Rose was a little startled, but, on the whole, scarcely surprised by
Cecily’s telegram. It was like her to act impulsively, and Rose had
never been in doubt as to the right note to strike, if she should ever
wish to strike it. That she _did_ wish it, was only made clear to
her by the sight of Robert’s unmistakable misery. “If he really wants
her it will be all right, or at least right enough,” she had argued,
and she had been justified. Cecily was coming back. She had meant to be
at the flat to receive her, but a feverish attack developed by the baby
kept her at home till after her cousin had been a day in town.
When, early in the afternoon of the next day, she reached the flat,
Diana came flying out to meet her. “Cis is shopping. She’ll be back in
a minute,” she assured her, vigorously embracing her meanwhile.
Rose looked at the girl with laughing approval. Diana would never be a
beauty, but she had learned how to dress; her figure was excellent,
and her alert, humorous face very attractive.
“Is Robert home?” Mrs. Summers inquired, rather anxiously.
Diana made a little grimace. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t know we’re
here. Doesn’t deserve to, either,” she added. Diana was whole-hearted
in her dislikes.
Rose laughed. “And Cis?” she asked. “How is Cecily?”
Diana’s face clouded a little. “Oh!--she’s well. But----” She paused
abruptly.
“Yes?” asked Rose, divining something of what was stirring in the
girl’s mind.
“Oh--nothing,” returned Diana, hastily. “I’ve seen Archie,” she added,
with an abrupt change of subject.
Mrs. Summers, who knew the faithful admirer, and Diana’s casual
attitude, looked amused.
“You needn’t laugh!” Diana exclaimed, with solemnity. “It’s awfully
serious--_he_ is, I mean.”
“And you?” inquired Rose, stifling her mirth.
“I don’t know,” sighed Diana, sitting in an easy attitude on the arm of
a chair. “He’s much better looking,” she added, confidentially; “not a
boy any more, you see. So somehow you can’t laugh.”
“Did you want to?”
“N--no--that was the annoying part.” Mrs. Summers again repressed a
smile.
“He didn’t lose much time in coming to see you,” she remarked.
“No--did he?” replied Diana, briskly. “So the beastly Brown girl didn’t
make much impression, anyway.”
“Well? What are you going to do about it?” Rose inquired.
Diana sighed again. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed, impatiently. “I
do _hate_ to be grown up--it’s such a bother.” Despite the
childishness of the words, Rose was struck by the ring of real dismay
in the girl’s voice.
“Why, dear?” she said.
For a moment Diana did not answer, then she said, suddenly, “Because
I see what life is like. It’s just like one of those days that are so
brilliant at first, and then cloud over and get all gray. Not stormy or
anything, you know,--just gray.”
There was a tremble in her voice which touched the elder woman. She
recalled the chilling breath from real life which had first crept
into the paradise of her own youthful imagination. She remembered
how, before it, the flowers drooped, and the sunshine faded. It was a
searching, unpleasant wind.
“Never glad, confident morning again?” she said, softly, after a
moment. “But, my dear, the sun comes out again sometimes, even on a
gray day.”
“Yes,” Diana reluctantly agreed; “but then it’s afternoon--perhaps
evening.”
“Wait till you get a little more grown up,” returned Rose, smiling.
“You’ll think better of afternoon. In the meantime, cheer up; there’s
still all the morning for _you_.”
Diana shook her head. “I think I’ve had my morning,” she answered,
slowly. “It was when I _couldn’t_ understand why people let--love
and things count.”
“And now you begin to see?”
She nodded. “Well, at least I see that perhaps they can’t help it.” She
looked wistfully at Mrs. Summers, her face, still babyish and immature,
full of a painful foreboding. “But I dread it,” she added, almost in
a whisper. “Look at Cecily. Think how much in love she was. Do you
remember Robert, too?... And what has come of it all? What has been the
good of it?”
“Perhaps more than you think,” Rose answered, quickly. “Love is not a
thing which demands payment by result. And besides, my dear, in any
case, what has that to do with you? Each of us must travel our own
road, take our own risks, meet our own fate. No one else’s experience
is any guide.”
Diana looked at her with big eyes, increasingly hopeful, but said
nothing.
“You are sad to lose your childhood?” Rose went on after a moment,
patting the girl’s arm affectionately. “I know. So was I. But it’s all
in the day’s journey, Diana. Dawn is a lovely thing--but suppose one
never saw the sunrise?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Diana, and two suns rose simultaneously in her eyes and
set them dancing. “That would be _awful_, wouldn’t it?”
Rose laughed. “When is Mr. Archie Carew coming again?”
“Whenever I like,” said Diana, a little self-consciously. “Ah!” at the
sound of a ring, “there’s Cis! She’ll be so glad you’re here.”
“Rose has come,” she announced before rushing into her bedroom, where
she first looked into the glass with some anxiety, then rearranged the
curls on her forehead, and subsequently, for no better reason than
that she felt excited and not altogether unhappy, burst into tears.
Diana was not given to emotional display, so, after a moment’s
indulgence in a weakness she despised, she bathed her eyes with
scornful roughness, powdered them severely, and sat down to ask Mr.
Carew to lunch the following day.
* * * * *
In the meantime Rose and Cecily had met. Cecily’s first question was
for Robert. It was asked with anxious eyes, and Rose felt enormously
relieved. She had not after all done wrong in assuming responsibility.
“I haven’t seen him since the day he came down to the Cottage,” she
returned, “when, as I tell you, he was looking ill enough--even to
please me. I sent him to play golf at Aldeburgh, but he may be back any
day. And you, Cis?” She inspected her friend critically. Cecily looked
very pretty, very dainty, but frailer than when she went away.
“Oh,” she said, “I’m all right. It seems--odd to be”--she hesitated a
moment, and then went on quietly--“home again.” She looked round the
room with a half-humorous smile. “How angry I was the last time I
stood here,” she said. “And now _that_ doesn’t matter either.”
Rose looked troubled. “Cecily,” she said, doubtfully, “you don’t regret
this? I haven’t done wrong?”
“Regret?” repeated Cecily, slowly. “No. It was inevitable. I couldn’t
help myself.” She paused a moment. “There are certain things I can’t
tell even _you_. But when your letter came, I thought I had
decided to take a great step--to alter my whole life. Then your letter
came, and I knew I had been absurd. There was no question about it--if
Robert wanted me. He _does_ want me, Rose?”
“I wish you had seen him.”
“Then, don’t you see, that settles it? There are some things one can’t
argue about. I think,” she added, slowly, “one doesn’t argue about
_any_ of the important things in life. It’s strange, but when
you’ve lived with some one--some one you _have_ once loved--above
everything,”--her voice trembled a little,--“you grow bound to them
with thousands and thousands of little chains which seem as light as
air and are really strong as steel. So you see you don’t argue. It’s
foolish, when you’re bound and know you can’t get away without tearing
up your whole nature by its roots.” There was a silence.
“I knew you would come to that,” said Rose at last in a quiet voice. “I
was waiting for it. But you’re not unhappy, Cis?” she added, wistfully.
“Unhappy?” she echoed. “No. When one has learned at last that life is a
constant scraping of the gilt, and being thankful for the gingerbread,
one is not unhappy. I have my friends.” She touched Rose’s hand. “I
have my work. There are beautiful things in the world--and I have
time for them now. ‘Sun, moon, and stars, brother,’” she quoted,
smiling--“‘all sweet things.’ No, I’m not unhappy, except----”
She broke off abruptly. Rose did not speak, but she looked an
interrogation.
“Dick is coming this afternoon--to say good-bye. He’s going away.”
Mrs. Summers raised her head.
“Really away?”
“To Central Africa--if that’s far enough,” returned her friend, with a
curious inflection in her voice. She got up, and replaced some Roman
hyacinths which had fallen from a glass on a table near the window.
“I’m--I’m sorry he’s coming,” she added, speaking with her back to
Rose.
“Why? You think----?”
“We’ve said good-bye. I met him in Rome.”
She felt rather than saw Rose’s start of reproachful amazement.
“Don’t say anything. Don’t ask,” she exclaimed, hurriedly. “It was by
accident.” She put back the last flower, and returned to the sofa,
where her friend was sitting. Rose saw that her hands were trembling.
“If I might have one prayer granted now,” she said in a low voice, “it
would be that he might forget me utterly. Forget he’d ever seen me.
I’ve got to get through life without him, but that’s nothing compared
to what he----”
She did not finish the sentence, but Rose understood.