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Updated: June 25, 2025
What splendid, whole-hearted young inconsequence! In his heart he smiled a little grimly. Peter Carew of the Blues had been no shunner of women in those days; no taciturn, silent, unappreciative onlooker. Rather he had loved too many, kissed too freely, ridden away too light-heartedly. Until the blue-grey eyes, so like Meryl's, looked shyly up, and then in their turn ran away from him.
Meryl's eyes were less smiling than her lips, turning a little unsteadily this way and that, with a restlessness that added a touch of vivacity to her quiet beauty. But that, he knew, was the thing we baldly name pluck. It was not to-night he need fear what he should see in her eyes, nor perhaps to-morrow.
She paused a moment, but seeing Meryl's rapt attention, went on uninterruptedly, "And one day I awoke to the fact that I had a special right to one of the finest men who had gone out to do his share, and a special place at his side.
Enthusiasm arises from the imagination, self-sacrifice springs from the heart. They are therefore by nature more heroic than heroes." Enthusiasm and a divine spirit of self-sacrifice held a very deep part in Meryl's heart, though never for a moment would the thought of heroism have occurred to her.
There was a moment's awkward pause: she remembering his unceremonious departure, wondering at his unceremonious return; he nonplussed at the trick Fate had played him, bringing him again, in spite of his decision, into the sphere of her beauty and her quiet charm. "I was going to the Grenvilles'," he told her at last. And suddenly a tiny smile played about the corners of Meryl's mouth.
He told them Major Carew had been called away to Segundi, and would not return before they had departed north. "Gone?..." echoed Diana blankly. "Do you mean he has gone already and without saying good-bye?" He felt Meryl's eyes upon him with a strained expression, and he turned lightly to Diana to give her time to grasp the news. "Yes; but he left you a message.
Without doubt the news that he would some day inherit the Marquisate of Toxeter, if he outlived the present owner, had worked a wonderful change in him. He still hated Meryl's fortune, when he dared to let himself think of a future they might possibly share, but at least he could now offer her a position that might one day be among the highest in England.
And in the meantime she puzzled her small head daily concerning the invulnerable silence and aloofness of Peter Carew, and the blue shadows deepening under Meryl's eyes, though she strove hourly to be ever her old self and show no sign.
Pym's support and Meryl's charm might prove weapons which would see him safely through, and help him to mould his position anew on broader lines. But for another three weeks Diana successfully baffled his intention, influenced by that vague fear she could not fathom, and a futile, helpless desire to ward off some pending destiny.
Which was partly why some of the long hours of the hot, dusty journey were spent in discussing plans for the settlement of young men upon his land, on exceptionally easy terms. He was not quite sure that the country was ripe for such a scheme yet; but Meryl's great wish for it, and obvious pleasure in the discussions, took him to lengths he might otherwise have avoided.
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