Jane turned away her glance. She felt suddenly guilty. This—this was just like eavesdropping, listening at doors, peeking through keyholes. She would not look at Cicily again.
Jane never knew how long she had remained, her unseeing eyes fixed rigidly on the little faltering dancers, wondering, helplessly, what ought to be done. When next she noticed him, Mr. Bournique, arm in arm with a decorous little lady who had to stand on tiptoe to reach his elbow, was leading the final grand march around the room. He paused at the door, to bow meticulously to each tiny couple as they made their ultimate exit. Over his grey head Jane could see that Cicily’s chair was empty. So they had seen her and, thinking themselves unseen, had slipped away together into the December snowstorm. Where were they now? What were they saying? Into what perilous indiscretion was Cicily falling? Little John Ward was pulling at her elbow.
“Did you see Mother, Grandma, here with Uncle Albert?”
Jane stared a moment in silence down into his wide brown eyes.
“Was she here, darling?”
“Yes. But she didn’t wait. How’ll we get home? Jane’s putting on her overshoes.”
In the tangle of perplexities confronting her, Jane recognized with relief that her first practical obligation was clear. She would walk home in the dark with the twins.
V
Jane sat in a corner of Cicily’s French drawing-room, waiting for Cicily to come home. Walking with the twins through the snowy streets of Lakewood, withdrawn from their artless prattle in the sanctuary of thought, Jane had finally arrived at a decision. Something must be done—and done quickly. She would speak to Cicily. She would not procrastinate. She would not falter. She would go in with the twins and talk with Cicily that very afternoon. Perhaps she would find Albert in the little French drawing-room. If so, she would wait, stonily, tactlessly, until he had withdrawn.
She had not found Albert. The maid at the door had informed her that Mrs. Bridges had not yet come in. The girl had thrown a concerned glance at Jane’s snow-powdered coat and saturated shoes. She had turned on one drawing-room lamp and lit the fire under the Marie Laurencin and had brought Jane a little pot of tea on a painted tray.
Jane had consumed the reviving liquid very gratefully. The twins were upstairs in the playroom, doing their homework. Robin Redbreast was eating his supper in the dining-room across the hall. When she had first come in, Jane had not felt equal to sustaining a conversation with even Robin Redbreast. She had finished her tea and was gazing, somewhat like a rabbit fascinated by a snake, at the blank chocolate-coloured eyes and thin, cruel lips of the Marie Laurencin, thinking that the opal-tinted lady had rather the air of passing an ironical comment on her own agitated state of mind.
The mood of the Marie Laurencin was the modern one of detached cynicism. “Well, what of it?” she seemed to be saying. “Why carry on like this about it? Surely you’re not surprised!”
Jane tried to think that she was not surprised, feeling an absurd obligation to justify her Victorian point of view to the opal-tinted lady. At least she admitted that she should not be surprised. This was only the sort of thing that happened, unhappily, now and then in every age. However, when it concerned your own daughter—But Albert Lancaster was merely running true to form. He was his father’s son. He had dragged Cicily into this mess. He would soon tire of her. And then—what a hell of readjustment awaited the poor child.
Jane was roused from revery by the sound of the front door opening and closing. Cicily’s light step was heard in the hall. She was alone. Albert had not come in with her. Her voice, very practical and pleasant, was addressing the waitress at the door.
“Send the car to the Woman’s Club for the twins at once, Ella. I forgot to stop in at their dancing school. They must be waiting.”
Jane heard the waitress start to speak, but Cicily did not pause for a reply. She appeared, abruptly, in the door of the little French drawing-room. The shoulders of her coat, her dark fox fur, her little black hat were all thickly frosted with soft wet snow. She must have been walking in the storm ever since she had left the Woman’s Club. She did not see Jane. She walked quickly over to the antique mirror that hung between the windows. Standing directly in front of it she stared, wide-eyed, at her own reflection in the glass. Jane stared, too, a startled, involuntary stare, at the face in the mirror. The cheeks were rose-red, the eyes were starry bright, the lips were parted in a reminiscent smile. Suddenly Cicily gave a little gasp.
“Oh!” she said softly, and pressing her dark-gloved hands to her rose-red cheeks, continued to stare, wide-eyed at the face in the mirror.
“Cicily,” said Jane gently.
The child started, terrifically. Then faced about, her lips no longer smiling, her eyes no longer starry. Slowly, like a curtain, a veil of controlled indifference dropped over her features.
“Mumsy!” she said. “I didn’t know you were there. You frightened me.”
Jane rose slowly from her chair in the corner.
“Cicily,” she said, “I’ve come to talk to you.”
Behind the veil of indifference, Cicily’s young face hardened defensively.
“What about?” she said.
Jane drew a long breath.
“About yourself—and Albert.”
There was a brief pause. Cicily moved to the fireplace and, stripping off her gloves, stood with her back to the room, holding her hands out to the warmth of the crackling flames.
“I wouldn’t, Mumsy,” she said finally.
“I have to,” said Jane. She was conscious that her knees were wobbling disconcertingly. She sat down rather suddenly in the armchair near the fire. There was another pause. Cicily continued to gaze down at the burning logs. She moved her thin, white hands a
