By the time November came round again, Cecily’s life had settled down
to a more or less steady routine. She gave the mornings to her work,
and her book was growing. Her afternoons, and many evenings, were taken
up by social duties and occasional pleasures. With the persistence
of a patient going through a prescribed cure, she contrived that no
hour of her time should be unoccupied. She cultivated her natural
gifts as a clever hostess, and began to entertain. Her little parties
were popular, for like her father, who in his time had been a famous
host, she possessed an instinct for the right people, and it began to
be assumed that at Mrs. Kingslake’s one would at least escape a dull
evening. Sometimes her husband was present; more often he was away;
but he encouraged the parties, and gradually Cecily grew accustomed to
knowing as little of his engagements as if he were a stranger.
Philippa had not taken up her duties as secretary until their return to
town in the autumn after a holiday which Cecily had spent with Diana by
the sea, and Robert abroad, whence he had written occasional letters,
vague in tone as well as address.
The two women scarcely ever met. At ten o’clock, when Philippa went
to Robert’s study, Cecily was at work in her own room, whence she did
not emerge till after the secretary’s hour for departure. With all
her strength she strove to forget her presence in the house, and the
effort, at first apparently impossible, became at last no effort at
all. Gradually her work absorbed her; gradually she began to live in
another world of her own creating, often so completely that she woke
with a start to the consciousness of her outward existence, in so far
as it was connected at all with her husband.
It was of the strangeness of this she had been thinking one afternoon
as she walked through St. James’s Park on her way home.
It was the hour of twilight, that hour which, in the autumn and in
London, has a magic past the power of words. The dusky red of sunset
lingered, and burned solemnly through that swimming purple haze which
London draws like a veil softly over its parks, its squares, its
ugliest streets, turning to velvet softness the outlines of church,
palace, or factory.
On her left, rendered more gigantic by the effect of the haze, the
huge block of Queen Anne’s Mansions loomed like a mediæval fortress
on the farther side of a mist-filled valley, from which slender
poplars sprang. Everywhere points of flame ringed the gathering
darkness--flames of trembling amber, specks of crimson and emerald
where the hansoms were moving--and before her, at the end of the broad
avenue, silver globes burned before the great vague pile of masonry
which was Buckingham Palace.
Cecily walked slowly, aware of the mysterious beauty of that brief
moment when night touches departing day. There was a wisp of silver
moon in the deep blue overhead, and near it one star trembled.
Involuntarily she smiled, and started to realize that it was for
happiness. What had become of the torment, the unrest, of even a year
ago? It was gone. She had peace. She was out of bondage. She felt the
beauty of the world almost as an intoxication; with the keenness,
the freshness of perception that seems granted to human faculties
after pain. The thought of her nearly completed book thrilled her with
pleasurable excitement. She remembered that Mayne was coming to dinner,
and that she had promised to read him the last completed chapter.
They would have a nice little time together by the fire, before the
theatre to which he was going to take her. Robert was to be out. She
did not know where, though she guessed--and it didn’t matter. She drew
herself up with a thrill of thankfulness that it did not matter. It was
wonderful to be out of pain. The realization that she had refused to be
crushed by circumstances, that she had mastered her life and turned it
at her will, filled her with a sense of triumph, of exultation.
Involuntarily she quickened her pace, as though to make her steps keep
time to her eager thoughts. As she crossed Victoria Street, the great
campanile of the Cathedral drew her eyes upwards towards the stars, and
her heart towards it in gratitude. At this hour it was more wonderful
than ever, its outline, faint and purple, melting like a dream into
the purple sky. With it she always associated her liberty, her present
peace, her recovered energy, all that had brought her out of hell into
the light of day.
When she entered the flat and opened the drawing-room door, it was to
think how pretty, how cosy it looked in the firelight. Tea was ready
on a low table near the hearth. The firelight danced over the dainty
flowered cups, and darting about the room fell now upon a bowl of
roses, now on the emerald silk of a cushion, bringing its color out
in strong relief against the pale-tinted walls. A maid came in with a
tea-pot and a plate of hot cakes, and long after she had put down her
cup Cecily sat dreaming over the fire. She roused presently, with a
glance at the clock, to find it was time to change her dress. All the
while she moved about in her bedroom, taking off her walking-gown,
doing her hair, fastening the bodice of her evening dress, her mind
was pleasantly preoccupied. She was thinking of the people in her
book, people who were flesh and blood to her. They would be discussed
to-night, and Dick was no lenient critic. She wondered what he would
think of her last chapter.
All at once, with a curious sense of having failed to realize
something, she began to wonder what she should do without Dick.
Suppose he were to start now on another expedition--next week, perhaps?
She was fastening a chain round her neck when the possibility occurred
to her, and all at once her hands dropped down into her lap and she
stared blankly into the glass. The thought startled her. It was a
little like having the solid ground upon which she walked, and which
she accepted without consideration as part of the recognized order
of things, cut from under her feet. So confused and absorbed was she
at first, that not for some time did she become conscious of her own
reflection in the mirror. When her mind was awake to it, that too came
as a surprise. She was almost pretty again. There was clear color in
her cheeks; her eyes were bright.
“I suppose this frock is becoming,” she told herself as she turned away.
Dick was waiting for her when she re-entered the drawing-room. He
was standing near the fire, holding one hand to the blaze, and as he
turned, she thought how big he looked, how reliable, and she smiled. It
was surprising how glad she always was to see Dick. He never bored her.
“You’re looking very pleased with things in general,” he observed as
he took her hand. “Is it because you’ve got on a new dress? I agree
with you. It’s charming.”
Cecily laughed. “Shall I turn round slowly, to give you the full
effect? Observe the lining of its sleeves and its dear little crystal
clasps!”
“I have observed them,” he said, “and their effect on you. It’s all
that could be wished.” He spoke lightly, but his tone did not tend to
diminish her light-hearted mood.
“Now come!” she exclaimed. “Sit there! Did you think you were here to
enjoy yourself? You’ve got to listen to this chapter before dinner, and
listen _hard_, and think how you can put severe criticism into a
palatable form for me. I insist on the criticism, but I won’t take it
neat!”
She went to her writing-table, and returned with the written chapter,
while Dick obediently settled himself into a comfortable chair.
“Go ahead!” he remarked. “May I smoke?”
The fire clicked a pleasant accompaniment to Cecily’s voice. The
lamplight streamed down upon her soft, thick hair. One of her hands
hung over the arm of the chair, white and slender against the folds of
her dress. It was her left hand, and the firelight fell on the gold of
her wedding-ring. Mayne looked at it once, and averted his gaze with
a half frown. At first it was altogether of her he was thinking, his
pulses still beating rather quickly, as they always beat when he first
saw her, at every one of their meetings. At the beginning of their
intimacy he had been terribly afraid of betraying himself, of making
their friendship impossible, but he had long ago learned to trust
his own power of self-control, and his manner to Cecily had been the
perfection of that affectionate friendliness whose justification is
long acquaintance.
Gradually his attention began to be held by what she was reading. It
seemed to him to be very good. This impression increased as she went
on, till he grew absorbed, almost breathless. When finally she put down
the last sheet and looked up at him, rather nervously, he was silent.
“Well?” she demanded, her voice shaken in a tremulous laugh.
Mayne got up and put his back against the mantelpiece. “Bravo!” he
said, deliberately. “It’s good, Cis--jolly good.”
There was a moment’s pause, during which the color rushed into her
face, and her hands began to tremble. The particular scene she had
read had meant a great deal to her, how much she had not realized till
she heard his evidently deeply felt words of praise.
“You think so?” she forced herself to say.
“I know it,” he returned, in the decisive voice which had often
comforted her. He looked down at her, smiling. “Didn’t I always say you
could do it? I don’t care what the public verdict is--and it’s quite
likely to be slighting. You’ve done a splendid piece of work, and, by
Jove! if you’re half as proud of it as I am----” He paused, and they
both laughed.
“Dick,” she said gently after a moment, “I shouldn’t have done it at
all if it hadn’t been for you.”
The door opened at the moment, and the parlor-maid came in to announce
dinner.
Cecily sprang up. “Come along!” she said, gayly. “We must gallop
through the courses--there are scarcely any, by the way--or else we
shall be late, and I hate being late.”
Mayne followed her into the dining-room, glad and sorry for the
interruption; and through dinner, and afterwards in the cab on their
way to the Haymarket, they talked on indifferent topics.
“It’s going to rain,” said Cecily, as they drew up before the door,
and, indeed, when they came out after the play, the streets were all
wet and shining.
“Isn’t it beautiful and wonderful!” she exclaimed, as they drove
home. “It’s Aladdin’s palace!” The streets were like long rivers of
silver, in which were reflected trembling shafts of gold and ruby and
amber. Overhead the moon sailed clear of clouds in an enormous gulf of
star-sown sky. “How can any one say that London isn’t wonderful?” she
went on. “To me it’s a magic city. Look at those great swinging globes.
They’re shooting out starry spikes of enchantment all the time. And see
those trees against the sky!”
They had turned into the Mall by this time, and Dick glanced at her.
Her eyes were shining, her lips a little parted with eagerness.
Suddenly he thought of the woman with whom he had walked across the
meadows at Sheepcote. He recalled her drawn face and faded eyes, and
something that was almost like an instinct of cruelty prompted his next
words.
“How does Miss Burton do as secretary?” he asked. He had never before
alluded to her daily presence in the house.
She glanced at him a moment, in her turn.
“Oh, I believe very well,” she returned, quietly, with no trace of
confusion. “Robert hopes to get his new book out in the spring.”
“And yours?”
“It’s got to be accepted first,” she returned, with a laugh. “But I
shall finish it in a week, I think.” She sighed. “How I shall miss it!”
“Begin something else at once,” he advised. “You have ideas?”
“Thousands!” she said, gayly.
They were near home by this time, and Mayne put out his hand. “I
congratulate you.”
Cecily looked at him. “On the book, you mean?”
“On everything,” he returned, gravely.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Good-night,” said Cecily as he took her latch-key and opened the hall
door for her. “Thank you so much.”