At the least it showed she had not
grown too old to make men love her; it was the vindication of the
mounting years; the time, then, had not yet come when she had
ceased altogether to count. She had lost her nephews, who were
growing to be men; the love she put by so readily when it was in
her reach seemed now more precious as she beheld her faded and
diminished beauty, the crow's-feet about her eyes, her hair
turning from brown to grey. A smothered voice within her said:
"Why not?"
She analysed Raymond narrowly in the long tete-a-tetes they had
together. She drew him out, encouraging and pressing him to tell
her everything about himself. She was always apprehending a
jarring note, the inevitable sign of the man's coarser clay, of
his commoner upbringing, the clash of his caste on hers. But she
was struck instead by his inherent refinement, by his unformulated
instincts of well-doing and honour. He was hazy about the use of
oyster-forks, had never seen a finger-bowl, committed to her eyes
a dozen little solecisms which he hastened to correct by frankly
asking her assistance; but in the true essentials she never had to
feel any shame for him. Clumsy, grotesquely ignorant of the social
amenities, he was yet a gentleman.
The night before they were to sail, he came to say good-bye. The
war had at last begun in earnest; men were falling, and the
Spaniards were expected to make a desperate and bloody resistance.
It was a sobering moment for everyone, and, in all voices, however
hard they tried to make them brave and gay, there ran an
undercurrent of solemnity.
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