As Mr. Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but still she managed to carry herself with some dignity. His bearing was perfect. But then, as she declared to herself afterwards, no possible position in life would put him beside himself. He came up to her with his usual quiet smile—a smile that was genial even in its quietness, and took her hand. He took it fairly and fully into his; but there was no squeezing, no special pressure, no lovemaking. And when he spoke to her he called her Alice, as though his doing so was of all things the most simply a matter of course. There was no telltale hesitation in his voice. When did he ever hesitate at anything? “I hear you are going abroad,” he said, “with your cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser.”
“Yes,” said Alice; “I am going with them for a long tour. We shall not return, I fancy, till the end of next winter.”
“Plans of that sort are as easily broken as they are made,” said her father. “You won’t be your own mistress; and I advise you not to count too surely upon getting further than Baden.”
“If Mr. Palliser changes his mind of course I shall come home,” said Alice, with a little attempt at a smile.
“I should think him a man not prone to changes,” said Grey. “But all London is talking about his change of mind at this moment. They say at the clubs that he might have been in the Cabinet if he would, but that he has taken up this idea of going abroad at the moment when he was wanted.”
“It’s his wife’s doing, I take it,” said Mr. Vavasor.
“That’s the worst of being in Parliament,” said Grey. “A man can’t do anything without giving a reason for it. There must be men for public life, of course; but, upon my word, I think we ought to be very much obliged to them.”
Alice, as she took her old lover’s arm, and walked down with him to dinner, thought of all her former quarrels with him on this very subject. On this very point she had left him. He had never argued the matter with her. He had never asked her to argue with him. He had not condescended so far as that. Had he done so, she thought that she would have brought herself to think as he thought. She would have striven, at any rate, to do so. But she could not become unambitious, tranquil, fond of retirement, and philosophic, without an argument on the matter—without being allowed even the poor grace of owning herself to be convinced. If a man takes a dog with him from the country up to town, the dog must live a town life without knowing the reason why;—must live a town life or die a town death. But a woman should not be treated like a dog. “Had he deigned to discuss it with me!” Alice had so often said. “But, no; he will read his books, and I am to go there to fetch him his slippers, and make his tea for him.” All this came upon her again as she walked downstairs by his side; and with it there came a consciousness that she had been driven by this usage into the terrible engagement which she had made with her cousin. That, no doubt, was now over. There was no longer to her any question of her marrying George Vavasor. But the fact that she had been mad enough to think and talk of such a marriage, had of itself been enough to ruin her. “Things of that sort are so often over with you!” After such a speech as that to her from her father, Alice told herself that there could be no more “things of that sort” for her. But all her misery had been brought about by this scornful superiority to the ordinary pursuits of the world—this looking down upon humanity. “It seems to me,” she said, very quietly, while her hand was yet upon his arm, “that your pity is hardly needed. I should think that no persons can be happier than those whom you call our public men.”
“Ah!” said he, “that is our old quarrel.” He said it as though the quarrel had simply been an argument between them, or a dozen arguments—as arguments do come up between friends; not as though it had served to separate for life two persons who had loved each other dearly. “It’s the old story of the town mouse and the country mouse—as old as the hills. Mice may be civil for a while, and compliment each other; but when they come to speak their minds freely, each likes his own life best.” She said nothing more at the moment, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to hint at such things, to allude to their former hopes and present condition, without a quiver in his voice, or, as far as she could perceive, without any feeling in his heart.
“Alice,” said her father, “I can’t compliment your cook upon her soup.”
“You don’t encourage her, papa, by eating it often enough. And then you only told me at two o’clock today.”
“If a cook can’t make soup between two and seven, she can’t make it in a week.”
“I hope Mr. Grey will excuse
