And now she sat with interlocked and writhing fingers, gazing upwards at this man, awaiting his will. Her agonized eyes quailed beneath his gentle glance. It is a picture I recommend to the notice of such plain and unwomanly females as love to talk of woman’s rights and woman’s superior nature, which awaits but the opportunity of asserting itself. Ah, my sisters!—you, the womanly women!—believe me, your greatest earthly happiness lies in love as it is understood now and has been understood since the Lion lay down with the Lamb in that old Garden which we catch glimpses of still over a fence when the love-light is in our eyes.
Trist broke the silence at last, and his voice was hollow, with a singular “far-off” sound, like the voice of a man speaking in great pain, with an effort.
“If the world has made a mistake, Alice,” he said slowly and impressively, “I hope to God you have not!”
She made no answer. The power of speech seemed to have left her beautiful lips, which were livid and dry. She rubbed her hands together, palm to palm, in a horribly mechanical manner, which was almost inhuman in its dumb despair. Before her eyes a veil—dull, neutral-tinted, impenetrable—seemed to rise, and her vision failed. The tendons of her lovely throat were tense, like wires, beneath the milky skin.
At length her senses returned, her bosom rose and fell rhythmically, and she looked round the room in a dazed, stupid way like one who has fallen from a height.
She saw it all as in a dream. The conventional furniture of mahogany and deep red velvet, the variegated tablecloth, the hideous gilt clock upon the mantelpiece. Then she looked into the square, open fireplace, where some logs of wood smouldered warmly. Upon one of these, unaffected by the heat, lay the half-burnt cigarette which Theo Trist had thrown away before speaking.
Seeing it, she looked round the room again with drawn and hopeless eyes. Trist was not there. He had left her. There was a simple straightforwardness of action about this man which at times verged upon brutality.
Slowly Alice Huston rose from her chair. For some moments she stood motionless, and then she went to the fireplace, where she remained staring at her own reflection in the mirror, which was only partially hidden by the glass-shade covering the hideous clock.
“And,” she muttered brokenly, as she turned away with clenched fists, “I used to think that we were not punished upon earth. I wonder how long … how long … I shall be able to stand this!”
VII
A Lesson
In Suffolk Mansions the absence of Alice Huston left a less perceptible vacuum than that lady would have imagined. Mrs. Wylie was intensely relieved that the young widow had, so to speak, struck out a line of her own—wherever that line might tend to lead her. Brenda was less philosophical. She tried to persuade herself that her sister’s presence had been a pleasure, and, like all pleasures withdrawn, had left a blank behind it. But the pretence was at its best a sorry one. It is a lamentable fact that propinquity is the most powerful factor in human loves, hatreds, and friendships. The best of friends, the most affectionate sisters, cannot live apart for a few years without fostering the growth of an intangible, silent barrier which forces its way up between them, and which we lightly call a lack of mutual interest. What is love but “mutual interest”?
Brenda, who was herself the soul of loyalty, stood mentally aghast over the ruins of her great unselfish love. She imagined it dead, but this was not the case. In a heart like that of Brenda Gilholme, love never dies. It is only in our hearts, my brothers, and in those of a very few women that this takes place. The sisterly love was living still, but it was little else than the mere tie of blood or the result of a few mutual friendships in the past. The two women had drifted apart upon the broad waters of life.
In the meantime Mrs. Wylie was watching events. This good lady was (is still, heaven bless her!) an optimist. She is one of those brave persons who really in their hearts believe that human life is worth living for its own sake. She actually had the effrontery to maintain that happiness is attainable. There are some women like this in the world. They are not what is called intellectual—they write no books, speak no speeches, and propound no theories—but … I would to God there were more of them!
The daily life of these two ladies soon assumed its normal routine. Brenda studied political economy, Shakespeare, and the latest biography by turns in her unproductive, resultless way. Her mind craved for food and refused nothing; while, on the other hand, it possessed no decided tastes. Before January had run out its days she heard from Alice, who had moved southwards to Monte Carlo with her friends the Martyns.
One afternoon in February Brenda was sitting alone in the drawing-room in Suffolk Mansions when a visitor arrived. It was no other than William Hicks. His entrée was executed with the usual faultless grace and savoir-faire. He carried a soft hat, for it was foggy, and his long black cloak was thrown carelessly back to the full advantage of a broad astrakhan collar.
This was the first visit he had paid since the death of Captain Huston; consequently he and Brenda had not met since the ball to which Trist had conceived the bold idea of bringing his enemy. With this fact in view William Hicks smiled in a sympathetic way as he advanced with outstretched hand, but said no word. They shook hands gravely, and Brenda resumed her seat.
“Mrs. Wylie has just gone to your mother’s,” she said,
