The bell rang, and Mrs. Fairfax went into the shop.
“Who can she be?” said the Doctor to himself. Such an experience as this he had not known since he had been rector. Langborough did not deal in ideas. It was content to affirm that Miss Tarrant now and then gave herself airs, that Mrs. Sweeting had a way of her own, that Mr. Cobb lacked spirit and was downtrodden by his wife.
“You know nobody in these parts, Mrs. Fairfax?”
“It is—certainly. A good many plans were projected, of which this was one, and there were equal difficulties in the way of all. When that is the case we may almost as well draw lots.”
“Ah, that is what I often say to some of the weaker sort among my parishioners. I said it to poor Cobb the other day. He did not know whether he should do this or do that. ‘It doesn’t matter much,’ said I, ‘what you do, but do something. _Do_ it, with all your strength.’”
The Doctor was thoroughly Tory, and he slid away to his favourite doctrine.
“Our ancestors, madam, were not such fools as we often take them to be. They consulted the _sortes_ or lots, and at the last election—we have a potwalloping constituency here—three parts of the voters would have done better if they had trusted to the toss-up of a penny instead of their reason.”
Mrs. Fairfax leaned back in her chair. Dr. Midleton noticed her wedding-ring, and also a handsome sapphire ring. She spoke rather slowly and meditatively.
“Life is so complicated; so few of the consequences of many actions of the greatest moment can be foreseen, that the belief in the lot is not unnatural.”
“You have some books, I see—Sir Thomas Browne.” He took down the volume.
“Leighton! Leighton! how odd! Was it Richard Leighton?”
“Do you know what has become of him? He was at Cambridge with me, but was younger.”
“I have not seen him for some time. Do you mind if I open the window a little?”
She stood at the window for a moment, looking out on the garden, with her hand on the top of the sash. The Doctor had turned his chair a little and his eyes were fixed on her there with her uplifted arm. A picture which belonged to his father instantly came back to him. He recollected it so well. It represented a woman watching a young man in a courtyard who is just mounting his horse. We are every now and then reminded of pictures by a group, an attitude, or the arrangement of a landscape which, thereby, acquires a new charm.
