Walden smiled, but forbore to continue conversation on this somewhat personal theme. He retired into his own study, there to concoct the stiffest, most clerical, and most formal note to Miss Vancourt that he could possibly devise. He had the very greatest reluctance to attempt such a task, and sat with a sheet of notepaper before him for some time, staring at it without formulating any commencement. Then he began: "The Rev. John Walden presents his compliments to Miss Vancourt, and begs to inform her--"
No, that would never do! 'Begs to inform her' sounded almost threatening. The Rev. John Walden might 'beg to inform her' that she had no business to wear pink shoes with high heels, for example. He destroyed one half sheet of paper, put the other half economically aside to serve as a stray leaflet for 'church memoranda,' and commenced in a different strain.
"Dear Madam," "Dear Madam!" He looked at the two words in some annoyance. They were very ugly. Addressed to a person who wore pink shoes, they seemed singularly abrupt. And if Miss Vancourt should chance to resemble in the least her ancestress, Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, they were wholly unsuitable. A creditor might write 'Dear Madam' to a customer in application for an outstanding bill,-- but to Mary Elia Adelgisa one would surely begin,--Ah!--now how would one begin? He paused, biting the end of his penholder. Another half sheet of notepaper was wasted, and equally another half sheet devoted to 'church memoranda.' Then he began: "Dear Miss Vancourt," At this, he threw down his pen altogether. Too familiar! By all the gods of Greece, whom he had almost believed in even while studying Divinity at Oxford, a great deal too familiar!
"It is just as if I knew her!" he said to himself in vexation. "And I don't know her! And what's more, I don't want to know her! If it were not for this business of the Five Sisters, I wouldn't go near her. Positively I wouldn't!"
A mellow chime from the old eight-day clock in the outer hall struck on the silence. Three o'clock! The train by which Miss Vancourt would arrive, was timed to reach Riversford station at three,--if it was not late, which it generally was. Nebbie, who had been snoozing peacefully near the study window in a patch of sunlight, suddenly rose, shook himself, and trotted out on to the lawn, sniffing the air with ears and tail erect. Walden watched him abstractedly.
"Perhaps he scents a future enemy in Miss Vancourt's dog, Plato!" And this whimsical idea made him smile. "He is quite intelligent enough. He is certainly more intelligent than I am this afternoon, for I cannot write even a commonplace ordinary note to a commonplace ordinary woman!" Here a sly brain-devil whispered that Miss Vancourt might possibly be neither commonplace nor ordinary,--but he put the suggestion aside with a 'Get thee behind me, Satan' inflexibility. "The fact is, I had better not write to her at all. I'll send Bainton with a verbal message; he is sure to give a quaint and pleasant turn to it,--he knew her father, and I didn't;--it will be much better to send Bainton."