For thus the God of Pride makes fools of his worshipers.

* * * * *

It poured with rain the next day, but the same kind of thing went on for the different grades of those who lived under the wing of the Tancred name, and neither bride nor bridegroom failed in their roles, and the icy coldness between them increased.  They had drawn upon themselves an atmosphere of absolute restraint and it seemed impossible to exchange even ordinary conversation; so that at this, their second dinner, they hardly even kept up a semblance before the household servants, and, being free from feasting, Zara retired almost immediately the coffee had come.  One of the things Tristram had said to her before she left the room was: 

“To-morrow if it is fine you had better see the gardens and really go over the house, if you wish.  The housekeeper and the gardeners will think it odd if you don’t!  How awful it is to have to conform to convention!” he went on.  “It would be good to be a savage again.  Well, perhaps I shall be, some day soon.”

Then as she paused in her starting for the door to hear what he had further to say, he continued: 

“They let us have a day off to-morrow; they think, quite naturally, we require a rest.  So if you will be ready about eleven I will show you the gardens and the parts my mother loved—­it all looks pretty dreary this time of the year, but it can’t be helped.”

“I will be ready,” Zara said.

“Then there is the Address from the townspeople at Wrayth, on Thursday,” he continued, while he walked toward the door to open it for her, “and on Friday we go up to London to say good-bye to my mother.  I hope you have not found it all too impossibly difficult, but it will soon be over now.”

“The whole of life is difficult,” she answered, “and one never knows what it is for, or why?” And then without anything further she went out of the door, and so upstairs and through all the lonely corridors to the boudoir.  And here she opened the piano for the first time, and tried it; and finding it good she sat a long time playing her favorite airs—­but not the Chanson Triste—­she felt she could not bear that.

The music talked to her:  what was her life going to be?  What if, in the end, she could not control her love?  What if it should break down her pride, and let him see that she regretted her past action and only longed to be in his arms.  For her admiration and respect for him were growing each hour, as she discovered new traits in him, individually, and began to understand what he meant to all these people whose lord he was.  How little she had known of England, her own father’s country!  How ridiculously little she had really known of men, counting them all brutes like Ladislaus and his friends, or feckless fools like poor Mimo!  What an impossible attitude was this one she had worn always of arrogant ignorance!  Something should have told her that these people were