Chapter 29

CHAPTER XXIX.

She walked up the soft grassy ride, screened on either hand by
nut-bushes, just now heavy with clusters of twos and threes and
fours. A little way on, the track she pursued was crossed by a
similar one at right angles. Here Grace stopped; some few yards
up the transverse ride the buxom Suke Damson was visible--her gown
tucked up high through her pocket-hole, and no bonnet on her head--
in the act of pulling down boughs from which she was gathering
and eating nuts with great rapidity, her lover Tim Tangs standing
near her engaged in the same pleasant meal.

Crack, crack went Suke's jaws every second or two. By an
automatic chain of thought Grace's mind reverted to the tooth-
drawing scene described by her husband; and for the first time she
wondered if that narrative were really true, Susan's jaws being so
obviously sound and strong. Grace turned up towards the nut-
gatherers, and conquered her reluctance to speak to the girl who
was a little in advance of Tim. "Good-evening, Susan," she said.

"Good-evening, Miss Melbury" (crack).

"Mrs. Fitzpiers."

"Oh yes, ma'am--Mrs. Fitzpiers," said Suke, with a peculiar smile.

Grace, not to be daunted, continued: "Take care of your teeth,
Suke. That accounts for the toothache."

"I don't know what an ache is, either in tooth, ear, or head,
thank the Lord" (crack).

"Nor the loss of one, either?"

"See for yourself, ma'am." She parted her red lips, and exhibited
the whole double row, full up and unimpaired.

"You have never had one drawn?"

"Never."

"So much the better for your stomach," said Mrs. Fitzpiers, in an
altered voice. And turning away quickly, she went on.

As her husband's character thus shaped itself under the touch of
time, Grace was almost startled to find how little she suffered
from that jealous excitement which is conventionally attributed to
all wives in such circumstances. But though possessed by none of
that feline wildness which it was her moral duty to experience,
she did not fail to know that she had made a frightful mistake in
her marriage. Acquiescence in her father's wishes had been
degradation to herself. People are not given premonitions for
nothing; she should have obeyed her impulse on that early morning,
and steadfastly refused her hand.

Oh, that plausible tale which her then betrothed had told her
about Suke--the dramatic account of her entreaties to him to draw
the aching enemy, and the fine artistic touch he had given to the
story by explaining that it was a lovely molar without a flaw!

She traced the remainder of the woodland track dazed by the
complications of her position. If his protestations to her before
their