Mrs. Huston raised her small foot, and rested the heel of her slipper on the brass fender, while she contemplated the diminutive limb with some satisfaction.
“I have met one or two great men,” she said meditatively, “and I invariably found them very much like ordinary beings, rather less immersed in ‘shop,’ perhaps, and quite as interesting—not to say polite.”
Brenda winced.
“Was Theo not polite?”
“Hardly, my dear.”
As Mrs. Huston delivered herself of this opinion, with a faint tinge of bitterness in her manner, she turned and looked towards her sister, as if challenging her to attempt a palliation of Trist’s conduct.
Brenda neither moved nor spoke. The moonlight, flooding through the diamond panes of the window, made her face look pale and wan. There were deep shadows about her lips. Without, upon the shingle, the sea boomed continuously with a low, dreamlike hopelessness.
I wish I were a great artist, to be able to paint a picture of that small parlour in an east coast village inn. But there would be a greater skill required than the mere technicalities of art. These would be needed to deal successfully with the cross-lights of utterly different hues—the cold, green-tinted moonlight, the ruddy glow of burning driftwood washed from the deck of some Baltic trader; and the reflection of each in turn upon quaint old bureaux, bright with the polish of half a dozen generations; gleaming upon Indian curio, and shimmering over the glass of dim engravings. All this would require infinite skill; but no brush or pencil could convey the old-day mournfulness that seemed to hang in the atmosphere. Perhaps it found birth in the murmuring rise and fall of restless waves, or in the flicker of the fire, in the quick crackle of the sodden wood. My picture should be called The Contrast, and in the gloom of the low ceiling I should bring out with loving care two graceful forms—two lovely faces.
The one—the more beautiful—in all the rosiness of young life, glowing in the firelight. The other, pale and wan, with an exquisite beauty, delicate and yet strong, resolute and yet refined. Of two working in the field, one is taken, the other remaineth. Around us are many workers, and of every two we look upon, one seems to have the preference. One has greater joy, the other greater sorrow; and, strive as we will, think as we will, argue as we will, we can never tell “why.” We can never satisfy that great question of the human mind. Life has been called many things: I can express it in less than a word—in a mere symbol—?—a note of interrogation, the largest at the compositor’s command.
In this great field of ours, where we all work blindly, many are taken, and many left. Moreover, those who would wish to go remain, and those who cling to work are taken. She who grindeth best passeth first.
Brenda never answered her sister’s challenge. She turned her eyes away, facing the cold moonlight, staring at the silver sea with eyes that saw no beauty there.
“O God!” she whispered, glancing upwards into the glowing heavens with that instinct which comes alike to pagan and Christian, “send a great war, so that Theo may go to it.”
XIII
Cross-Purposes
Mrs. Wylie had undertaken the task of reconciling Alice Huston and her husband without any great hope of success. The widow’s married life had been an exceptionally happy one, but even in her case there had been small drawbacks, mostly arising, it is true, from the untoward work of fate, but, nevertheless, undoubted drawbacks, and undeniably appertaining to married life.
It would have been hard to find two people less calculated to assimilate satisfactorily than Alice and Alfred Huston; and yet there was love between them.
The weak-minded soldier undoubtedly loved his wife: as for her, it would be hard to give a reliable opinion. She was, I honestly believe, one of those beautiful women who go through life without ever knowing what love really is.
With another woman for his helpmate, Huston might reasonably have been expected to reform his ways. With another husband, Alice might have made a good and dutiful wife.
Assuredly the task that had fallen upon Mrs. Wylie’s handsome shoulders was not overburdened with hope. She was, however, of an evenly sanguine temperament, and I think that it is such women as she who help us men along in life—women who trust for the best, and work for the best, without any high-flown ideals, without poetic notions respecting woman’s influence and woman’s aid; who, in fact, are desperately practical, and make a point of expecting less than they might reasonably get.
Mrs. Wylie was by no means ignorant of the fact that a reconciliation between such a couple as Mr. and Mrs. Huston was not calculated to be of a very permanent or deeply-rooted character; but she had lived a good many years in a grade of society which delights to watch the inner life of others. She had seen and heard of so many unsuitable matches, which, having been consummated, had proved the wonderful power of love. It is only the very young and inexperienced who shake their heads upon hearing of an engagement, and prophesy unhappiness. No man can tell to what end love is working. The wise are silent in such matters, because there are some mistakes which lead to good, and some wise actions of which the result is unmitigated woe.
The widow therefore held her peace, and set to work as if there could be but one result to her efforts. She communicated with Alice Huston in her hiding-place, with Captain Huston at the club of which he was still a member, and with Trist by word of mouth. Brenda was, so to speak, in the enemy’s country. Her reports were therefore
