Withal there was in the very atmosphere a sense of womanliness. The subtle odours emanating from wooden constructions, conceived and executed by dusky strangers, were overpowered by the healthier and livelier smell of flowers. Heliotrope nestled modestly in low vases from Venice. There was also mignonette, and on the mantelpiece a great snowy bunch of Japanese anemones thrust into a bronze vase from that same distant land, all looking, as it were, in different directions, each carrying its graceful head in a different way, no two alike, and yet all lovely, as only God can make things.
I cannot explain in what lay the charm of Mrs. Wylie’s drawing-room, though it must have emanated from the lady herself. There is no room like it that I know of, where both men and women experience a sudden feeling of homeliness, an entire sense of refined ease. The surroundings were not too fragile for the touch of a man, and yet there was in them that subtle influence of grace and daintiness which appeals to the more delicate fibres of a woman’s soul, and makes her recognise her own element.
The widowed lady herself was little changed since we last met her in the Far North. But those who knew her well were cognizant of the fact that the outward signs of late bereavement so gracefully worn were no cynical demonstration of a conventional grief. The white-haired old man sleeping among the nameless sons of an Arctic land was as truly mourned by this cheerful Englishwoman as ever husband could desire. There was perhaps a smaller show of cultivated grief, such as the world loves to contemplate, than was strictly in keeping with her widow’s cap. No lowered tones pulled up a harmless burst of hilarity. No smothered sighs were emitted at inappropriate times in order to impress upon a world, already full enough of sorrow, the presence of an abiding woe.
But Brenda Gilholme knew that the cure was incomplete. She had carried through, to the end, the task left her by Theo Trist. The Hermione lay snugly anchored by the oozy banks of a Suffolk river, and Mrs. Wylie was, so to speak, herself again—that is to say, she was once more a woman full of ready sympathy, gay with the gay, sorrowing with the afflicted. If Brenda in her analytical way saw and acknowledged the presence of a difference, it was perhaps nothing more than an overstrained feminine susceptibility. At all events, the general world opined that Mrs. Wylie was as jolly as ever. Moreover, they insinuated in a good-natured manner that the Admiral was, after all, many years her senior, and that she in all human probability had some considerable span of existence to get through yet, which he could not have shared owing to advance of infirmity.
One admirable characteristic had survived, however, this change in her life. The cheery independence of this lady was untouched by the hand of sorrow. It was her creed that at all costs a smile should be ready for the world. Regardless of criticism, she trod her own path through a hypercritical generation; and by seeking to cast the light of a brave hopefulness upon it, she illuminated the road on which her near contemporaries held their way. One great secret of her method was industry. In her gentle womanliness she sought work, not afar, but in her own field, and found it as all women can find work if they seek truly.
Even while she was awaiting the arrival of the sisters, she was not idle. On her lap there lay a huge scrapbook, and with scissors and paste she was busy collecting and arranging in due order sundry newspaper cuttings. That scrapbook will in after-years be historical, for it contained every word ever printed from the handwriting of Theodore Trist up to the date of the day when Mrs. Wylie sat alone in her drawing-room. From its pages more than one book on the art of making war has since been compiled, and from those printed words more than one general of many nationalities would confess to having learnt something.
The lady’s quick ear detected the sound of a cab suddenly stopping, and when a bell rang a few moments later she laid aside her scissors and rose from her seat with no sign of surprise.
“I wonder,” she said, “of what tragedy or comedy this may be the beginning.”
There was a certain matronly grace in her movements as she opened the door and drew Brenda Gilholme to her arms.
“Alice has come with me!” said the girl.
“Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Wylie, and she proceeded to greet the taller sister with a kiss also, but of somewhat less warmth.
Then the three ladies passed into the drawing-room together. There was a momentary pause, during which Mrs. Huston mechanically loosened the strings of her smart little bonnet and looked round the room appreciatively.
“How perfectly delicious,” she exclaimed, “it is to see a comfortable English drawing-room again! I almost kissed the maid who opened the door; she was such a pleasant contrast to sneaking Sinhalese servants.”
Mrs. Wylie smiled sympathetically, but became grave again instantaneously. Her eyes rested for a second on Brenda’s face.
“Alice,” explained Brenda, coming forward to the fireplace and raising one neatly shod foot to the fender, “does not give a very glowing account of Ceylon.”
“Nor,” added Mrs. Huston with light pathos, “of the blessed state of matrimony.”
Mrs. Wylie drew forward a chair.
“Sit down,” she said hospitably, “and warm yourselves. We will have some tea before you take your things off.”
“And now Alice,” she
