The American Senator

about the neighbourhood, and having heard much of the young lady as the future wife of his own cousin, had acknowledged to himself that she was very handsome. But he had thought at the same time that under no possible circumstances could he have fallen in love with Miss Trefoil. He believed that he did not care much for female beauty, and yet he felt that he could sit and look at Mary Masters by the hour together. There was a quiet even composure about her, always lightened by the brightness of her modest eyes, which seemed to tell him of some mysterious world within, which was like the unseen loveliness that one fancies to be hidden within the bosom of distant mountains. There was a poem to be read there of surpassing beauty, rhythmical and eloquent as the music of the spheres, if it might only be given to a man to read it. There was an absence, too, of all attempt at feminine self-glorification which he did not analyse but thoroughly appreciated. There was no fussy amplification of hair, no made-up smiles, no affectation either in her good humour or her anger, no attempt at effect in her gait, in her speech, or her looks. She seemed to him to be one who had something within her on which she could feed independently of the grosser details of the world to which it was her duty to lend her hand. And then her colour charmed his eyes. Miss Trefoil was white and red;⁠—white as pearl powder and red as paint. Mary Masters, to tell the truth, was brown. No doubt that was the prevailing colour, if one colour must be named. But there was so rich a tint of young life beneath the surface, so soft but yet so visible an assurance of blood and health and spirit, that no one could describe her complexion by so ugly a word without falsifying her gifts. In all her movements she was tranquil, as a noble woman should be. Even when she had turned from him with some anger at the bridge, she had walked like a princess. There was a certainty of modesty about her which was like a granite wall or a strong fortress. As he thought of it all he did not understand how such a one as Lawrence Twentyman should have dared to ask her to be his wife⁠—or should even have wished it.

We know what were her feelings in regard to himself⁠—how she had come to look almost with worship on the walls within which he lived; but he had guessed nothing of this. Even now, when he knew that she had applied to his aunt in order that she might escape from her lover, it did not occur to him that she could care for himself. He was older than she, nearly twenty years older, and even in his younger years, in the hard struggles of his early life, had never regarded himself as a man likely to find favour with women. There was in his character much of that modesty for which he gave her such infinite credit. Though he thought but little of most of those around him, he thought also but little of himself. It would break his heart to ask and be refused;⁠—but he could, he fancied, live very well without Mary Masters. Such, at any rate, had been his own idea of himself hitherto; and now, though he was driven to think much of her, though on the present occasion he was forced to act on her behalf, he would not tell himself that he wanted to take her for his wife. He constantly assured himself that he wanted no wife, that for him a solitary life would be the best. But yet it made him wretched when he reflected that some man would assuredly marry Mary Masters. He had heard of that excellent but empty-headed young man Mr. Surtees. When the idea occurred to him he found himself reviling Mr. Surtees as being of all men the most puny, the most unmanly, and the least worthy of marrying Mary Masters. Now that Mr. Twentyman was certainly disposed of, he almost became jealous of Mr. Surtees.

It was not till three or four o’clock in the afternoon that he went out on his commission to the attorney’s house, having made up his mind that he would do everything in his power to facilitate Mary’s proposed return to Cheltenham. He asked first for Mr. Masters and then for Miss Masters, and learned that they were both out together. But he had been desired also to see Mrs. Masters, and on inquiring for her was again shown into the grand drawing-room. Here he remained a quarter of an hour while the lady of the house was changing her cap and apron, which he spent in convincing himself that this house was altogether an unfit residence for Mary. In the chamber in which he was standing it was clear enough that no human being ever lived. Mary’s drawing-room ought to be a bower in which she at least might pass her time with books and music and pretty things around her. The squalor of the real living room might be conjectured from the untouched cleanliness of this useless sanctum. At last the lady came to him and welcomed him with very grim courtesy. As a client of her husband he was very well;⁠—but as a nephew of Lady Ushant he was injurious. It was he who had carried Mary away to Cheltenham where she had been instigated to throw her bread-and-butter into the fire⁠—as Mrs. Masters expressed it⁠—by that pernicious old woman Lady Ushant. “Mr. Masters is out walking,” she said. Reginald clearly understood by the contempt which she threw almost unconsciously into her words that she did not approve of her husband going out walking at such an hour.

“I had a message for him⁠—and also for you. My aunt, Lady Ushant, is