Then, a month before this story opens, had come like a bombshell a curt notification from his relative that he had deemed it advisable to alter the terms of his will, and that Gilbert might look for no more than the thousand pounds to which, in common with innumerable other nephews, he was entitled.
It was not a shock to Gilbert except that he was a little grieved with the fear that in some manner he had offended his fiery uncle. He had a too lively appreciation of the old man’s goodness to him to resent the eccentricity which would make him a comparatively poor man.
It would have considerably altered the course of his life if he had notified at least one person of the change in his prospects.
III
Gilbert Leaves Hurriedly
Gilbert was dressing for dinner when the storm came up over London. It had lost none of its intensity or strength. For an hour the street had glared fitfully in the blue lightning of the electrical discharges, and the house rocked with crash after crash of thunder.
He himself was in tune with the element, for there raged in his heart such a storm as shook the very foundations of his life. Outwardly there was no sign of distress. The face he saw in the shaving-glass was a mask, immobile and expressionless.
He sent his man to call a taxicab. The storm had passed over London, and only the low grumble of thunder could be heard when he came out on to the rain-washed streets. A few wind-torn wisps of cloud were hurrying at a great rate across the sky, stragglers endeavouring in frantic haste to catch up the main body.
He descended from his cab at the door of No. 274 Portland Square slowly and reluctantly. He had an unpleasant task to perform, as unpleasant to him, more unpleasant, indeed, than it could be to his future mother-in-law.
He did not doubt that the suspicion implanted in his mind by Leslie was unfair and unworthy.
He was ushered into the drawing-room, and found himself the solitary occupant. He looked at his watch.
“Am I very early, Cole?” he asked the butler.
“You are rather, sir,” said the man, “but I will tell Miss Cathcart you are here.”
Gilbert nodded. He strolled across to the window, and stood, his hands clasped behind him, looking out upon the wet street. He stood thus for five minutes, his head sunk forward on his breast, absorbed in thought. The opening of the door aroused him, and he turned to meet the girl who had entered.
Edith Cathcart was one of the most beautiful women in London, though “woman” might be too serious a word to apply to this slender girl who had barely emerged from her schooldays.
In some grey eyes of a peculiar softness a furtive apprehension always seems to wait—a fear and an appeal at one and the same time. So it was with Edith Cathcart. Those eyes of hers were forever on guard, and even as they attracted they held the overeager seeker of friendship at arm’s length. The nose was just a little retroussé; the sensitive lips played supporter to the apprehensive eyes. She wore her hair low over her forehead; it was dark almost to a point of blackness. She was dressed in a plain gown of sea-green satin, with scarcely any jewel or ornamentation.
He walked to meet her with quick steps and took both her hands in his; his hungry eyes searched her face eagerly.
“You look lovely tonight, Edith,” he said, in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
She released her hands gently with the ghost of a smile that subtly atoned for her action.
“Did you enjoy your Derby Day?” she asked.
“It was enormously interesting,” he said; “it is extraordinary that I have never been before.”
“You could not have chosen a worse day. Did you get caught in the storm? We have had a terrible one here.”
She spoke quickly, with a little note of query at the end of each sentence. She gave you the impression that she desired to stand well with her lover, that she was in some awe of him. She was like a child, anxious to acquit herself well of a lesson; and now and then she conveyed a sense of relief, as one who had surmounted yet another obstacle.
Gilbert was always conscious of the strain which marked their relationship. A dozen times a day he told himself that it was incredible that such a strain should exist. But he found a ready excuse for her diffidence and the furtive fear which came and went in her eyes like shadows over the sea. She was young, much younger than her years. This beautiful bud had not opened yet, and his engagement had been cursed by overmuch formality.
He had met her conventionally at a ball. He had been introduced by her mother, again conventionally, he had danced with her and sat out with her, punted her on the river, motored her and her mother to Ascot. It was all very ordinary and commonplace. It lacked something. Gilbert never had any doubt as to that.
He took the blame upon himself for all deficiencies, though he was something of a romancist, despite the chilly formalism of the engagement. She had kept him in his place with the rest of the world, one arm’s length, with those beseeching eyes of hers. He was at arm’s length when he proposed, in a speech the fluency of which was eloquent of the absence of anything which
