She was miserably anxious, but she hid it from him; and he talked on, quite ignorant of the fact that she was in no manner heeding his words. Her quick, acquired smile was ready enough; when an answer was required, she was equal to the occasion. Ah! these social agonies! There is a sort of pride in enduring them with cheerful stoicism.
“I am glad,” murmured Hicks, with a deprecating smile, “that my mother succeeded in dragging you here. It is a sort of intellectual treat for me. We painters are so incurably shoppy in our talk, that it is really a relief to have you at my mercy—so to speak. This is a success, is it not? There are a great many celebrities in the room.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes; and I always feel a slight difference in the atmosphere when there is someone present with a name one likes to hear.”
He looked round the room with glistening eye and delicate nostrils slightly distended, as if sniffing his native atmosphere of Fame.
“One can generally recognise a celebrated man or woman, I think,” he continued. “There is an indefinite feeling of power—a strength of individuality which seems to hover round them like an invisible halo.”
“Ye-es,” murmured Brenda vaguely. A moment later she was conscious of having looked round the room as if in search of halos, and wondered uncomfortably whether her companion had seen the movement.
Then a stout lady, with a very dark complexion, suddenly raised an exquisite voice, and a complete silence acknowledged its power instantaneously. It was a quaint old song, with words that might have had no meaning whatever, beyond trite regrets for days that could never come again, had they been sung with less feeling—less true human sympathy.
Brenda literally writhed beneath the flood of harmony. She tried not to listen—tried vainly to look round her and think cynical thoughts about the hollow shams of society, but some specially deep and tender note would reach her heart, despite the wall of worldliness that she had built around it. It would seem that that stout cheery woman could see through the smiles, through the affected masks, and penetrate to the heart, which is never quite safe from the sudden onslaught of youthful memories surviving still, youthful hopes since crushed, and youthful weaknesses never healed.
Brenda looked round the room with a semi-interested little smile (such as we see in church sometimes when a preacher has got well hold of his audience), and suddenly her face grew white, her breath seemed to catch, and for some seconds there was no motion of her throat or bosom. Respiration seemed to be arrested. With an effort she recovered herself, and a great sigh of relief filled her breast.
Among a number of men beneath the curtained doorway she had recognised an upright sturdy form, beside which the narrower shoulders and sunken chests of poetic and artistic celebrities seemed to shrink into insignificance. The way in which this man carried his head distinguished him at once from those around him. He was of quite a different stamp from his companions, most of whom depended upon some peculiarity of dress or hair to distinguish them from the very ordinary ruck of young men.
Across that vast room Trist’s eyes met Brenda’s, and although his calm face changed in no way, betrayed by no slightest tremor that he had come with the wild hope of meeting her, his lips moved.
“Thank God, I have done it!” he muttered, beneath the whirl of polite applause that greeted the stout lady’s elephantine bow.
At the other end of the room Hicks noticed with some surprise that Brenda drew her watch from her belt, and consulted it with particular attention. She was counting the number of hours since she had last seen Theodore Trist, with signs of travel still visible on his dress and person, just starting off on a new journey, without rest or respite. It was now midnight. She had never thought that he would return the same night—in fact, she was sure that he had not intended to do so. And here he was—calm, thoughtful, almost too cool as usual, without sign of fatigue or suggestion of hurry. His dress was faultless, his appearance and demeanour politely indifferent.
“I hope,” said Hicks meaningly, “that you are not growing weary. It is early yet.”
He looked round the room, with a pleasant nod for an acquaintance here and there whom he had not seen before.
“Oh no,” said Brenda lightly in reply. “I just happened to wonder what the time might be. I hope it was not rude.”
He laughed forgivingly, still looking about him.
“Ah!” he exclaimed in an altered tone. “Is that not Trist? Dear old Theo Trist!”
“Yes.”
Brenda had apparently followed the direction indicated by her companion’s gaze, and was now looking towards the newcomer with an inimitable little smile which completely quashed all attempts to divine whether she were surprised, or pleased, or politely interested.
Trist was making his way slowly across the room, exchanging greetings here and there. Brenda, in her keen observant way, conceived a sudden idea that his manner was not quite natural. Although of a kindly spirit, Trist was not a genial man with a smile full of affection for the merest acquaintance; and the girl, in some vague way, felt that he was shaking hands with men and women who were profoundly indifferent to him. Indeed, he seemed to go out of his way to do so.
“When did you get home?” she heard someone ask him; and the reply was delivered in clear tones, audible at a greater distance than Trist’s voice usually was, as if with intention.
“This afternoon,” he said. “Only this afternoon. I landed at Plymouth this morning.”
The next moment he was standing before her with his brown face bowed, his hand extended.
“You see, Brenda,” he said, “I have turned up again. A veritable dove without the leaf in my mouth. I am an emblem of
