IV

If she could but have lived a double life, Rachel thought, her present

position might have been endurable, and then, in a few months or even

weeks, the problem would be solved for ever by her marriage with Adrian

and the final obliteration of Miss Deane from her memory. But she could

not live a double life. Day by day, as her intimacy with her aunt

increased, Rachel found it more difficult to forget her when she was

away from Tavistock Square. In the deepest and most beautiful moments

of her intercourse with Adrian, she was aware now of practising upon

him a subtle deception, of pretending that she was other than she was

in reality--an awareness that was constantly pricked and stimulated by

the continually growing consciousness of her likeness to Miss Deane.

Miss Deane on her part evidently took a great pleasure in her niece's

society. The fortnight of her original invitation had already been

exceeded, but she would not hear of Rachel's return to Devonshire.

"Why should you go back?" she demanded scornfully. "Your father doesn't

want you--Richard is one of those slip-shod people who prefer to live

alone. I used to try to stir him up, and he ran away from me. He'll run

away from you, my dear, in a few years' time. He hasn't the courage to

stand up to women like us."

Miss Deane unquestionably wanted her niece to stay with her. She was

even beginning to hint at the desirability of making the present

arrangement a permanent one.

Rachel, however, was not flattered by this display of pleasure in her

society. She knew that it was due to no individual charm of her own,

but to the fact that she had become her aunt's mirror. For Miss Deane

no longer, in Rachel's presence at least, gazed at herself in the

looking-glass; she gazed at her niece instead. And as Rachel endured

the posings and simperings, the alternate adoration and fond contempt

with which her aunt regarded her, she was unable to resist the impulse

to reflect them. Every day she fell a little lower in that weakness,

and however slight the likeness had once been, she knew that now it

must be patent to every observer. She copied her aunt, mimicked,

duplicated her. It was easier to do that than fight the resemblance,

against her aunt's determination; and so, by unnoticed degrees, she had

permitted herself to become a lay figure upon which was dressed the

image of Miss Deane's youth. She had even come to desire the look of

almost sensual gratification on her aunt's face when she saw her niece

so perfectly reflecting her own well-remembered airs.

And Rachel, too, had come to avoid the looking-glass, dreading to see

there the poses and gesticulations of the old, repulsive woman whose

every feature and expression had become so sickeningly familiar.

And, in all that time, Adrian had not once been to the house in

Tavistock Square. Rachel had kept him away by what she felt had become

all too transparent excuses. That terror, at least, she felt must be

kept at bay. For she could not conceive it possible that, once he had

seen her and her aunt together, he could retain one spark of his

admiration. He would, he must, see her then as she was, see that her

contemptible vanity was the essential enduring thing, all that would

remain when time had stripped her of youth's allurement.

Nevertheless, the day came when Rachel could no longer endure to

deceive him. He had challenged her, at last, with hiding something from

him. Inevitably, he had become increasingly curious about her strange

reticences concerning the Miss Deane whom he, in turn, had grown to

regard as almost mythical; and all his suppressed suspicions had

suddenly found expression in a question.

"What are you hiding? Do you really live with your aunt in Tavistock

Square?" he had asked that day, with all the fierce intensity of a

jealous lover.

Rachel had been stirred to a quick response. "Oh, if you don't believe

me, you'd better come and see for yourself," she had said. "Come this

afternoon--to tea." And afterwards, even when Adrian had humbly sought

to make amends for his unwarrantable jealousy, she had stuck to that

invitation. The moment that she had issued it, she had had a sense of

relief, a sense of having gratefully confessed her weakness. Adrian's

visit would consummate that confession, and thereafter she would have

no further secrets from him. And if he found that he could no longer

love her after he had seen her as she was, well, it would be better in

the end than that he should marry a simulacrum and make the discovery

by slow degrees.

"Yes, come this afternoon. We'll expect you about four" had been her

last words to him. And, now, she had to tell her aunt, who was still

unaware that such a person as Adrian Flemming existed. Rachel postponed

the telling until after lunch. Her knowledge of Miss Deane, though in

some respects it equalled her knowledge of her own mind, did not tell

her how her aunt would take this particular piece of news. She might

possibly, Rachel thought, be annoyed, fearful lest her beloved

looking-glass should be stolen from her. But she could wait no longer.

In half an hour Miss Deane would go upstairs to rest, and Adrian

himself would be in the house before she appeared again.

"I've something to tell you, aunt," Rachel began abruptly.

Miss Deane put up her lorgnette and surveyed her lovely portrait with

an interested air.

"Aunt--I've never told you and I know I ought to have," Rachel blurted

out. "But I'm--I'm engaged to a Mr. Adrian Flemming, and he's coming

here to call on you--to call on us, this afternoon at four o'clock."

Miss Deane closed her eyes and gave a little sigh.

"You might have given me _rather_ longer notice, dear," she said.

"It isn't two yet," Rachel replied. "There are more than two hours to

get ready for him."

Miss Deane bridled slightly. "I must have my rest before he comes," she

said, and added: "I suppose you've told him about us, dear?"

"About _you_?" Rachel asked.

Miss Deane nodded, complacently.

"Well, not very much," Rachel admitted.

Miss Dean's look, as she playfully threatened Rachel with her

long-handled lorgnette, was distinctly sly.

"Then he doesn't know yet that there are two of us?" she simpered.

"Won't it be just a little bit of a shock to him, my dear?"

Rachel drew a long breath and leaned back in her chair. "Yes," she said

curtly, "I expect it will."

Never before had the realisation of that strange likeness seemed so

intolerable as at that moment. Even now her aunt was looking at her

with the very air and gesture which had once charmed her in her own

reflection, and that she knew still charmed and fascinated her lover.

It was an air and gesture of which she could never break herself. It

was natural to her, a true expression of something ineradicable in her

being. Indeed, one of the worst penalties imposed upon her during the

past month had been the omission of those pleasant ceremonies before

the mirror. She had somehow missed herself, lost the sweetest and most

adorable of companions!

Miss Deane got up, and holding herself very erect, moved with a little

mincing step towards the tall mirror over the console table. Rachel

held her breath. She saw that her aunt, suddenly aroused by this

thought of the coming lover, was returning mechanically to her old

habit of self-admiration. Was it possible, Rachel wondered, that the

sight of the image she would see in the looking-glass, contrasted now

with the memories of the living reflection she had so intimately

studied for the past four weeks, might shock her into a realisation of

the starkly hideous truth?

But it seemed that the aged woman must be blind. She gave no start of

surprise as she paused before the glass; she showed no sign of anxiety

concerning the vision she saw there. Her left hand, in which she held

her lorgnette, had fallen to her side, and with the finger-tips of her

right she daintily caressed the hollows of her sunken cheeks. She

stayed there until Rachel, unable to endure the sight any longer, and

with some vague purpose of defiance in her mind, jumped to her feet,

crossed the room and stood shoulder by shoulder with her aunt staring

into the glass.

For a moment Miss Deane did not move; then, with a queer hesitation,

she dropped her right hand and slowly lifted her lorgnette.

Rachel felt a cold chill of horror invading her. Something fearful and

terrible was happening before her eyes; her aunt was shrinking,

withering, growing old in a moment. The stiffness had gone out of her

pose, her head had begun to droop; the proud contempt in her face was

giving way to the moping, resentful reminiscence of the aged. She still

held up her lorgnette, still stared half fearfully at the glaring

contrast that was presented to her, but her hand and arm had begun to

tremble under the strain, and, instant by, instant, all life and vigour

seemed to be draining away from her.

Then, suddenly, with a fierce effort she turned away her head,

straightened herself, and walked over to the door, passing out with a

high, thin cackle of laughter that had in it the suggestion of a

vehement, petulant derision; of a bitterness outmastering control.

Rachel shivered, but held her ground before the mirror. She had nothing

to fear from that contemplation. As for her aunt, she had had her day.

It was time she knew the truth.

"She _had_ to know," Rachel repeated, addressing the dear likeness that

so proudly reflected her.

V

She found consolation in that thought. Her aunt _had_ to know and

Rachel herself was only the chance instrument of the revelation. She

had not _meant_, so she persisted, to do more than vindicate her own

integrity.

Nevertheless, her own passionate problem was not yet solved. Her aunt

would not, so Rachel believed, give way without a struggle. Had she not

made a gallant effort at recovery even as she left the room, and would

she not make a still greater effort while Adrian was there; assert her

rivalry if only in revenge?

She must meet that, Rachel decided, by presenting a contrast. She would

be meek and humble in her aunt's presence. Adrian might recognise the

admired airs and gestures in those of the old woman, but he should at

least have no opportunity to compare them....

And it was with this thought and intention in her mind that Rachel

received him, when he arrived with a lover's promptness a little before

four o'clock.

"Are you so dreadfully nervous?" he asked her, when they were alone

together in the drawing-room. "You're like you were the first day we

met in town--different from your usual self."

"Oh! What a memory you have for my looks and behaviour," she replied

pettishly. "Of course, I'm nervous."

He tried to argue with her, questioning her as to Miss Deane's probable

reception of him, but she refused to answer. "You'll see for yourself

in a few minutes," she said; but the minutes passed and still Miss

Deane did not come.

At a quarter to five the elderly parlour-maid brought in tea. "Miss

Deane said you were not to wait for her, Miss Rachel," was the message

she delivered. "She'll be down presently, I was to say."

Rachel could not suppress a scornful twist of her mouth. She had no

doubt that her aunt was taking very special pains with her toilet;

trying to obliterate, perhaps, her recent vision before the console

glass. Rachel saw her entrance in imagination, stiff-necked and proud,

defying the criticisms of youth and the suggestions of age.

"Oh! why doesn't she come and let me get it over?" she passionately

demanded, and even as she spoke she heard the sounds of some one coming

down the stairs, not the accustomed sounds of her aunt's finicking,

high-heeled steps, but a shuffling and creaking, accompanied by the

murmurs of a weak, protesting voice.

Rachel jumped to her feet. She knew everything then--before the door

opened, and she saw first of all the shocked, scared face of the

elderly parlour-maid who supported the crumpled, palsied figure of the

old, old woman who, three hours before, had been so miraculously young,

magically upheld and supported then by the omnipotent strength of an

idea.

She only stayed in the drawing-room for five minutes; a querulous,

resentful old lady, malignantly jealous, so it seemed, of their vigour

and impatient of their sympathy.

When the parlour-maid had been sent for and Miss Deane had gone, Rachel

stood up and looked down at Adrian with all her old hauteur.

"Can you realise," she asked, "that once my aunt was supposed to be

very, very like me?"

He smiled and shook his head, as if the possibility was too absurd to

contemplate.

Rachel turned and looked at herself in the glass, raising her chin and

slightly pursing her lips, staring superciliously at her own image

under half-lowered eyelids.

"Some day I may be as she is now," she said, with the superb

contemptuous arrogance of youth.

Adrian was watching her with adoration. "You will never grow old," he

said.

"So long as one does not get the idea of growing old into one's head,"

Rachel began speculatively....

* * * * *

But Miss Deane had got the idea so strongly now that she died that

night.

Rachel was with her at the last.

The old woman was trying to mouth a text from the Bible.

"What did you say, dear?" Rachel murmured, bending over her, and caught

enough of the answer to guess that Miss Deane was mumbling again and

again: "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face."