Othello, which Lady Caroline selected for
her first Shakespearian reading, apparently
did not interest her very much. The great
family history of the Wests, derived from
ancient chronicles and documents, upon
which Lord Hetherington's secretary was
engaged, made but little progress on the
occasions of her ladyship's visits. There
were the longest and the pleasantest talks.
In Caroline Mansergh's hands Joyce was
as pliable as potter's clay. In less than a
week after the dinner party he had told
her the history of his life, made her
acquainted with his hopes and fears, his
wishes and aspirations. Of course she heard
about his engagement to Marian, equally
of course that was the part of the story
in which she felt, and showed, the greatest
interest. Very quickly she knew it all.
Under her skilful questioning, Joyce not
merely told her what had actually occurred,
but opened to her the secret chambers of
his heart, and displayed to her penetrating
sense feelings, with the existence of which
he himself was scarcely acquainted. The
odd, uncomfortable sensation which first
came over him in his last walk with
Marian round the school garden, when she
spoke of how it might have been better if
they had never met, and how poorly armed
he was for the great conflict of life; the
renewal of the sting with its bitterness
increased fifty-fold at the receipt of her letter
dilating on the luxury of Woolgreaves, and
her dread of the poverty which they would
have to encounter; the last hint given to
him in the worldly advice contained in
Jack Byrne's letter— all these were
submitted to Lady Caroline's keen powers of
dissection, without Walter's being in the
least aware how much of his inner life he
had made patent to her. A look, a nod,
a word here or there, begat, increased,
and developed his assurance of sympathy;
and he could have talked till all eternity
on the subject dearest to his heart. Lady
Caroline let him talk, and only starred the
dialogue with occasional interjections,
always of a sympathising character. When
she was alone, she would sit for hours
reviewing the conversation just past in the
minutest detail, weighing and re-weighing
sentences and even words which Joyce had
spoken, sifting, balancing, ascribing to such
and such influences, putting aside such and
such theories, bringing all her feminine
wits—and in the great points of feminine
cleverness, an odd common sense, and an
undefinable blundering on to the right, she
had no superior—to the solution of the
question of Walter Joyce's future so far as
Marian Ashurst was concerned. Whatever
conclusion she may have arrived at she
kept to herself; no one ever had the
slightest glimmering of it. Her talks with
Walter Joyce were as numerous as ever,
her interest in his career no less, her
delight in his society by no means impaired;
but the name of Miss Ashurst never passed
Lady Caroline's lips, and whenever she
saw the conversation necessarily veering
that way, she invariably struck it out into
some new channel. Not that Lady
Caroline Mansergh had any jealousy of this
"simple maiden in her flower;" she would
not have allowed that for an instant, would
not have allowed, in her most secret
communings with herself, that such a thing
could be possible; for she had been
properly and rigidly brought up in the Belgravian
code of morals, though a little inclined
to kick against them now, and think for
herself; and the Belgravian code of morals
holds the cultivation of the bienséances as
the most essential portion of a young lady's
curriculum, and the bienséances effectively
ignore the existence of any such low
sentiment as jealousy in the minds of perfectly
constituted members of the upper classes.
Not that Walter Joyce would have noticed
the display of any such passion as jealousy,
or, as Lady Caroline thought rather
ruefully, could allow any such feeling to be
excited in him. In all her experience—
and it had been large— she had never
come across a man so completely— Well,
she could scarcely find a term for it. It
was not apathetic, because he was bright,
and intelligent, and earnest. Perhaps
confiding was the best word to use, so far as
his relations with Marian were concerned,
though, as Lady Caroline felt, those
relations were a little dashed with recent
doubt; and as for his feelings with regard
to herself, skilled mistress as she was in
the art of such wordy warfare, Lady Caroline
could never trap him into an ambuscade,
or force him into anything like an
acknowledgment of a liking for her. It
was not for the want of trying to evoke it,
not for lack of given opportunity on her
part, that this avowal never was made.
Fortune favoured her, notably on one occasion;
and if Walter Joyce had ever contemplated
anything beyond a feeling of pleasant
friendship for Lady Caroline Mansergh,
he would have availed himself of
that occasion for expressing it. Thus it
came about. Lady Caroline was sitting
half buried in a big soft easy chair before