_ She held out her hand with a charming gesture in which
dismissal was shorn of its rigour. Its hint of future leniency
made Rosedale rise in obedience to it, a little flushed with his
unhoped-for success, and disciplined by the tradition of his
blood to accept what was conceded, without undue haste to
press for more. Something in his prompt acquiescence frightened
her; she felt behind it the stored force of a patience that
might subdue the strongest will. But at least they had parted
amicably, and he was out of the house without meeting
Selden--Selden, whose continued absence now smote her with
a new alarm. Rosedale had remained over an hour, and she
understood that it was now too late to hope for Selden. He
would write explaining his absence, of course; there would be
a note from him by the late post. But her confession would
have to be postponed; and the chill of the delay settled heavily
on her fagged spirit.
It lay heavier when the postman's last ring brought no note
for her, and she had to go upstairs to a lonely night--a night
as grim and sleepless as her tortured fancy had pictured it to
Gerty. She had never learned to live with her own thoughts,
and to be confronted with them through such hours of lucid
misery made the confused wretchedness of her previous vigil
seem easily bearable.
Daylight disbanded the phantom crew, and made it clear
to her that she would hear from Selden before noon; but the
day passed without his writing or coming. Lily remained at
home, lunching and dining alone with her aunt, who complained of
flutterings of the heart, and talked icily on general
topics. Mrs. Peniston went to bed early, and when she had
gone Lily sat down and wrote a note to Selden. She was
about to ring for a messenger to despatch it when her eye fell
on a paragraph in the evening paper which lay at her elbow:
"Mr. Lawrence Selden was among the passengers sailing this
afternoon for Havana and the West Indies on the Windward
Liner Antilles."
She laid down the paper and sat motionless, staring at her
note. She understood now that he was never coming--that
he had gone away because he was afraid that he might come.
She rose, and walking across the floor stood gazing at herself
for a long time in the brightly-lit mirror above the mantel-
piece. The lines in her face came out terribly--she looked
old; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look
to other people? She moved away, and began to wander
aimlessly about the room, fitting her steps with mechanical
precision between the monstrous roses of Mrs. Peniston's
Axminster. Suddenly she noticed that the pen with which she
had written to Selden still rested against the uncovered
inkstand. She seated herself again, and taking out an envelope,
addressed it rapidly to Rosedale. Then she laid out a sheet of
paper, and sat over it with suspended pen. It had been easy
enough to write the date, and "Dear Mr. Rosedale"--but after that
her inspiration flagged. She meant to tell him to come
to her, but the words refused to shape themselves. At length
she began: "I have been thinking---" then she laid the pen
down, and sat with her elbows on the table and her face hidden in
her hands.
Suddenly she started up at the sound of the door-bell. It
was not late--barely ten o'clock--and there might still be a
note from Selden, or a message--or he might be there himself, on
the other side of the door! The announcement of his
sailing might have been a mistake--it might be another Lawrence
Selden who had gone to Havana--all these possibilities
had time to flash through her mind, and build up the conviction
that she was after all to see or hear from him, before the
drawing-room door opened to admit a servant carrying a
telegram.
Lily tore it open with shaking hands, and read Bertha Dorset's
name below the message: "Sailing unexpectedly tomorrow. Will you
join us on a cruise in Mediterranean?" _