Since there was no way out of the situation he had found in America—­that is, no way consistent with self-respect—­it was characteristic of him, both as diplomatist and master of tactics, to review what was still in his favor.  He called himself to witness that he had wasted no time in repining.  He had risen to the circumstances as fast as nature would permit, and adapted himself right on the spur of the moment to an entirely new outlook on the future.  Moreover, he had been able to detach Olivia herself from the degrading facts surrounding her, seeing her, as he had seen her from the first, holy and stainless, untouched by conditions through which few women could pass without some personal deterioration.  In his admiration and loyalty he had not wavered for a second.  On the contrary, he was sure that he should love her the more intensely, in spite of, and perhaps because of, her misfortunes.

He felt free, therefore, to resent this new revelation so fantastically out of proportion to the harmony of life.  It was the most staggering thing he had ever heard of.  An act such as that with which Drusilla credited Davenant brought into daily existence a feature too prodigious to find room there.  Or, rather, having found the room through sheer force of its own bulk, it dwarfed everything else into insignificance.  It hid all objects and blocked all ways.  You could get neither round it nor over it nor through it.  You could not even turn back and ignore it.  You could only stand and stare at it helplessly, giving it the full tribute of awe.

Ashley gave it.  He gave it while lighting mechanically a cigar which he did not smoke and standing motionless in the middle of the lawn, heedless of the glances—­furtive, discreet, sympathetic, admiring—­cast at him from the windows and balconies of the surrounding houses.  His quick eye, trained to notice everything within its ken, saw them plainly enough.  The houses were not so distant nor the foliage so dense but that kindly, neighborly interest could follow the whole drama taking place at Tory Hill.  Ashley could guess with tolerable accuracy that the ladies whom he saw ostensibly reading or sewing on verandas had been invited to the wedding, and were consequently now in the position of spectators at a play.  The mere detail of this American way of living, with unwalled properties merging into one another, and doors and windows flung wide to every passing glance, gave him an odd sense of conducting his affairs in the market-place or on the stage.  If he did not object to it, it was because of the incitement to keep up to the level of his best which he always drew from the knowledge that other people’s eyes were upon him.

He felt this stimulus when Olivia came out to the Corinthian portico, seating herself in a wicker chair, with an obvious invitation to him to join her.  “Drusilla Fane has been telling me about your—­your friend.”