er a secret irritation and repulsion;
how would it be in the years to come?

"He never saw me as I am," she thought to herself, looking fretfully
back to their past acquaintance. "I am neither as weak as he thinks
me--nor as clever. And how strange it is--this _tension_ in which
he lives!"

And as she sat there idly plucking at the wet grass, her mind was
overrun with a motley host of memories--some absurd, some sweet, some of
an austerity that chilled her to the core. She thought of the difficulty
she had in persuading Delafield to allow himself even necessary comforts
and conveniences; a laugh, involuntary, and not without tenderness,
crossed her face as she recalled a tale he had told her at Camaldoli, of
the contempt excited in a young footman of a smart house by the
mediocrity and exiguity of his garments and personal appointments
generally. "I felt I possessed nothing that he would have taken as a
gift," said Delafield, with a grin. "It was chastening."

Yet though he laughed, he held to it; and Julie was already so much of
the wife as to be planning how to coax him presently out of a
portmanteau and a top-hat that were in truth a disgrace to
their species.

And all the time _she_ must have the best of everything--a maid,
luxurious travelling, dainty food. They had had one or two wrestles on
the subject already. "Why are you to have all the high thinking and
plain living to yourself?" she had asked him, angrily, only to be met by
the plea, "Dear, get strong first--then you shall do what you like."

But it was at La Verna, the mountain height overshadowed by the memories
of St. Francis, that she seemed to have come nearest to the ascetic and
mystical tendency in Delafield. He went about the mountain-paths a
transformed being, like one long spiritually athirst who has found the
springs and sources of life. Julie felt a secret terror. Her impression
was much the same as Meredith's--as of "something wearing through" to
the light of day. Looking back she saw that this temperament, now so
plain to view, had been always there; but in the young and capable agent
of the Chudleigh property, in the Duchess's cousin, or Lady Henry's
nephew, it had passed for the most part unsuspected. How remarkably it
had developed!--whither would it carry them both in the future? When
thinking about it, she was apt to find herself seized with a sudden
craving for Mayfair, "little dinners," and good talk.

"What a pity you weren't bor