He felt frightfully jealous. He had never before seen her so smiling, to
begin with, and never at all at himself. He longed to kick Arthur
Elterton! Confounded impertinence!--And what tommyrot--dancing like
this, in the afternoon with boots on! And when they all stopped and
greeted the shooters, and crowded round the fire, he said, in a tone of
rasping sarcasm--in reply to Jimmy Danvers' announcement that they were
back in the real life of a castle in the Middle Ages:
"Any one can see that! You have even got My Lady's fool. Look at
Arthur--with mud on his boots--jumping about!"
And Lord Elterton felt very flattered. He knew his old friend was
jealous, and if he were jealous then the charming, cold lady must have
been unbelievingly nice to him, and that meant he was getting on!
"You are jealous because your lovely bride prefers me, Young Lochinvar,"
and he laughed as he quoted:
"'For so faithful in love and so dauntless in war--
There ne'er was a gallant like Young Lochinvar!'"
And Zara saw that Tristram's eyes flashed blue steel, and that he did
not like the chaff at all. So, just out of some contrariness--he had
been with Lady Highford all day so why should she not amuse herself,
too; indeed, why should either of them care what the other did--so just
out of contrariness she smiled again at Lord Elterton and said:
"'Then tread we a measure, my Lord Lochinvar.'"
And off they went.
And Tristram, with his face more set than the Crusader ancestor's in
Wrayth Church, said to his uncle, Lord Charles, "We are all wet through:
let us come along."
And he turned round and went out.
And as he walked, he wondered to himself how much she must know of
English poetry to have been able to answer Arthur like that. If only
they could be friends and talk of the books he, too, loved! And then he
realized more strongly than ever the impossibility of the situation--he,
who had been willing to undertake it with the joyous self-confidence
with which he had started upon a lion hunt!
He felt he was getting to the end of his tether; it could not go on. Her
words that night at Dover, had closed down all the possible sources he
could have used for her melting.
And a man cannot in a week break through a thousand years of inherited
pride.
Before the Canada scheme had presented itself he had rather thought of
joining with a friend for another trip to the Soudan: it might not be
too late still, when they had got over the Wrayth ordeal, the tenants'
dinners, and the speeches, and the cruel mockery of it all. He would
see--perhaps--what could be done, but to go on living in this daily
torture he would not submit to, for the "loving her less" had not yet
begun!
And when he had left, although she would not own it to herself, Zara's
joy in the day was gone.
The motors came to fetch them presently, and they all went back to the
Castle to dress and have tea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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