"Nonsense, Lieutenant!" said Sarah. "None of them are good. They all spoil your eyes, and seek to lay a curse on you; that is the confusion of languages."

"Still, I might have learned Latin."

"It was the speech of pagans and infidels."

"Or logic."

"Logic hath nothing to say in a good cause."

"Or philosophy."

"Philosophy is curiosity. Socrates was very properly put to death for it."

They were all laughing together, when Sarah condemned Socrates, and the evening pa.s.sed like a happy dream away.

It was succeeded by weeks of the same delight. Aspatria soon learned to love Sarah. She had never before had a woman friend on whom she could rely and to whom she could open her heart. Sarah induced her to speak of Ulfar, to tell her all her suffering and her plans and hopes, and she gave her in return a true affection and a most sincere sympathy. Nothing of the past that referred to Ulfar was left untold; and as the two women sat together during the long summer days, they grew very near to each other, and there was but one mind and one desire between them.

So that when the time came for Aspatria to go back to Mrs. St.

Alban's, Sarah would not hear of their separation. "You have had enough of book-learning," she said. "Remain with me. We will go to Paris, to Rome, to Vienna. We will study through travel and society.

It is by rubbing yourself against all kinds of men and women that you acquire the finest polish of life; and then when Ulfar comes back you will be able to meet him upon all civilized grounds. And as for the South Americans, we will buy all the books about them we can find.

Are they red or white or black, I wonder? Are they pagans or Christians? I seem to remember that when I was at school I learned that the Peruvians worshipped the sun."

"I think, Sarah, that they are all descendants of Spaniards; so they must be Roman Catholics. And I have read that their women are beautiful and witty."

"My dear Aspatria, nothing goes with Spaniards but gravity and green olives."

Aspatria was easily persuaded to accept Sarah's offer; she was indeed very happy in the prospect before her. But Brune was miserable. He had spent a rapturous summer, and it was to end without harvest, or the promise thereof. He could not endure the prospect, and one night he made a movement so decided that Sarah was compelled to set him back a little.

"Were you ever in love, Mrs. Sandys?" poor Brune asked, with his heart filling his mouth.

She looked thoughtfully at him a moment, and then slowly answered: "I once felt myself in danger, and I fled to France. I consider it the finest action of my life."

Aspatria felt sorry for her brother, and she said warmly: "I think no one falls in love now. Love is out of date."

Sarah enjoyed her temper. "You are right, dear," she answered.

"Culture makes love a conscious operation. When women are all feeling, they fall in love; when they have intellect and will, they attach themselves only after a critical examination of the object."

Later, when they were alone, Aspatria took her friend to task for her cruelty: "You know Brune loves you, Sarah; and you do love him. Why make him miserable? Has he presumed too far?"

"No, indeed! He is as adoring and humble as one could wish a future lord and master to be."

"Well, then?"

"I will give our love time to grow. When we come back, if Brune has been true to me in every way, he may fall to blessing himself with both hands;" and then she began to sing,--

"Betide, betide, whatever betide, Love shall be Lord of Sandy-Side!"

"Love is a burden two hearts carry very easily together, but, oh, Sarah! I know how hard it is to bear it alone. Therefore I say, be kind to Brune while you can."

"My dear, your idea is a very pretty one. I read the other day a Hindu version of it that smelled charmingly of the soil,--

'A clapping is not made with one hand alone: Your love, my beloved, must answer my own.'"

But in spite of such reflections, Sarah's will and intellect were predominant, and she left poor Brune with only such hope as he could glean from the lingering pressure of her hand and the tears in her eyes. Aspatria's pleading had done no good. Perhaps it had done harm; for the very nature of love is that it should be spontaneous.

CHAPTER VII.

"A ROSE OF A HUNDRED LEAVES."

One morning in spring Aspatria stood in a balcony overlooking the princ.i.p.al thoroughfare of Rome,--the Rome of papal government, mythical, mystical, mediaeval in its character. A procession of friars had just pa.s.sed; a handsome boy was crying violets; some musical puppets were performing in the shadow of the opposite palace; a party of brigands were going to the Angelo prison; the spirit of Caesar was still abroad in the black-browed men and women, lounging and laughing in their gaudy, picturesque costumes; and the spirit of ecclesiasticism lifted itself above every earthly object, and touched proudly the bells of a thousand churches. Aspatria was weary of all.

She had that morning an imperative nostalgia. She could see nothing but the mountains of c.u.mberland, and the white sheep wandering about their green sides. Through the church-bells she heard the sheep-bells.

Above the boy crying violets she heard the boy whistling in the fresh-ploughed furrow. As for the violets, she knew how the wild ones were blowing in Ambar wood, and how in the garden the daffodil-beds were aglow, and the sweet thyme humbling itself at their feet, because each bore a chalice. Oh for a breath from the mountains and the sea!

The hot Roman streets, with their ever-changing human elements of sorrow and mirth, sin and prayer, riches and poverty, made her sad and weary.

Sarah came toward her with a letter in her hand. "Ria," she said, "this is from Lady Redware. Your husband will be in England very shortly."

It was the first time Sarah had ever called Ulfar Aspatria's husband.

In conversation the two women had always spoken of him as "Ulfar." The change was significant. It implied that Sarah thought the time had come for Aspatria to act decisively.

"I shall be delighted to go back to England. We have been twenty months away, Sarah. I was just feeling as if it were twenty years."

Sarah looked critically at the woman who was going to cast her last die for love. She was so entirely different from the girl who had first won that love, how was it possible for her to recapture the same sweet, faithless emotion? She had a swift memory of the slim girl in the plain black frock whom she had seen sitting under the whin-bushes. And then she glanced at Aspatria standing under the blue-and-red awning of the Roman palace. She was now twenty-six years old, and in the very glory of her womanhood, tall, superbly formed, graceful, calm, and benignant. Her face was luminous with intellect and feeling, her manner that of a woman high-bred and familiar with the world. Culture had done all for her that the lapidary does for the diamond; travel and social advantages had added to the gem a golden setting. She was so little like the sorrowful child whom Ulfar had last seen in the vicar's meadow that Sarah felt instantaneous recognition to be almost impossible.

After some hesitation, Aspatria agreed to accept Sarah's plan and wait in Richmond the development of events. At first she had been strongly in favour of a return to Seat-Ambar. "If Ulfar really wants to see me," she said, "he will be most likely to seek me there."

"But then, Ria, he may think he does not want to see you. Men never know what they really do want. You have to give them 'leadings.' If Ulfar can look on you now and have no curiosity about your ident.i.ty, I should say the man was not worth a speculation from any point. See if you have hold sufficient on his memory to pique his curiosity. If you have, lead him wherever you wish."

"But how? And where?"

"Do I carry a divining-cup, Ria? Can I foresee the probabilities of a man so impossible as Ulfar Fenwick? I only know that Richmond is a good place to watch events from."

And of course the Richmond house suited Brune. His love had grown to the utmost of Sarah's expectations, and he was no longer to be put off with smiles and pleasant words. Sarah had promised him an answer when she returned, and he claimed it with a pa.s.sionate persistence that had finally something imperative in it. To this mood Sarah succ.u.mbed; though she declared that Brune had chosen the morning of all others most inconvenient for her. She was just leaving the house. She was going to London about her jewels. Brune had arrested the coachman by a peremptory movement, and he looked as if he were quite prepared to lift Sarah out of the carriage.

So Aspatria went alone. She was glad of the swift movement in the fresh air, she was glad that she could be quiet and let it blow pa.s.sively upon her. The restlessness of watching had made her feverish. She had the "strait" of a strong mind which longs to meet her destiny. For her love for her husband had grown steadily with her efforts to be worthy of that love, and she longed to meet him face to face and try the power of her personality over him. The trial did not frighten her; she felt within her the ability to accomplish it; her feet were on a level with her task; she was the height of a woman above it.

Musing on this subject, letting her mind shoot to and fro like a shuttle between the past and the present, she reached Piccadilly, and entered a large jeweller's shop. The proprietor was talking to a gentleman who was exhibiting a number of uncut gems. Aspatria knew him instantly. It was Ulfar Fenwick,--the same Ulfar, older, and yet distinctly handsomer. For the dark hair slightly whitened, and the thin, worn cheeks, had an intensely human aspect. She saw that he had suffered; that the sum of life was on his face,--toil, difficulty, endurance, mind, and also that pathetic sadness which tells of endurance without avail.

She went to the extreme end of the counter, and began to examine the jewels which Sarah had sent to be reset. Some were finished; others were waiting for the selection of a particular style, and Aspatria looked critically at the models shown her. The occupation gave her an opportunity to calm and consider herself; she could look at the jewels a few moments without expressing an opinion.

Then she gave, in a clear, distinct voice, some order regarding a pearl necklace; and Ulfar turned like a flash, and looked at the woman who had spoken. She had the pearls in one hand; the other touched a satin cushion on which lay many ornaments of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. The moonlight iridescence of the pearls, the sparkling glory of the gems, seemed to be a part of her n.o.ble beauty.

He forgot his own treasures, and stood looking at the woman whose voice had called to him out of the past, had penetrated his heart like a bell struck sharply in its innermost room. Who was it? Where had they met before? He knew the face. He knew, and yet he did not know, the whole charming personality. As she turned, his eyes met her eyes, and the pure pallor of her cheeks was flooded with crimson.

She pa.s.sed him within touch; the rustle of her garments, their faint perfume, the simple sense of her nearness, thrilled his being wondrously. And, above all, that sense of familiarity! What could it mean? He gave the stones into the jeweller's care, and hurriedly followed her steps.