"If it must come," "if it is really inevitable"--these phrases in Oscar'sletter satisfied me that he was already beginning to comfort himself withan insanely delusive idea--the idea that it might be possible permanentlyto conceal the ugly personal change in him from Lucilla's knowledge.
If I had been at Dimchurch, I have no doubt I should have begun to feelseriously uneasy at the turn which things appeared to be taking now.
But distance has a very strange effect in altering one's customary way ofthinking of affairs at home. Being in Italy instead of in England, Idismissed Lucilla's antipathies and Oscar's scruples, as both alikeunworthy of serious consideration. Sooner or later, time (I considered)would bring these two troublesome young people to their senses. Theirmarriage would follow, and there would be an end of it! In the meanwhile,I continued to feast good Papa on Holy Families and churches. Ah, poordear, how he yawned over Caraccis and cupolas! and how fervently hepromised never to fall in love again, if I would only take him back toParis!
We set our faces homeward a day or two after the receipt of Oscar'sletter. I left my reformed father, resting his aching old bones in hisown easy-chair; capable perhaps, even yet, of contracting a Platonicattachment to a lady of his own time of life--but capable (as I firmlybelieved) of nothing more. "Oh, my child, let me rest!" he said, when Iwished him good-bye. "And never show me a church or a picture again aslong as I live!"