He remembered the passionate glance she had once given him; he said to himself bitterly, “These women are all alike, false, deceitful, unworthy of serious consideration. How fortunate that I have done with them!”
Then he settled himself to wait angrily for the appearance of the lover, that he might see how base a woman could be. After a time Felise went away to the barn; he pursued and watched her from the wood. He saw the swallows descending over her head to the great doorway of the barn. He thought he saw a certain sadness in her countenance; doubtless she was disappointed that the lover did not come.
He followed her again when she left the barn: he could not understand where she was going now, when to his astonishment she walked straight up to his house; the door opened, and she disappeared within.
Immediately it flashed across his mind that it might be himself she was endeavouring to meet. Read by such a light the glance she had given him became less deceitful; yet he could not think it. Why should she desire to meet him? He had not sought her. Though he had all the vanity which is proper to and becomes a man, Martial was without the least trace of that conceit—a completely different thing—which leads fools to imagine every woman in love with them.
That a woman might want for some purpose of her own to deceive him with passionate glances he could grant to himself. That a woman should really desire his society he did not think possible.
But why had she gone to his house? Those paths by which she had lingered were on his tenancy; he used them constantly. What was the secret meaning of these acts?
Indifferent as he was to her, he waited impatiently for her to reappear. He would not go in while she was there; to meet and speak to her would be contrary to his resolution to have nothing more to do with such follies. It was some time, perhaps an hour, before Felise came out, the eldest Miss Barnard with her; Miss Barnard took her across the fields, and was evidently showing her a shorter way home (as if Felise did not know).
Martial went indoors and waited for his cousin. He had no need to ask any questions; Miss Barnard commenced at once to tell him how Miss Goring had been trout-fishing, and felt fatigued from the sun, and had begged a glass of milk. How she had stayed and chatted, and how pleasant she was and singularly handsome, and so interested in Dante and all that related to Italy.
Miss Barnard had lent her her album of scraps about Dante, and had been invited to visit at Beechknoll. How delightful it was to make the acquaintance of someone of an intellectual turn at last; you know they are all so prosaic, they talk nothing but corn and sheep at Maasbury—and so on, and so on.
Martial pondered, still more puzzled. Felise weary, Felise fatigued! The woman he had seen keep pace with the harriers, who had gone up on the highest hill to see the sunrise, who swam round and round the trout-pool faster than he could have done himself! Felise weary—never! And if so, why to his house? There was a cottage (the former homestead) nearer. No, there was something else at the bottom of this. Felise had evidently flattered his cousin’s hobby. Deceit again. A work of art might be beautiful, yet it was nothing but false paint.
He did not believe that she had called merely from fatigue, nor that she felt any interest in Dante. What, then, was her object—could it possibly be himself?
How fortunate he was not at home, so that she had not the slightest opportunity of practising her glances upon him! How fortunate that his days of folly were over! Martial congratulated himself; after all, as everyone must commit some foolishness, it was better to have got it over, as he had done, in early youth. The experience was so valuable, and would protect him.
A little restless after all this thinking, Martial did not remain at home, but ascending the hill, watched the picture walking home as far as he could with his opera-glass.
Felise had found the eldest Miss Barnard, who chanced to be at home, a pleasant lady, dark and comfortable-looking, with a manner which at once put people at their ease. She made her unannounced visitor welcome; in such visits, where people do not know each other, they run over a string of subjects to find something to answer for conversation. So Miss Barnard brought out her photographs of Dante subjects, and presently her scrapbook, containing the allusions and references to Dante she had collected from current literature.
This middle-aged English lady, who had never been out of England in her life, and probably never would, had conceived an extraordinary admiration of all that was Dantesque.
I think that those who have an imaginative corner in their hearts are better than those who have not. They have a shrine—to a shrine we bring our aspirations; there they accumulate and secretly influence our lives.
Unscrupulous Felise looked at the Dante collections with kindling interest, listening the while for the creak of an opening door, for the heavier footstep which foretells a man, watching even the spaniel in the armchair, who would be sure to start up at the approach of his master. Unscrupulous Felise—has love ever any scruples?—pressed Miss Barnard to visit them at Beechknoll, and at last, having stayed as long as possible, left, not at all dissatisfied. Although she had not seen Martial she had opened up communication between the two houses. Something had been gained. She walked homewards in a happier,
