第16章

Tottenham's dumb departure that day in February--it was the year John got his C.B.--was followed, I am thankful to say, by none of the symptoms of unrequited affection on Cecily's part.Not for ten minutes, so far as I was aware, was she the maid forlorn.I think her self-respect was of too robust a character, thanks to the Misses Farnham.Still less, of course, had she any reproaches to serve upon her mother, although for a long time I thought I detected--or was it my guilty conscience?--a spark of shrewdness in the glance she bent upon me when the talk was of Mr.Tottenham and the probabilities of his return to Agra.So well did she sustain her experience, or so little did she feel it, that I believe the impression went abroad that Dacres had been sent disconsolate away.

One astonishing conversation I had with her some six months later, which turned upon the point of a particularly desirable offer.She told me something then, without any sort of embarrassment, but quite lucidly and directly, that edified me much to hear.She said that while she was quite sure that Mr.Tottenham thought of her only as a friend--she had never had the least reason for any other impression--he had done her a service for which she could not thank him enough--in showing her what a husband might be.He had given her a standard; it might be high, but it was unalterable.She didn't know whether she could describe it, but Mr.Tottenham was different from the kind of man you seemed to meet in India.He had his own ways of looking at things, and he talked so well.He had given her an ideal, and she intended to profit by it.To know that men like Mr.

Tottenham existed, and to marry any other kind would be an act of folly which she did not intend to commit.No, Major the Hon.Hugh Taverel did not come near it--very far short, indeed! He had talked to her during the whole of dinner the night before about jackal-hunting with a bobbery pack--not at all an elevated mind.Yes, he might be a very good fellow, but as a companion for life she was sure he would not be at all suitable.She would wait.

And she has waited.I never thought she would, but she has.From time to time men have wished to take her from us, but the standard has been inexorable, and none of them have reached it.When Dacres married the charming American whom he caught like a butterfly upon her Eastern tour, Cecily sent them as a wedding present an alabaster model of the Taj, and I let her do it--the gift was so exquisitely appropriate.I suppose he never looks at it without being reminded that he didn't marry Miss Farnham, and I hope that he remembers that he owes it to Miss Farnham's mother.So much I think I might claim;it is really very little considering what it stands for.Cecily is permanently with us--I believe she considers herself an intimate.Iam very reasonable about lending her to her aunts, but she takes no sort of advantage of my liberality; she says she knows her duty is at home.She is growing into a firm and solid English maiden lady, with a good colour and great decision of character.That she always had.

I point out to John, when she takes our crumpets away from us, that she gets it from him.I could never take away anybody's crumpets, merely because they were indigestible, least of all my own parents'.

She has acquired a distinct affection for us, by some means best known to herself; but I should have no objection to that if she would not rearrange my bonnet-strings.That is a fond liberty to which I take exception; but it is one thing to take exception and another to express it.

Our daughter is with us, permanently with us.She declares that she intends to be the prop of our declining years; she makes the statement often, and always as if it were humorous.Nevertheless Isometimes notice a spirit of inquiry, a note of investigation in her encounters with the opposite sex that suggests an expectation not yet extinct that another and perhaps a more appreciative Dacres Tottenham may flash across her field of vision--alas, how improbable! Myself I can not imagine why she should wish it; I have grown in my old age into a perfect horror of cultivated young men;but if such a person should by a miracle at any time appear, I think it is extremely improbable that I will interfere on his behalf.