IX

The rain did stop while they stood there, and a brace of hansoms was not

slow to appear. Laura told her companion that he must put her into

one--she could go home alone: she had taken up enough of his time. He

deprecated this course very respectfully; urged that he had it on his

conscience to deliver her at her own door; but she sprang into the cab

and closed the apron with a movement that was a sharp prohibition. She

wanted to get away from him--it would be too awkward, the long,

pottering drive back. Her hansom started off while Mr. Wendover, smiling

sadly, lifted his hat. It was not very comfortable, even without him;

especially as before she had gone a quarter of a mile she felt that her

action had been too marked--she wished she had let him come. His

puzzled, innocent air of wondering what was the matter annoyed her; and

she was in the absurd situation of being angry at a desistence which she

would have been still angrier if he had been guiltless of. It would have

comforted her (because it would seem to share her burden) and yet it

would have covered her with shame if he had guessed that what she saw

was wrong. It would not occur to him that there was a scandal so near

her, because he thought with no great promptitude of such things; and

yet, since there was--but since there was after all Laura scarcely knew

what attitude would sit upon him most gracefully. As to what he might be

prepared to suspect by having heard what Selina's reputation was in

London, of that Laura was unable to judge, not knowing what was said,

because of course it was not said to _her_. Lionel would undertake to

give her the benefit of this any moment she would allow him, but how in

the world could _he_ know either, for how could things be said to him?

Then, in the rattle of the hansom, passing through streets for which the

girl had no eyes, 'She has lied, she has lied, she has lied!' kept

repeating itself. Why had she written and signed that wanton falsehood

about her going down to Lady Watermouth? How could she have gone to Lady

Watermouth's when she was making so very different and so extraordinary

a use of the hours she had announced her intention of spending there?

What had been the need of that misrepresentation and why did she lie

before she was driven to it?

It was because she was false altogether and deception came out of her

with her breath; she was so depraved that it was easier to her to

fabricate than to let it alone. Laura would not have asked her to give

an account of her day, but she would ask her now. She shuddered at one

moment, as she found herself saying--even in silence--such things of her

sister, and the next she sat staring out of the front of the cab at the

stiff problem presented by Selina's turning up with the partner of her

guilt at the Soane Museum, of all places in the world. The girl shifted

this fact about in various ways, to account for it--not unconscious as

she did so that it was a pretty exercise of ingenuity for a nice girl.

Plainly, it was a rare accident: if it had been their plan to spend the

day together the Soane Museum had not been in the original programme.

They had been near it, they had been on foot and they had rushed in to

take refuge from the rain. But how did they come to be near it and above

all to be on foot? How could Selina do anything so reckless from her own

point of view as to walk about the town--even an out-of-the-way part of

it--with her suspected lover? Laura Wing felt the want of proper

knowledge to explain such anomalies. It was too little clear to her

where ladies went and how they proceeded when they consorted with

gentlemen in regard to their meetings with whom they had to lie. She

knew nothing of where Captain Crispin lived; very possibly--for she

vaguely remembered having heard Selina say of him that he was very

poor--he had chambers in that part of the town, and they were either

going to them or coming from them. If Selina had neglected to take her

way in a four-wheeler with the glasses up it was through some chance

that would not seem natural till it was explained, like that of their

having darted into a public institution. Then no doubt it would hang

together with the rest only too well. The explanation most exact would

probably be that the pair had snatched a walk together (in the course of

a day of many edifying episodes) for the 'lark' of it, and for the sake

of the walk had taken the risk, which in that part of London, so

detached from all gentility, had appeared to them small. The last thing

Selina could have expected was to meet her sister in such a strange

corner--her sister with a young man of her own!

She was dining out that night with both Selina and Lionel--a conjunction

that was rather rare. She was by no means always invited with them, and

Selina constantly went without her husband. Appearances, however,

sometimes got a sop thrown them; three or four times a month Lionel and

she entered the brougham together like people who still had forms, who

still said 'my dear.' This was to be one of those occasions, and Mrs.

Berrington's young unmarried sister was included in the invitation. When

Laura reached home she learned, on inquiry, that Selina had not yet come

in, and she went straight to her own room. If her sister had been there

she would have gone to hers instead--she would have cried out to her as

soon as she had closed the door: 'Oh, stop, stop--in God's name, stop

before you go any further, before exposure and ruin and shame come down

and bury us!' That was what was in the air--the vulgarest disgrace, and

the girl, harder now than ever about her sister, was conscious of a more

passionate desire to save herself. But Selina's absence made the

difference that during the next hour a certain chill fell upon this

impulse from other feelings: she found suddenly that she was late and

she began to dress. They were to go together after dinner to a couple of

balls; a diversion which struck her as ghastly for people who carried

such horrors in their breasts. Ghastly was the idea of the drive of

husband, wife and sister in pursuit of pleasure, with falsity and

detection and hate between them. Selina's maid came to her door to tell

her that she was in the carriage--an extraordinary piece of punctuality,

which made her wonder, as Selina was always dreadfully late for

everything. Laura went down as quickly as she could, passed through the

open door, where the servants were grouped in the foolish majesty of

their superfluous attendance, and through the file of dingy gazers who

had paused at the sight of the carpet across the pavement and the

waiting carriage, in which Selina sat in pure white splendour. Mrs.

Berrington had a tiara on her head and a proud patience in her face, as

if her sister were really a sore trial. As soon as the girl had taken

her place she said to the footman: 'Is Mr. Berrington there?'--to which

the man replied: 'No ma'am, not yet.' It was not new to Laura that if

there was any one later as a general thing than Selina it was Selina's

husband. 'Then he must take a hansom. Go on.' The footman mounted and

they rolled away.

There were several different things that had been present to Laura's

mind during the last couple of hours as destined to mark--one or the

other--this present encounter with her sister; but the words Selina

spoke the moment the brougham began to move were of course exactly those

she had not foreseen. She had considered that she might take this tone

or that tone or even no tone at all; she was quite prepared for her

presenting a face of blankness to any form of interrogation and saying,

'What on earth are you talking about?' It was in short conceivable to

her that Selina would deny absolutely that she had been in the museum,

that they had stood face to face and that she had fled in confusion. She

was capable of explaining the incident by an idiotic error on Laura's

part, by her having seized on another person, by her seeing Captain

Crispin in every bush; though doubtless she would be taxed (of course

she would say _that_ was the woman's own affair) to supply a reason for

the embarrassment of the other lady. But she was not prepared for

Selina's breaking out with: 'Will you be so good as to inform me if you

are engaged to be married to Mr. Wendover?'

'Engaged to him? I have seen him but three times.'

'And is that what you usually do with gentlemen you have seen three

times?'

'Are you talking about my having gone with him to see some sights? I see

nothing wrong in that. To begin with you see what he is. One might go

with him anywhere. Then he brought us an introduction--we have to do

something for him. Moreover you threw him upon me the moment he

came--you asked me to take charge of him.'

'I didn't ask you to be indecent! If Lionel were to know it he wouldn't

tolerate it, so long as you live with us.'

Laura was silent a moment. 'I shall not live with you long.' The

sisters, side by side, with their heads turned, looked at each other, a

deep crimson leaping into Laura's face. 'I wouldn't have believed

it--that you are so bad,' she said. 'You are horrible!' She saw that

Selina had not taken up the idea of denying--she judged that would be

hopeless: the recognition on either side had been too sharp. She looked

radiantly handsome, especially with the strange new expression that

Laura's last word brought into her eyes. This expression seemed to the

girl to show her more of Selina morally than she had ever yet

seen--something of the full extent and the miserable limit.

'It's different for a married woman, especially when she's married to a

cad. It's in a girl that such things are odious--scouring London with

strange men. I am not bound to explain to you--there would be too many

things to say. I have my reasons--I have my conscience. It was the

oddest of all things, our meeting in that place--I know that as well as

you,' Selina went on, with her wonderful affected clearness; 'but it was

not your finding me that was out of the way; it was my finding you--with

your remarkable escort! That was incredible. I pretended not to

recognise you, so that the gentleman who was with me shouldn't see you,

shouldn't know you. He questioned me and I repudiated you. You may thank

me for saving you! You had better wear a veil next time--one never knows

what may happen. I met an acquaintance at Lady Watermouth's and he came

up to town with me. He happened to talk about old prints; I told him how

I have collected them and we spoke of the bother one has about the

frames. He insisted on my going with him to that place--from

Waterloo--to see such an excellent model.'

Laura had turned her face to the window of the carriage again; they were

spinning along Park Lane, passing in the quick flash of other vehicles

an endless succession of ladies with 'dressed' heads, of gentlemen in

white neckties. 'Why, I thought your frames were all so pretty!' Laura

murmured. Then she added: 'I suppose it was your eagerness to save your

companion the shock of seeing me--in my dishonour--that led you to steal

our cab.'

'Your cab?'

'Your delicacy was expensive for you!'

'You don't mean you were knocking about in _cabs_ with him!' Selina

cried.

'Of course I know that you don't really think a word of what you say

about me,' Laura went on; 'though I don't know that that makes your

saying it a bit less unspeakably base.'

The brougham pulled up in Park Lane and Mrs. Berrington bent herself to

have a view through the front glass. 'We are there, but there are two

other carriages,' she remarked, for all answer. 'Ah, there are the

Collingwoods.'

'Where are you going--where are you going--where are you going?' Laura

broke out.

The carriage moved on, to set them down, and while the footman was

getting off the box Selina said: 'I don't pretend to be better than

other women, but you do!' And being on the side of the house she quickly

stepped out and carried her crowned brilliancy through the

long-lingering daylight and into the open portals.

X

What do you intend to do? You will grant that I have a right to ask you

that.'

'To do? I shall do as I have always done--not so badly, as it seems to

me.'

This colloquy took place in Mrs. Berrington's room, in the early morning

hours, after Selina's return from the entertainment to which reference

was last made. Her sister came home before her--she found herself

incapable of 'going on' when Selina quitted the house in Park Lane at

which they had dined. Mrs. Berrington had the night still before her,

and she stepped into her carriage with her usual air of graceful

resignation to a brilliant lot. She had taken the precaution, however,

to provide herself with a defence, against a little sister bristling

with righteousness, in the person of Mrs. Collingwood, to whom she

offered a lift, as they were bent upon the same business and Mr.

Collingwood had a use of his own for his brougham. The Collingwoods were

a happy pair who could discuss such a divergence before their friends

candidly, amicably, with a great many 'My loves' and 'Not for the

worlds.' Lionel Berrington disappeared after dinner, without holding any

communication with his wife, and Laura expected to find that he had

taken the carriage, to repay her in kind for her having driven off from

Grosvenor Place without him. But it was not new to the girl that he

really spared his wife more than she spared him; not so much perhaps

because he wouldn't do the 'nastiest' thing as because he couldn't.

Selina could always be nastier. There was ever a whimsicality in her

actions: if two or three hours before it had been her fancy to keep a

third person out of the carriage she had now her reasons for bringing

such a person in. Laura knew that she would not only pretend, but would

really believe, that her vindication of her conduct on their way to

dinner had been powerful and that she had won a brilliant victory. What

need, therefore, to thresh out further a subject that she had chopped

into atoms? Laura Wing, however, had needs of her own, and her remaining

in the carriage when the footman next opened the door was intimately

connected with them.

'I don't care to go in,' she said to her sister. 'If you will allow me

to be driven home and send back the carriage for you, that's what I

shall like best.'

Selina stared and Laura knew what she would have said if she could have

spoken her thought. 'Oh, you are furious that I haven't given you a

chance to fly at me again, and you must take it out in sulks!' These

were the ideas--ideas of 'fury' and sulks--into which Selina could

translate feelings that sprang from the pure depths of one's conscience.

Mrs. Collingwood protested--she said it was a shame that Laura shouldn't

go in and enjoy herself when she looked so lovely. 'Doesn't she look

lovely?' She appealed to Mrs. Berrington. 'Bless us, what's the use of

being pretty? Now, if she had _my_ face!'

'I think she looks rather cross,' said Selina, getting out with her

friend and leaving her sister to her own inventions. Laura had a vision,

as the carriage drove away again, of what her situation would have been,

or her peace of mind, if Selina and Lionel had been good, attached

people like the Collingwoods, and at the same time of the singularity of

a good woman's being ready to accept favours from a person as to whose

behaviour she had the lights that must have come to the lady in question

in regard to Selina. She accepted favours herself and she only wanted to

be good: that was oppressively true; but if she had not been Selina's

sister she would never drive in her carriage. That conviction was strong

in the girl as this vehicle conveyed her to Grosvenor Place; but it was

not in its nature consoling. The prevision of disgrace was now so vivid

to her that it seemed to her that if it had not already overtaken them

she had only to thank the loose, mysterious, rather ignoble tolerance of

people like Mrs. Collingwood. There were plenty of that species, even

among the good; perhaps indeed exposure and dishonour would begin only

when the bad had got hold of the facts. Would the bad be most horrified

and do most to spread the scandal? There were, in any event, plenty of

them too.

Laura sat up for her sister that night, with that nice question to help

her to torment herself--whether if she was hard and merciless in judging

Selina it would be with the bad too that she would associate herself.

Was she all wrong after all--was she cruel by being too rigid? Was Mrs.

Collingwood's attitude the right one and ought she only to propose to

herself to 'allow' more and more, and to allow ever, and to smooth

things down by gentleness, by sympathy, by not looking at them too hard?

It was not the first time that the just measure of things seemed to slip

from her hands as she became conscious of possible, or rather of very

actual, differences of standard and usage. On this occasion Geordie and

Ferdy asserted themselves, by the mere force of lying asleep upstairs in

their little cribs, as on the whole the proper measure. Laura went into

the nursery to look at them when she came home--it was her habit almost

any night--and yearned over them as mothers and maids do alike over the

pillow of rosy childhood. They were an antidote to all casuistry; for

Selina to forget _them_--that was the beginning and the end of shame.

She came back to the library, where she should best hear the sound of

her sister's return; the hours passed as she sat there, without bringing

round this event. Carriages came and went all night; the soft shock of

swift hoofs was on the wooden roadway long after the summer dawn grew

fair--till it was merged in the rumble of the awakening day. Lionel had

not come in when she returned, and he continued absent, to Laura's

satisfaction; for if she wanted not to miss Selina she had no desire at

present to have to tell her brother-in-law why she was sitting up. She

prayed Selina might arrive first: then she would have more time to think

of something that harassed her particularly--the question of whether she

ought to tell Lionel that she had seen her in a far-away corner of the

town with Captain Crispin. Almost impossible as she found it now to feel

any tenderness for her, she yet detested the idea of bearing witness

against her: notwithstanding which it appeared to her that she could

make up her mind to do this if there were a chance of its preventing the

last scandal--a catastrophe to which she saw her sister rushing

straight. That Selina was capable at a given moment of going off with

her lover, and capable of it precisely because it was the greatest

ineptitude as well as the greatest wickedness--there was a voice of

prophecy, of warning, to this effect in the silent, empty house. If

repeating to Lionel what she had seen would contribute to prevent

anything, or to stave off the danger, was it not her duty to denounce

his wife, flesh and blood of her own as she was, to his further

reprobation? This point was not intolerably difficult to determine, as

she sat there waiting, only because even what was righteous in that

reprobation could not present itself to her as fruitful or efficient.

What could Lionel frustrate, after all, and what intelligent or

authoritative step was he capable of taking? Mixed with all that now

haunted her was her consciousness of what his own absence at such an

hour represented in the way of the unedifying. He might be at some

sporting club or he might be anywhere else; at any rate he was not where

he ought to be at three o'clock in the morning. Such the husband such

the wife, she said to herself; and she felt that Selina would have a

kind of advantage, which she grudged her, if she should come in and say:

'And where is _he_, please--where is he, the exalted being on whose

behalf you have undertaken to preach so much better than he himself

practises?'

But still Selina failed to come in--even to take that advantage; yet in

proportion as her waiting was useless did the girl find it impossible to

go to bed. A new fear had seized her, the fear that she would never come

back at all--that they were already in the presence of the dreaded

catastrophe. This made her so nervous that she paced about the lower

rooms, listening to every sound, roaming till she was tired. She knew it

was absurd, the image of Selina taking flight in a ball-dress; but she

said to herself that she might very well have sent other clothes away,

in advance, somewhere (Laura had her own ripe views about the maid); and

at any rate, for herself, that was the fate she had to expect, if not

that night then some other one soon, and it was all the same: to sit

counting the hours till a hope was given up and a hideous certainty

remained. She had fallen into such a state of apprehension that when at

last she heard a carriage stop at the door she was almost happy, in

spite of her prevision of how disgusted her sister would be to find her.

They met in the hall--Laura went out as she heard the opening of the

door, Selina stopped short, seeing her, but said nothing--on account

apparently of the presence of the sleepy footman. Then she moved

straight to the stairs, where she paused again, asking the footman if

Mr. Berrington had come in.

'Not yet, ma'am,' the footman answered.

'Ah!' said Mrs. Berrington, dramatically, and ascended the stairs.

'I have sat up on purpose--I want particularly to speak to you,' Laura

remarked, following her.

'Ah!' Selina repeated, more superior still. She went fast, almost as if

she wished to get to her room before her sister could overtake her. But

the girl was close behind her, she passed into the room with her. Laura

closed the door; then she told her that she had found it impossible to

go to bed without asking her what she intended to do.

'Your behaviour is too monstrous!' Selina flashed out. 'What on earth do

you wish to make the servants suppose?'

'Oh, the servants--in _this_ house; as if one could put any idea into

their heads that is not there already!' Laura thought. But she said

nothing of this--she only repeated her question: aware that she was

exasperating to her sister but also aware that she could not be anything

else. Mrs. Berrington, whose maid, having outlived surprises, had gone

to rest, began to divest herself of some of her ornaments, and it was

not till after a moment, during which she stood before the glass, that

she made that answer about doing as she had always done. To this Laura

rejoined that she ought to put herself in her place enough to feel how

important it was to _her_ to know what was likely to happen, so that she

might take time by the forelock and think of her own situation. If

anything should happen she would infinitely rather be out of it--be as

far away as possible. Therefore she must take her measures.

It was in the mirror that they looked at each other--in the strange,

candle-lighted duplication of the scene that their eyes met. Selina drew

the diamonds out of her hair, and in this occupation, for a minute, she

was silent. Presently she asked: 'What are you talking about--what do

you allude to as happening?'

'Why, it seems to me that there is nothing left for you but to go away

with him. If there is a prospect of that insanity----' But here Laura

stopped; something so unexpected was taking place in Selina's

countenance--the movement that precedes a sudden gush of tears. Mrs.

Berrington dashed down the glittering pins she had detached from her

tresses, and the next moment she had flung herself into an armchair and

was weeping profusely, extravagantly. Laura forbore to go to her; she

made no motion to soothe or reassure her, she only stood and watched her

tears and wondered what they signified. Somehow even the slight

refreshment she felt at having affected her in that particular and, as

it had lately come to seem, improbable way did not suggest to her that

they were precious symptoms. Since she had come to disbelieve her word

so completely there was nothing precious about Selina any more. But she

continued for some moments to cry passionately, and while this lasted

Laura remained silent. At last from the midst of her sobs Selina broke

out, 'Go away, go away--leave me alone!'

'Of course I infuriate you,' said the girl; 'but how can I see you rush

to your ruin--to that of all of us--without holding on to you and

dragging you back?'

'Oh, you don't understand anything about anything!' Selina wailed, with

her beautiful hair tumbling all over her.

'I certainly don't understand how you can give such a tremendous handle

to Lionel.'

At the mention of her husband's name Selina always gave a bound, and she

sprang up now, shaking back her dense braids. 'I give him no handle and

you don't know what you are talking about! I know what I am doing and

what becomes me, and I don't care if I do. He is welcome to all the

handles in the world, for all that he can do with them!'

'In the name of common pity think of your children!' said Laura.

'Have I ever thought of anything else? Have you sat up all night to have

the pleasure of accusing me of cruelty? Are there sweeter or more

delightful children in the world, and isn't that a little my merit,

pray?' Selina went on, sweeping away her tears. 'Who has made them what

they are, pray?--is it their lovely father? Perhaps you'll say it's you!

Certainly you have been nice to them, but you must remember that you

only came here the other day. Isn't it only for them that I am trying to

keep myself alive?'

This formula struck Laura Wing as grotesque, so that she replied with a

laugh which betrayed too much her impression, 'Die for them--that would

be better!'

Her sister, at this, looked at her with an extraordinary cold gravity.

'Don't interfere between me and my children. And for God's sake cease to

harry me!'

Laura turned away: she said to herself that, given that intensity of

silliness, of course the worst would come. She felt sick and helpless,

and, practically, she had got the certitude she both wanted and dreaded.

'I don't know what has become of your mind,' she murmured; and she went

to the door. But before she reached it Selina had flung herself upon her

in one of her strange but, as she felt, really not encouraging

revulsions. Her arms were about her, she clung to her, she covered

Laura with the tears that had again begun to flow. She besought her to

save her, to stay with her, to help her against herself, against _him_,

against Lionel, against everything--to forgive her also all the horrid

things she had said to her. Mrs. Berrington melted, liquefied, and the

room was deluged with her repentance, her desolation, her confession,

her promises and the articles of apparel which were detached from her by

the high tide of her agitation. Laura remained with her for an hour, and

before they separated the culpable woman had taken a tremendous

vow--kneeling before her sister with her head in her lap--never again,

as long as she lived, to consent to see Captain Crispin or to address a

word to him, spoken or written. The girl went terribly tired to bed.

A month afterwards she lunched with Lady Davenant, whom she had not seen

since the day she took Mr. Wendover to call upon her. The old woman had

found herself obliged to entertain a small company, and as she disliked

set parties she sent Laura a request for sympathy and assistance. She

had disencumbered herself, at the end of so many years, of the burden of

hospitality; but every now and then she invited people, in order to

prove that she was not too old. Laura suspected her of choosing stupid

ones on purpose to prove it better--to show that she could submit not

only to the extraordinary but, what was much more difficult, to the

usual. But when they had been properly fed she encouraged them to

disperse; on this occasion as the party broke up Laura was the only

person she asked to stay. She wished to know in the first place why she

had not been to see her for so long, and in the second how that young

man had behaved--the one she had brought that Sunday. Lady Davenant

didn't remember his name, though he had been so good-natured, as she

said, since then, as to leave a card. If he had behaved well that was a

very good reason for the girl's neglect and Laura need give no other.

Laura herself would not have behaved well if at such a time she had been

running after old women. There was nothing, in general, that the girl

liked less than being spoken of, off-hand, as a marriageable

article--being planned and arranged for in this particular. It made too

light of her independence, and though in general such inventions passed

for benevolence they had always seemed to her to contain at bottom an

impertinence--as if people could be moved about like a game of chequers.

There was a liberty in the way Lady Davenant's imagination disposed of

her (with such an _insouciance_ of her own preferences), but she forgave

that, because after all this old friend was not obliged to think of her

at all.

'I knew that you were almost always out of town now, on Sundays--and so

have we been,' Laura said. 'And then I have been a great deal with my

sister--more than before.'

'More than before what?'

'Well, a kind of estrangement we had, about a certain matter.'

'And now you have made it all up?'

'Well, we have been able to talk of it (we couldn't before--without

painful scenes), and that has cleared the air. We have gone about

together a good deal,' Laura went on. 'She has wanted me constantly with

her.'

'That's very nice. And where has she taken you?' asked the old lady.

'Oh, it's I who have taken her, rather.' And Laura hesitated.

'Where do you mean?--to say her prayers?'

'Well, to some concerts--and to the National Gallery.'

Lady Davenant laughed, disrespectfully, at this, and the girl watched

her with a mournful face. 'My dear child, you are too delightful! You

are trying to reform her? by Beethoven and Bach, by Rubens and Titian?'

'She is very intelligent, about music and pictures--she has excellent

ideas,' said Laura.

'And you have been trying to draw them out? that is very commendable.'

'I think you are laughing at me, but I don't care,' the girl declared,

smiling faintly.

'Because you have a consciousness of success?--in what do they call

it?--the attempt to raise her tone? You have been trying to wind her up,

and you _have_ raised her tone?'

'Oh, Lady Davenant, I don't know and I don't understand!' Laura broke

out. 'I don't understand anything any more--I have given up trying.'

'That's what I recommended you to do last winter. Don't you remember

that day at Plash?'

'You told me to let her go,' said Laura.

'And evidently you haven't taken my advice.'

'How can I--how can I?'

'Of course, how can you? And meanwhile if she doesn't go it's so much

gained. But even if she should, won't that nice young man remain?' Lady

Davenant inquired. 'I hope very much Selina hasn't taken you altogether

away from him.'

Laura was silent a moment; then she returned: 'What nice young man would

ever look at me, if anything bad should happen?'

'I would never look at _him_ if he should let that prevent him!' the old

woman cried. 'It isn't for your sister he loves you, I suppose; is it?'

'He doesn't love me at all.'

'Ah, then he does?' Lady Davenant demanded, with some eagerness, laying

her hand on the girl's arm. Laura sat near her on her sofa and looked at

her, for all answer to this, with an expression of which the sadness

appeared to strike the old woman freshly. 'Doesn't he come to the

house--doesn't he say anything?' she continued, with a voice of

kindness.

'He comes to the house--very often.'

'And don't you like him?'

'Yes, very much--more than I did at first.'

'Well, as you liked him at first well enough to bring him straight to

see me, I suppose that means that now you are immensely pleased with

him.'

'He's a gentleman,' said Laura.

'So he seems to me. But why then doesn't he speak out?'

'Perhaps that's the very reason! Seriously,' the girl added, 'I don't

know what he comes to the house for.'

'Is he in love with your sister?'

'I sometimes think so.'

'And does she encourage him?'

'She detests him.'

'Oh, then, I like him! I shall immediately write to him to come and see

me: I shall appoint an hour and give him a piece of my mind.'

'If I believed that, I should kill myself,' said Laura.

'You may believe what you like; but I wish you didn't show your feelings

so in your eyes. They might be those of a poor widow with fifteen

children. When I was young I managed to be happy, whatever occurred; and

I am sure I looked so.'

'Oh yes, Lady Davenant--for you it was different. You were safe, in so

many ways,' Laura said. 'And you were surrounded with consideration.'

'I don't know; some of us were very wild, and exceedingly ill thought

of, and I didn't cry about it. However, there are natures and natures.

If you will come and stay with me to-morrow I will take you in.'

'You know how kind I think you, but I have promised Selina not to leave

her.'

'Well, then, if she keeps you she must at least go straight!' cried the

old woman, with some asperity. Laura made no answer to this and Lady

Davenant asked, after a moment: 'And what is Lionel doing?'

'I don't know--he is very quiet.'

'Doesn't it please him--his wife's improvement?' The girl got up;

apparently she was made uncomfortable by the ironical effect, if not by

the ironical intention, of this question. Her old friend was kind but

she was penetrating; her very next words pierced further. 'Of course if

you are really protecting her I can't count upon you': a remark not

adapted to enliven Laura, who would have liked immensely to transfer

herself to Queen's Gate and had her very private ideas as to the

efficacy of her protection. Lady Davenant kissed her and then suddenly

said--'Oh, by the way, his address; you must tell me that.'

'His address?'

'The young man's whom you brought here. But it's no matter,' the old

woman added; 'the butler will have entered it--from his card.'

'Lady Davenant, you won't do anything so loathsome!' the girl cried,

seizing her hand.

'Why is it loathsome, if he comes so often? It's rubbish, his caring for

Selina--a married woman--when you are there.'

'Why is it rubbish--when so many other people do?'

'Oh, well, he is different--I could see that; or if he isn't he ought to

be!'

'He likes to observe--he came here to take notes,' said the girl. 'And

he thinks Selina a very interesting London specimen.'

'In spite of her dislike of him?'

'Oh, he doesn't know that!' Laura exclaimed.

'Why not? he isn't a fool.'

'Oh, I have made it seem----' But here Laura stopped; her colour had

risen.

Lady Davenant stared an instant. 'Made it seem that she inclines to him?

Mercy, to do that how fond of him you must be!' An observation which had

the effect of driving the girl straight out of the house.