"Dear Queen Anne," he said, "I will always do what I can for you. But I
tell you seriously, when a man like Hector loves a woman really, you
might as well try to direct Niagara Falls as to turn him any way but the
one he means to go."
"He wants me to be kind to her. Do you advise me just to let the thing
drop, then?"
"No; be as kind as you like--only don't assist them to destruction."
"She goes into the country on Saturday for Whitsuntide, as we all do.
Hector is going down to Bracondale alone."
"That looks desperate. I shall see Hector, and judge for myself."
"You must be sure to go to the ball at Harrowfield House to-night,
then," Anne said. "They are both going. I say both because I know she
is, and so, of course, Hector will be there too. I shall go, naturally,
and then we can decide what we can do about it after we have seen them
together."
And all this time Theodora was thinking how charming Anne was, and how
kind, and that she felt a little happier because of her kindness. And,
hard as it would be, she would not leave Josiah's side that night or
dance with Hector.
And Hector was thinking-"What is the good of anything in this wide world without her? I must
see her. For good or ill, I cannot keep away."
He was deep in the toils of desire and passionate love for a woman
belonging to someone else and out of his reach, and for whom he was
hungry. Thus the primitive forces of nature were in violent activity,
and his soul was having a hard fight.
It was the first time in his life that a woman had really mattered or
had been impossible to obtain.
He had always looked upon them as delightful accessories: sport first,
and woman, who was only another form of sport, second.
He had not neglected the obligations of his great position, but they
came naturally to him as of the day's work. They were not real interests
in his life. And when stripped of the veneer of civilization he was but
a passionate, primitive creature, like numbers of others of his class
and age.
While the elevation of Theodora's pure soul was an actual influence upon
him, he had thought it would be possible--difficult, perhaps--but
possible to obey her--to keep from troubling her--to regulate his
passion into worship at a distance. But since then new influences had
begun to work--prominent among them being jealousy.