‘Get them, then,’ he said, opening the door for her, with a smile. Poor Lady Car! She raised a happy face to him as she passed, with eyes glistening, still a little moist, very bright, full of sweetness and gentle agitation. The soft sound of her dress, sweeping after her, the graceful movement, the gracious turn of the head, were all so many exquisite additional details to the exquisite room, so perfect in every point, in which she had housed him. But Beaufort’s face was full of uneasiness and perplexity. He had floated so far away from those innocent days in the Kander Thal. He had ceased to believe in the panaceas that had seemed all-powerful to him then. The wrongs of political economy and the rights of the helpless had ceased to occupy his mind. He had become one of the helpless himself, and yet had drifted, and been not much the worse. Now he had drifted into the most charming, sunshiny, landlocked harbour, where no fierce wind could trouble him more. He had no desire to invent labours and troubles for himself, to spend his strength in putting up beacons and lighthouses to which the people whom they were intended to help would pay no attention. He opened one of the windows and looked out upon the night, upon the soft, undulating landscape, half-lighted by a misty moon. Everything looked like peace out of doors, peace and every tranquil pleasure that the soul could desire were within. He gave an impatient laugh at himself and his wife, and life in general, as he stood cooling his hot forehead, looking out waiting her return. He was quite contented; why should he be goaded forth to fight with windmills which he no longer believed to be knights in armour? Don Quixote disenchanted, ready himself to burn all his chevalier books, and see the fun of his misadventures, but urged to take the field by some delicate Dulcinea, could not have been more embarrassed and disturbed. It was too annoying to be amusing, and too tender and beautiful either to be angry with or to laugh at. What under these circumstances was a man who had long abandoned the heroic to do? CHAPTER V