He began to fumble in his pockets without any great design of finding the handkerchief. Mrs. Wylie spared him the trouble of going farther.
“Bring it another time,” she said.
She knew the handkerchief trick well. It is very simple, my brother: pick up a lace trifle anywhere about the ballroom, and with a slight draft upon your imagination, you have a graceful excuse to call at any house you may desire the next afternoon. If there is not one to be found, one can easily buy such a thing, and it serves for years. No young man is complete without it.
For some minutes William Hicks talked airily about the soirée of the Ancient Artists, throwing in here and there, in his pleasant way, a blast upon his individual instrument, of which the note was wearily familiar to his listener.
At last, however, he let fall an observation which made Mrs. Wylie forgive him, “à un coup,” his early call.
“I met,” he said casually, “that fellow … Huston this morning.”
Mrs. Wylie laid aside the paper-knife with which she had been trifling. The action scarce required a moment of time, but in that moment she had collected her faculties, and was ready for him with all the alertness of her sex.
“Ah! What news had he?” she inquired suavely.
“Oh, nothing much. We scarcely spoke—indeed, I don’t believe he recognised me at first.”
Mrs. Wylie raised her eyebrows in astonishment.
“He came yesterday,” she said, “to get his wife; and Brenda has gone away, too, so I am all alone for a few days.”
This was artistic, and the good lady was mentally patting herself on the back as she met Hicks’ glance, in which disappointment and utter amazement were struggling for mastery.
“I do not think,” continued she calmly, “that I shall stay in town much longer. I am expecting a houseful of quiet people—waifs and strays—at Wyl’s Hall at Christmas, so must really think of going home. But I will call on your mother before going. Give her my love and tell her so.”
William Hicks was not the man to make a social blunder. He rose at once, and said “Good morning,” with his sweetest smile. Then he bowed himself out of the room, taking the two-shilling rose with him.
Mrs. Wylie reseated herself, and withheld her sigh of relief until the door had closed. She then took up her book again, but presently closed its pages over her fingers, and lapsed into thought.
“That young man,” she reflected, “is finding his own level. He may give trouble yet; but Brenda goes serenely on her way, quite unconscious of all these little games at cross-purposes of which she is the centre.”
The good lady’s reflections continued in this vein. She leant back with that pleasant sense of comfort which was almost feline in its supple grace. Her eyes contracted at times with a vague far-off anxiety—the reflex, as it were, of the sorrows of others upon her own placid life, from which all direct emotions were weeded now.
When, at length, the sound of a bell awoke her from these daydreams, she rose and arranged the cheery fireplace with a sudden access of energy.
“I wonder,” she murmured, without emotion, “who is coming now.”
With a glance round the room to see that her stage was prepared, she reseated herself.
Again the door opened, and this time the new arrival did not hurry into the room, but stood upon the threshold waiting. Mrs. Wylie looked up with a pleasant expectancy. It was Captain Huston.
The soldier glanced round the room uneasily, and then he advanced towards the fire without attempting any sort of greeting. Mrs. Wylie remained in her deep chair, and as the Captain came towards her, she watched him. His unsteady hands gave his hat no rest. Taking his stand on the hearthrug, he began at once in a husky voice.
“I have come to you, Mrs. Wylie,” he said, “because I suspect that you know where Alice is to be found. This game of hide-and-seek to which she is treating me is hardly dignified, and it is distinctly senseless. If I choose to take decided steps in the matter, I can, of course, have her hunted down like a common malefactor.”
He spread his gaitered feet apart, and waited with confidence the result of this shot.
“In the meantime,” suggested Mrs. Wylie, with unruffled sweetness, “it is really, perhaps, wiser that you should remain apart. I sincerely trust that this is a mere temporary misunderstanding. You are both young, and, I suppose, both hasty. Think over it, Captain Huston, and do not press matters too much. If, in a short time, you approach Alice with a few kind little apologies, I believe she would relent. You must really be less hard on us women—make some allowance for our more tender nerves and silly susceptibilities.”
By way of reply, he laughed in a rasping way, without, however, being actually rude.
“I have an indistinct recollection of having heard that before,” he observed, with forced cynicism, “or something of a similar nature. The kind little apologies you mention are due to me as much as they are to Alice. Of course, she has omitted to draw your attention to sundry little flirtations …”
The widow stopped him with a quick gesture of disgust.
“I refuse,” she said deliberately, “to listen to details. Alice will tell you that I treated her in the same way. These matters, Captain Huston, should be sacred between husband and wife.”
“Well, I suppose you have Alice’s story through Brenda? It comes to the same thing. I can see you are prejudiced against me.”
Mrs. Wylie smiled patiently, with a suggestion of sympathy, which her companion seemed to appreciate.
“The world,” she said, “is sure to be prejudiced against you in the present case. You must remember that the moral code is different for a pretty woman than for the rest of us. Moreover, the husband is blamed in preference, because people attribute the original mistake of marrying to him. I don’t say
