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He spoke not, moved not, but his breath heaved thick, and his face was as pale as death. He conquered himself. All within Radclyffe obeyed the idol he had worshipped, even before Constance; all within him, if ardent and fiery, was also high and generous.
I have been there at the Henderson's wedding, and it is a charming place, a castle fit for Mrs. Radclyffe, with English comforts, and an Italian garden and an English village on the mountain side. My sister would do all that she promises, and would look after any young girl very well; you may quite trust her."
Constance, Whig by profession, ultra-Liberal in reality, still however gave the character to the politics of the house; and the easy Godolphin thought politics the veriest of all the trifles which a man could leave to the discretion of the lady of his household. We may judge, therefore, of the quiet, complacent amusement he felt in the didactics of Radclyffe or the declamations of Constance.
"Yet, thou hast known grief too," said the diviner, musingly, "and those who have sorrowed ought to judge more gently of each other. Wilt thou try my art on thyself, ere thou askest it for others?" "Ay, if you could restore the dead to my dreams." "I can!" replied the soothsayer, sternly. Radclyffe laughed bitterly.
Not a bit of it! She feels no more than the boards we tread on: she is probably thinking of the lively supper we shall have; and when she comes off the stage, she will cry, 'Did I not act it well?" "Nay," said Radclyffe, "she probably feels while she depicts the feeling." "Not she: years ago she told me the whole science of acting was trick; and trick trick trick it is, on the stage or off.
"Ay, you may well look astonished," said Fanny, archly; "but note that smile it tells of old days." And Godolphin turning to his friend, saw indeed on the thin lip of that earnest face a smile so buoyant, so joyous, that it seemed as if the whole character of the man were gone: but while he gazed, the smile vanished, and Radclyffe gravely declined the invitation.
What are the prophecies of St. Simon but a species of sorcery? Why believe the external more than the inner miracle? There were but a few persons present at Lady Erpingham's, and when Radclyffe entered, Madame Liehbur was the theme of the general conversation.
"Oh, man!" said Godolphin, almost bitterly, "how dost thou eternally deceive thyself! Here is the thirst for power, and it calls itself the love of mankind!" "Believe me," said Radclyffe, so earnestly, and with so deep a meaning in his grave, bright eye, that Godolphin was staggered from his scepticism; "believe me, they may be distinct passions, and yet can be united."
We desire no resurrection of the Ann Radclyffe type of romance: but the true alternative to this is not such a mixture of the police gazette and the medical reporter as Emile Zola offers us. So far as Zola is conscientious, let him live; but, in so far as he is revolting, let him die.
Constance, humbled as she was, listened in breathless silence; her cheek burned with blushes, and those blushes were at once to Radclyffe a torture and a reward. "At this moment," continued he, with constrained calmness, "at this moment he fancies in you that very coldness you lament in him. Pardon me, Lady Erpingham; but Godolphin's nature is wayward, mysterious, and exacting.
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