CHAPTER XXIV

INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION

The month was August, four days before the closing of Parliament, and Diana fancied it good for Arthur Rhodes to run down with her to Copsley.  He came to her invitation joyfully, reminding her of Lady Dunstane’s wish to hear some chapters of the cantatrice, and the Ms. was packed.  They started, taking rail and fly, and winding up the distance on foot.  August is the month of sober maturity and majestic foliage, songless, but a crowned and royal-robed queenly month; and the youngster’s appreciation of the homely scenery refreshed Diana; his delight in being with her was also pleasant.  She had no wish to exchange him for another; and that was a strengthening thought.

At Copsley the arrival of their luggage had prepared the welcome.  Warm though it was, Diana perceived a change in Emma, an unwonted reserve, a doubtfulness of her eyes, in spite of tenderness; and thus thrown back on herself, thinking that if she had followed her own counsel (as she called her impulse) in old days, there would have been no such present misery, she at once, and unconsciously, assumed a guarded look.  Based on her knowledge of her honest footing, it was a little defiant.  Secretly in her bosom it was sharpened to a slight hostility by the knowledge that her mind had been straying.  The guilt and the innocence combined to clothe her in mail, the innocence being positive, the guilt so vapoury.  But she was armed only if necessary, and there was no requirement for armour.  Emma did not question at all.  She saw the alteration in her Tony:  she was too full of the tragic apprehensiveness, overmastering her to speak of trifles.  She had never confided to Tony the exact nature and the growth of her malady, thinking it mortal, and fearing to alarm her dearest.

A portion of the manuscript was read out by Arthur Rhodes in the evening; the remainder next morning.  Redworth perceptibly was the model of the English hero; and as to his person, no friend could complain of the sketch; his clear-eyed heartiness, manliness, wholesomeness—­a word of Lady Dunstane’s regarding him,—­and his handsome braced figure, were well painted.  Emma forgave the:  insistance on a certain bluntness of the nose, in consideration of the fond limning of his honest and expressive eyes, and the ‘light on his temples,’ which they had noticed together.  She could not so easily forgive the realistic picture of the man:  an exaggeration, she thought, of small foibles, that even if they existed, should not have been stressed.  The turn for ‘calculating’ was shown up ridiculously; Mr. Cuthbert Dering was calculating in his impassioned moods as well as in his cold.  His head was a long division of ciphers.  He had statistics for spectacles, and beheld the world through them, and the mistress he worshipped.

‘I see,’ said Emma, during a pause; ’he is a Saxon.  You still affect to have the race en grippe, Tony.’