She broke from him trembling, blushed and turned aside, hardly knowing
how things had advanced to this. Fitzpiers drove off, kissing his hand
to her, and waving it to Melbury who was visible through the window.
Her father returned the surgeon's action with a great flourish of his
own hand and a satisfied smile.
The intoxication that Fitzpiers had, as usual, produced in Grace's
brain during the visit passed off somewhat with his withdrawal. She
felt like a woman who did not know what she had been doing for the
previous hour, but supposed with trepidation that the afternoon's
proceedings, though vague, had amounted to an engagement between
herself and the handsome, coercive, irresistible Fitzpiers.
This visit was a type of many which followed it during the long summer
days of that year. Grace was borne along upon a stream of reasonings,
arguments, and persuasions, supplemented, it must be added, by
inclinations of her own at times. No woman is without aspirations,
which may be innocent enough within certain limits; and Grace had been
so trained socially, and educated intellectually, as to see clearly
enough a pleasure in the position of wife to such a man as Fitzpiers.
His material standing of itself, either present or future, had little
in it to give her ambition, but the possibilities of a refined and
cultivated inner life, of subtle psychological intercourse, had their
charm. It was this rather than any vulgar idea of marrying well which
caused her to float with the current, and to yield to the immense
influence which Fitzpiers exercised over her whenever she shared his
society.
Any observer would shrewdly have prophesied that whether or not she
loved him as yet in the ordinary sense, she was pretty sure to do so in
time.
One evening just before dusk they had taken a rather long walk
together, and for a short cut homeward passed through the shrubberies
of Hintock House--still deserted, and still blankly confronting with
its sightless shuttered windows the surrounding foliage and slopes.
Grace was tired, and they approached the wall, and sat together on one
of the stone sills--still warm with the sun that had been pouring its
rays upon them all the afternoon.
"This place would just do for us, would it not, dearest," said her
betrothed, as they sat, turning and looking idly at the old facade.
"Oh yes," said Grace, plainly showing that no such fancy had ever
crossed her mind. "She is away from home still," Grace added in a
minute, rather sadly, for she could not forget that she had somehow
lost the valuable friendship of the lady of this bower.