The unfortunate and innocent rector finds the lord of Surrenden monosyllabic and impolite, but Lady Waverley, woman-like, is wholly equal to the occasion, and in her sweet low voice discourses of village choirs, and village readings, and village medicines and morals, with such divine patience and feminine adaptability that the good man dismisses from his mind as impossible what he had certainly fancied he saw in the moment when the library door opened before him.

If ever there was purity incarnate, Dulcia Waverley looks it, with her white gown, her Madonna-like hair, her dewy pensive eyes, and her appealing smile. She suggests the portraits in the Keepsakes and Forget-me-Nots of fifty years ago; she has always about her the faint old-fashioned perfume of attar of roses, and she wears her soft fair hair in Raphaelite bands which in any other woman would look absurd; but her experience has told her that, despite all change in modes and manners, the surest weapons to subdue strong men are still those old-fashioned charms of fragility and of apparent helplessness which made Othello weep when his bridal moon was young above the Venetian waters. Only if she had ever spoken candidly all she knows, which she never by any chance does, she would say that to succeed thus with Othello, or with any other male creature, you must be, under all your apparent weakness, tenacious as a magnet and cold as steel. Therein lies the secret of all power: the velvet glove and the iron hand may be an old saying, but it is a truth never old.

The conclusion which she had drawn from Gervase and his fragmentary story has seriously annoyed and shocked his cousin, but on reflection she decides to adhere to her invariable rule of ignoring all that is equivocal in it, and treating it accordingly.

No one has ever heard Lady Usk admit that there is the slightest impropriety in the relations of any of her guests: it is one of those fictions like the convenient fictions of the law, which are so useful that every one agrees not to dispute their acceptance. She will never know a person who is really compromised. Therefore, if there be any soil on the wings of her doves, she shuts her eyes to it so long as those of the world are shut. She has the agreeable power of never seeing but what she wishes to see: so, although for the moment she has been uncomfortably shocked, she recovers her composure rapidly, and persuades herself that Gervase merely spoke of a passing attachment, perfectly pure. Why should he not marry the object of it? To the mind of Dorothy Usk that would make everything right. Things may have been wrong once, but that is nobody's business. Xenia Sabaroff is a charming and beautiful woman, and the silver-mine beyond the Urals is a very real thing. Lady Usk is not a mercenary, she is even a generous woman; but when English fortunes are so embarrassed as they are in this day, with Socialists at the roots and a Jacquerie tearing at the fruits of them, any solid fortune situated out of England would be of great use to any Englishman occupying a great position.

"We shall all of us have to live abroad before long," she reflects, with visions of Hodge chopping down her palms for firewood and Sally smashing the porcelain in her model dairy.

No doubt the relations of her cousin and her guest have not been always what they ought to have been; but she does not wish to think of this, and she will not think of it: by-gones are always best buried. The people who manage to be happy are those who understand the art of burying them and use plenty of quicklime.

During the twenty years which have elapsed since her presentation, Dolly Usk has had a very varied experience of men and women, and has continually been solicited to interfere in their love-affairs, or has even interfered without being solicited. She likes the feeling of being a diva ex machina to her friends, and, though she has so decidedly refused Gervase her assistance to discover the state of Xenia Sabaroff's feelings towards him, she begins in her own mind immediately to cast about for some indirect means of learning it, and arranges in her own fancy the whole story as it will sound prettiest and most proper, if she be ever called on to relate it to the world.

She has a talent at putting such stories so nicely in order that anything which may be objectionable in them is altogether invisible, as a clever faiseur will so arrange old laces on a court train that the darns and stains in them are wholly hidden away. She likes exercising her ingenuity in this way; and, although the narrative given her by Gervase has certainly seemed to her objectionable, and one which places the hero of it in an unpleasant light, it may with tact be turned so as to show nothing but what is interesting. And to this end she also begins to drop little hints, little phrases suggestive of that virtue of blameless and long constancy with which it is necessary to invest her cousin Alan, if he is to be made a centre of romance. She even essays these very delicately on the ear of Xenia Sabaroff; but they are met with so absolute a lack of response, so discouraging and cold an absence of all understanding, that she cannot continue to try them in that direction.

"If that odious Brandolin were not here!" she thinks, irritably.

The attentions of Brandolin are very marked to the Princess Sabaroff, and are characterized by that carelessness of comment and that color of romance which have always marked his interest in any woman. He is not a rival à plaisanter, she knows; but then she knows, too, that he never is serious in these matters. When she first hears the story of Gervase, she heartily wishes that there were any pretence to get rid of Xenia Sabaroff, and hastily wonders what excuse she could make to break up her Surrenden circle. But on reflection she desires as strongly to retain her there; and, as there is to be a child's costume ball on the occasion of the Babe's birthday a fortnight hence, she makes the children entreat their friend to stay for it, and adds her own solicitation to theirs. Madame Sabaroff hesitates, is inclined to refuse, but at length acquiesces.

Unfortunately, Usk, who always to his wife's mind represents the bull in the china-shop with regard to any of her delicate and intricate combinations, insists that Brandolin shall not leave either. So the situation remains unchanged, though many guests come and go, some staying two days, some three or four.

Xenia Sabaroff has seen and suffered enough to make her not lightly won or easily impressed. She knows enough of the world to know her own value in it, and she has measured the brutality and the inconsistency which may lie under the most polished exterior.

"I am not old yet in years," she says, once, "but I am very old in some things. I have no illusions."

"When there is a frost in spring the field-flowers die," says Brandolin, softly, "but they come again."

"In the fields, perhaps," replies Xenia Sabaroff.

"And in the human heart," says Brandolin.

He longs to ask her what have been the relations between her and Gervase which people seem so sure have existed once; he longs to know whether it was the brutality of her husband, or the infidelity of any lover, which has taught her so early the instability of human happiness.

But he hesitates before any demand, however veiled or delicate, upon her confidence. He has known her such a little while, and he is conscious that she is not a femme facile. It is her greatest fascination for him: though he is credited with holding women lightly, he is a man whose theories of what they ought to be are high and difficult to realize. Each day that he sees her at Surrenden tends to convince him more and more that she does realize them, despite the calumnies which are set floating round her name.

One day, among several new arrivals, a countryman of hers comes down from London, where, being momentarily chargé-d'affaires of the Russian Legation, he has been cursing the heat, the dust, the deserted squares, the empty clubs, the ugly parks, and rushing out of town whenever he can for twenty-four hours, as he now comes to Surrenden from Saturday to Monday. "Comme un calicot! Comme un calicot!" he says, piteously. Such are the miseries of the diplomatic service.

He kisses the hand of Madame Sabaroff with ardor and reverence: he has known her in her own country. A gleam of amusement comes into his half-shut gray eyes as he recognizes Gervase.

The next morning is Sunday. Usk and Dulcia Waverley are at church, with the children and Lady Usk and Nina Curzon.

Brandolin strays into the small library, takes down a book, and stretches himself on a couch. He half expects that Madame Sabaroff will come down before luncheon and also seek a book, as she did last Sunday. He lights a cigarette and waits, lazily watching the peacocks drawing their trains over the velvety turf without. It is a lovely dewy morning, very fresh and fragrant after rains in the night. He thinks he will persuade her to go for a walk: there is a charming walk near, under deep trees by a little brown brook, full of forget-me-nots.

He hears a step, and looks up: he does not see her, but the Russian secretary, Gregor Litroff, always called "Toffy" by his female friends in England.

"Dieu de Dieu! What an institution your English Sunday is!" says Litroff, with a yawn. "I looked out of my window an hour ago, and beheld Usk in a tall hat, with his little boy on one side and miladi Waverley on the other, solemnly going to church. How droll! He would not do it in London."

"It is not more ridiculous to go to church in a tall hat than to prostrate yourself and kiss a wooden cross, as you would do if you were at home," says Brandolin, contemptuously, eying the intruder with irritation.

"That may be," says the secretary, good-humoredly. "We do it from habit, to set an example, not to make a fuss. So, I suppose, does he."

"Precisely," says Brandolin, wondering how he shall get rid of this man.

"And he takes Lady Waverley for an example, too?" asks Litroff, with a laugh.

"Religion enjoins us," replies Brandolin, curtly, "to offer what we have most precious to the Lord."

The secretary laughs again.

"That is very good," he says, with enjoyment.

Mr. Wootton comes in at that instant. He has been away, but has returned: the cooks at Surrenden are admirable. Brandolin sees his hopes of a tête-à-tête and a walk in the home wood fading farther and farther from view. Mr. Wootton has several telegram-papers in his hand.

"All bad news, from all the departments," he remarks.

"There is nothing but bad news," says Brandolin. "It is painful to die by driblets. We shall all be glad when we have got the thing over,—seen Windsor burnt, London sacked, Ireland admitted to the American Union, and Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone crowned at Westminster."

Mr. Wootton coughs: he does not like unseemly jests, nor to have the gravity and exclusiveness of the private intelligence he receives doubted. He turns to Litroff, talks of Russian politics, and brings the conversation round to the Princess Sabaroff.

Brandolin, appearing absorbed in his book, lies on his couch wondering whether he should meet her anywhere about the gardens if he went out. He listens angrily when he hears her name.

"Was she ever talked about?" asks Mr. Wootton, searching the book-shelves.

"What charming woman is not?" returns Litroff, gallantly.

"My dear count," replies Mr. Wootton, with grave rebuke, "we have thousands of noble wives and mothers in England before whom Satan himself would be obliged to bow in reverence."

"Ah, truly," says Litroff: "so have we, I dare say: I have never asked."

"No doubt you have," says Mr. Wootton, kindly. "The virtue of its women is the great safeguard of a nation."

"One understands why England is losing her nice equipoise, then, now," murmurs Brandolin.

Mr. Wootton disregards him.

"But Madame Sabaroff was talked about, I think,—unjustly, no doubt?" he insists.

Mr. Wootton always insists.

"Ach!" says Litroff, apologetically, "Sabaroff was such a great brute. It was very natural–"

"What was natural?"

"That she should console herself."

"Ah! she did console herself?"

Litroff smiles. "Ask Lord Gervase: he was Lord Baird at that time. We all expected he would have married her when Sabaroff was shot."

"But it was Lustoff who shot Sabaroff in a duel about her?"

"Not about her. Lustoff quarrelled with him about a gambling affair, not about her at all, though people have said so. Lord Baird—Gervase—was, I am certain, her first lover, and has been her only one, as yet."

Brandolin flings his book with some violence on the floor, gets up, and walks to the window. Mr. Wootton looks after him.

"No one could blame her," says Litroff, who is a good-natured man. "She was married when she was scarcely sixteen to a brute; she was immensely admired; she was alone in the midst of a society both loose and brilliant; Gervase laid siege to her sans trêve, and she was hardly more than a child."

"Where there is no principle early implanted," begins Mr. Wootton–

But Litroff is not patient under preaching. "My dear sir," he says, impatiently, "principle (of that kind) is more easily implanted in plain women than in handsomer ones. Madame Sabaroff is a proud woman, which comes to nearly the same thing as a high-principled one. She has lived like a saint since Sabaroff was shot, and if she take up matters with her early lover again it will only be, I imagine, this time, pour le bon motif. Anyhow, I don't see why we should blame her for the past, when the present shows us such an admirable and edifying spectacle as miladi Waverley and miladi Usk going to sit in church with George Usk between them!"

Whereon the Russian secretary takes a "Figaro" off the newspaper-table, and rudely opens it and flourishes it between Mr. Wootton and himself, in sign that the conversation is ended.

Mr. Wootton has never been so treated in his life.

CHAPTER XI

Brandolin walks down the opening between the glass doors into the garden. He paces impatiently the green shady walks where he has seen her on other mornings than this. It is lovely weather, and the innumerable roses fill the warm moist air with fragrance. There is a sea-breeze blowing from the sea-coast some thirty miles away; his schooner is in harbor there; he thinks that it would be wisest to go to it and sail away again for as many thousand miles as he has just left behind him. Xenia Sabaroff has a great and growing influence over him, and he does not wish her to exercise it and increase it if this thing be true: perhaps, after all, she may be that kind of sorceress of which Mary Stuart is the eternal type,—cold only that others may burn, reculant pour mieux sauter, exquisitely feminine only to be more dangerously powerful. He does not wish to play the rôle of Chastelard, or of Douglas, or of Henry Darnley. He is stung to the quick by what he has heard said.

It is not new: since the arrival of Gervase the same thing has been hinted more or less clearly, more or less obscurely, within his hearing more than once; but the matter-of-fact words of Litroff have given the tale a kind of circumstantiality and substance which the vague uncertain suggestions of others did not do. Litroff has, obviously, no feeling against her; he even speaks of her with reluctance and admiration: therefore his testimony has a truthfulness about it which would be lacking in any mere malicious scandal.

It is intensely painful to him to believe, or even to admit to himself as possible, that it may be thus true. She seems to him a very queen among women: all the romance of his temperament clothes her with ideal qualities. He walks on unconsciously till he has left the west garden and entered the wood which joins it, and the grassy seats made underneath the boughs. As he goes, his heart thrills, his pulse quickens: he sees Madame Sabaroff. She is seated on one of the turf banks, reading, the dog of the house at her feet. He has almost walked on to her before he has perceived her.

"I beg your pardon," he murmurs, and pauses, undecided whether to go or stay.

She looks at him a little surprised at the ceremony of his manner.

"For what do you beg my pardon? You are as free of the wood as I," she replies, with a smile. "I promised the children to keep their dogs quiet, and to await them here as they return from their church."

"You are too good to the children," says Brandolin, still with restraint. Her eyes open with increased surprise. She has never seen his manner, usually so easy, nonchalant, and unstudied, altered before.

"He must have heard bad news," she thinks, but says nothing, and keeps her book open.

Brandolin stands near, silent and absorbed. He is musing what worlds he would give, if he had them, to know whether the story is true! He longs passionately to ask her in plain words, but it would be too brutal and too rude; he has not known her long enough to be able to presume to do so.

He watches the sunshine fall through the larch boughs on to her hands in their long loose gloves and touch the pearls which she always wears at her throat.

"How very much he is unlike himself!" she thinks; she misses his spontaneous and picturesque eloquence, his warm abandon of manner, his caressing deference of tone. At that moment there is a gleam of white between the trees, a sound of voices in the distance.

The family party are returning from church. The dogs jump up and wag their tails and bark their welcome. The Babe is dashing on in advance. There is an end of their brief tête-à-tête; he passionately regrets the loss of it, though he is not sure of what he would have said in it.

"Always together!" says Dulcia Waverley, in a whisper, to Usk, as she sees them. "Does he know that he succeeds Lord Gervase, do you think?"

"How should I know?" says Usk; "and Dolly says there was nothing between her and Gervase,—nothing; at least it was all in honor, as the French say."

"Oh, of course," agrees Lady Waverley, with her plaintive eyes gazing dreamily down the aisle of larch-trees. The children have run on to Madame Sabaroff.

"Where is Alan?" thinks Dolly Usk, angrily, on seeing Brandolin.

Gervase, who is not an early riser, is then taking his coffee in bed as twelve strikes. He detests an English Sunday: although at Surrenden it is disguised as much as possible to look like any other day, still there is a Sunday feeling in the air, and Usk does not like people to play cards on Sundays: it is his way of being virtuous vicariously.

"Primitive Christianity," says Brandolin, touching the white feathers of Dodo's hat and the white lace on her short skirts.

"We only go to sleep," replies the child, disconsolately. "We might just as well go to sleep at home; and it is so hot in that pew, with all that red cloth!"

"My love!" says Dulcia Waverley, scandalized.

"Lady Waverley don't go to sleep!" cries the Babe, in his terribly clear little voice. "She was writing in her hymn-book and showing it to papa."

No one appears to hear this indiscreet remark except Dodo, who laughs somewhat rudely.

"I was trying to remember the hymn of Faber's 'Longing for God,'" says Lady Waverley, who is never known to be at a loss. "The last verse escapes me. Can any one recall it? It is so lamentable that sectarianism prevents those hymns from being used in Protestant churches."

But no one there present is religious enough or poetic enough to help her to the missing lines.

"There is so little religious feeling anywhere in England," she remarks, with a sigh.

"It's the confounded levelling that destroys it," says Usk, echoing the sigh.

"They speak of Faber," says Madame Sabaroff. "The most beautiful and touching of all his verses are those which express the universal sorrow of the world."

And in her low, grave, melodious voice she repeats a few of the lines of the poem:

"The sea, unmated creature, tired and lone,
Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan.
Lakes on the calmest days are ever throbbing
Upon their pebbly shores with petulant sobbing.

"The beasts of burden linger on their way
Like slaves, who will not speak when they obey;
Their eyes, whene'er their looks to us they raise,
With something of reproachful patience gaze.

"Labor itself is but a sorrowful song,
The protest of the weak against the strong;
Over rough waters, and in obstinate fields,
And from dark mines, the same sad sound it yields."

She is addressing Brandolin as she recites them; they are a little behind the others.

He does not reply, but looks at her with an expression in his eyes which astonishes and troubles her. He is thinking, as the music of her tones stirs his innermost soul, that he can believe no evil of her, will believe none,—no, though the very angels of heaven were to cry out against her.