She looked more like the probable bride of Sir Robert Ferrers than the wife of a poor curate, he told himself bitterly, as he watched her slow lissom movements, the wavy undulating grace that was Ethel's chief charm, and yet as he thought it he knew he wronged her. For the man she could love, Ethel would pull off all her glistening gewgaws, put away from her all the accessories that wealth could give her. Delighting in luxury, revelling in it, it was in her to renounce it all without a sigh.
Richard knew this, and paid her nobleness its just tribute even while he chafed in his own moodiness. She would do all this, and more than this, for the man she loved; but could she, would she, ever be brought to do it for him?
When alone again with Mildred, Ethel threw her arms round her friend.
'Night after night he sits opposite to me, and we do not speak, except to exchange commonplaces, and then he carps at every deviation of opinion.'
'And then to be brought into the midst of a scene like that,' pointing to the door they had just closed; 'to see those happy faces and to hear all that innocent mirth,' as at that moment Polly's girlish laughter was distinctly audible, with Hugh's pealing 'Ha, ha' following it; 'and then to remember the room I have just left.'
'Hush, try to forget it, or the Sigourneys will wonder at your pale face.'
'These evenings haunt me,' returned Ethel, with a sort of shudder. 'I think I am losing my nerve, Mildred; but I feel positively as though I cannot bear many more of them--the great dimly-lighted room; you know my weakness for light; but he says it makes his head bad, and those lamps with the great shades are all he will have; the interminable dinner which Duncan always seems to prolong, the difficulty of finding a subject on which we shall not disagree, and the dread of falling into one of those dreadful pauses which nothing seems to break. Oh, Mildred, may you never experience it.'
'Poor Ethel, I can understand it all so well.'
'It seems wrong to complain of one's father, but I have not deserved this loss of confidence; he is trying my dutifulness too much.'
'It will not fail you. "Let patience have her perfect work," Ethel.'
'No, you must only comfort me to-night; I am beyond even your wise maxims, Mildred. I wish I had not come, it makes me feel so sore, and yet I could not resist the longing to see you on your birthday. See, I have brought you a gift,' showing her a beautifully-chased cross in her hand.
