After Mrs. Davenport had left her, Eva remained in the dining-room for an hour or more. She had chosen, and the choice was not easy. But it seemed to her as if the struggle came afterwards rather than before. The letter she had written to Reggie rose before her, and her heart cried to her for mercy. But theclear knowledge which she had arrived at, that his chance of happiness grew in direct relation to remoteness from herself, remained unclouded, and at no moment of that hour's agony would she have reconsidered her decision. That she had so decided was a matter of wonder to her, for it is always a surprise to find that we are better, not worse, than we think; but her investment in unselfishness gave her no quick returns, for at present, as she well knew, Reggie was as miserable as she was. The sacrifice of two victims called down no immediate answer from the blessed gods in the way of a sudden cessation of pain.
But when that hour was passed, she went upstairs to her husband, to see him about the business he had mentioned. She felt strongly the necessity of being active, of doing something, no matter what, which might possibly take her a little out of herself. Our moral nature has to go to bed when it is hurt, and it is well to leave it there, and not fidget at the bandages to see how it is getting on.
The business resolved itself into affairs connected with the ironworks at Trelso, and Lord Hayes told her that he was going down that afternoon, and would stop the night there, returning the following day. And Eva, longing for distraction, found none there. Her mother and Percy were in town, and she drove off, and fetched them back to lunch.
The sight of so well-appointed a house, and thethought that, in a measure, it was part of her environment, as being the mother of its mistress, always put Mrs. Grampound in an excellent humour, at times bordering on a sort of mature playfulness.
"And how is my little daughter behaving?" she asked Lord Hayes, as soon as they were seated at lunch. "I hope she is doing me credit, and you, too, of course. I don't like the way girls behave now. I'm sure they do things we should have got dreadfully abused for when we were young, and now no one takes any notice whatever. Dear Eva, what a lovely piece in the middle of the table. That is new, is it not?"
"The beauty of it is that it's very old," remarked Eva.
"Really, it looks so bright and fresh. And talking of brightness and freshness, I met Mr. Davenport the other day. He spoke of you a great deal, as if he knew you quite well."
"He is a great friend of Eva's," said her husband, watching her. "Why hasn't he come to see you to-day, Eva?"
"Chiefly because he left by the mail for Aix this morning," said Eva. "He asked me to say good-bye to you for him."
Lord Hayes had the satisfaction of believing this to be untrue, but that was small compared with the complete failure on his part to ruffle Eva's bosom with anuneven breath, or raise the slightest tinge of colour to her face.
"I'm quite in love with him," she went on slowly, without looking at her husband. "I feel quite desolate without him. Hayes, you must be particularly kind to me all day. Though, of course, you mustn't hope to compete with Reggie in my affections."
Lord Hayes smiled, and took some jelly. Most people know that particular moment experienced at varying distances from Dover pier, when they are not quite sure whether they enjoy the motion or not. Lord Hayes was, metaphorically speaking, being a little tossed about, and if he did not yet think with longing ofterra firma, he was not sorry to remember that he would be alone at Trelso that evening.
"What a beautiful thing it is, is it not," he said, addressing Mrs. Grampound, "when a wife reposes such confidence in her husband, that she tells him she is in love with someone else. Truly there can be no secrets between such."
Mrs. Grampound tittered shrilly. To state the truth, as Eva had done, is often the surest, sometimes the only, way of producing a complete misconception. She failed to notice the acidity in Lord Hayes's face and voice, and thought the scene quite too charming. But Percy noticed and wondered.
"What shocking things to say to each other," cried she. "Eva, you naughty child, how can you? Andyou deserve I should scold you too," she said, turning to her son-in-law.
"Reggie has scorned me and my homage altogether," continued Eva gravely, speaking chiefly in order to produce a sort of counter-irritant to her own pain, on the same principle as that on which children, suffering from toothache, may be observed to bite their lips. "He has gone off to Aix to see hisfiancée. He gave me her photograph—wasn't that a cruel thing to do?—and his own. Really, it was most shameless. I was never so humiliated before. I think, when Hayes goes away to Trelso, I shall take the train to Aix and sit watching the hotel windows, and serenade him in the hotel garden. It's quite a new idea for a woman to serenade her lover. Why did you never serenade me, Hayes? I should like to see you serenade on a cold night under a silk umbrella. Can you sing, by the way? You'd have to leave a good deal to the lute, like the man in Browning who serenaded at a villa during a thunderstorm. Your mother wouldn't approve of serenading, would she? The evening fever sets in about that time, I think, from eleven till two—of course, the damp wouldn't matter if you had Jaeger boots with eight holes in them."
"Eva, you naughty girl," said her mother again.
Yes; there was just a little too much motion. Metaphorically speaking, Lord Hayes went below.
"I've got to go to Trelso this afternoon," he said."I hear that the men are getting more and more discontented. There is an organised body of Socialists down there, who incite them and refer to me as a brutal tyrant. What a very odd way to spend your life, you know—going about the country calling us names. I can't think what they imagine they will get by it."
"It is rather hard to call you a brutal tyrant," said Eva with some amusement. "Now, if they had said so of Reggie, or of me, for example— Yes, Percy, you may smoke here, or let's go up to the top of the porch. There is a tent there, and it is deliciously cool."
The two gentlemen stayed behind a moment, and Eva and her mother went on. Lunch made Mrs. Grampound even more effusive than usual.
"I do so love to think of you here in your beautiful house, darling," she said to Eva, as they passed up the great marble stairs; "with your husband devoted to you, and all that. A charming little scene at lunch, so playful and delicately touched. But you always were clever, dear. It is such a happiness to me to think of you like this. That yellow collar you have on your liveries is very becoming. How much do you pay yourchef? Ah, what a charming little room this tent makes! I suppose you and your husband often sit here."
She subsided into a low chair, and looked at Evaaffectionately, or, at any rate, with an air of proud proprietorship.
"I am very rich," murmured Eva. "I have every thing that money can buy—I have a title—yes, what more can I want?"
Mentally she was far away. The boat got into Calais about two-thirty. She had looked it out in a Bradshaw that morning. He had just left Calais, going south to join Gertrude. He would be at Aix next morning early. She felt if she could only know exactly what effect her letter had had on him, she would be more content. Her heart ached for the sight of him, ached with the pang of that self-inflicted wound which had sent him away irrevocably, she hoped, or feared—which was it? There was half-an-hour at Calais, she remembered, on her journeys to Algiers; enough to lunch in, to buy a book in, to be rather bored in. There was—ah! the curtain that separated the little tent from the drawing-room was drawn aside, as she had often seen it drawn aside lately, when she said she was not at home to visitors—and Lord Hayes entered.
"I have come to say good-bye," he said, "I must be leaving at once for the station. I shall be back to-morrow, Eva, soon after lunch, I expect; we are dining with the Davenports."
"Ah, yes, I had forgotten," said she. "Good-bye! I shall see you to-morrow."
"What are you going to do this afternoon?" inquired her mother, after she had kissed her hand to Lord Hayes as he drove off.
"I am going to Wimbleton House. There is a garden-party. It is a bore, but I promised to go." Eva paused to see the sudden alacrity with which she knew her mother would receive the news, before she added—"Perhaps you would like to come with me."
"I should enjoy it very much," said her mother. "I am so fond of garden-parties, and they do them so well there."
"I didn't know that you knew the Duchess," remarked Eva, and let the subject drop.
She returned home and dined alone, and spent a long evening upstairs in her room. She reviewed again minutely from the beginning, not because she wanted to think of it, but because she could not avoid it, the events of the last weeks. It was as if a sudden light had burst in upon her soul, showing her what was meant by love, and then, just as she comprehended it, the exigencies of its very nature, the compulsion she was under to reveal herself, and that second compulsion which would not allow her to do for Reggie anything but what her sober reason told her was best for him, had left her face to face with this horrible blankness. A spring had broken out which could never, she felt, cease to flow, but she stood there, with mouth gagged, unable to drink of its coolness. In her heartshe believed that, even now, if she wrote one word to him—"Come"—in two days he would be with her. But her longing and her firm renunciation seemed indivisible. She could no more have apostatised on her renunciation than she could have compelled herself to be quit of her love. Her nature was of too large and serene a type for her to feel again that one outburst of jealousy when she had torn Gertrude's photograph in half. At that moment all the worst side of her heart had leapt out—the tigress element; the animal within her had raised that one howl of anguish, but after that it had lain still, cowed to the deeper pain of that in her which was human and divine. At the moment of her renunciation a light had shone on her darkness, and though the darkness comprehended it not, it wondered and was still; and when in that light she saw and decided what course she must, for all reasons, take, the animal did not venture even to lift its head and growl.
Reader, are you burning to tell me that all this suffering on the part of Eva and Reggie—even if you allow that such a very proper chastening for the lax self-indulgence with which they slid into the mutual positions they now occupy is a subject fit to be treated of at all in a moral and Christian country, or whether you hold that I might as well describe the infliction of the cat o' nine tails on a righteously-condemned convict for some well-defined and properly-chastened offence—that this suffering was perfectlywell merited; that, had Eva been a woman of even decent moral principles, or had Reggie not been subject to the calviest of calf loves, it would never have happened; that, above all, it was their, particularly her, fault? I plead guilty to all these indictments, or rather I put in no defence for my prisoners, which is the same thing. I admit that Eva was not—according to the best lights, which you, no doubt, are judging her by—a woman of decent moral principles; that it is a tenable view that this infatuation of Reggie's was only a calf love; but his last, remember, for I have told you that he was a boy no longer; and, above all, I admit that it was their, particularly her, fault.
Now, with regard to Eva's morals, you are judging her, I imagine, by your own standards, which, after all, are the only standards by which one man can judge another. No one can judge by other men's standards, whether they be lower than their own or higher—the result is a loss of moral perspective. You cannot take observations, except by applying your eye straight to the telescope; if you stand above it and squint, you will obtain an incorrect idea of what you wish to see. And in addition to venturing to assume that you judge her by your own standards, I will go further and assume, broadly, what those standards are. I have noticed that when people—as I, for the sake of argument, have made you do—refer to moral principles, they refer to a code which may vary in magnitude and comprehensiveness,but which is based on one principle—the avoidance, even in thought, of certain things which they regard instinctively, almost hysterically, as being impossible, because they are wrong. But the moral principles very seldom go so far as to say they are wrong; they stop short at impossible—they are contrary to its nature—and that is enough. Eva, I am afraid, had no morals at all of this kind. To take an exaggerated instance, I am afraid, if the truth were known, vitally and essentially, she kept her hands from picking or stealing not because it was wrong, but because she did not want the things she might have stolen. It is a very shocking confession, and it is driving a principle home to admit it, but it serves to illustrate under a distorting, or, at any rate, a very high-power lens, the difference between her and you. But—and this, I again assume, is the purport of the whole matter in your mind—it was her own fault. Ah, if I could only tell you how freely I grant you that. And what is there, in Heaven's name, of all the sufferings we ordinary people undergo, that is not our fault? From the slippers which the labourer's wife has omitted to put down to warm for her lord, and which give rise to recriminations and perhaps a few silent tears, to the pangs of remorse for some wrong done which we can never undo, what is there of which we are wholly guiltless? The supremely-suffering-babe-unborn-innocent-utterly-milk-and-water heroine of the severely classicromance is not common in this dingy, work-a-day world. It would be presumptuous in me to say she does not exist, but I have never seen her yet. She is a very beautiful and ennobling conception, and she always gets a full reward in the last chapter, where she is joined to her only love and lives happily ever afterwards, and sometimes is seen again in the epilogue, surrounded by a group of golden-haired, clean-limbed children, with their father's pensive eyes, who utter sentiments which must fill her maternal heart with pride and joy ineffable. But have you never, even in those beautiful epilogues, been faced by a grey, shadowy doubt that life is not quite like this, that even villains have good points, and heroines bad ones; that virtue does not always bring so full a reward, and that vice is not discomfited with that sublime completeness; in a word, that human nature is much more complex, more subtlely compounded than the epilogue would indicate, that a nature capable of a sublime action is also capable of one or of many that do not fall in with your moral principles, and that something is to be said even for the villain? But Eva, I maintain, though not a heroine, and though the bank of ineffable joy had not given her a blank cheque to be filled up at her pleasure, was not a villain. She had done something which no right-minded person would approve in allowing herself to fall in love with Reggie, and in allowing him to fall in love with her; and what is more, she had done somethingshort-sighted. Not knowing the nature of love, she had tried to play with that perplexing emotion, and was finding now that it was not merely playing with her, but ordering her about in a most autocratic manner. She had committed a folly, and in this world we pay more heavily for a folly than a sin. She was bewildered, unstrung, unhappy, by her own fault, no doubt; but if we never pity those on whom justice makes its pitiless claims, whom shall we pity? Are we to class her with the villain, since we cannot class her with the heroine? After all, do not most of us belong to a class which it would be unjust or impossible to class with either the one or the other? There are more gradations between the noon-day sun and the starless night than the epilogues allow for. At any rate, all you Rhadamanthine judges, she was paying for it, and surely that is all you demand. Come a little further with me; your desire for justice, justice to the uttermost farthing, will not be disappointed.
Eva woke next morning from that dreamless sleep which only quickens our capabilities for suffering, woke with a start of pain into the full consciousness of her unimaginable future. But the absence of her husband was at least a mitigation; she felt she could not stand any extra burden just then. But would this horrible emptiness never cease—would there come no assuaging of her agony? It is hard, directly after some severeshock has been sustained, to believe in the possibly healing powers of time—all we feel is that the impossible to-morrows and to-morrows will stretch away until death, and none will be less impossible than the last. And when one is young, strong, serenely healthy, that is a serious thought. Surely Eva was paying for her folly. And still she never reconsidered her decision; she still saw with undoubted clearness that Reggie, leaving herself out of the question, would eventually be happier with Gertrude; that, for him, there were pleasant places open on this weary earth, into which he would, in all probability, soon pass and leave her for ever. His best chance of happiness lay there, and herself she did leave out of the question utterly and fearlessly. There is something to pity, and perhaps, after all, there is something to praise.
There is nothing so unbearable as this consciousness of force that cannot be converted into effort, or reach fruition. It strikes with an unavailing hand at the gateways of our soul, but it cannot pass out and fulfil itself. And to Eva the sensation was wholly new. The coldest, least human of our species are just those who throw themselves with the most irresistible singleness into the force which has thawed them, when that unthawing comes. When their long winter is passed, the sap streams more fully into its channels, than in those who live, as it were, in most temperate climates, where the sap never wholly quits the trees. And Evahad none on whom to spend the force of her late waking love. The one who woke it was gone—gone by her own will—and the stream had no other outlet.
The hours passed wearily on till noon. After lunch she had calls to make, and about five o'clock she returned home to dress for a ride. Lord Hayes had not yet come back, and she left word that she would be in before seven. But the exercise, the sun, the meeting of half a hundred people she knew had its due effect, and made the horror of that empty house the greater. To her it was a house full of ghosts, of dead possibilities and living horrors, and it was not till much before eight that she dismounted again at her door. The gloaming was rapidly deepening into night, the lamps had already been lit, and the white star on her horse's forehead glimmered strangely through the dusk. She asked the man whether Lord Hayes had returned, and learned that he had come back soon after she had gone out. They were to dine at the Davenport's at a quarter to nine, and Eva went straight to her room to dress. Lord Hayes, the man said, had already dressed and was sitting in his room, writing. He had given orders that he was not to be disturbed. Eva had two minds as to whether she should go to the Davenports that night or not, but the desire to see Mrs. Davenport, to learn whether Reggie had really gone, and how he had received her note, were too strong. She would be wiser, she knew, to say nothing about him,but the craving of her nature took no account of wisdom.
Half an hour later, she came out from her room, dressed for the party, faultlessly beautiful. She had put on the diamonds she had worn two nights ago at the opera, and they lay on her breast like a living embodiment of light. Just as she came out on to the landing, a man came upstairs to say the carriage was round, and she turned aside to go to her husband's room to tell him.
She opened the door, and to her surprise found the room was dark. Then she called him, but got no answer. The man who had announced the carriage was still standing on the landing, and she turned to him.
"Where is Lord Hayes?"
"His Lordship went into the room an hour ago, my lady," he said. "I have not seen him come out. He is not in his dressing-room."
Eva stood for a moment with her hand still grasping the door, for the space in which a new thought may strike the mind. Her eyebrows contracted, and the diamonds on her breast were suddenly stirred by a quick-drawn breath.
"There is no light in there," she said. "Bring me a lamp quickly."
She waited in the same position while the man fetched a lamp.
"Take it in there," she said; "no, give it me."
The man followed her in.
By the writing-table, with his face fallen forward on the paper, sat her husband. His arms sprawled on each side, and every joint was relaxed. Eva looked at him for a moment, and then touched him.
"Hayes!"
There was no answer.
"Hayes, Hayes!" she said, raising her voice.
She set the lamp down on the table, close to the thing that sprawled there, and, taking him round the shoulders, dragged him up off the table. But the head fell back over one shoulder, and the two hands rattled against the wood-work of the chair, as his arms slipped off his knees.
"Quick, quick!" she cried to the man. "What are you standing there for? Don't you see he is ill? Let the carriage go off to the doctor's and bring him back. You fool, run! Send a man here at once!"
Eva ran to the bell and rang it furiously. There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs, and two men came running up.
"Lord Hayes is ill," said Eva. "Take him to his room, and lay him on the bed."
She could not bear to stop in the room to see that nerveless thing being moved, and went out to the passage, where her maid met her. The atmosphere of terrorhad spread through the whole house, and servants were running up.
"Oh! my lady, what is the matter—is he dead?" asked that somewhat hysterical young woman, clasping her hands.
Eva turned fiercely on her.
"Nothing is the matter. What do you mean by saying that? Run downstairs and get some brandy. Quick! do you hear?"
The two men passed out close to Eva with their grim burden. She shuddered as they moved slowly along to the bedroom door. Then, after a moment she followed them. They had laid him on the bed, but, even in that attitude, the limpness was not that of a living man.
"Leave me, wait till the doctor comes, and bring him up," said she.
When she was alone, she lit the candles and brought them near his face. She took up one of the open hands, and felt for the pulse, but found it not. Then, looking up suddenly, she saw her own face in the glass, set in a half circle of light from the diamonds on her neck. For a long moment she gazed, and then, setting the candles down, she unclasped the necklace, and dashed it on to the ground.
Mrs. Carston was a widow, with only one daughter. She was a woman to whom querulousness had, by habit, become a second nature, but she had, as she often remarked, cause enough for complaint. Her husband, of whom she had been very fond, died suddenly, leaving her with one girl, a younger son, and less income than she could comfortably manage on. Then, two months later, her son died, leaving her alone with Gertrude. Her health, never very good, was much weakened by the double shock, and of late years she had become ahabituéeat Aix for four or five weeks every May, when there were plenty of English people there, with whom she used to talk gossip, and bemoan her unfortunate health.
Gertrude managed to be very happy during the earlier part of that month. The enchanted valley, in which there falls not hail nor rain nor any snow, had a great charm for her, and she used to avail herself of the early morning hours, when her mother was undergoingher baths and douches and treatment, to wander far among the thick, dewy meadows, over which the mountains keep watch. She would pick great bunches of the early gentians and meadow sweet, and tall, tasselled grasses, and make their sitting-room bright with their wild, free beauty. The flowers sold in the market place had less attraction for her; they reminded her of towns, and she found it sweeter in the country. She had, too, at first, a very happy background to this pure joy of living, in the thought of Reggie. Ever since the winter, her love for him had been undergoing a slow, steady change; it had deepened and widened imperceptibly from day to day, and, looking back on the early days of their courting, the hours now seemed to her to have been unmomentous and shallow, save that they held the germ which had ripened into this. And he was going to join them, as he had said, in a few weeks, and she felt she particularly wished to be with him again, in the way that she would be at Lucerne—away from his world and her world. Those quiet hours had for her in anticipation a glorious possibility. She would make Reggie feel all that he was to her, make him understand the new depths which she knew had been opened by her love in her nature.
She did not usually see her mother till the twelve o'clockdéjeuner, and one morning, about five days after their arrival, she had got up earlier than usual and walked down to the lake. The day before, Reggie'sletter, announcing Lady Hayes's sudden desire to have her photograph, had arrived, and for an hour or two she had been filled with perplexing doubts, of which she felt ashamed. But her true and deep loyalty had soon reasserted itself, and she had chased them from her mind. She told herself that she was absolutely unjustified in ever letting the vaguest uneasiness rise into her thoughts. Whatever her feeling was, it had sprung from that irrational pique with which she had received Reggie's remarks concerning Eva six months ago. She had then conceived in her mind a dislike and distrust for a woman she had never seen, and that weed she had allowed to grow until, just before she left London, she had refused to go to lunch with her for no reason at all. Decidedly it was time to pull the weed up.
So she went out next morning feeling a wider happiness than ever. That act of loyalty was finding a full reward, and the meadows had never looked so green, nor the water so lovely, nor the background of her thoughts so satisfying. The post had not come in when she left the hotel, and the certainty of a letter from Reggie awaiting her return added its solid contribution to her happiness.
The tall, graceful figure, walking swiftly along the poplar avenue out of the town, was very characteristically English. Several French women, as she passed through the streets, turned to look at her, wonderingwho was that English demoiselle, who walked so fast; why she was at Aix at all, and, above all, for what conceivable reason she should want to walk. But none of them failed to smile pleasantly when Gertrude gave them a "bon jour"; her face was so irresistibly happy and handsome, and they went back to their work smiling, and forgetting for the moment to scold Jean or Pierre for putting their dirty little fingers in the washtub.
Gertrude got down to the lake while the sun was still behind the big range of hills to the east, though, looking back, she could see the tops of the mountains behind, and even the lower pastures beneath them touched by the new gold. She sat down on the landing-stage and watched the glory spreading downwards, till it reached the clear, white town she had left, and finally the sun itself swung into sight over the serrated outline of the eastern hills. The small, blue ripples tapped an invitation on the sides of the pleasure boats lying at anchor, and Gertrude determined to have a short row before going back. The boat-keeper expressed astonishment and dismay when he heard that mademoiselle proposed to row herself, but Gertrude stripped off the light jacket she was wearing and told him to get two light sculls, and, with a laugh, disdaining his outstretched hand, she jumped into the boat and pushed off.
Life was very sweet that morning. She was goingto write to Reggie and tell him to come very soon, before they left Aix, for it was a nice place, and he could row as much as he liked, and go for long walks, and there were horses to be had. As she paddled quietly along, she pictured herself here again with him in a week or two. He would be sure to come. Had he not said he did not care for London, and he did happen to care for her? She wanted her mother to know him too, for she had only seen him at present on fugitive visits, and her "ideas" about him were vaguer than Gertrude wished.
The sun was already high when she landed again, but the dusty mile of road up to Aix was short in her anticipations. There would be a letter for her from someone she cared about, infinitely dear to her, but, as the advertisements often say, "of no value but to the owner." So she walked up not feeling the sun, only conscious of an inward glow of happiness which nothing could touch.
Yes—the post had come in, and the polite porter looked through the letters. Miss Carston? No; none had come this morning. "Was he quite sure?" Yes; but perhaps mademoiselle would like to look through them for herself. Mademoiselle did like to do so, and she went upstairs to see her mother, feeling that the doubts, which she had buried the day before, had celebrated a private resurrection on their own account.
"Summer had stopped." There are no words for it but those. Was the sky still as blue? Possibly, but not for her. And when the sky is not blue for us, it is noticeable that we do not care very much, even the most unselfish of us, whether it is blue for others or not.
Gertrude, in fact, passed on the stairs a colonial bishop and his wife, whom she had been accustomed to make the sharers of her intense joy in its blue spring; but when the lady recorded her opinion that it was a lovely day, Gertrude felt that the remark was singularly ill-chosen.
She found her mother upstairs, preparing to come down. It was one of her bad days, and Gertrude knew that even greater attention than usual would be required of her.
"I have been wanting you ever so long—these two hours at least," said her mother, as she entered. "I wish you could manage to think about me sometimes. But that is always the way. Invalids never matter. They can look after themselves."
Gertrude kissed her mother and took off her hat.
"I am so sorry," she said, "I went a longer walk than usual, right down to the lake, and had a short row. Did you have your massage earlier this morning? You are not usually ready till twelve, and it is not twelve yet."
"No, I had it at ten, as usual. Why should I have it earlier?"
"I thought you said you had been waiting for me so long. However, here I am now. I won't be out so late another morning. What did you want me to do?"
"Mrs. Rivière met me at the bath," said her mother, "and wanted me to go for a picnic this afternoon, and you. I think I shall go. I want a breath of fresh air; they are going up to the Monastery, on the far side of the lake. We shall have to dress up, I suppose. Princess Villari is going, and the Prince too, I think."
Gertrude frowned slightly. She detested Mrs. Rivière with all the power with which a healthy, honest mind can detestmondainesof a certain description.
"Did you say we would come?" she asked.
"Why, of course I did. I suppose you don't want to go now. Really, considering what I have to go through, it might be expected that my only daughter would not object to coming with me for a picnic, where perhaps I may get a little distraction. And the doctor particularly told me to get up in the hills now and then."
"Mother, why do you judge me so hastily?" said Gertrude. "Of course I will come; I only asked you whether you had accepted. What time shall we start? It will be delicious up there. Must I put on my very best frock?"
"Gracious me, yes," said Mrs. Carston. "I wish you had a better. And you're getting dreadfully brown. Gertrude, I wish you would take a little more care of your complexion. You won't be fit to be seen in a low dress when we get back to England. Ah, there's the bell. Give me your arm, dear, I am a mass of aches to-day. Have you heard from Reggie this morning?"
"No, there were no letters for me to-day," said Gertrude, cheerfully. "I shall have to blow Reggie up when I write again. Or shall I not write until he writes to me?"
"I forget whether you know Princess Villari," asked her mother. "You've seen the Prince, haven't you?"
"I never spoke to her," said Gertrude. "But I saw her last night at the Cercle; she was going into the baccarat room, talking at the top of her voice, and smoking."
"It's becoming quite the thing to smoke," remarked Mrs. Carston. "I should smoke, if I were you, this afternoon, if everybody else does. It is no use making an obvious exception of oneself. It looks so odd."
"Oh! I think it's horrid for women to smoke," said Gertrude. "It's unfeminine. Don't you think it is?"
"Nonsense; I wish you would, if others do," saidher mother; "but you are always so determined. If you don't wish to do a thing, you won't do it. Take me to that seat at the small table. I can't talk to Mrs. Mumford any more."
The rest of the party were all coming from the "Splendide," the great hotel at the top of the hill overlooking Aix, and as the road from there went by the Beau Site, where Gertrude and her mother were staying, it had been arranged that the party from the upper hotel should call for them as they passed, and pick them up. Mrs. Carston told Gertrude that they were going to drive down to the lake in the Prince's four-in-hand, take boats there, and walk up to the Monastery, where they would have tea.
Gertrude and her mother were sitting in the verandah, facing the road, after lunch, when the brake drew up at the entrance to the hotel. A woman, brilliantly beautiful and marvellously dressed, was driving, whom Gertrude recognised as the Princess. She was smoking a cigarette, and held her whip and reins in the most professional manner. By her side sat Mrs. Rivière, and, in the centre of the seat just behind, a handsome, foreign-looking man, who, when they stopped, and he saw Gertrude and her mother coming down the steps, leaned forward to the Princess, and said,—
"Who is that very handsome girl there, Mimi? Is she coming with us?"
The Princess turned to look, and gave a shrill, voluble greeting to Mrs. Carston.
"Charmed to see you! Get up and sit next my husband. Villari, you know Mrs. Carston, don't you? And is that your daughter with you? I am so glad you were able to come, too. Steady, you brutes! Bring the steps, quick! These animals won't stand quiet. Villari, get down and help them up."
"It's Miss Carston," she said to him, as he passed her; "isn't she handsome? Veryingénue, I imagine. Do you know her, Mrs. Rivière?"
"I met her the other day," she replied. "I don't think they've been here very long. How beautifully you drive!"
"That's one of my English accomplishments," said the Princess; "and I haven't forgotten it, you see. Dear me! it's more than a year since I've been to England. We're going in November. Villari's bought a country place there, you know. Are you right behind there? Go on, you brutes, then! Ah! you would, would you?"
The Princess gave a savage cut with her whip at one of the leaders, who appeared to want to go home, and they started off at a hand-gallop.
"For God's sake, take care, Mimi!" said the Prince, leaning forward, as they swung round a corner with about three-quarters of an inch to spare; "the streets will be full to-day—it's Saturday."
"Blow the horn, old boy!" remarked the Princess. "Tell them we're coming. I must go fast through here, you know, because I've got the reputation of driving like the son of Nimshi. Do you know who the son of Nimshi was, Mrs. Rivière? He comes in the Bible."
By about an equal mixture of the favour of Providence and the dexterity of the Princess, they got through the town in safety, without impairing the reputation of the latter as being a furious driver, and the horses settled down to a steady pace on the road to the lake.
The Prince had managed to seat himself next Gertrude, leaving Mrs. Carston to the attentions of Mr. Rivière. The rest of the party were composed of English visitors staying at the "Splendide," and the whole party numbered ten or twelve. A second glance assured him that she was even handsomer than he supposed, and, as it was one of the Princess's maxims that husband and wife were, both of them, perfectly free to receive or administer any attentions they pleased, without injuring their mutual relations, it followed, naturally, that he made himself agreeable.
"I hope you and your mother are not given to nervousness," he asked, when it was plain that the Princess intended to keep her reputation up, "for my wife is a perfectly reckless driver. However, she isalso the best driver I ever saw, and she has never had an accident yet."
Gertrude shrank from his somewhat familiar scrutiny of her face, and she answered him coldly—
"Oh no, thanks. I am never nervous, and my mother is not either. Are you, mother?" she asked, leaning back, and addressing her directly.
"Not when the Princess is driving," said Mrs. Carston, graciously, smiling at the Prince.
"I was just telling Miss Carston there was no need to be when my wife is driving. I acknowledge it doesn't look the safest form of amusement. Mimi, you'll have a wheel off presently."
"Then we'll go like a fox terrier when it wants to show off," remarked Mimi. "It would look rather nice, I think."
"I saw you two nights ago at the Cercle," continued the Prince to Gertrude. "I wanted my wife to introduce me, but she didn't know you, she said. I suppose you haven't been here very long."
"No; only a week," she said, again feeling a little uneasy.
"Then, of course, we may hope that you will still remain here a considerable time."
"I shall be here about a fortnight or three weeks more."
"Ah! you stop here about as long as we shall," he said; "personally, I would stop longer, but we have togo back to Vienna for a time, and we go to England in November."
"You hunt, I suppose," said Gertrude, carelessly.
"My wife is very fond of it, and that is reason enough for our going. She is half English, you know," said the Prince, making concessions to ingenuousness. "Here we are at the lake; let me help you down; the boats are waiting, I see. Let me give you my hand."
"Thanks, I can manage for myself," said Gertrude, preparing to dismount.
She turned round to catch hold of the rail, and in doing so, somehow, her foot slipped off the step. The Prince had already dismounted, and was standing below. He made a sudden, quick movement towards her, and just saved her a rather nasty fall, by catching her strongly round the waist and lowering her to the ground. Poor Gertrude was furious with herself, and flushed deeply.
"I hope you are not hurt," he said, bending towards her. "I was very fortunate in being able to save you."
Mrs. Carston saw what had happened from the top of the drag.
"Dear Gertrude," she cried, "you are always so precipitous—why don't you thank the Prince?"
"As long as Miss Carston was not precipitated, her precipitousness is harmless," said the Prince."I am afraid you are shaken," he said to Gertrude.
"Villari, you must not try to make puns in English," screamed Mimi; "go and hold the horses a minute till they've taken out the baskets. There's no such word as precipitousness."
Meanwhile Gertrude had recovered her equanimity, and confessed to herself that the Prince had merely chosen between letting herself be hurt or not hurt, and that it was hard to say why she was angry with him. She walked to where he was standing at the horses' heads.
"I am so grateful to you," she said; "you saved me a very bad fall."
"Please don't thank me for the privilege I have had. It is for me to thank you."
Gertrude made a great effort to conquer her increasing aversion to him, which was quite inexplicable, even to herself, and smiled.
"You are very unselfish. Do you always find it a privilege to help other people?"
"Decidedly not," said he, looking straight at her.
Gertrude turned away, and he followed her to join the others, who were standing at a little distance.
"There are the boats," explained the Princess, "and as there are ten of us and three of them, we'll divide ourselves between them. We'd better take a man each to do the rowing, and if any of us like wecan take an oar. I love rowing, and I know you row, Miss Carston. Your mother was telling me you were out this morning. Shall you and I go in a little boat by ourselves, and row across? Let's do that."
The Prince remonstrated.
"Mimi, you mustn't take Miss Carston off all by yourself like that. It isn't fair on the rest of us."
Mimi looked at him with malicious amusement in her eyes.
"Miss Carston shall decide for herself," she said. "Will you offend me or offend the Prince?"
Poor Gertrude was not used to a world where chaff and seriousness seemed so muddled up together, and where nobody cared whether you were serious or not. She was accustomed to mean what she said, and not to say a good many things she meant, whereas these people seemed to say all they meant, and only half to mean a good many things they said.
"I'm very fond of rowing," she said simply. "I should like to go with you."
Princess Mimi looked mischievously at her husband, and Gertrude, not knowing exactly what to do with her eyes, glanced at him too. He was waiting for that, and as their eyes met he said,—
"You are very cruel; your thanks to me do not go beyond words."
The Princess came to her rescue.
"Come, Miss Carston, you and I will set off.There's a sweet little boat there, which will suit us beautifully."
The Princess's method of rowing was to dip her oar into the water like a spoon very rapidly, for spasms which lasted about half a minute. In the intervals she talked to Gertrude.
"I am so glad to be coming to England again," she said. "Villari has had a lot of tiresome business which has kept him at Vienna during this last year, and we haven't set foot in it for sixteen months. I am tremendously patriotic; nothing in the world gives me so much pleasure as the sight of those hop-fields of Kent, with the little sheds up for hop-pickers, and the red petticoats hanging out to dry. I think I shall go and live in one. Do you suppose it would be very full of fleas? I shall build it of Keating's powder, solidified by the Mimi process, and then it will be all right. Do come and live with me, Miss Carston. Do you know, we've taken a tremendous fancy to you. May I call you Gertrude? Thanks, how sweet of you. Of course you must call me Mimi."
It was quite true that she had taken a great fancy to Gertrude, and Gertrude, in turn, felt attracted by her. She, like others, began to discount the fact that she smoked and screamed and drove four-in-hand, in the presence of the vitality to which such things were natural and unpremeditated. There was certainly no affectation in them; she did not do them because shewished to be fast, or wished to be thought fast, but because she was fast. Between her and Mrs. Rivière, Gertrude could already see, there was a great gulf fixed.
Later on in the afternoon the two strolled up higher than the others on the green slopes that rise above the Monastery, and sat down by a spring that gushed out of a rock, making a shallow, sparkling channel for itself down to the lake. The Princess had what she called a "fit of rusticity," which expressed itself at tea in a rapid, depreciatory sketch of all town life, in removing flies from the cream with consideration for their wings, and watching them clean themselves with sympathetic attention, and, more than all, in her taking a walk with Gertrude up the mountain side, instead of smoking cigarettes. Prince Villari had asked if he might come too, but Mimi gave him an emphatic "No." Nobody had ever accused Prince Villari of having the least touch, much less a fit, of rusticity.
The Princess had the gift of prompting people so delicately, that it could hardly be called forcing, to confide in her, and so it came about that before very long she knew of the existence of our Reginald Davenport, and his relation to her companion.
Then Gertrude said suddenly,—
"Do you know Lady Hayes?"
Mimi was startled. The question had been very irrelevant. But she answered with a laugh,—
"No; but I am told I should not like her. They say she is too like me. But why do you ask?"
"Reggie wrote to me about her this morning. He says she is delightful."
"Oh! I don't say she isn't," said the other, "but you see there isn't room or time for two people like me in one place. I never have time to say all I want, and if there was somebody else like that, we shouldn't get on at all."
"Oh! but Lady Hayes is usually very silent, I believe," said Gertrude.
"Yes; but you have to listen to the silence of some people, just as you have to listen to the talk of others. It takes just as much time. I expect she is one of those."
The Princess looked at the figure beside her.
"How happy you must be," she said with something like envy; "and I think you will continue to be happy. And Mr. Davenport is coming here, is he? You must introduce me at once, and I will give you both my blessing. That's something to look forward to. Come, we must go down, the others will be waiting."
Mimi was rather less noisy on the way home than usual. Prince Villari remarked it, and supposed that the fit of rusticity was not yet over. She bid a very affectionate good-night to Gertrude at the door of her hotel, and asked her to come and see her in the morning,and then altered the terms of the visit, and said she would come down to their hotel herself, and hoped to find Gertrude ready for a stroll before lunch.
She remained silent at dinner, and afterwards, when she and her husband were sitting in their room by the window, to let in the cool evening breeze, he felt enough curiosity to ask,—
"What is the matter with my charming wife that she is so silent?"
"I was thinking about Gertrude Carston," said Mimi. "She is engaged to be married."
Prince Villari puffed his cigar in silence for a few moments.
"Ah! that is interesting," he said at length. "I shall come with you to-morrow to offer my felicitations. How very handsome she is."
"I wish you would do nothing of the sort, Villari," said his wife. "Flirt with somebody else, if you must flirt with somebody. Flirt with me, if you like."
"That is a most original idea," he said. "I never heard of a husband flirting with his wife before."
"It's no manner of use trying to flirt with Gertrude Carston, my dear boy; so I warn you solemnly. She is awfully in love with her intended, and, in any case, she wouldn't flirt. She will only get angry with you."
"She would look splendid when she was angry," said the Prince meditatively.
Mimi got up from her seat.
"Look here, Villari," she said, "I don't often ask a favour of you, and I am not particular in general as to how you conduct yourself. I am never jealous, you know, and we have ceased to be lovers—we are excellent friends, which I think is better. As a friend, I ask you to leave her alone."
"I never suspected you of jealousy," he said; "but you ought to explain to me exactly why you wish this, if you want me to do as you ask."
"Benevolent motives, pure and simple," said Mimi at once. "You won't get any amusement out of it."
"Never mind me," murmured he.
"Very good," continued Mimi. "I cancel that—and she will hate it. Just leave her alone. Flirt with Mrs. Rivière. She would enjoy it. You were rude to her to-day; you never spoke a word to her—good, bad or indifferent."
"Mimi, you are inimitable," said the Prince, looking at her with satisfaction. "Really, you never disappoint one. I expected to find all sorts of surprises in you; but it seems I haven't got to the end of them yet. To discover such a spring of benevolence in you now is charming. Do you know I feel like your lover still."
"Then will you do what I ask?"
"Yes; I think I will," said he. "After all, I shall flirt with my wife a little longer."
He rose up from his chair, and took her hand in his, and raised it, lover-like, to his lips.
"You're a very good old boy, Villari," she said. "We've never yet come near the edge of a quarrel, and we've been married, oh! ever so long. How wise we are, aren't we? Let me go, please. I want to write some letters. You told Mrs. Rivière you'd go to the Casino with her. It's time you were off. Be awfully charming to her, will you?"
"I'll let her show me to all her acquaintances, and be introduced to them all, if that will do," said the Prince.
"That's a dear," remarked Mimi. "That'll do beautifully. Trot along!"
Gertrude's pleasure at receiving the telegram announcing Reggie's immediate arrival was not untouched by surprise. The vague thoughts, which for very loyalty she would not allow to take shape in her mind, in connection with Lady Hayes, formed themselves into a dark cloud on the horizon, distant but potentially formidable. But when she came downstairs on the morning of his arrival, and saw him standing in the hall, with the early morning sunlight falling on his tall, well-madeform and towering, sunny head, there was no room in her mind for more than one feeling, and she was content. He had not seen her coming downstairs, and on the bottom step she paused, held out her hands, and said,—
"Reggie!"
That moment was one of pure and simple happiness to them both. He turned and saw her, the girl to whom he had given his heart and his young love, and for him, as for her, at that moment none but the other existed. Gertrude felt that the thoughts of that golden future, which had so filled her mind one morning, as she walked down to the lake, were now beginning to be fulfilled. As for him, the chief feeling in his mind was one of passionate, unutterable relief; the long nightmare was over, for the moment he felt that childish, pure happiness of waking from a bad dream and finding morning come, and the sun shining into a dear, familiar room.
He had not had a very pleasant journey. The anger which Mrs. Davenport had seen in his face, and from which she had taken comfort, burned itself out and left him face to face with blankness. His passionate desire to see Eva rekindled itself, but that was impossible, and the sight of Gertrude he felt, in another sense, was impossible too. Several times he had been on the point of turning back, but the essential weakness of his character forbade so determined a step. Butcertainly, at that first moment of meeting her, he felt, with that unquestioning irresponsibility, that in natures not so sweet creates egoism, that the solution was here, and the relief was great.
"Ah, it is good to see you, Gerty," he said, when the first silent greeting was over. "I didn't know how much I wanted to get to you, until I saw you standing there."
"It was nice of you to come so soon," she said, drawing her arm through his, and leading him out on to the verandah; "but why did you come so suddenly? Nothing is wrong, I hope?"
Reggie had foreseen and dreaded this question, and he had devoted some thought to it. But Gertrude had given it a form more easy of reply than that he had anticipated.
He looked at her affectionately.
"Nothing is wrong," he said with emphasis, and, to do him justice, he believed at that moment with truth.
"Everything is as right as it can be now," he went on; "now I am here with you, and oh, Gerty, nothing else matters."
"No," she said softly; "nothing else matters."
They stood there looking at each other, silent, almost grave—for happiness is no laughing matter—until a waiter came out with a tray on which was Gertrude's breakfast. Reggie went upstairs to his room to get rid of his travel stains, and Gertrude ordered breakfast forhim to be served at the table on the verandah where she had her own. But it was not to be expected that the change in Reggie which Mrs. Davenport had noticed would escape her, and though, in the grave, silent joy of that first meeting, she had not consciously noticed it, she remembered it now, and it struck her exactly as it had struck Mrs. Davenport.
"He has become a man," she said to herself, and the thought flooded her mind with a new joy. He had said that nothing was wrong; their meeting had been all and more than she had expected, for she felt he fulfilled his part of that union of soul which she had thought of as the germ which lurked in their first months of courtship, and which she felt she had become capable of by degrees only. But, lo! he had changed too. Truly, the golden future was dawning.
Such moments are rare. We cannot live always at the full compass of our possibilities, any more than a horse can gallop at full speed for ever. That great characteristic of the human race, limitation, forbid us to walk for ever on the circumference of our circle. That most disappointing of phenomena called reaction will not be denied, and the hearts which are capable of the highest emotions in the highest degree, are not only capable, but necessarily liable to their corresponding depths. But at present, disconsolate reflections of this kind had no footing in Gertrude's mind. She knew her emotions were expanded for the presentsweet moment, even to the limits of her imagination, and room for further thought there was none.
All that day and all the next day the joy grew no less deep. On the afternoon of the third day an invitation came from Princess Villari for Mrs. and Miss Carston to come to tea, also to bring Mr. Davenport if he was there. Gertrude wanted to go, and sosans diredid her mother, and she soon convinced Reggie—who was of opinion that tea-parties were bores—that he wanted to go too. It is always flattering to the male mind to know that a lady particularly wants to see you, especially when that lady is described in so promising a way as that in which Gertrude alluded to the Princess.
The Princess had a genius for doing things in the best possible way. If she had given a soap-bubble party, the pipes would have been amber tipped, the soap, "Pears' scented," and even in an informal affair of this sort, her arrangements were indubitably perfect. Her sitting-room opened on to the verandah of the hotel, which in turn communicated with the garden. Tea and light refreshments were provided in all these three charming places, on a quantity of small tables, giving unlimited opportunities for any number oftête-à-têtes. The steps and the verandah were bright with sweet-smelling flowers, and in the room, where their fragrance would have been overpowering, were large, cool branches of laburnum and acacia. Needlessto say, she had advertised the hotel-keeper that she would be using the verandah and hotel gardens that afternoon, and that, with her compliments, those places would be "interdite" to any one but her guests.
The Princess was extremely glad to see Reggie, and she couldn't help congratulating him, if he wouldn't think it very interfering of her, but she had made great friends with dear Gertrude, and Gertrude had told her all about it. And here was Mrs. Rivière coming, and did Reggie know her; she was a great friend of Lady Hayes, whom she was sure he must have met in London.
Gertrude was standing some little way off, but she heard the name mentioned, and she could not help turning half round and looking at Reggie. Reggie's back, however, was towards her, and he was making his bow to Mrs. Rivière.
Mrs. Rivière was very busy about this time on modelling herself after the Princess, but having nothing in her composition that could be construed into tact or ability, the result was that the imitation was limited to talking in a loud voice, and saying anything that came into her head.
"Charmed to meet you," she was telling Reggie in shrill tones, "and all the men here are going to be dreadfully jealous of you at once. Your reputation has preceded you; it came to me by the last mail; how nobody could get in a word edgeways with Lady Hayes,because she was always talking to you, and how your photograph stood on the mantelpiece in her room, and she would never allow the housemaids to dust it, but she dusted it herself every morning with a pink silk handkerchief, also belonging, or belonging once, to you. Oh, don't deny it, Mr. Davenport—and how she sat out four, or was it forty—I think forty—forty dances with you at some ball one night."
Mrs. Rivière paused for breath, well satisfied with herself. Her monologue had been quite as rapid as the Princess's and, she flattered herself, quite as fascinating. Mimi had moved away when Mrs. Rivière came up, and was talking to Gertrude, a few yards off. But Gertrude did not hear what she was saying, for the shrill tones of Mrs. Rivière's voice rose high above the surrounding babble of conversation, and seemed as if they were spoken to her alone. Reggie's back was still turned towards her; his face she could not see.
Reggie was conscious that Gertrude was within hearing, conscious also that Mrs. Rivière did not know his relations to her. Eva's name had caused the blood to rush up into his face, and Mrs. Rivière had been delighted with the success of her speech. The Princess had caught a few of her last words, and, looking up at Gertrude, she saw that she had heard too. She wheeled suddenly about, and approached Mrs. Rivière.
"There are simply twenty thousand people whom I don't know here," she said; "you really must comeand introduce me to them. Who is that there in a green hat with little purple, bubbly things on it? I want to know anyone who wears purple and green. They must be so very brave; I respect brave people enormously. Come and introduce me. Villari has asked a lot of people I never saw before. I shall talk to him about the woman with purple bobbles!"
She drew Mrs. Rivière away, and Reggie turned round and found himself with Gertrude.
"I heard what that woman said to you," said Gertrude, simply. "It is only fair to tell you that."
She waited, looking at him expectantly, but he remained silent.
"Reggie," she said, touching his arm.
He raised his eyes and looked at her.
"Come and walk round the garden, Gerty," he said, "I have something to say to you."
Gerty's loyalty struggled again and again conquered.
"What you have to say to me can be said here, surely," she said gently and trustfully. "I do not even want you to deny the truth or any of the truth of what that woman said. I am ashamed of having told you that I heard. Forgive me instantly, please, Reggie, and then we'll have a stroll."
Reggie paused, and it was a cruel moment for Gertrude.
"Yes, I will say it here," he went on at length."Do you remember my telling you, three days ago, on the morning I came, that everything was right now I was with you? That was true."
"And it is true, and you have forgiven me?" asked Gertrude.
Was the ghost of Venusberg not laid yet? Else what was that murmur which Reggie had heard again, when Mrs. Rivière spoke of Eva, like the burden of a remembered song?—"She is not gone really, she has only gone elsewhere?" Was that the smell of red geraniums borne along from the flower-beds by the warm wind, faint, acrid, as you smell them in the dusty window-boxes of the great squares and streets in London? There should be no geraniums here, only wild flowers—meadow-sweet, dog-rose, violet—
The sound of Gertrude's voice had long died away, but Reggie stood silent. An overpowering feeling of anxiety swept over her; the trust that she had felt in his assurance that all was right was suddenly covered by a rolling breaker of doubt. And that silence cost her more than any speech.
At last it became unbearable.
"Speak, Reggie," she cried, "whatever you have to tell me."
"Come, let us go round the garden, where we can be quiet," he said, and together, in silence, they followed a path leading down between dark evergreen bushes to the garden gate.
They sat down on a garden seat where they were hidden from the crowd gathering on the lawn.
"Let us sit here, Reggie," she said. "Just tell me, and when you have said 'yes,' forgive me for asking that it is true that everything is right."
"Ah! God knows whether it is true or false," he cried.
For him again, the army of Venus laughed and rioted as it had rioted once before in the crowded opera house. Again a woman, pale, wonderful, with dark eyes, sat beside him, beating time listlessly to the music with her feathered fan. She had worn that night her great diamond necklace, and the jewels had flashed and glittered in the bright light, till he could scarcely believe they were not living things. And he had thought it was all over, past and dead. Oh no! "she is not gone really; she has only gone elsewhere ... she often turns up again."
Gertrude felt her heart give one great leap of strained suspense, and then stand still for fear.
"I don't understand," she cried. "Tell me all about it, and tell me quickly. Yet, yet, you said it was all right, didn't you, Reggie, and you wouldn't tell me a lie? Ah! say it is all right again, say it now. I cannot bear it. I should like to kill that woman for what she said. It was not true, was it? Tell me it was not true."
The ghost of Venusberg loomed large before Reggie'seyes, blotting out the green bank of trees in front, the pure sky overhead, the mountains sleeping in the still afternoon, blotting out even the tall, English figure by him, leaning forward towards him in an agony of fear, hope, despair; he saw the gleam of electric light, the gleam of jewels, the gleam of another woman's eyes.
"I will tell you all," he said. "I saw Lady Hayes for the first time after you had left London, and from that time till four days ago I have seen her constantly. Then one night she showed me she was like all those women she moved among, and from whom I thought her so different. She was like Mrs. Rivière, Princess Villari—all is one after that. It was at the opera, at Tannhäuser—"
The intensity of Gertrude's suspense relaxed a little. It was all over, then—
"Ah! we heard the overture together. Do you remember? You said you did not like wicked people."
"Yes, I know. When I saw that, at that moment I loathed her. She had said to me things no woman should say, and when I heard the overture I understood, and told her she was a wicked woman. And not till then—youmustbelieve me when I tell you this—not till I had vowed never to see her again, did I know—my God! that I should say these things to you—did I know I loved her. I have been through heaven and hell, and they are both hell."
Reggie paused.
"That is not all," said Gertrude.
The suspense was over, and despair is as calm or calmer than joy.
"I couldn't leave her like that," he went on. "I could not hate her utterly at the first moment that I knew I loved her, and I wrote to her asking her forgiveness, and she told me—she wrote to me, that she never would see me again, that I had behaved unpardonably. She made me angry. And I came straight off here the same day."
"And now?" asked Gertrude.
"God only knows what now," said he, leaning his head on his hands.
There was a long silence, and the babble of laughter and talk came to them from the lawn, which was filling fast. Then Reggie heard Gertrude's voice, very low and very tender, speaking to him,—
"Poor Reggie, poor dear boy. I am very sorry for you."
She laid her hand on his knee, and then, drawing closer to him, as he sat with down-bent head, leaned forward to kiss him. But in a moment she recollected herself, and by an effort of supremest delicacy, before he was conscious what she had intended, drew back with one long look at him, in which her soul said "Farewell."
She had something more to say, but it was not easy for her to say it. The uprootal of all one loves bestmakes it difficult to talk just then. But easy or not, it had to be said, and it was better to say it now.