Rossmoyne. Duchess
uncle.
"No," says The Desmond, shortly.
"Some old quarrel I have been given to understand."
"I should prefer not speaking about it," says the squire.
"Twinges of conscience even at this remote period," thinks Brian, and is rather tickled at the idea, as he lifts his head to regard his uncle in a new light, – that is, as a regular Don Juan.
"Well, of course, I dare say I should not have mentioned the subject," he says, apologetically; "but I had no idea it was a sore point. It was not so much bad taste on my part as ignorance. I beg your pardon!"
"It was a very unhappy affair altogether," says Don Juan.
"Very unfortunate indeed, from what I have heard."
"More than unfortunate! – right down disgraceful!" says the squire, with such unlooked-for energy as raises astonishment in the breast of his nephew. ("By Jove, one would think the old chap had only now awakened to a sense of his misconduct," he thinks, irreverently.)
"Oh, well," he says, leniently, "hardly that, you know."
"Quite that," emphatically.
"It has been often done before: yours is not a solitary case."
"Solitary or not, there were elements about it inexcusable," says the old squire, beating his hand upon the table as though to emphasize his words.
"I wouldn't take it so much to heart if I were you," says Brian, who is really beginning to pity him.
"It has lain on my heart for twenty years. I can't take it off now," says the squire.
"You have evidently suffered," returns Brian, who is getting more and more amazed at the volcano he has roused. "Of course I can quite understand that if you were once more to find yourself in similar circumstances you would act very differently."
"I should indeed! —very differently. A man seldom makes a fool of himself twice in a lifetime."
("He's regretting her now," thinks Brian.)
But out loud he says, —
"You didn't show much wisdom, I daresay."
"No, none; and as for her, – to fling away such a love as that – " Here he pauses, and looks dreamily at the silver tankard before him.
This last speech rather annoys Brian; to gloat over the remembrance of a love that had been callously cast aside to suit the exigences of the moment, seems to the younger man a caddish sort of thing not to be endured.
("Though what the mischief any pretty girl of nineteen could have seen in him," he muses, gazing with ill-concealed amazement at his uncle's ugly countenance, "is more than I can fathom.")
"Perhaps it wasn't so deep a love as you imagine," he cannot refrain from saying a propos to his uncle's last remark, with a view to taking him down a peg.
"It was, sir," says the Squire, sternly. "It was the love of a lifetime. People may doubt as they will, but I know no love has superseded it."
"Oh, he is in his dotage!" thinks Brian, disgustedly; and, rising from the table, he makes a few more trivial remarks, and then walks from the dining-room on to the balcony and so to the garden beneath.
Finding his friend Kelly in an ivied bower, lost in a cigar, and possibly, though improbably, in improving meditation, he is careful not to disturb him, but, making a successful detour, escapes his notice, and turns his face towards that part of Coole that is connected with Moyne by means of the river.
At Moyne, too, dinner has come to an end, and, tempted by the beauty of the quiet evening, the two old ladies and the children have strolled into the twilit garden.
There is a strange and sweet hush in the air – a stillness full of life – but slumberous life. The music of streams can be heard, and a distant murmur from the ocean; but the birds have got their heads beneath their wings, and the rising night-wind wooes them all in vain.
Shadows numberless are lying in misty corners; the daylight lingers yet, as though loath to quit us and sink into eternal night. It is an eve of "holiest mood," full of tranquillity and absolute calm.
"It is that hour of quiet ecstasy,
When every rustling wind that passes by
The sleeping leaf makes busiest minstrelsy."
"You are silent, Priscilla," says Miss Penelope, glancing at her.
"I am thinking. Such an eve as this always recalls Katherine; and yesterday that meeting, – all has helped to bring the past most vividly before me."
"Ah, dear, yes," says Miss Penelope, regarding her with a furtive but tender glance. "How must he have felt, when he thought what grief he brought to her young life!"
"You are talking of mother?" asks Kit, suddenly, letting her large dark eyes rest on Miss Penelope's face, as though searching for latent madness there.
"Yes, my dear, of course."
"He would not have dared so to treat her had her father been alive or had we been blessed with a brother," says Miss Priscilla, sternly. "He proved himself a dastard and a coward."
"Perhaps there was some mistake," says Monica, timidly, plucking a pale blossom and pretending to admire it.
"No, no. We believe he contracted an affection for some other girl, and for her sake jilted your mother. If so, retribution fit and proper followed on his perfidy, because he brought no wife later on to grace his home. Doubtless he was betrayed in his turn. That was only just."
"There seems to be reason in that conjecture," says Miss Penelope, "because he went abroad almost immediately. I saw him shortly before he left the country, and he was then quite a broken-down man. He must have taken his own misfortune greatly to heart."
"Served him right!" says Miss Priscilla, uncompromisingly. "He deserved no greater luck. Your mother suffered so much at his hands that she almost lost her health. I don't believe she ever got over it."
"Oh, yes, she did," says Terry, suddenly; "she got over it uncommonly well. We didn't know who Mr. Desmond was then, of course; but I know she used to make quite a joke of him."
"A joke!" says Miss Priscilla, in an awful tone.
"Yes, regular fun, you know," goes on Terence, undaunted. "One day she was telling father some old story about Mr. Desmond, a 'good thing' she called it, and she was laughing heartily; but he wasn't, and when she had finished, I remember, he said something to her about want of 'delicacy of feeling,' or something like that."
"I was there," says Kit, in her high treble. "He said, too, she ought to be ashamed of herself."
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