"My dear Lauraine," says Mrs. Douglas, on one of those rare occasions
when she is at Lauraine's house, "isn't it rather bad form to have
Keith dangling after you so much? Of course every one knows you are
just like brother and sister, and Sir Francis is so kind to him and
all that--still, people will talk, you know, and really nowadays a
woman can't be too careful. Society is terribly scandalous."
Mrs. Douglas has made one of a dinner party at the Vavasours', and is
at present sitting by her daughter's side in the great flower-scented
drawing-room.
Lauraine quietly waves the great white fan of feathers in her hand to
and fro, and looks coldly down at her mother's face.
"Who has been good enough to discuss my affairs with you?" she asks,
scornfully.
"Pray don't be offended," says Mrs. Douglas, timidly. "People will
talk, you know, and really Keith's adoration is very obvious. He
never even seems to see there is another woman in the room when you
are by. It really is not fair to you. Why doesn't he marry that
Yankee girl who is always running after him? It would be the best
thing he could do."
"I will ask him if you wish," says Lauraine; "or perhaps it might be
better if you put the question yourself."
Mrs. Douglas feels decidedly uncomfortable. "I am only speaking for
your good," she says. "For your child's sake you ought to be
careful. Of course, Society is very lax, and women can do things
nowadays that in my youth would have been thought disreputable.
Still, you make yourself quite too remarkable about Keith. It is far
better to have twenty men dangling after you than one."
A hot flush burns on Lauraine's cheeks. "I decline to discuss my
affairs with any one," she says, coldly. "I am perfectly well able
to take care of myself."
"Ah, people always think that," says Mrs. Douglas, fanning herself
leisurely. "Of course you are your own mistress now, and can do as
you please. I simply give you a hint. People will talk, you know."
Lauraine's heart beat quickly, stormily, beneath its shrouding laces.
A new trouble seems dawning for her, and yet it but rouses in her
heart a fierce desire to brave the world--to laugh to scorn its
whispers. Is she not strong? Has she not honour--courage--fidelity?
"I will not affect to misunderstand you," she says at last, looking
calmly into her mother's face as she speaks. "You think Keith might
forget--or I? But you might know us better than that. We are not
likely to scandalize Society--be at rest on that point. Is it not
possible for a woman and a man to care for each other without love,
and without--shame?"
"Possible?--that _may_ be," said Mrs. Douglas. "But probable--I
think not. I don't believe in Platonics when a man is under sixty
and a woman not forty-five. Nor does the world. Take my advice,
dear--there is safety in numbers--don't think only of the attractions
of one."
"I am not the sort of woman to make many friends," Lauraine answers,
tranquilly. "And the few I really like are more to me than the whole
crowd of others. But your warning was quite unnecessary, mother, and
I think you had very little right to utter it."
She rises from her seat as she speaks and goes towards the other end
of the room, where the Lady Jean sits radiant and entertaining, being
one of the few wise women who take as much pains to conciliate their
own sex, as to charm the other.
Mrs. Douglas looks after her uneasily. "I have done no good," she
thinks. "Perhaps only harm. But, after all, she is warned, and
really it is quite too ridiculous to think he can hang about her for
ever. I thought he would have had more sense. And she has been
married two years--he ought to have forgotten by this time. As for
Lauraine herself, she was always so romantic, I don't blame her so
much; but Keith--and what on earth can she see in him except that he
has long eyelashes? I always thought him quite stupid myself, and
Lauraine has mind enough of her own to like cleverness in other
people. But I do hope she won't get talked about. It would be
altogether too dreadful. There is Lady Jean, now----"
Her reflections are cut short here--a robe of amber silk seems to
float past like a pale gold cloud, and disperse itself over the low
chair and Ambusson carpet by her side. Emerging pale and languid
from amidst the cloudy draperies is the face of the Lady Etwynde.
Mrs. Douglas greets her eagerly. It is rarely indeed that
conventional gatherings like the present are graced by the presence
of the lovely æsthete.
"Yes; I make an exception in favour of Lady Vavasour," she says, in
her soft, plaintive voice, that seems to rebel against the very
burden of speech. "But Society is not congenial to me. My tastes
and inclinations move in a very different groove. Why _will_ people
be frivolous? Life is not meant for eating and drinking and
scandalmongering. What can it really matter who is dressed by Worth,
or Pingat, or Elise; or whose husband ran off with an actress, or
whose wife got talked about at Hurlingham, or anything else of the
same sort? Yet this is all one hears discussed in Society. Ah, when
a perfect culture has given us a perfect understanding of the
beautiful, we shall also have a truer morality. The soul will soar
far above the senses, and we shall look back in wonder at the
ignorance we once enjoyed."
"No doubt," murmurs Mrs. Douglas, vaguely. She is quite unable to
comprehend what Lady Etwynde means, but it would never do to let her
perceive it.
"We shall be translated--advanced, as it were," continues Lady
Etwynde, dreamily. "We shan't tie back our gowns, and impede the
action of our limbs. We shan't cramp our bodies into the machinery
of bones and wires, that gives us that most odious of modern
inventions--a 'waist.' We shall languish no longer for happiness and
occupation. Our minds will soar into purer ether. Ah! happy days
that I see in the dim future, and yearn for in the mists of present
darkness."
"Exactly," again asserts Mrs. Douglas, in increasing bewilderment.
"But don't you think 'waists' are very much admired?" She possesses
a very elegant figure of her own, and has her corsets made by a
special French artist. It therefore brings no thrill of blissful
expectation to her that advanced civilization preludes such an
abolition as "stays."
"Admired!" murmurs the Lady Etwynde, dreamily. "By the
Philistines--yes; by the thoughtful--the advanced--the intense--oh,
no!"
"The Philistines!" says Mrs. Douglas, in growing bewilderment. "I--I
thought corsets were not introduced till the time of Queen Elizabeth."
The Lady Etwynde smiles sadly. "You do not understand--it is merely
a technical term for those outside the pale. Progress and culture
mean enlightenment--we all need to be enlightened. Our individual
tendencies are hampered by social restrictions. But the soul will
find its wings and soar above such paltry barriers. Women will take
their place in the ranks of the advanced, and the mockers at progress
will have to recognize its truth, and feel that it is a law powerful
enough to sway the whole machinery of civilization, and lift it
upwards to a grander and loftier life."
"Good Heavens! what a dreadful woman," thinks Mrs. Douglas. "I--I
have not thought much of such things," she says aloud. "I am not a
clever woman, like yourself, dear Lady Etwynde. But I really think
we are very happy as we are. What good can progress do?"
"Ah!" sighs Lady Etwynde. "The old cry of the world--the battle-cry
of the human race, that is ever so obstinately opposed to its own
good. When we cease to oppose, and investigate instead--when
prejudice and obstinacy give way to thoughtfulness and consideration,
then some proper basis will have been obtained on which to establish
the glories of Progress, and the sublimity of Culture."
Mrs. Douglas feels too hopelessly bewildered after this speech to
pursue the subject. She gives a sigh, and resigns herself to
incomprehensibility; but the entrance of the gentlemen makes a slight
disturbance, and the Lady Etwynde lapses into thought. Unknown to
each other, both of them are watching the same man--the tall,
well-knit figure of Keith Athelstone. He stands a little apart from
the group; his face is very grave and very pale. There are dark
shadows like a bruise under his eyes, and the drooped lids hide their
expression. Perhaps it is as well. They are eyes more given to
reveal than to conceal. The other men draw nearer to the dazzling
groups of silk and satin and lace. Some one goes to the piano, and
begins to play. Through the open window a faint breeze steals, and,
weighted with perfume, floats through the soft-lighted rooms.
"He only looks at _her_," sighs Lady Etwynde.
"Why doesn't the silly boy go and talk to some of those women?" Mrs.
Douglas says to herself angrily. "Does he really care for her still?
How absurd! And how ill he looks--as if he hadn't slept for weeks;
but perhaps that's dissipation. He's sure to have his full share of
it now."
Meanwhile Keith stands there absorbed and grave. He has not spoken
to Lauraine all the evening. He is wondering whether he might seek
her now--whether her duties as hostess will permit her to give five
minutes to him. But even as he thinks it, he lifts his eyes, and
meets a signal from the gracefully waving fan of the Lady Etwynde.
He has no choice but to cross the room and take the seat by her side.
"We have been discussing Progress," she says, with that exquisite
smile of hers lighting her face like moonlight as she looks at him.
"I was saying women spoil themselves by their dress nowadays. It is
too elaborate--too overdone. Lauraine is one of the few women who
can dress perfectly. But then she has taste and artistic feeling."
"It is not every one who could dare to copy the Lady Etwynde," Keith
says, with an admiring glance at the amber clouds that seem to float
round the graceful figure of his companion. "And to one who dresses
as she does, all other women must look only 'clothed.'"
"A distinction with a difference," says Lady Etwynde. "You pay
compliments very gracefully. That is a rare thing nowadays."
"You are very good to flatter me," answers Keith. "What I said was
scarcely a compliment. How handsome Lady Jean Salomans looks
to-night!"
"Yes," answers his companion, giving a rapid glance from under her
languid lids in the direction indicated.
Lady Jean is sitting on an ottoman, with a maze of hothouse blossoms
as a background for her brilliant beauty, and wears a dress of
corn-coloured satin, with scarlet poppies gleaming here and there.
Sir Francis is standing beside her, and looking down with
unmistakable admiration at the animated face and brilliant eyes.
Involuntarily Keith's glance turns from her to Lauraine. What a
contrast!
"Like a sunflower and a lily," murmurs the Lady Etwynde, following
that glance and comprehending it.
"Yes," he says, quietly. "They are very unlike. One would scarcely
expect the same man to admire both."
"Sir Francis has been more than two years married," says Lady
Etwynde, musingly. "Time enough, I suppose, to admire other people
besides his own wife. Why will women marry? It is such a mistake!"
"Why will they marry the wrong man, is more to the point," Keith
mutters under his thick moustache. "Heavens, what ill-assorted
matches one does see!"
"True," replies "the Ladye." "Scarcely made in heaven, I suppose you
think?"
"In a very different place, it is my candid opinion."
Mrs. Douglas has risen ere this and moved away. She is never
comfortable in Keith Athelstone's presence, and is only too thankful
when she can evade him.
"Yes," says Lady Etwynde. "It is sad, but true, that much of the
unhappiness of life is caused voluntarily--the proofs of our own
unwisdom. Of course, results are always unforeseen. We only grope
in the dark. But, for my part, I have never heard of people acting
for what they term 'the best' without dire misfortunes following."
Keith's eyes seem to travel down the long rooms to where one
shimmering white robe trails in fleecy folds.
His heart aches bitterly as he thinks of what "acting for the best"
has brought upon two lives that might have been so happy now.
"_Oh, the little more, and how much it is, and the little less--and
what worlds away!_"
He talks on with Lady Etwynde in desultory fashion. He knows he need
not exert himself to be entertaining here. She likes a good
listener--one who can be interested in her ideas and follow them, and
with Keith Athelstone, as with Lauraine, she lays her art jargon
aside. Yet in his heart he longs for one sound of Lauraine's
voice--for just five minutes by her side.
They have not met since the scene in Lady Etwynde's garden, and
to-night her greeting has been of the coldest description. But he
dares not go over to her now, as he would have done a few days ago.
He sits there, contenting himself with an occasional glance, and
listening patiently, if a little wearily, to the beautiful æsthete's
discussion. Then Lauraine looks across at him and smiles. His heart
seems to warm beneath that sign of remembrance--his whole face
changes. Lady Etwynde notices it, and grows troubled.
"He is in love, and he does not conceal it--poor boy," she thinks,
compassionately. "Ah, I always thought those fraternal arrangements
were a great imposition. One or other is sure to ask or desire that
'little more' which just makes all the difference. Ah! it is worlds
enough away from these two. Does she know, I wonder? I think not.
She could not act that serenity and indifference. She is too
transparent. Oh, I hope she does not suspect. It would be terrible
indeed. She is so young and beautiful, but she is not happy. Any
one can see that; and her husband is always running after that brazen
woman over there. Dear me, how sad life is. Full of
contradictions--of pain. Mr. Athelstone," she adds aloud, "I want to
speak to that gentleman over there. He is a _savant_ of the most
advanced school. Kindly give me your arm."
Keith rises and obeys, and comes now within the radiance of the
floating white draperies that have been before his eyes the whole
night long.