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Updated: June 27, 2025
Great beauty ever had that effect on him. One could capture so little of it could never enjoy it enough! Who was it had said not long ago: "Love of beauty is really only the sex instinct, which nothing but complete union satisfies." Ah! yes, George Gratian's husband. George Laird! And a little frown came between his brows, as though at some thorn in the flesh. Poor George!
The Middle Ages, alike in England and in France, as doubtless in Christendom generally, accepted the rule laid down in Gratian's Decretum, the great mediæval text-book of Canon Law, that "the husband may chastise his wife temperately, for she is of his household," but the wife might chastise her daughters and her servants, and she sometimes exercised that right in ways that we should nowadays think scarcely temperate.
The viscount had but to send a trusty man with a vehicle, and the lady could meet him at a station of the Outer Circle Railway and thence proceed to a main station for Havre or Marseilles, as they selected. The famous sight-drafts were safe on Gratian's person.
Clemenceau had not said one word to his associate about the telegram from Paris, which he seemed not to believe, or of the note beginning: "The faithless one," by which Von Sendlingen had been warned of Gratian's absconding and which he instructed Hedwig to place where her master must see it.
It came on the third day, when Laird was up, lying on that very sofa where Pierson had sat listening to Gratian's confession of disbelief.
'I wonder what his wife was like, she thought: And then she saw, hanging against a strip of black velvet on the wall, that faded colour sketch of the slender young woman leaning forward, with her hands crossed in her lap. The colouring was lavender and old ivory, with faint touches of rose. The eyes, so living, were a little like Gratian's; the whole face delicate, eager, good.
The grief of Ambrose was deep; but besides he was forced to act for Gratian's half-brother Valentinian, whose mother Justina never failed to send for the bishop to help her out of her difficulties, and directly he had made things smooth, proceeded to fall back into them. Thankful indeed was he when she and her son set out for Thessalonica, to put themselves under the protection of Theodosius.
And my train goes at eight. God bless you, Gracie; give George my love. I know, I have always known that he's a good man, though we do fight so. Good-bye, my darling." He went out with his cheeks wet from Gratian's tears, and stood in the porch a minute to recover his composure. The shadow of the house stretched velvet and blunt over the rock-garden.
When they reached the door of Gratian's room the room which had been their mother's Noel was for passing on, but Gratian caught her by the arm, and said: "Come in." The fire was burning brightly in there, and the two sisters stood in front of it, one on each side, their hands clutching the mantel-shelf, staring at the flames.
For the kinsmen, it may be the very sons, of those Franks were now in Gratian's pay; and the Frank Merobaudes was his "Count of the Domestics," and one of his most successful and trusted generals; and all seemed to go well, and brute force and craft to triumph on the earth.
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