She is like one of those exquisite miniatures in the Academy that no one
but miniaturists ever stay long enough to examine; her skin is like a
child's, her eyes are Cheneston's eyes grown infinitely gentle--those
queer hazel eyes that look, in a miniature, as if the paint had never
dried.
"So this is Pam," she said, looking up at me, and her voice is like
Cheneston's, grown faint and gentle; it has the same curious quality
that makes you feel thrilled, and causes all the little nerves in your
spine to "ping" as they do at an exciting play. "My son," she said, "I
am so proud--such a vain old woman!--proud that you should have won such
a woman--the only sort of woman that could ever have held you, son."
They have no gas or electric light here, only candles in silver sconces.
I looked up suddenly and saw the perspiration glistening in beads on
Cheneston's forehead. She took my hands.
"Pam," she said, "you're a wonderful little person--half gallant boy,
half elf, and the other part sheer mother. The gallant boy in you will
be his pal, the elf will keep him your eternal lover, and the
mother--will keep him on his knees to you." She looked up at me
whimsically, tenderly. "The Cromers are a woman's life-work--they run
away for years and leave you to break your heart, and they come back and
fill the hall with tusks and elephant-leg umbrella-stands, and expect
you to go mad with them over the trophies. The elf in you will still
the call of the wild in Cheneston, he will not dare to leave you, and
the mother that broods in your quiet eyes." She turned to Cheneston.
"You mustn't lose her--she's the one woman in the world for you--the
only woman."
Then the nurse came back and signed to us to go.
Old Mrs. Cromer gave me a wonderful smile, and in that smile I suddenly
realised how beautiful, how magnetic she had been. It was a smile of
the most extraordinary and amazing happiness.
"Your father," I said, when we got outside, "your father went away from
her?" I wanted to see if I had understood the significance of the
smile.
"He took her," he said hoarsely. "She was his star, his goddess."
To-night we dined alone downstairs.
I wore my grey taffeta with the tiny bunches of pink apple-blossom and
the little pink georgette fichu.
I felt that nothing else in my wardrobe was in keeping with the
atmosphere of the Court.
Cheneston changed into ordinary evening dress. It was the first time I
had seen him out of khaki. It sounds foolish and snobbish to say he
looked a very gallant gentleman, as if I were trying to write an
old-fashioned novel; but it is the only phrase that exactly describes
him.
I felt an extraordinary atmosphere of noble sweetness, it seemed to
throb through me. I was shiningly happy in the very inmost corner of my
soul.
Cheneston is a perfect host; so many men leave off being the wives'
hosts after they have married them. I had a feeling that Cheneston
never would.
We talked of books--funny, dear old-fashioned authors like Dickens and
Mrs. Gaskell and Jane Austen. When we rose he looked at me.
"You, woman, are wonderful," he said tersely: "you have only blown in
here, and yet you belong to it, you are of it."
"And to-morrow I shall blow away again," I said.
"And to-morrow you will blow away again, he acquiesced.
"Can you imagine Grace Gilpin here?" I said suddenly. "Can you imagine
her beauty in this setting?"
"It is unimaginable," he said curtly.
"She is beautiful," I persisted. I had an idea that my words must come
sobbingly, because my heart was sobbing.
"She is the most beautiful thing I ever saw," he agreed. "They are
bringing us coffee in the drawing-room."
I think the drawing-room is the biggest room I have ever been in; it is
so long and narrow; the walls are white panels, and the carpet pale
grey, and the chintz is the same grey with a little fierce blue lobelia
bobbing about on it, and there is priceless blue Chinese porcelain
everywhere, and a wonderful and enormous grand piano, and there were
great bowls of white jasmine everywhere.
I sat down at the piano and ran my hands over the keys, and Cheneston
spoke.
"Pam--please don't sing. I--I beg you not to sing."
"I won't if you don't wish it."
"Thank you."
But after they had brought in the coffee old Mrs. Cromer's nurse came
and begged me to leave the door open and sing. I looked at Cheneston.
"Yes," he said. "Tell mother Miss Burbridge will sing." Then he looked
at me; his face was very white. "Can I fetch you music, Pam?" he said.
"No, I don't need it, thank you."
He opened the french-windows, and the air that blew from the sea and the
red fields of Devon swept into the room in a cloud of jasmine scent, and
through the diamond panes I saw the stars twinkling--and suddenly I lost
Pam Burbridge and the pretty room. I became something that had kinship
with the stars and the hot scent of jasmine, something that was
houseless and homeless and free; I walked beside Cheneston through
Elysian fields, I talked to him and had no need of words. We were
mates, we who had never been lovers.
I stopped. I was quite alone, and someone was rapping on the floor, and
I heard the nurse's voice over the stairs. "Miss Burbridge, will you
come?"