Chapter III

"I am not at home to any one except Sir Hugh Maine," Mrs Glinn said to the footman. "You understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

He went out softly and closed the door.

The English summer had gone back upon its steps that afternoon, and remembered the duty it owed to its old-time reputation. The canary, a puffed-out ball of ragged-looking feathers in its cage, seemed listening with a depressed attention to the beat of the cold rain against the window. The daisies, in their boxes, dripped and nodded in the wind. There was a darkness in the pretty room, and the smile of the china goblins was no longer yellow. Like many people who are not made of china, they depended upon adventitious circumstances for much of their outward show. When they were not gilded there was a good deal of the pill apparent in their nature.

Mrs Glinn was trying not to be restless. She was very pale, and her dark eyes gleamed with an almost tragic fire; but she sat down firmly on the white sofa, and read Gyp, as Carmen may have read her doom in the cards. One by one the pages were turned. One by one the epigrams were made the property of another mind. But through all the lightness and humour of the story there crept like a little snake a sentence that Gyp had not written:--

"Can I tell him?"

And no answer ever came to that question. When the door-bell at last rang, Mrs Glinn laid down her novel carefully, and mechanically stood up. A change of attitude was necessary to her.

Sir Hugh came in, and was followed by tea. They sat down by the tiny table, and discussed French literature. Flaubert and Daudet go as well with tea as Fielding and Smollett go with supper.

But, when the cups were put down, Maine drove the French authors in a pack out of the conversation.

"I did not come here to say what I can say to every woman I meet who understands French," he remarked.

And then Mrs Glinn was fully face to face with her particular guardian devil.

"No?" she said.

She did not try to postpone the moment she dreaded. For she had a strong man to deal with, and, being a strong woman at heart, she generally held out her hand to the inevitable.

"You have been thinking?" Maine went on.

"Yes. What a sad occupation that is sometimes--like knitting, or listening to church-bells at night!"

"Eve, let us be serious."

"God knows I am," she answered. "But modern gravity is dressed in flippancy. No feeling must go quite naked."

"Don't talk like that," he said. "As there is a nudity in art that may be beautiful, so there is a nudity in expression, in words, that may be beautiful. Eve, I have come to hear you tell me something. You know that." He glanced into her face with an anxiety that she did not fully understand. Then he said: "Tell it me."

"There is--is so much to tell," she said.

"Yes, yes."

"He does not understand," she thought.

He thought, "She does not understand."

"And I am not good at telling stories."

"Then tell me the truth."

She tried to smile, but she was trembling. "Of course. Why should I not?" She hesitated, and then added, with a forced attempt at petulance, "But there is nothing so awkward as giving people more than they expect. Is there?"

He understood her question, despite its apparent inconsequence, and his heart quickened its beating: "Give me everything."

"I suppose I should be doing that if I gave you myself," she said nervously.

"You know best," he answered; and for a moment she was puzzled by not catching the affirmative for which she had angled.

"Do you want me very, very much?" she asked.

"So much that, as I told you yesterday, I could not ask for you twice. Don't you understand?"

"Yes. I could not marry a man who had bothered me to be his wife. One might as well be scolded into virtue. You want me, then, Hugh, and I want you. But--"

Again she stopped, with sentences fluttering, as it seemed, on the very edges of her lips. Her heart was at such fearful odds with her conscience, that she felt as if he must hear the clashing of the swords. And he did hear it. He would fain have cheered on both the combatants. Which did he wish should be the conqueror? He hardly knew.

"Yes?" he said.

"It is always so difficult to finish a sentence that begins with 'but,'" she began; and for the first time her voice sounded tremulous. "When two people want each other very much, there is always something that ought to keep them apart--at least, I think so. God must love solitude; it is His gift to so many." There were tears in her eyes.

"Why should we keep apart, Eve?"

"Because we should be too happy together, I suppose."

He leaned suddenly forward and took both her hands in his. "How cold you are!" he said, startled.

The words seemed to brace her like a sea-breeze.

"Hugh," she said, "I wish to tell you something. There is a 'but' in the sentence of my life."

He drew her closer to him, with a strange impulse to be nearer the soul that was about to prove itself as noble as he desired. But that very act prevented the fulfilment of his wish. The touch of his hands, the eagerness of his eyes, gave the victory to her heart. She shut the lips that were speaking, and he kissed them. Kisses act as an opiate on a woman's conscience. Only when Eve felt his lips on hers did she know her own weakness. Sir Hugh having kissed her, waited for the telling of the secret. At that moment he might as well have sat down and waited for the millennium.

"What is it?" he said at last.

"Nothing," she answered, "nothing." She spoke the word with a hard intonation.

Hugh held her close in his arms, with a sort of strange idea that to do so would crush his disappointment. She was proving her love by her silence. Why, then, did he wish that she should speak? At last she said, in a low voice:--

"There is one thing you ought to know. If I marry you, I marry you a beggar. I shall lose my fortune. I am not obliged to lose it, but I mean to give it up. Don't ask me why."

He had no need to. He waited, but she was silent. So that was all. He kissed her again, loosened his arms from about her and stood up.

"I have enough for both," he said.

He did not look at her, and she could not look at him.

"Are you going?" she said.

"Yes; but I will call this evening."

He was at the door, and had half-opened it when he turned back, moved by a passionate impulse.

"Eve!" he cried, and his eyes seemed asking her for something.

"Yes?" she said, looking away.

There was a silence. Then he said "Good-bye!" The door closed upon him.

Mrs Glinn stood for a moment where he had left her. In her mind she was counting the seconds that must elapse before he could reach the street. If she could be untrue to herself till then, she could be untrue to herself for ever. Would he walk down the stairs slowly or fast? She wanted to be a false woman so much, so very much, that she clenched her hands together. The action seemed as if it might help her to keep on doing wrong. But suddenly she unclasped her hands, darted across the room to the door, and opened it. She listened, and heard Hugh's footsteps in the hall. He picked up his umbrella, and unfolded it to be ready for the rain. The _frou-frou_ of the silk seemed to stir her to action.

"Hugh!" she cried in a broken voice.

He turned in the hall, and looked up.

"Come back," she said.

He came up the stairs three steps at a time.

"Hugh," she said, leaning heavily on the balustrade, and looking away, "I have a secret to tell you. I have tried to be wicked to-day, but somehow I can't. Listen to the truth."

"I need not," he answered. "I know it already."

Then she looked at him, and drew in her breath: "You know it?"

"Yes."

"How you must love me!"

* * * * *

There was a ring at the hall door. The footman opened it, held a short parley with some one who was invisible, shut the door, and came upstairs with a card.

Mrs Glinn took it, and read, "Lord Herbert Manning."

He had decided to be unconventional too late.

A SILENT GUARDIAN