Sink or Swim? , Volume I

After the departure from the neighbourhood of Arthur Vavasour, there seemed at first to be a great gap in Honor's life. He had told her that he was going to remain a fortnight or more in London previous to his marriage, which was to take place there in great form and state on the last day of August. Arthur had no intention, as he assured Mrs. Beacham, of being present at the Danescourt festivities. His mother -- that was his avowed reason -- did not view those festivities, in so far as they regarded _him_, with a favourable eye; and it was "better taste" (so Arthur assured his intimate acquaintances, his brother and his sisters included) to keep away, during Lady Guernsey's well-intended hospitalities, from his home at Gillingham. His real motive for absenting himself was, however, a widely different one. He was well aware that not only would his intended bride be present, to expect, and with good right and reason, that he should devote himself to her service, but also that the woman whom it was his fate to love (men are very apt to account for the indulgence of their evil propensities in some such irrational manner) with a passion hitherto by him undreamt of would be a guest though a humble one, within the walls of Danescourt Park; and those glorious eyes of hers -- Honor's eyes were haunting ones, and followed or rather _led_ Arthur to what he was pleased to call his "doom," when he was far away -- would look their wonder if he kept aloof; an evidence of self-controlling powers, by the way, which Mr. Vavasour, to do him justice, greatly doubted his own ability on that occasion to display.

The fêtes -- it was now past the middle of July -- were to commence in three days' time, and the certainty that her friend would take no part in them had thrown a little damp on Honor's highly-wrought expectations. The pretty new dress, another of John's expensive _cadeaux_, was not to her the "thing of beauty" that it had been when she had wondered to herself, in all innocence (Honor's thoughts and mind were pure as yet as unsunned snow), whether Mr. Vavasour would think her well-dressed -- dressed "like a lady," in short, which was Honor's _ne plus ultra_ of ambition. It would be a pretty sight -- she could look forward to that; and it was very good of John to give up a whole afternoon -- two even, he said, if it would please her and his mother (ah, Honor, how silly it was to half resent this sharing of your husband's attentions! ) -- to see the "tomfooleries" at Danescourt. But although Mrs. John Beacham would of course make her appearance on the croquet and the archery ground, yet the zest, the charm of the day's amusement, seemed, in some to her incomprehensible way, to have momentarily departed, if not to be utterly extinct.