If it was not matchmaking, Mrs. Wylie’s conduct was, to say the least of it, unscrupulous; but then, my brothers, who amongst us knows a perfectly scrupulous woman? Not I, par Dieu. Charming, intelligent, fascinating, superior (ahem!), but scrupulous—no. I have not yet met her. Be it the shape of a hat or the heart of a lover, she will get it, taking it as a German clerk will take your business from you, by the means that are surest of success, without stopping to consider the silly question of an overstrained point of honour.
Trist was not, strictly speaking, merely one of Mrs. Wylie’s young men. His mother was her first cousin, and she it was who had gone down to Windsor to bring home a little round-faced Eton boy to the house of sickness when Mrs. Trist’s earthly pilgrimage was thought to be at an end. Since that day she had never quite lost sight of the boy, and years later she chaperoned Alice and Brenda Gilholme through an Oxford Commemoration at the undergraduate’s request.
It was at her house, and through her instrumentality, that the friendship between these motherless young people was chiefly kept up. The respective fathers knew nothing of each other, and cared likewise. One was a Parliamentary monomaniac; the other a worn-out Indian Civil-servant, tottering on his last legs at Cheltenham. There had never been an interchange of pretty sentiments; such things were not in Mrs. Wylie’s line of country at all. She had not wept silent tears over Brenda’s bowed head, and promised to fill the place of that vague and shadowy mother whom the girl had never known. Tears of any description were unfamiliar to the comfortable, brave little lady. Some of us profess, and some there are who act without professing: of these latter was Mrs. Wylie. It is so easy to talk of filling that vacant place, and so utterly impossible to cast the faintest shadow upon the walls of the empty chamber.
With Trist it had been the same. Unquestioned he had come and gone, only to come again. Mrs. Wylie never sought to entice confidences by a kindly show of interest, and what he chose to tell (which was little enough) she listened to with small comment. If she had in any slight degree influenced his strangely-blended character, her influence had been all and entirely beneficial.
Such, briefly, was the social relationship existing between these three persons brought together upon the deck of the Hermione beneath the magic of an Arctic night. Amidst such vast and grandiose scenery the trim yacht looked petty and insignificant; but these three persons had no appearance of being out of place. They were of that adaptable material which appears to yield to its environments and takes the shape of the receptacle in which it finds itself. Yet is it, like certain boneless marine animals, independent of its surroundings, having a perfect shape of its own, into which it invariably returns when left alone.
A brilliantly capable woman, an intellectual girl, and a gifted man could not well be in their social element in a deserted fjord, amidst gloomy mountains which weigh down men’s minds and keep back all mental growth; but there was no sign of discomfort, no suspicion of boredom. This world was theirs, and with it they were content.
The stillness that had come over them was broken at length by the voice of Admiral Wylie, raised in the cabin below and heard through the open skylight.
“Brenda—little woman! Brenda—ahoy! Come and play to me!” cried the pleasantly raucous tones.
The girl rose from her seat at once, and passed down the little stairway with a light responsive laugh, leaving the other occupants of the deck in silence.
Presently the sound of her playing reached them. It was characteristic of herself: so perfectly trained, so technically faultless, and yet as innately and pathetically sweet, was it.
Trist moved restlessly at the sound of it, and Mrs. Wylie, watching him, saw the blue puffs of smoke follow each other with unnatural rapidity from his lips. She leant back, and drew her shawl cosily around her.
At length Trist spoke, busying himself with his pipe and giving it his full attention.
“Brenda,” he remarked conversationally, “has been lecturing me upon the evils attending an excessive spirit of independence.”
“I have no doubt that her remarks were worthy of your consideration.”
“They were. Brenda’s remarks generally are worthy of consideration.”
“Were they of a personal nature?” inquired Mrs. Wylie, with a slight suggestion of mischief in her tone.
“Decidedly so. She has a pleasant way of telling me my faults. But I like it, because she
