She should never have looked at me if she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty ... men, you call such, I suppose ... she may discover
All her soul too, if she pleases, and yet leave much as she found them:
But I'm not so, and she knew it when she fixed me, glancing round them.
_Cristina._
A variety of reasons kept the Allonbys very silent as they drove home
that night.
When Mansfield Road was reached, they walked into the hall, still in the
same silence. Osmond dismissed the cabman, followed them in, and made
fast the bars and bolts for the night.
"Good-night, old man," said Jac, coming up for a kiss.
"Good-night, young woman," he replied, with the air of one who does not
intend to be drawn into conversation.
"Girls," said Hilda, over the stairs. "Sal has put a fire in my
bed-room. Come along."
Jac flew upstairs. Wyn lingered a moment.
"Are you coming to bed, Osmond?" she said, anxiously, as she saw him
unlock the door leading to the studio.
"I think I'll have a pipe first," he answered, in a constrained voice.
"Run to bed and don't bother."
She hesitated a moment, but, seeing that interference would be useless,
went on upstairs, and joined the _seance_ round Hilda's fire.
"Well," said Hilda, with a long sigh, "it _was_ a delightful dance,
wasn't it?"
"The nicest I was ever at," returned Jac, with smiles dimpling round her
mouth.
Wyn did not echo these comments. She sat down with a sigh, and pulled
off her gloves.
"How well our lilies have lasted, Hilda," said Jac, spying at her own
head in the glass. "Not a bit faded, are they? Wyn, you old wretch, you
did look well. How everybody praised you up. I should think your head is
turned."
"Humph!" was Wyn's discontented reply.
There was a pause, during which Jac secured Hilda's programme, and
stealthily examined it.
"Well!" said Wyn, suddenly. "Now you have seen Lady Mabel, what do you
think of her."
"She is exactly what I expected," observed Jac, who was possessed of
considerable acumen. "That impulsive, frank manner is of great service
to her. Nothing escapes her notice, I can tell you! She has decided not
to take us up as a family. She does not feel quite sure as to what we
might do. Vaguely she feels that Hilda and I are formidable, and poor
Osmond, of course, is to be steadily discouraged. She will ask you, Wyn,
because you are rather a celebrity just now; but nobody else."
"Jac--I think you misjudge----"
"All right. Wait a fortnight. If an invitation comes for Osmond, Hilda,
or me, to Bruton Street, I will humbly apologise for my uncharitable
judgment."
"Jac is right," said Hilda, suddenly. "I spied Lady Mabel's eye upon me
when I approached with Mr. Percivale!"
"By the way, do you like Mr. Percivale?" asked Wyn.
"I should think so!" was the emphatic answer.
Wyn passed her hand wearily over her brow.
"You look very tired, dear child," said Hilda, sympathetically.
"I am worried--about Osmond," she sighed. "I would give so much if--all
that--had never taken place between him and Elsa. One sees now how
hopeless--how _insane_ the bare idea is; but I am afraid he doesn't
think so, poor fellow!"
"Lady Mabel was very off-hand with him," said Jac. "I was near when she
was ready to go, and Elsa was dancing with Osmond. Do you know, she
danced five times with him."
"It was too bad of her!" cried Wyn.
"If she does not mean to marry him, it certainly was," said Hilda.
"Mean to marry him! They would not let her! I am thankful at least that
there was no engagement," returned Wynifred, with energy. "That would
just save his dignity, poor fellow, if one could restrain him, but I
know he will rush like a moth to his candle, and get a fearful snub
from Lady Mabel." She covered her face with her hands. "I can think of
nothing else--I can't forget it," she said. "He will never get over it.
He was never in love before in all his life."
"Won't his pride help him? I would do anything--anything," said Hilda,
with vehemence, "sooner than let her see I was heart-broken.... I
suppose she will marry Mr. Percivale."
"Or Mr. Cranmer," suggested Jac, in an off-hand way. "That is what Lady
Mabel intends, I should think."
Wynifred winced painfully. It seemed as though Osmond's case were thrust
before her eyes as a warning of what she had to expect. It braced--it
nerved her to the approaching struggle. She would never be sick of love;
and she determined boldly to face the sleepless night which she knew
awaited her--to work hard, go to parties, anything, everything which
might serve as an antidote to the poison she had imbibed that fatal
summer.
When at last the girls separated for the night, Osmond was still in his
studio. It was not till six o'clock had struck that Wyn's wakeful ears
heard his footstep on the stairs, and the latch of his bed-room door
close quietly.
Jac's prophecy was fulfilled. A few days brought an invitation to
Wynifred from Lady Mabel to meet a few friends at dinner in Bruton
Street. No mention was made in the note of either Osmond or the girls.
"I shall not go!" cried Wyn, fiercely.
"Wyn, my dear child, listen to me," said Hilda, with authority. "You
_must_ go. Beggars musn't be choosers. Look here what she says--'to meet
several people who may be of use to you.' Oh, my dear child, you have
published one successful novel, but your fortune is not made yet, is it?
Think of poor old Osmond--think how important it is that we should all
do the best we can for ourselves. In my opinion you ought to go. What do
you say, Jac?"
"I suppose you must; but I should like to let Lady Mabel know my opinion
of her," said Jac, grudgingly.
"Be just," urged Hilda. "Lady Mabel very likely thinks that to take us
out of our sphere and to plant us in hers for a few hours would be to
unfit us for our work. I believe she is right. What good would it do us
to sit at her table and talk to men who would only tolerate us because
we were her guests? Answer me that."
Jac said nothing.
"You see I am right," went on Hilda, triumphing. "She merely thinks, as
Aunt Anna does, that we had better remain in our humble station; and it
would be simple cruelty of her to invite Osmond under existing
circumstances. It would be tantamount to giving him encouragement, would
it not?"
Osmond himself, somewhat to his sister's surprise, when he heard of the
invitation, was most anxious that she should accept it. It seemed as if
anything which brought the two families together, however indirectly,
was pleasant to him. On the subject of himself and Elsa he, however,
quite declined to talk; and this reserve of his was to Wyn a dangerous
symptom. However, he was very quiet, and had not yet made the suggestion
his sisters dreaded, namely, that one of them should go with him to call
on Lady Mabel.
Sometimes Wyn almost hoped that he had realised the futility of his
desires, since Elsa would not be twenty-one till the following
Christmas, and it was madness to suppose that Mr. Percivale would not
press his suit before then. Sometimes she dreaded that, as we say of
children, he was quiet because he was in mischief--in other words, that
he was corresponding with Elsa, or otherwise intriguing; though this was
not like Osmond.
With surmises she was forced to rest content, however. The invitation to
dinner was accepted, and then came wretched days of hesitation and
cowardice--days when she endured continual fluctuations of feeling, at
one moment feeling as though all her future hung on that dinner-party,
at another that nothing should induce her to go when the time came.
She had not, however, very much leisure for reflection just at this
period. One of the monthly magazines wrote to ask a serial story from
her on very short notice, and she was obliged to devote her attention to
the expansion and completion of an unfinished fragment for which, before
the appearance of "Cicely Montfort," she had tried to find a publisher
in vain. On the third day after the Miles' ball, as she returned from a
walk, she found Claud's card in the hall. After the first moment of keen
disappointment, she was glad that she had not seen him.
What use to feed a flame she was bent on smothering?
She learned from Sal that the visitor had been into the studio and seen
Mr. Osmond, and to the studio she accordingly bent her steps. Osmond was
not working. He was seated on the edge of the "throne," his palette and
brushes idle beside him, his face hidden in his hands. At the sound of
the opening door, he leaped to his feet, and faced his sister half
angrily.
"You startled me," said he.
"I am sorry. I hear you had a visitor to-day, so I came to know what he
said."
"Oh, yes--Cranmer. He didn't say very much. Asked after you all; said he
hoped you were not very tired after the dance; said he was looking
forward to seeing you at his sister's. Not much besides. He seems very
thick with this Mr. Percivale."
Turning aside, he aimlessly took up a dry brush and drew it across a
finished canvas in slow sweeps.
"Wyn," he asked, "who _is_ this Mr. Percivale?"
Wyn made a gesture of ignorance with her hands.
"I don't know," she said. "Nobody knows much about him. Mr. Cranmer told
me all he knows the other evening." She related the meagre facts which
Claud had given her. "But everyone seems agreed that he is very much all
that can be wished," said she. "What made you ask me, dear?"
"I have been talking to Ottilie Orton," he said; and paused.
"To Mrs. Orton! And what had she to say, if one may ask?"
"You appear," observed Osmond, "to have taken a dislike to the lady in
question."
"Well, I cannot say she fascinates me. She is so big and bold, and she
looks artificial. She reminds me of that dreadful middle-aged Miss
Walters who married the small, shy young curate of St. Mary's."
"She is a very handsome woman," said Osmond obstinately.
"Well, never mind her looks. What has she been saying to you?"
"Oh, she merely remarked," was the reply, as Osmond picked up his
palette and charged a clean brush with color. "She merely made a remark
about this Mr. Percivale whom everyone is so ready to take for granted."
"What was the remark?"
"She said there were several ugly stories afloat about him, and that--"
he paused to put a deliberate touch upon his almost completely finished
picture--"that his antecedents were most questionable."