I
Vincent, of course, had to go out of the room at once after that
declaration, leaving the three women astounded.
Mrs. Russell was the first to bestir herself. Perhaps because she was
conscious that her emotions were so feeble, she always strained to
emphasize, to exaggerate them. She at once affected a great excitement.
She began rushing about, under the pretense of "getting Vincent’s room
ready," and telling the servants that Mr. Vincent was home.
"And he’s going to the war, Annie!" she cried. "Isn’t that _dreadful_?"
Polly took no part in this movement. She went back into her own room and
sat down before her dressing-table.
"I’ll do my own hair, Angelica," she said, with a new frigidity in her
manner that surprised her companion.
"All right!" Angelica answered, with a trace of sulkiness.
"You can go if you like," Polly went on. "I won’t need you any more
to-night. I think, Angelica, you’d better have your dinner in your room.
Mr. Geraldine might not like a stranger at the table the first evening
he’s home."
"All right!" said Angelica again, turning obediently to the door.
But she did not attempt to conceal a most provoking smile--to show Polly
that she knew the cause of all this.
She went trailing back to her own room in the yellow negligée, and shut
herself in, happy enough to be alone and unobserved. After all, what did
it matter if she couldn’t come down to dinner, couldn’t see him at all
that evening? She could think about him; she could recall his face and
his voice; rejoice again in that unaccountable thrill.
She leaned back in her chair, her arms clasped behind her head, a
strange and divinely stupid smile on her lips. Just at the threshold of
love she was lingering, in that little moment before there is desire or
pain, when love is without substance, without thought, a dim ecstasy,
with no more motive, no more basis for its joy, than the dream of an
opium-smoker.
"Gawd!" she said to herself, with a grin. "I guess I’m hit _this_ time,
all right!"