it matter?”

“Yes, what indeed?” said her sister. “A very gentlemanly, highly-cultured man.”

“With a wonderful knowledge of the world and its ways. He has been a deal in Egypt, did not Lady Littletown say, Isabella?”

“Yes, with the Khedive,” was the reply. “Enormously wealthy.”

The breakfast ended, the young ladies were dismissed.

“I would not go to the schoolroom this morning, my dears,” said the elder sister; “go and lie down for an hour or two and rest. After lunch Lady Littletown is coming with the carriage to take you for a drive, and I should like you to look your best.”

“Rie,” exclaimed Clotilde, as soon as they were in their room with Ruth, who was debating in her own mind whether she ought not to take her cousins into her confidence about Mr Montaigne, but shrinking from relating the communication to such unsympathetic ears.

“Well?”

“You, Ruth, if you dare to say a word about what we talk about, I’ll kill you!” cried Clotilde.

“I think you may trust me,” said Ruth, smiling.

“Then mind you do keep secret,” continued Clotilde. “Rie,” she cried again, “I can see through it all; I know what it means.”

“Do you?” said Marie quietly.

“Yes, they’re going to sell us both – a bargain.”

“Are they?” said Marie, who was thinking she would like to be sold to Marcus Glen.

“Yes, it’s going to be like it was in that novel of Georges Sand. We’re to be married to rich old men because we are young and beautiful; and if they marry me to one, I’m sorry for the old man.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do,” exclaimed Clotilde: “else why were we dressed up, and sent down to dinner with that old Jew, and that old, yellow Lord Henry Moorpark, when there were those young officers there?”

“I don’t know,” said Marie thoughtfully, as once more her mind reverted to Captain Glen.

“Then I do,” cried Clotilde, with flashing eyes. “I should like to be married, and have an establishment, and diamonds, and servants; but if they make me marry that dreadful man – ”

“Well, what?” said Marie, with a depth of thought in her handsome eyes.

“You’ll see!” cried Clotilde; and thrusting her hand in between the mattress and the palliasse, she dragged out the highly-moral paper-covered French novel that had lain there perdu.

After the genial thawing of the ice there could be no more such severe and cutting behaviour as that which marked the meeting of Captain Glen and Richard Millet with the Dymcox family; and a day or two later, when the two officers were idling about the broad walks, with the boy’s eyes watching in all directions, but only to be disappointed at every turn, they came suddenly upon the party taking their morning walk.

“No, my dears,” the Honourable Philippa was saying, in reply to a request made by Clotilde; “the park is impassable, for the scenes that take place there are a disgrace to humanity, and the Government ought to be forced to interfere. It is not so very long ago that your aunt and I were thoughtfully walking beneath the trees – that glorious avenue of chestnuts, that we poor occupants of the Palace can only view free from insult at early morn or late in the evening – I say your aunt and I were pensively walking beneath the trees, when we stumbled full upon a coarse-minded crew of people sitting eating and drinking upon the grass, and a dreadful-looking man with a shiny head held up a great stone bottle and wanted us to drink. You remember, Isabella?”

“Yes, sister; and we fled down the avenue, to come upon another party engaged in some orgie. They had joined hands in a circle like savages, and one dreadful man was pursuing a woman, whom he captured, and in spite of her shrieks – ”

“I think we had better not pursue the subject further, Isabella,” said the Honourable Philippa; “it is not a seemly one in the presence of young ladies. I need only tell you, my dears, that they were engaged in a rite popular among the lower orders – a sort of sport called ‘kiss-in-the-ring’.”

“Hush, sister!” whispered the Honourable Isabella; “the gentlemen.”

Poor Isabella’s hands began to tremble in a peculiar, nervous way as tall, English-looking Marcus Glen approached, appearing so much the more manly for having dapper Richard Millet by his side. The lady was not foolish enough to imagine that Glen wished to be attentive to her, but there was a sweet, regretful kind of pleasure in his presence, and when he spoke her withered heart seemed to expand, and old affections that had been laid up to dry, like sweet-scented flowers between leaves, began to put forth once again their forgotten odours, as if they were evoked by the presence of the sun.

The Honourable Philippa looked stern, and would have passed on with a bow; but when her sister put forth her trembling hand, and smiled with satisfaction at meeting the young officer again, such a line of conduct was impossible; and, as a matter of course, there was a very friendly greeting all round.

The Honourable Philippa felt frigid as she saw Marie’s eyes brighten, and that a charmingly ingenuous blush rose in her cheeks; she felt more frigid as she saw the greeting between Clotilde and Glen; for if ever girl looked her satisfaction at seeing anyone again, the ascetically-reared Clotilde was that maiden, and, truth to tell, in the innocency and guiltlessness of her heart she returned the pressure of the young officer’s hand as warmly as it was given.

As for Richard Millet, he began by blushing like a girl; then, making an effort, he mastered his timidity, and shone almost as brightly as his new patent-leather boots, thinking, too, how well he managed to get the young ladies all to himself; while Marcus talked quietly, and in a matter-of-fact way, to the Honourable Misses Dymcox, till Philippa grew a little less austere, and her hand felt at parting not quite so much like five pieces of bone in as many finger-stalls.

There was another unmistakable pressure from Clotilde’s hand, too, and a far more timid one from that of Marie, whose eyes wore a curiously pensive look, as the gentlemen doffed their hats and went their way.

It is worthy of note that poor Ruth passed an exceedingly uncomfortable day, being made aware of what was as nearly a couple of quarrels as could take place between ladies. The first took place in the drawing-room, where, after bidding Clotilde and Marie go and take off their things, the Honourable Philippa fiercely attacked her sister upon her levity.

“Shocked, Isabella! I can find no other word for it —shocked,” she exclaimed. “Your conduct to-day with those two young men was really objectionable.”

“I deny it, sister,” retorted the Honourable Isabella. “We met two of dear Lady Littletown’s guests whom we knew, and we spoke to them. They are both officers and gentlemen, and nothing, I am sure, could have been nicer than the behaviour of Captain Glen.”

“Is – a – bella!” exclaimed her sister, “when you know what is being arranged. It is like madness to encourage the intimacy of those young men.”

“Perhaps they wish to be intimate for politeness’ sake,” said the Honourable Isabella demurely, though her nervous hands were trembling and playing about the puckers of her dress.

“I declare, sister, you are absurd, you are almost childish; as if young men – young officers – cared about politeness when there were ladies like our nieces in the case.”

“Well, sister,” replied the Honourable Isabella tearfully, “I am sure I don’t know, but for my part I would rather see Clotilde and Marie married to Captain Glen and Mr Millet than as you and dear Lady Littletown had arranged.”

“And you!” cried her sister; “you were as eager as anyone, and you know how it will be for their good. Our family will be raised from penury to affluence, and we shall have done our duty, I am sure.”

“But it seems very sad, sister – very sad indeed.”

“Fie, Isabella!” exclaimed the Honourable Philippa; “what would Lady Littletown think if she heard of such miserable weakness? Think, too, what would Lord Henry Moorpark or Mr Elbraham say if they knew that these young men were encouraged here? It must be stopped, or encouraged very coldly indeed. Yes, Markes, what is it?”

“This box, please’m, and this little basket, please’m,” said the woman.

“How often have we told you, Markes, that all these things should be left to Joseph to bring up? It is not your duty,” exclaimed the Honourable Philippa. “Now, let me see.”

The box was directed to her, so was the basket; and reading the direction by the aid of her large gold eyeglass, she afterwards cut the box string, and on opening the loose lid set free a marvellously beautiful bouquet of very choice flowers.

The basket was opened, and contained another bouquet, but there was no message, no letter, with either.

The Honourable Philippa gazed at the Honourable Isabella, and that lady returned the meaning gaze; then they sent Markes away with the empty box and basket, leaving the elderly sisters to commune alone, and to whisper their satisfaction, in spite of a little hanging back on the part of the Honourable Isabella, that matters had progressed so well.

Meanwhile there was a cloudiness in the moral atmosphere upstairs which betokened a storm.

Ruth saw it and trembled, for hour by hour her cousins had seemed to her to change.

She did not know how it was – in fact, she was puzzled; but the change was very natural. The two girls had been treated somewhat after the fashion of flowers, and grown on and on in their cool retirement until they had attained to their full development and beauty, though as yet only in a state of bud. Then they had suddenly been placed in the full blaze of society’s sunshine.

The effect was what might have been expected. The buds had suddenly expanded; every latent thought of suppressed womanhood had burst into light and passionate life; every kept-down fancy and desire that had been in abeyance had started forth, and the buds were in full bloom, just as some choice exotic will in a few hours be completely transformed.

Very little was said for a time, but as the sisters removed their walking apparel there was more than one fierce look exchanged.

“I saw her look at him,” thought Clotilde; “and I’d kill her sooner than she should.”

“Such outrageous effrontery!” thought Marie; “but she does not know me if she thinks I am going to sit down quietly and let her win.”

“Enjoy your walk, dear?” said Clotilde, attitudinising before the glass, and admiring herself with half-closed eyes.