Indeed, he was not fond of the
society of women, and grew less so every year. His tone with regard
to them was marked with an almost puritanical coldness; he visited
any feminine breach of the proprieties with angry censure. Yet,
before his marriage, he had lived, if anything, more laxly than the
average man, and to his wife he had confessed (strange memory
nowadays), that he owed to her a moral redemption. His morality, in
fact, no one doubted; the suspicions Mrs. Hannaford had once
entertained when his coldness to her began, she now knew to be
baseless. Absorbed in meditations upon bloodshed and havoc, he held
high the ideal of chastity, and, in company agreeable to him, could
allude to it as the safeguard of civil life.
When he withdrew into the house, Mrs. Hannaford followed him. Olga,
always nervous when her father was near, sat silent. Piers Otway,
with a new reluctance, was rising to return to his studies, when
Miss Derwent checked him with a look.
"What a perfect afternoon!"
"It is, indeed," he murmured, his eyes falling.
"Olga, are you too tired for another walk?"
"I? Oh, no! I should enjoy it."
"Do you think"--Irene looked roguishly at her cousin--"Mr. Otway
would forgive us if we begged him to come, too?"
Olga smiled, and glanced at the young man with certainty that he
would excuse himself.
"We can but ask," she said.
And Piers, to her astonishment, at once assented.
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