Belle got very little sleep that night. Having finally decided, on top
of her talk with Graham, that Kenyon had intended to treat her much in
the same way as he had treated Peter, she endeavored to look back
honestly and squarely at the whole time during which that
super-individualist had occupied her thoughts. She saw herself as a very
foolish, naive girl, without balance, without reserve and without the
necessary caution in her treatment of men which should come from proper
training and proper advice.
She laid no blame upon her mother,--that excellent little woman whose
God-sent optimism made her believe that all her children were without
flaw and that the world was full of people with good hearts and good
intentions. She blamed only herself, and saw plainly enough that she had
allowed her head to be turned by her father's sudden acquisition of
wealth which made it unnecessary for her to be anything more than a sort
of butterfly skimming lightly through life without any duties to
perform--without any work to occupy her attention--without any hobbies
to fill her mind and give her ambition. She felt like some one who had
just escaped from being run over in the streets, or who, by some divine
accident, had been turned back from the very edge of an abyss. It was
indeed a night that she could never forget in all her life. She lay in
bed in the dark room with her eyes wide open, hearing all the hours
strike one by one, watching herself with a sort of terror and amazement
passing through Oxford. All the incidents that had been crowded into
that short and what had appeared to be glorious week, came up in front
of her again, especially the incident in the back-water with Kenyon and
the night of the ball at Wadham College. These were followed in her mind
by the scene in the library in her father's house, and finally that
dangerous hour in Kenyon's rooms when, but for the intervention of that
man who seemed of so little account, she might have been placed among
those unfortunate girls of whom the world talks very harshly and who pay
a terrible price for their foolishness and ignorance. And when finally
she got up, tired-eyed but saner than she had been since those good,
strenuous days of hers at her college when she had intended to make art
her mission in life, she told herself with a characteristic touch of
humour that the reformed criminal was a very good hand at preaching, and
made up her mind to go along to Ethel and improve the occasion. It was
very obvious to her that if she did not do this nobody would, and she
was eager to give a sort of proof of the fact that she was grateful for
her own escape by giving her young sister the benefit of her suffering.
And so she put on her dressing-gown and went to her sister's room--the
little sister of whom she was so fond and proud.
Ethel was sitting at her dressing-table doing her hair. There was a
petulant and discontented expression on her face. Still shamming
illness, she had not yet recovered from the smart of what she called
Jack's impertinence. There was a surprise in store for her,--she who
believed that she had managed so successfully to play the ostrich.
"Why, Belle!" she said. "What's the matter? You look as though you had
been in a railway accident."
Belle sat down, not quite sure how she would begin or of the sort of
reception that she would receive. She always felt rather uncouth in the
presence of this calm, self-assured, highly finished little sister of
hers. "Well," she said, "I have been through a sort of railway accident
and a good many of my bones seem to have been broken,--that's why I'm
here. I want to stop you, if I can, from going into the same train."
"I don't think I quite understand you."
"I don't suppose you do, my dear, but you shall--believe me." And then,
in the plainest English she gave Ethel the story of her relations with
Kenyon, without in any way sparing herself. And when she came to the
parting scene in Kenyon's rooms she painted a picture that was so strong
and vivid--so appalling in its proof of foolishness, that she made even
Ethel forget her complacency and sit with large, frightened eyes.
Then she got up and began to walk about. "I'm not a fool," she said,
"and this thing is going to teach me something. Also, I'm not a coward
and I've told you all this for a reason. You think that you're a very
wise little person, kiddie, but in reality you're no better than I am,
and just as sentimental and every bit as unwatched and as resentful of
guidance. Why are you here instead of being at school? You think no one
knows that. Well, I do. You're playing ducks and drakes with mother and
father and your education in order to have what we call a 'good time.'
You have shammed sickness so that you could have an adventure with the
boy next door."
"How d'you know that?" cried Ethel.
"Easily enough, my dear. I was told by the girl who used to bring your
thermos up to this room and who had caught you with the boy. Two days
ago she left to be married, but before she went she blurted out the
whole story. It wasn't for me to interfere then. I didn't much care, to
tell the truth,--in fact, I thought it was rather a good joke. I rather
admired you for the cunning way in which you had arranged everything. I
thought you were a good sport. I don't know how far it has gone, but I
hope to Heaven that you've not been quite so insane as I was. I'm not
going to tell mother or do the elder sister stunt, or anything of that
sort. I'm just going to ask you to chuck it all and go back to school
and play the game for a change, and to try to bear in mind that you owe
father and mother something,--a thing we all seem to have
forgotten,--and when you do go back, just remember--and always
remember--what I've told you about myself. We're very much alone, you
and I,--like two girls who are staying in a house with somebody else's
father and mother,--and so let's help each other and get a little
honesty and self-respect and see things straight. What d'you say, dear
little sister?"
Ethel got up, and with a complete breakdown of all the artificiality so
carefully instilled into her by her fashionable school, slipped into her
sister's arms and burst out crying.