Otway, resenting this desertion, grew critical,
condemnatory, and, as if to atone for her union with a man who stood
outside all the creeds, developed her mild orthodoxy into a
peculiarly virulent form of Anglican puritanism. The only thing that
kept them together was their common inclination for a retired
existence, and their love of the northern moorland.
Looking back upon his marriages, the old man wondered sadly. Why had
he not--he who worshipped the idea of womanhood--sought
patiently for his perfect wife? Somewhere in the world he would have
found her, could he but have subdued himself to the high seriousness
of the quest. In a youthful poem, he had sung of Love as "the crown
of life," believing it fervently; he believed it now with a fervour
more intense, because more spiritual. That crown he had missed, even
as did the multitude of mankind. Only to the elect is it granted--
the few chosen, where all are called. To some it falls as if by the
pure grace of Heaven, meeting them as they walk in the common way.
Some, the fewest, attain it by merit of patient hope, climbing
resolute until, on the heights of noble life, a face shines before
them, the face of one who murmurs "_Guardami ben_!"
He thought much, too, about his offspring. The two children of his
first marriage he had educated on the approved English model, making
them "gentlemen." Partly because he knew not well how else to train
them, for Jerome was far too weak on the practical side to have
shaped a working system of his own--a system he durst rely upon;
and partly, too, because they seemed to him to inherit many
characteristics from their mother, and so to be naturally fitted for
some conventional upper-class career.
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