And, now at the last, having shut the door upon it, Dorothea could
reflect that her brother, too, had suffered. She knew his pride, his
sensitiveness, his mortal dread of ridicule. In the smart of his wound
he had turned and rent her cruelly, but had recovered himself and
defended her loyally from worse rendings. She remembered, too, that he
had distrusted Raoul from the first.
He had been right. But had she been wholly wrong?
In the dusk of the fifth evening after their departure the chaise
rolled briskly in through Bayfield great gates and up the snowy drive.
Almost noiselessly though it came, Mudge had the door thrown wide and
stood ready to welcome them, with Narcissus behind in the comfortable
glow of the hall.
Dorothea's limbs were stiff, and on alighting she steadied herself for
a moment by the chaise-door before stepping in to kiss her brother. In
that moment her eyes took one backward glance across the park and
rested on the lights of Axcester glimmering between the naked elms.
"Well," demanded Narcissus, after exchange of greetings, "and what did
he say about the drawings?"
Dorothea had not expected the question in this form, and parried it
with a laugh:
"You and your drawings! I declare"--she turned to Endymion--"he has
been thinking of them all the time, and affects no concern in our
adventures!"
"Which, nevertheless, have been romantic to the last degree," he added,
playing up to her.
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