_ BOOK III CHAPTER XVII. THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITY
There were six letters from him, written from a club, representing the seven days of his absence. He made no secret of the fact that his visit to the metropolis was in the nature of a relaxation and a change of scene, but the letters themselves contained surprisingly little information as to how he was employing his holiday. He had encountered many old friends, supposedly all of the male sex: among them--most welcome of surprises to him!--Mr. George Pembroke, a boon companion at Harvard. And this mention of boon companionship brought up to Honora a sufficiently vivid idea of Mr. Pembroke's characteristics. The extent of her knowledge of this gentleman consisted in the facts that he was a bachelor, a member of a prominent Philadelphia family, and that time hung heavy on his hands.
One morning she received a telegram to the effect that her husband would be home that night, bringing three people with him. He sent his love, but neglected to state the names and sexes of the prospective guests. And she was still in a quandary as to what arrangements to make when Starling appeared in answer to her ring.
"You will send the omnibus to the five o'clock train," she said. "There will be three extra places at dinner, and tea when Mr. Chiltern arrives."
Although she strove to speak indifferently, she was sure from the way the old man looked at her that her voice had not been quite steady. Of late her curious feeling about him had increased in intensity; and many times, during this week she had spent alone, she had thought that his eyes had followed her with sympathy. She did not resent this. Her world having now contracted to that wide house, there was a comfort in knowing that there was one in it to whom she could turn in need. For she felt that she could turn to Starling; he alone, apparently, had measured the full depth of her trouble; nay, had silently predicted it from the beginning. And to-day, as he stood before her, she had an almost irresistible impulse to speak. Just a word-a human word would have been such a help to her! And how ridiculous the social law that kept the old man standing there, impassive, respectful, when this existed between them! Her tragedy was his tragedy; not in the same proportion, perhaps; nevertheless, he had the air of one who would die of it.
And she? Would she die? What would become of her? When she thought of the long days and months and years that stretched ahead of her, she felt that her soul would not be able to survive the process of steady degradation to which it was sure to be subjected. For she was a prisoner: the uttermost parts of the earth offered no refuge. To-day, she knew, was to see the formal inauguration of that process. She had known torture, but it had been swift, obliterating, excruciating. And hereafter it was to be slow, one turn at a time of the screws, squeezing by infinitesimal degrees the life out of her soul. And in the end--most fearful thought of all--in the end, painless. Painless! She buried her head in her arms on the little desk, shaken by sobs.
How she fought that day to compose herself, fought and prayed! Prayed wildly to a God whose help, nevertheless, she felt she had forfeited, who was visiting her with just anger. At half-past four she heard the carriage on the far driveway, going to the station, and she went down and walked across the lawn to the pond, and around it; anything to keep moving. She hurried back to the house just in time to reach the hall as the omnibus backed up. And the first person she saw descend, after Hugh, was Mrs. Kame.
"Here we are, Honora," she cried. "I hope you're glad to see us, and that you'll forgive our coming so informally. You must blame Hugh. We've brought Adele."
The second lady was, indeed, none other than Mrs. Eustace Rindge, formerly Mrs. Dicky Farnham. And she is worth--even at this belated stage in our chronicle an attempted sketch, or at least an attempted impression. She was fair, and slim as a schoolgirl; not very tall, not exactly petite; at first sight she might have been taken for a particularly immature debutante, and her dress was youthful and rather mannish. Her years, at this period of her career, were in truth but two and twenty, yet she had contrived, in the comparatively brief time since she had reached the supposed age of discretion, to marry two men and build two houses, and incidentally to see a considerable portion of what is known as the world. The suspicion that she was not as innocent as a dove came to one, on closer inspection, as a shock: her eyes were tired, though not from loss of sleep; and her manner--how shall it be described to those whose happy lot in life has never been to have made the acquaintance of Mrs. Rindge's humbler sisters who have acquired--more coarsely, it is true--the same camaraderie? She was one of those for whom, seemingly, sex does not exist. Her air of good-fellowship with men was eloquent of a precise knowledge of what she might expect from them, and she was prepared to do her own policing,--not from any deep moral convictions. She belonged, logically, to that world which is disposed to take the law into its own hands, and she was the possessor of five millions of dollars.
"I came along," she said to Honora, as she gave her hand-bag to a footman. "I hope you don't mind. Abby and I were shopping and we ran into Hugh and Georgie yesterday at Sherry's, and we've been together ever since. Not quite that--but almost. Hugh begged us to come up, and there didn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't, so we telephoned down to Banbury for our trunks and maids, and we've played bridge all the way. By the way, Georgie, where's my pocket-book?"
Mr. Pembroke handed it over, and was introduced by Hugh. He looked at Honora, and his glance somehow betokened that he was in the habit of looking only once. He had apparently made up his mind about her before he saw her. But he looked again, evidently finding her at variance with a preconceived idea, and this time she flushed a little under his stare, and she got the impression that Mr. Pembroke was a man from whom few secrets of a certain kind were hid. She felt that he had seized, at a second glance, a situation that she had succeeded in hiding from the women. He was surprised, but cynically so. He was the sort of person who had probably possessed at Harvard the knowledge of the world of a Tammany politician; he had long ago written his book--such as it was--and closed it: or, rather, he had worked out his system at a precocious age, and it had lasted him ever since. He had decided that undergraduate life, freed from undergraduate restrictions, was a good thing. And he did not, even in these days, object to breaking something valuable occasionally.
His physical attributes are more difficult to describe, so closely were they allied to those which, for want of a better word, must be called mental. He was neither tall nor short, he was well fed, but hard, his shoulders too broad, his head a little large. If he should have happened to bump against one, the result would have been a bruise--not for him. His eyes were blue, his light hair short, and there was a slight baldness beginning; his face was red-tanned. There was not the slightest doubt that he could be effectively rude, and often was; but it was evident, for some reason, that he meant to be gracious (for Mr. Pembroke) to Honora. Perhaps this was the result of the second glance. One of his name had not lacked, indeed, for instructions in gentility. It must not be thought that she was in a condition to care much about what Mr. Pembroke thought or did, and yet she felt instinctively that he had changed his greeting between that first and second glance.
"I hope you'll forgive my coming in this way," he said. "I'm an old friend of Hugh's."
"I'm very glad to have Hugh's friends," she answered.
He looked at her again.
"Is tea ready?" inquired Mrs. Kame. "I'm famished." And, as they walked through the house to the garden, where the table was set beside the stone seat: "I don't see how you ever can leave this place, Honora. I've always wanted to come here, but it's even more beautiful than I thought."
"It's very beautiful," said Honora.
"I'll have a whiskey and soda, if I may," announced Mrs. Rindge. "Open one, Georgie."
"The third to-day," said Mr. Pembroke, sententiously, as he obeyed.
"I don't care. I don't see what business it is of yours."
"Except to open them," he replied.
"You'd have made a fortune as a barkeeper," she observed, dispassionately, as she watched the process.
"He's made fortunes for a good many," said Chiltern.
"Not without some expert assistance I could mention," Mr. Pembroke retorted.
At this somewhat pointed reference to his ancient habits, Chiltern laughed.
"You've each had three to-day yourselves," said Mrs. Rindge, in whose bosom Mr. Pembroke's remark evidently rankled, "without counting those you had before you left the club."
Afterwards Mrs. Kame expressed a desire to walk about a little, a proposal received with disfavour by all but Honora, who as hostess responded.
"I feel perfectly delightful," declared Mrs. Rindge. "What's the use of moving about?" And she sank back in the cushions of her chair.
This observation was greeted with unrestrained merriment by Mr. Pembroke and Hugh. Honora, sick at heart, led Mrs. Kame across the garden and through the gate in the wall. It was a perfect evening of early June, the great lawn a vivid green in the slanting light. All day the cheerful music of the horse-mowers had been heard, and the air was fragrant with the odour of grass freshly cut. The long shadows of the maples and beeches stretched towards the placid surface of the lake, dimpled here and there by a fish's swirl: the spiraeas were laden as with freshly fallen snow, a lone Judas-tree was decked in pink. The steep pastures beyond the water were touched with gold, while to the northward, on the distant hills, tender blue lights gathered lovingly around the copses. Mrs. Kame sighed.
"What a terrible thing it is," she said, "that we are never satisfied! It's the men who ruin all this for us, I believe, and prevent our enjoying it. Look at Adele."
Honora had indeed looked at her.
"I found out the other day what is the matter with her. She's madly in love with Dicky."
"With--with her former husband?"
"Yes, with poor little innocent Dicky Farnham, who's probably still congratulating himself, like a canary bird that's got out of a cage. Somehow Dicky's always reminded me of a canary; perhaps it's his name. Isn't it odd that she should be in love with him?"
"I think," replied Honora, slowly, "that it's a tragedy."
"It is a tragedy," Mrs. Kame hastily agreed. "To me, this case is one of the most incomprehensible aspects of the tender passion. Adele's idea of existence is a steeplechase with nothing but water-jumps, Dicky's to loiter around in a gypsy van, and sit in the sun. During his brief matrimonial experience with her, he nearly died for want of breath--or rather the life was nearly shaken out of him. And yet she wants Dicky again. She'd run away with him to-morrow if he should come within hailing distance of her."
"And her husband?" asked Honora.
"Eustace? Did you ever see him? That accounts for your question. He only left France long enough to come over here and make love to her, and he swears he'll never leave it again. If she divorces him, he'll have to have alimony."
At last Honora was able to gain her own room, but even seclusion, though preferable to the companionship of her guests, was almost intolerable. The tragedy of Mrs. Rindge had served--if such a thing could be--to enhance her own; a sudden spectacle of a woman in a more advanced stage of desperation. Would she, Honora, ever become like that? Up to the present she felt that suffering had refined her, and a great love had burned away all that was false. But now--now that her god had turned to clay, what would happen? Desperation seemed possible, notwithstanding the awfulness of the example. No, she would never come to that! And she repeated it over and over to herself as she dressed, as though to strengthen her will.
During her conversation with Mrs. Kame she had more than once suspected, in spite of her efforts, that the lady had read her state of mind. For Mrs. Kame's omissions were eloquent to the discerning: Chiltern's relatives had been mentioned with a casualness intended to imply that no breach existed, and the fiction that Honora could at any moment take up her former life delicately sustained. Mrs. Kame had adaptably chosen the attitude, after a glance around her, that Honora preferred Highlawns to the world: a choice of which she let it be known that she approved, while deploring that a frivolous character put such a life out of the question for herself. She made her point without over-emphasis. On the other hand, Honora had read Mrs. Kame. No very careful perusal was needed to convince her that the lady was unmoral, and that in characteristics she resembled the chameleon. But she read deeper. She perceived that Mrs. Kame was convinced that she, Honora, would adjust herself to the new conditions after a struggle; and that while she had a certain sympathy in the struggle, Mrs. Kame was of opinion that the sooner it was over with the better. All women were born to be disillusionized. Such was the key, at any rate, to the lady's conduct that evening at dinner, when she capped the anecdotes of Mr. Pembroke and Mrs. Rindge and even of Chiltern with others not less risque but more fastidiously and ingeniously suggestive. The reader may be spared their recital.
Since the meeting in the restaurant the day before, which had resulted in Hugh's happy inspiration that the festival begun should be continued indefinitely at Highlawns, a kind of freemasonry had sprung up between the four. Honora found herself, mercifully, outside the circle: for such was the lively character of the banter that a considerable adroitness was necessary to obtain, between the talk and--laughter, the ear of the company. And so full were they of the reminiscences which had been crowded into the thirty hours or so they had spent together, that her comparative silence remained unnoticed. To cite an example, Mr. Pembroke was continually being addressed as the Third Vice-president, an allusion that Mrs. Rindge eventually explained.
"You ought to have been with us coming up on the train," she cried to Honora; "I thought surely we'd be put off. We were playing bridge in the little room at the end of the car when the conductor came for our tickets. Georgie had 'em in his pocket, but he told the man to go away, that he was the third vice-president of the road, and we were his friends. The conductor asked him if he were Mr. Wheeler, or some such name, and Georgie said he was surprised he didn't know him. Well, the man stood there in the door, and Georgie picked up his hand and made it hearts--or was it diamonds, Georgie?"
"Spades," said that gentleman, promptly.
"At any rate," Mrs. Rindge continued, "we all began to play, although we were ready to blow up with laughter, and after a while Georgie looked around and said, 'What, are you there yet?' My dear, you ought to have seen the conductor's face! He said it was his duty to establish Georgie's identity, or something like that, and Georgie told him to get off at the next station and buy Waring's Magazine--was that it, Georgie?"
"How the deuce should I know?"
"Well, some such magazine. Georgie said he'd find an article in it on the Railroad Kings and Princes of America, and that his picture, Georgie's, was among the very first!" At this juncture in her narrative Mrs. Rindge shrieked with laughter, in which she was joined by Mrs. Kame and Hugh; and she pointed a forefinger across the table at Mr. Pembroke, who went on solemnly eating his dinner. "Georgie gave him ten cents with which to buy the magazine," she added a little hysterically. "Well, there was a frightful row, and a lot of men came down to that end of the car, and we had to shut the door. The conductor said the most outrageous things, and Georgie pretended to be very indignant, too, and gave him the tickets under protest. He told Georgie he ought to be in an asylum for the criminally insane, and Georgie advised him to get a photograph album of the high officials of the railroad. The conductor said Georgie's picture was probably in the rogue's gallery. And we lost two packs of cards out of the window."
Such had been the more innocent if eccentric diversions with which they had whiled away the time. When dinner was ended, a renewal of the bridge game was proposed, for it had transpired at the dinner-table that Mrs. Rindge and Hugh had been partners all day, as a result of which there was a considerable balance in their favour. This balance Mr. Pembroke was palpably anxious to wipe out, or at least to reduce. But Mrs. Kame insisted that Honora should cut in, and the others supported her.
"We tried our best to get a man for you," said Mrs. Rindge to Honora. "Didn't we, Abby? But in the little time we had, it was impossible. The only man we saw was Ned Carrington, and Hugh said he didn't think you'd want him."
"Hugh showed a rare perception," said Honora.
Be it recorded that she smiled. One course had been clear to her from the first, although she found it infinitely difficult to follow; she was determined, cost what it might, to carry through her part of the affair with dignity, but without stiffness. This is not the place to dwell upon the tax to her strength.
"Come on, Honora," said Hugh, "cut in." His tone was of what may be termed a rough good nature. She had not seen him alone since his return, but he had seemed distinctly desirous that she should enjoy the festivities he had provided. And not to yield would have been to betray herself.
The game, with its intervals of hilarity, was inaugurated in the library, and by midnight it showed no signs of abating. At this hour the original four occupied the table for the second time, and endurance has its limits. The atmosphere of Liberty Hall that prevailed made Honora's retirement easier.
"I'm sure you won't mind if I go to bed," she said. "I've been so used to the routine of--of the chickens." She smiled. "And I've spent the day in the open air."
"Certainly, my dear," said Mrs. Kame; "I know exactly how one feels in the country. I'm sure it's dreadfully late. We'll have one more rubber, and then stop."
"Oh, don't stop," replied Honora; "please play as long as you like."
They didn't stop--at least after one more rubber. Honora, as she lay in the darkness, looking through the open square of her window at the silver stars, heard their voiced and their laughter floating up at intervals from below, and the little clock on her mantel had struck the hour of three when the scraping of chairs announced the breaking up of the party. And even after that an unconscionable period elapsed, beguiled, undoubtedly, by anecdotes; spells of silence--when she thought they had gone--ending in more laughter. Finally there was a crash of breaking glass, a climax of uproarious mirth, and all was still...
She could not have slept much, but the birds were singing when she finally awoke, the sunlight pouring into her window: And the hands of her clock pointed to half-past seven when she rang her bell. It was a relief to breakfast alone, or at least to sip her coffee in solitude. And the dew was still on the grass as she crossed the wide lawn and made her way around the lake to the path that entered the woods at its farther end. She was not tired, yet she would have liked to have lain down under the green panoply of the forest, where the wild flowers shyly raised sweet faces to be kissed, and lose herself in the forgetfulness of an eternal sleep; never to go back again to an Eden contaminated. But when she lingered the melody of a thrush pierced her through and through. At last she turned and reluctantly retraced her steps, as one whose hour of reprieve has expired.
If Mrs. Rindge had a girlish air when fully arrayed for the day, she looked younger and more angular still in that article of attire known as a dressing gown. And her eyes, Honora remarked, were peculiarly bright: glittering, perhaps, would better express the impression they gave; as though one got a glimpse through them of an inward consuming fire. Her laughter rang shrill and clear as Honora entered the hall by the rear door, and the big clock proclaimed that the hour was half-past eleven. Hugh and Mr. Pembroke were standing at the foot of the stairs, gazing upward. And Honora, following their glances, beheld the two ladies, in the negligee referred to above, with their elbows on the railing of the upper hall and their faces between their hands, engaged in a lively exchange of compliments with the gentlemen. Mrs. Kame looked sleepy.
"Such a night!" she said, suppressing a yawn. "My dear, you did well to go to bed."
"And to cap it all," cried Mrs. Rindge, "Georgie fell over backwards in one of those beautiful Adam chairs, and there's literally nothing left of it. If an ocean steamer had hit it, or a freight train, it couldn't have been more thoroughly demolished."
"You pushed me," declared Mr. Pembroke.
"Did I, Hugh? I barely touched him."
"You knocked him into a cocked hat," said Hugh. "And if you'd been in that kimono, you could have done it even easier."
"Georgie broke the whole whiskey service,--or whatever it is," Mrs. Rindge went on, addressing Honora again. "He fell into it."
"He's all right this morning," observed Mrs. Kame, critically.
"I think I'll take to swallowing swords and glass and things in public. I can do it so well," said Mr. Pembroke.
"I hope you got what you like for breakfast," said Honora to the ladies.
"Hurry up and come down, Adele," said Hugh, "if you want to look over the horses before lunch."
"It's Georgie's fault," replied Mrs. Rindge; "he's been standing in the door of my sitting-room for a whole half-hour talking nonsense."
A little later they all set out for the stables. These buildings at Highlawns, framed by great trees, were old-fashioned and picturesque, surrounding three sides of a court, with a yellow brick wall on the fourth. The roof of the main building was capped by a lantern, the home of countless pigeons. Mrs. Rindge was in a habit, and one by one the saddle horses were led out, chiefly for her inspection; and she seemed to Honora to become another woman as she looked them over with a critical eye and discussed them with Hugh and O'Grady, the stud-groom, and talked about pedigrees and strains. For she was renowned in this department of sport on many fields, both for recklessness and skill.
"Where did you get that brute, Hugh?" she asked presently.
Honora, who had been talking to Pembroke, looked around with a start. And at the sight of the great black horse, bought on that unforgettable day, she turned suddenly faint.
"Over here in the country about ten miles," Chiltern was saying. "I heard of him, but I didn't expect anything until I went to look at him last week."
"What do you call him?" asked Mrs. Rindge.
"I haven't named him."
"I'll give you a name."
Chiltern looked at her. "What is it?" he said.
"Oblivion," she replied:
"By George, Adele," he exclaimed, "you have a way of hitting it off!"
"Will you let me ride him this afternoon?" she asked.
"I'm a--a candidate for oblivion." She laughed a little and her eyes shone feverishly.
"No you don't," he said. "I'm giving you the grey. He's got enough in him for any woman--even for you: And besides, I don't think the black ever felt a side saddle, or any other kind, until last week."
"I've got another habit," she said eagerly. "I'd rather ride him astride. I'll match you to see who has him."
Chiltern laughed.
"No you don't," he repeated. "I'll ride him to-day, and consider it to-morrow."
"I--I think I'll go back to the house," said Honora to Pembroke. "It's rather hot here in the sun."
"I'm not very keen about sunshine, either," he declared.
At lunch she was unable to talk; to sustain, at least, a conversation. That word oblivion, which Mrs. Rindge had so aptly applied to the horse, was constantly on her lips, and it would not have surprised her if she had spoken it. She felt as though a heavy weight lay on her breast, and to relieve its intolerable pressure drew in her breath deeply. She was wild with fear. The details of the great room fixed themselves indelibly in her brain; the subdued light, the polished table laden with silver and glass, the roses, and the purple hot-house grapes. All this seemed in some way to be an ironic prelude to disaster. Hugh, pausing in his badinage with Mrs. Rindge, looked at her.
"Cheer up, Honora," he said.
"I'm afraid this first house-party is too much for her," said Mrs. Kame.
Honora made some protest that seemed to satisfy them, tried to rally herself, and succeeded sufficiently to pass muster. After lunch they repaired again to the bridge table, and at four Hugh went upstairs to change into his riding clothes. Five minutes longer she controlled herself, and then made some paltry excuse, indifferent now as to what they said or thought, and followed him. She knocked at his dressing-room door and entered. He was drawing on his boots. "Hello, Honora," he said.
Honora turned to his man, and dismissed him.
"I wish to speak to Mr. Chiltern alone."
Chiltern paused in his tugging at the straps, and looked up at her.
"What's the matter with you to-day, Honora?" he asked. "You looked like the chief mourner at a funeral all through lunch."
He was a little on edge, that she knew. He gave another tug at the boot, and while she was still hesitating, he began again.
"I ought to apologize, I know, for bringing these people up without notice, but I didn't suppose you'd object when you understood how naturally it all came about. I thought a little livening up, as I said, wouldn't, hurt us. We've had a quiet winter, to put it mildly." He laughed a little. "I didn't have a chance to see you until this morning, and when I went to your room they told me you'd gone out."
"Hugh," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. "It isn't the guests. If you want people, and they amuse you, I'm--I'm glad to have them. And if I've seemed to be--cold to them, I'm sorry. I tried my best--I mean I did not intend to be cold. I'll sit up all night with them, if you like. And I didn't come to reproach you, Hugh. I'll never do that--I've got no right to."
She passed her hand over her eyes. If she had any wrongs, if she had suffered any pain, the fear that obsessed her obliterated all. In spite of her disillusionment, in spite of her newly acquired ability to see him as he was, enough love remained to scatter, when summoned, her pride to the winds.
Having got on both boots, he stood up.
"What's the trouble, then?" he asked. And he took an instant's hold of her chin--a habit he had--and smiled at her.
He little knew how sublime, in its unconscious effrontery, his question was! She tried to compose herself, that she might be able to present comprehensively to his finite masculine mind the ache of today.
"Hugh, it's that black horse." She could not bring herself to pronounce the name Mrs. Rindge had christened him.
"What about him?" he said, putting on his waistcoat.
"Don't ride him!" she pleaded. "I--I'm afraid of him--I've been afraid of him ever since that day.
"It may be a foolish feeling, I know. Sometimes the feelings that hurt women most are foolish. If I tell you that if you ride him you will torture me, I'm sure you'll grant what I ask. It's such a little thing and it means so much--so much agony to me. I'd do anything for you--give up anything in the world at your slightest wish. Don't ride him!"
"This is a ridiculous fancy of yours, Honora. The horse is all right. I've ridden dozens of worse ones."
"Oh, I'm sure he isn't," she cried; "call it fancy, call it instinct, call it anything you like--but I feel it, Hugh. That woman--Mrs. Rindge--knows something about horses, and she said he was a brute."
"Yes," he interrupted, with a short laugh, "and she wants to ride him."
"Hugh, she's reckless. I--I've been watching her since she came here, and I'm sure she's reckless with--with a purpose."
"You're morbid," he said. "She's one of the best sportswomen in the country--that's the reason she wanted to ride the horse. Look here, Honora, I'd accede to any reasonable request. But what do you expect me to do?" he demanded; "go down and say I'm afraid to ride him? or that my wife doesn't want me to? I'd never hear the end of it. And the first thing Adele would do would be to jump on him herself--a little wisp of a woman that looks as if she couldn't hold a Shetland pony! Can't you see that what you ask is impossible?"
He started for the door to terminate a conversation which had already begun to irritate him. For his anger, in these days, was very near the surface. She made one more desperate appeal.
"Hugh--the man who sold him--he knew the horse was dangerous. I'm sure he did, from something he said to me while you were gone."
"These country people are all idiots and cowards," declared Chiltern. "I've known 'em a good while, and they haven't got the spirit of mongrel dogs. I was a fool to think that I could do anything for them. They're kind and neighbourly, aren't they?" he exclaimed. "If that old rascal flattered himself he deceived me, he was mistaken. He'd have been mightily pleased if the beast had broken my neck."
"Hugh!"
"I can't, Honora. That's all there is to it, I can't. Now don't cut up about nothing. I'm sorry, but I've got to go. Adele's waiting."
He came back, kissed her hurriedly, turned and opened the door. She followed him into the hallway, knowing that she had failed, knowing that she never could have succeeded. There she halted and watched him go down the stairs, and stand with her hands tightly pressed together: voices reached her, a hurrah from George Pembroke, and the pounding of hoofs on the driveway. It had seemed such a little thing to ask!
But she did not dwell upon this, now, when fear was gnawing her: how she had humbled her pride for days and weeks and months for him, and how he had refused her paltry request lest he should be laughed at. Her reflections then were not on his waning love. She was filled with the terror of losing him--of losing all that remained to her in the world. Presently she began to walk slowly towards the stairs, descended them, and looked around her. The hall, at least, had not changed. She listened, and a bee hummed in through the open doorway. A sudden longing for companionship possessed her-no matter whose; and she walked hurriedly, as though she were followed, through the empty rooms until she came upon George Pembroke stretched at full length on the leather-covered lounge in the library. He opened his eyes, and got up with alacrity.
"Please don't move," she said.
He looked at her. Although his was not what may be called a sympathetic temperament, he was not without a certain knowledge of women; superficial, perhaps. But most men of his type have seen them in despair; and since he was not related to this particular despair, what finer feelings he had were the more easily aroused. It must have been clear to her then that she had lost the power to dissemble, all the clearer because of Mr. Pembroke's cheerfulness.
"I wasn't going to sleep," he assured her. "Circumstantial evidence is against me, I know. Where's Abby? reading French literature?"
"I haven't seen her," replied Honora.
"She usually goes to bed with a play at this hour. It's a horrid habit--going to bed, I mean. Don't you think? Would you mind showing me about a little?"
"Do you really wish to?" asked Honora, incredulously.
"I haven't been here since my senior year," said Mr. Pembroke. "If the old General were alive, he could probably tell you something of that visit--he wrote to my father about it. I always liked the place, although the General was something of a drawback. Fine old man, with no memory."
"I should have thought him to have had a good memory," she said.
"I have always been led to believe that he was once sent away from college in his youth,--for his health," he explained significantly. "No man has a good memory who can't remember that. Perhaps the battle of Gettysburg wiped it out."
Thus, in his own easy-going fashion, Mr. Pembroke sought to distract her. She put on a hat, and they walked about, the various scenes recalling incidents of holidays he had spent at Highlawns. And after a while Honora was thankful that chance had sent her in this hour to him rather than to Mrs. Kame. For the sight, that morning of this lady in her dressing-gown over the stairway, had seemingly set the seal on a growing distaste. Her feeling had not been the same about Mrs. Rindge: Mrs. Kame's actions savoured of deliberate choice, of an inherent and calculating wickedness.
Had the distraction of others besides himself been the chief business of Mr. Pembroke's life, he could not have succeeded better that afternoon. He must be given this credit: his motives remain problematical; at length he even drew laughter from her. The afternoon wore on, they returned to the garden for tea, and a peaceful stillness continued to reign about them, the very sky smiling placidly at her fears. Not by assuring her that Hugh was unusual horseman, that he had passed through many dangers beside which this was a bagatelle, could the student of the feminine by her side have done half so well. And it may have been that his success encouraged him as he saw emerging, as the result of his handiwork, an unexpectedly attractive--if still somewhat serious-woman from the gloom that had enveloped her. That she should still have her distrait moments was but natural.
He talked to her largely about Hugh, of whom he appeared sincerely fond. The qualities which attracted Mr. Pembroke in his own sex were somewhat peculiar, and seemingly consisted largely in a readiness to drop the business at hand, whatever it might be, at the suggestion of a friend to do something else; the "something else," of course, to be the conception of an ingenious mind. And it was while he was in the midst of an anecdote proving the existence of this quality in his friend that he felt a sudden clutch on his arm.
They listened. Faintly, very faintly, could be heard the sound of hoof beats; rapid, though distant.
"Do you hear?" she whispered, and still held his arm.
"It's just like them to race back," said Pembroke, with admirable nonchalance.
"But they wouldn't come back at this time--it's too early. Hugh always takes long rides. They started for Hubbard's--it's twelve miles."
"Adele changes her mind every minute of the day," he said.
"Listen!" she cried, and her clutch tightened. The hoof beats grew louder. "It's only one--it's only one horse!"
Before he could answer, she was already halfway up the garden path towards the house. He followed her as she ran panting through the breakfast room, the dining room, and drawing-room, and when they reached the hall, Starling, the butler, and two footmen were going out at the door. A voice--Mrs. Kame's--cried out, "What is it?" over the stairs, but they paid no heed. As they reached the steps they beheld the slight figure of Mrs. Rindge on a flying horse coming towards them up the driveway. Her black straw hat had slipped to the back of her neck, her hair was awry, her childish face white as paper. Honora put her hand to her heart. There was no need to tell her the news--she had known these many hours.
Mrs. Rindge's horse came over the round grass-plot of the circle and planted his fore feet in the turf as she pulled him up. She lurched forward. It was Starling who lifted her off--George Pembroke stood by Honora.
"My God, Adele," he exclaimed, "why don't you speak?"
She was staring at Honora.
"I can't!" she cried. "I can't tell you--it's too terrible! The horse--" she seemed to choke.
It was Honora who went up to her with a calmness that awed them.
"Tell me," she said, "is he dead?"
Mrs. Rindge nodded, and broke into hysterical sobbing.
"And I wanted to ride him myself," she sobbed, as they led her up the steps.
In less than an hour they brought him home and laid him in the room in which he had slept from boyhood, and shut the door. Honora looked into his face. It was calm at last, and his body strangely at rest. The passions which had tortured it and driven it hither and thither through a wayward life had fled: the power gone that would brook no guiding hand, that had known no master. It was not until then that she fell upon him, weeping.... _