It was, besides, the long-desired moment,
for which all his years at Oxford had been a training and a
consecration; it was that supreme, that nuptial moment in which an
ambitious man embraces for the first time his Opportunity.
The news of Lucia's trouble found him, as it were, in the ardours and
preoccupations of the honeymoon.
It was characteristic of Jewdwine that in this courting of Opportunity
there had been no violent pursuit, no dishevelment, no seizing by the
hair. He had hung back, rather; he had waited, till he had given
himself value, till Opportunity had come to him, with delicate and
ceremonious approach. Still, his head had swum a little at her coming,
so that in the contemplation of his golden bride he had for the time
being lost sight of Lucia.
As for marrying his cousin, that was a question with which for the
present he felt he really could not deal. No doubt it would crop up
again later on to worry him.
Meanwhile he gave to Lucia every minute that he could spare from the
allurements of his golden bride. For more than a fortnight her affairs
had been weighing on him like a nightmare. But only like a nightmare,
a thing that troubled him chiefly in the watches of the night, leaving
his waking thoughts free to go about the business of the day, a thing
against which he felt that it was impossible to contend. For Lucia's
affairs had the vagueness, the confusion of a nightmare. Details no
doubt there were; but they had disappeared in the immensity of the
general effect.
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