I lingered behind to look at the Whispering Stones, and the rest hurried on after something, so I lost sight of them. I thought it best to come home by the short way—the avenue that the warden had told me of. I’m not sorry after all. I had had enough walking.”
“Your party did not meet Mr. Grandcourt, I presume,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, not without intention.
“No,” said Gwendolen, with a little flash of defiance, and a light laugh. “And we didn’t see any carvings on the trees, either. Where can he be? I should think he has fallen into the pool or had an apoplectic fit.”
With all Gwendolen’s resolve not to betray any agitation, she could not help it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt sure that something unpropitious had happened.
Mrs. Arrowpoint thought that the self-confident young lady was much piqued, and that Mr. Grandcourt was probably seeing reason to change his mind.
“If you have no objection, mamma, I will order the carriage,” said Gwendolen. “I am tired. And every one will be going soon.”
Mrs. Davilow assented; but by the time the carriage was announced as, ready—the horses having to be fetched from the stables on the warden’s premises—the roving party reappeared, and with them Mr. Grandcourt.
“Ah, there you are!” said Lord Brackenshaw, going up to Gwendolen, who was arranging her mamma’s shawl for the drive. “We thought at first you had alighted on Grandcourt and he had taken you home. Lush said so. But after that we met Grandcourt. However, we didn’t suppose you could be in any danger. The warden said he had told you a near way back.”
“You are going?” said Grandcourt, coming up with his usual air, as if he did not conceive that there had been any omission on his part. Lord Brackenshaw gave place to him and moved away.
“Yes, we are going,” said Gwendolen, looking busily at her scarf, which she was arranging across her shoulders Scotch fashion.
“May I call at Offendene to-morrow?”
“Oh yes, if you like,” said Gwendolen, sweeping him from a distance with her eyelashes. Her voice was light and sharp as the first touch of frost.
Mrs. Davilow accepted his arm to lead her to the carriage; but while that was happening, Gwendolen with incredible swiftness had got in advance of them, and had sprung into the carriage.
“I got in, mamma, because I wished to be on this side,” she said, apologetically. But she had avoided Grandcourt’s touch: he only lifted his hat and walked away—with the not unsatisfactory impression that she meant to show herself offended by his neglect.
The mother and daughter drove for five minutes in silence. Then Gwendolen said, “I intend to join the Langens at Dover, mamma. I shall pack up immediately on getting home, and set off by the early train. I shall be at Dover almost as soon as they are; we can let them know by telegraph.”
“Good heavens, child! what can be your reason for saying so?”
“My reason for saying it, mamma, is that I mean to do it.”
“But why do you mean to do it?”
“I wish to go away.”
“Is it because you are offended with Mr. Grandcourt’s odd behavior in walking off to-day?”
“It is useless to enter into such questions. I am not going in any case to marry Mr. Grandcourt. Don’t interest yourself further about it.”
“What can I say to your uncle, Gwendolen? Consider the position you place me in. You led him to believe only last night that you had made up your mind in favor of Mr. Grandcourt.”
“I am very sorry to cause you annoyance, mamma, dear, but I can’t help it,” said Gwendolen, with still harder resistance in her tone. “Whatever you or my uncle may think or do, I shall not alter my resolve, and I shall not tell my reason. I don’t care what comes of it. I don’t care if I never marry any one. There is nothing worth caring for. I believe all men are bad, and I hate them.”
“But need you set off in this way, Gwendolen,” said Mrs. Davilow, miserable and helpless.
“Now mamma, don’t interfere with me. If you have ever had any trouble in your own life, remember it and don’t interfere with me. If I am to be miserable, let it be by my own choice.”
The mother was reduced to trembling silence. She began to see that the difficulty would be lessened if Gwendolen went away.
And she did go. The packing was all carefully done that evening, and not long after dawn the next day Mrs. Davilow accompanied her daughter to the railway station. The sweet dews of morning, the cows and horses looking over the hedges without any particular reason, the early travelers on foot with their bundles, seemed all very melancholy and purposeless to them both. The dingy torpor of the railway station, before the ticket could be taken, was still worse. Gwendolen had certainly hardened in the last twenty-four hours: her mother’s trouble evidently counted for little in her present state of mind, which did not essentially differ from the mood that makes men take to worse conduct when their belief in persons or things is upset. Gwendolen’s uncontrolled reading, though consisting chiefly in what are called pictures of life, had somehow not prepared her for this encounter with reality. Is that surprising? It is to be believed that attendance at the opéra bouffe in the present day would not leave men’s minds entirely without shock, if the manners observed there with some applause were suddenly to start up in their own families. Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through ærial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented incur personal experience.
Mrs. Davilow felt Gwendolen’s new phase of indifference keenly, and as she drove back alone, the brightening morning was sadder to her than before.
Mr. Grandcourt called that day at Offendene, but nobody was at home.
Chapter V.
“Festina lente—celerity should be contempered with cunctation.”—Sir Thomas Browne.
Gwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement of gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having brought from her late experience a vague impression that in this confused world it signified nothing what any one did, so that they amused themselves. We have seen, too, that certain persons, mysteriously symbolized as Grapnell & Co., having also thought of reigning in the realm of luck, and being also bent on amusing themselves, no matter how, had brought about a painful change in her family circumstances; whence she had returned home—carrying with her, against her inclination, a necklace which she had pawned and some one else had redeemed.
While she was going back to England, Grandcourt was coming to find her; coming, that is, after his own manner—not in haste by express straight from Diplow to Leubronn, where she was understood to be; but so entirely without hurry that he was induced by the presence of some Russian acquaintances to linger at Baden-Baden and make various appointments with them, which, however, his desire to be at Leubronn ultimately caused him to break. Grandcourt’s passions were of the intermittent, flickering kind: never flaming out strongly. But a great deal of life goes on without strong passion: myriads of cravats are carefully tied, dinners attended, even speeches made proposing the health of august personages without the zest arising from a strong desire. And a man may make a good appearance in high social positions—may be supposed to know the classics, to have his reserves on science, a strong though repressed opinion on politics, and all the sentiments of the English gentleman, at a small expense of vital energy. Also, he may be obstinate or persistent at the same low rate, and may even show sudden