“POOR KIND WILD EYES SO DASHED WITH LIGHT QUICK TEARS.”
Sophy arrived next day with portentous punctuality, in time for
luncheon, intent on pleasure, and dressed in a style which she believed
in as the very latest Parisian fashion; for this damsel credited
herself with an occult power of knowing what was “in” and what was
“out,” and, with no larger horizon than a country church and an
occasional rustic garden-party, set up as an authority upon dress, and
gave her instructions to the village dressmaker, who made up ladies’
own materials, and worked at ladies’ houses, with the air of a Kate
Reilly directing an apprentice.
Eve had been very generous, and Sophy’s costume was a great advance
upon those days when Lady Hartley had talked of the sisters as Colonel
Marchant’s burlesque troupe. Eve had sent down a big parcel of
materials from a West End draper’s, the newest and the best, and Sophy
had exercised her fingers and her taste in the confection of stylish
garments; yet it must be owned there was an unmistakable air of home
dress-making--of fabrications suggested by answers to correspondents
in a ladies’ newspaper--about those smart gowns, jackets, capes, and
fichus which Sophy wore with such satisfaction. This showed itself
most in an unconscious exaggeration of every fashion; just as a woman
who rouges exceeds the bloom of natural carnations. Sophy’s Medici
collars were higher than anybody else’s. The military collar of Sophy’s
home-made tailor gown was an instrument of torture. Sophy’s waistcoats
and sleeves were more mannish and sporting than anything the West End
tailors had produced for Eve. In a word, there was a touch of Sophy’s
personality about every garment; just as in every picture there is the
individuality of the painter.
But Sophy, flushed with the delights of a London season, was quite
pretty enough to be forgiven a little provincialism in her dress and
manners, and she was well received by Eve’s friends.
It was good for Eve that she should be obliged to exert herself in
order to amuse Sophy, and that the sweet solitude of two was no longer
possible for her and Vansittart.
He said nothing further about his wife’s need of repose. He was glad to
see her occupied from morning till long past midnight, showing Sophy
what our ancestors used to call “the town;” but which now includes a
wide range of the suburbs, and occasional garden-parties as far off as
Marlow or Hatfield. He was glad of anything which could distract his
wife’s thoughts from too deep a consideration of his relations with
Signora Vivanti, and he encouraged Sophy in every form of dissipation,
until he found, to his annoyance, that an evening had been allotted to
the Apollo.
The fame of _Haroun Alraschid_ and of Signora Vivanti’s beauty and
talent had penetrated beyond Haslemere, and Sophy had written to her
sister imploring her to secure places for an evening during her visit.
A box had been taken six weeks in advance, and Eve, who was always
indulged in every theatrical fancy, had not thought it necessary to
inform her husband of the fact.
To forbid the occupation of that box would have been too marked an
exercise of authority; to absent himself from the party would have made
Eve uneasy; so he went with his wife and sister-in-law, and saw Lisa on
the stage for the first time since he had watched her in the chorus at
Covent Garden.
The box was one of the best in the house, and very near the stage.
Vansittart felt assured that Lisa would recognize his wife and would
see him standing behind her chair; and with a young woman of Lisa’s
temperament he knew not what form that recognition might assume.
Fortunately Lisa had now become too much of an artist to do anything
which would take her “out of the picture.” She gave Vansittart one
little look which told him he was seen in the shadow where he stood;
and for the rest she was no longer Lisa, the Venetian, but Haroun’s
devoted slave-girl, bought from a cruel master, during one of Haroun’s
nocturnal explorations of the city, and following him ever after with
a devoted love, watchful, ubiquitous, his guardian angel in every
danger, his resource and protection in every serio-comic dilemma. Her
singing, her acting, were alike instinct with passion and genius, a
genius unspoiled by that higher culture which is too apt to bring
self-consciousness and over-elaboration in its train, and so to miss
all broad and spontaneous effects. Fiordelisa flung herself into her
_rôle_ with a daring energy which always hit the mark.
Sefton was in the stalls, attentive, but not applauding. He left all
noisy demonstration to the British public. It was enough for him
to know that Lisa liked to see him there, tranquil and interested.
The highest reward she had ever given him for his devotion was the
confession that she missed him when he was absent, and found something
wanting in her audience when his stall was empty. For the most part he
went as regularly to hear Lisa sing as he took his coffee after dinner.
The dinner-party must be something very much out of the common run of
dinners which could draw him from his place at the Apollo; and people
remarked that for the last two seasons Mr. Sefton was seldom to be met
in society until late in the evening.
He went to Mrs. Vansittart’s box between the acts, and made himself
particularly agreeable to Sophy, whom he had not seen since her
sister’s marriage.
“This is your first season, ain’t it, Miss Marchant?” he said. “What a
large reserve fund of enjoyment you must have to spend!”
Sophy was not going to accept compliments upon her ignorance.
“Fernhurst is so near town,” she said. “One sees everybody, and one
breathes the town atmosphere.”
“Ah, but you only see people on their rustic side. They wear tailor
gowns and talk about fox-hunting and sick cottagers. They leave their
London intellect in Mayfair, like the table-knives rolled up in mutton
fat, to come out sharp and bright next season. You don’t know what we
are like in town if you see us only in the country.”
“I don’t find a remarkable difference in _you_,” said Sophy, pertly.
“You always try to be epigrammatic.”
“Oh, I am no one--a poor follower of the fashion of the hour, whatever
it may be. How do you like the music?”
“For music to hear and forget I think it is absolutely delightful.”
“There are some numbers which the piano-organs and the fashionable
bands won’t allow you to forget--Zuleika’s song, for instance, and the
quartette.”
“I rather hate all but classical music,” replied Sophy, with her fine
air, “and I find your famous Signora Vivanti odiously vulgar.”
“Deliciously vulgar, you should have said. Her vulgarity is one of her
attractions. To be so pretty, and so graceful, and so clever, and at
the same time a peasant to the tips of her fingers--there is the charm.”
“I hate peasants, even when they are as clever as Thomas Carlyle.”
Sefton looked at the pert little face meditatively. She was like Eve,
but without Eve’s exceptional loveliness--the loveliness that consists
chiefly in delicacy and refinement, an ethereal beauty which makes a
woman like a flower. She had Eve’s transparent complexion and changeful
colouring. There was the same type, but less beautifully developed.
She was quite pretty enough for Sefton to find amusement in teasing
her, although all his stronger feelings were given to Signora Vivanti.
He called in Charles Street on the following afternoon. It was Mrs.
Vansittart’s afternoon at home; and she could not shut her door even
against her worst enemy.
Sefton found the usual feminine gossips--mothers and daughters, maiden
aunts, and cousins from the country, with fresh-coloured cheeks, and
unremarkable faces--the usual sprinkling of well-dressed young men.
Among so many people he could secure a few confidential words with Eve,
while she poured out the tea, a duty she always performed with her
own hands. It was the one thing that reminded her of the old life at
Fernhurst, and those jovial teas which had stood in the place of dinner.
She spoke frankly enough of the performance at the Apollo, praised
the music and the libretto, declared she had enjoyed it more than any
serio-comic opera she had heard during the season; yet Sefton detected
a certain constraint when she spoke of Signora Vivanti, which told
him that the meeting of the two boats was not forgotten, and that the
little scene had left almost as angry a spot upon her memory as that
which burnt in his.
“And had you really never seen her on the stage before last night?” he
asked.
“Never!”
“How very odd. I think you and Vansittart must have been about the only
people at the West End who have not seen _Haroun Alraschid_--and yet
you are playgoers.”
“I was saving the Apollo for my sister,” she answered, perfectly
understanding his drift.
She knew that he was trying to give her pain, that he wanted to make
her distrust her husband. Lisa’s conduct had impressed him as it had
impressed her, and now he was gloating over her jealous agony.
She turned from him to talk to an aristocratic matron, a large and
grand-looking woman, who would have looked better in peplum and chiton
than in a flimsy pongee confection which she called her “frock.” The
matron had heard the word Apollo, and had a good deal to say about
Signora Vivanti, whose performance she deprecated as too realistic.
“Dramatic passion is all very well in a classic opera like Gluck’s
_Orphée_,” she said authoritatively, “but that mixture of passion with
broad comedy is too bizarre for my taste.”
“My dear Lady Oriphane, that is just what we want nowadays. We all
languish for the bizarre. If we travel we want Africa and pigmy
blackamoors. If we go to the play we want to be startled by the
outrageous, rather that awed by the sublime. The stories we read must
have some strange background, or be dotted about with unknown tongues.
An author can interest us in a footman if he will only call him a
Kitmutghar. With us the worship of the bizarre marks the highest point
of culture.”
Mr. Tivett was there, and chimed in at this stage of the conversation
with his pretty little lady-like voice.
“It all means the same thing,” he said; “Neo-paganism. We are the
children of a decadent age. We have come to the top of the ladder of
life--life meaning civilization and culture--and there is nothing left
for us but to climb down again. All the strongest spirits are harking
back to the uncivilized. That is at the bottom of the strong man’s
passion for Africa. The strong men will all go to Africa, and in a
few generations Europe will be peopled by weaklings and hereditary
imbeciles. Then the strong men will come back and pour themselves over
the civilized world, as the Vandals poured themselves over Italy, and
London and Paris will be the spoil of the Anglo-African.”
“Why not the Dutch-African, or the Portuguese-African?” asked Sefton,
when everybody had laughed at little Mr. Tivett’s gloomy outlook.
“Oh, the Anglo-Saxon race will prevail on the Dark Continent, just as
they have prevailed in the East. Our future kings will style themselves
Emperor of India and Africa. No other race can stand against us in
the game of colonization. We have the courage which conquers, and the
dogged patience which can keep what boldness has won.”
Mr. Tivett was not allowed to indulge in any further prophecies, for
Sophy absorbed him in a discussion about the plays she ought to see,
and the music she ought to hear while she was in town.
“You are too late for Sarasate,” he said tragically. “Last Saturday was
his final performance. He leaves us in the flood-tide of the season,
leaves us lamenting. But there are plenty of good things left. Clifford
Harrison gives some of his delicious recitations next Saturday. Be sure
you hear him. Hollmann and Wolff are to be heard almost daily. And
then there is the opera three nights a week. I hope you have no horrid
dinner-parties to prevent your enjoying yourself.”
“Only one this week, I am thankful to say,” said Sophy, who was dying
to see what London dinners were like, and was deeply grateful to that
one generous hostess who, hearing of her expected visit, had sent her a
card for the stately feast to which the Vansittarts were bidden.
Eve had refused other dinner invitations during her sister’s visit.
She made all engagements subservient to Sophy’s pleasure. Vansittart
was not rich enough to give his wife an opera-box for the season, but
he had taken a box for four evenings in the fortnight that Sophy was
to spend in Charles Street, and four operas, with different sets of
artists, for a young woman who had never heard an opera in her life,
was an almost overpowering prospect. It needed all Sophy’s aplomb to
talk of operas of which she only knew the overtures, and an occasional
hackneyed scena, as if every page of the score were familiar to her;
but Sophy was equal to the occasion, and discussed the merits of
sopranos, tenors, and baritones with as critical an air as if her
opinions were the growth of years of experience, rather than the result
of a careful study of _Truth_ and _The World_, sent her regularly by
Eve, so soon as they had been read in Charles Street.
Sefton joined in the conversation between Sophy and Mr. Tivett, and had
a good deal of advice to offer as to the things that were worthy of the
young lady’s attention; the result of which advice appeared to be that
there was really very little to be heard worth hearing, or to be seen
worth seeing.
* * * * *
While tea and gossip occupied Eve and her friends in Charles Street,
Vansittart had taken advantage of his wife’s “afternoon,” an occasion
which he rarely honoured with his presence, and had driven to Chelsea
to see Lisa and her aunt, and to impart that warning which he had
resolved upon giving, at any hazard to himself. It was dangerous
perhaps, in his position, to renew any relations with the Venetian; yet
on the other hand it might be needful to assure himself of her loyalty,
now that she had been brought suddenly into the foreground of his life,
and might, at any hour, reveal his fatal secret to her from whom he
would have it for ever hidden.
All things considered, after two days and nights of anxious thought, it
seemed to him best, for his own sake, as well as for Lisa’s, that he
should have some serious talk with her.
He heard the prattle of the child as la Zia opened the door to him, and
the mother’s voice telling him to be quiet. La Zia received him with
open arms, and praised his kindness in coming to see them after such a
long absence.
“If it had not been for the discovery that the rent was paid when we
took our money to the agent on Our Lady’s Day, we should have thought
you had forgotten us,” said la Zia.
She had her bonnet on, ready to take Paolo to Battersea Park, where she
took him nearly every afternoon, while Lisa practised, or slept, or
yawned over an English story-book. She would read nothing but English,
in her determination to master that language; but history was too dull,
novels were too long, and she cared only for short stories in which
there was much sentimental love-making, generally by lords and ladies
with high-sounding titles. These she read with rapture, picturing
herself as the heroine, Vansittart as the high-born lover. She could
not understand how so grand a gentleman could have missed a title. In
Italy he would have been a Marquis or a Prince, she told herself.
She started up at the sound of his voice, and welcomed him joyously,
pale but radiant.
“Why would you not come near me the other night?” she asked. “I was in
your sister’s house--Mr. Sefton told me that the gracious lady is your
sister--and you were there, and you hid yourself from me.”
“I was afraid, Si’ora,” he answered, coming to the point at once. “You
know what lies between you and me--a secret the telling of which would
blight my life--and you are so reckless, so impetuous. How could I tell
what you might say?”
She looked at him with mournful reproachfulness.
“Do you know me so little as that?” she said. “Don’t you know that I
would cut my tongue out--that I would die on the rack, as tortured
prisoners died in Venice hundreds of years ago--rather than I would
speak one word that could hurt you?”
“Forgive me, Si’ora. Yes, yes, I know that you would not willingly
injure me--but you might ruin my life by a careless speech. You have
aroused my wife’s suspicions already--suspicious of she knows not
what--vague jealousies that have made her unhappy. She could not
understand your impulsive greeting; and I could not tell her how much
you were my friend, without telling her the why and the wherefore. I
am hemmed round with difficulty when I am questioned about you. If
you were old and ugly it would be different--but I dare not avow my
interest in a young and beautiful woman without revealing the claim
she has upon my friendship--and in that claim lies the secret of my
crime. Do you understand, Lisa?”
“Yes, I understand,” she answered moodily.
Her aunt lingered on the threshold of the door, the boy tugging at her
skirts, and urging her to go out. Battersea Park was his favourite
playground. He carried a wooden horse with a fine development of head,
but with only a stick and a wheel to represent his body, which equine
compromise he bestrode and galloped upon in the course of his airing.
La Zia carried his pail and the shovel with which he was wont to scrape
up the loose gravel in the roadway as blissfully as if he had been
disporting himself beside the waves that roll gaily in to splash the
children at play on the sands.
La Zia looked at her niece interrogatively, and the niece nodded “go,”
whereupon aunt and boy vanished. She was always bidden to stop when
Sefton was the visitor.
“You need not be frightened,” said Lisa. “We are not likely to meet
again, as we met on the river. It was so long since I had seen you! I
was taken by surprise, and forgot everything except that it was you,
whom I thought I should never see again. I shall be wiser in future,
now that I know more about you, and now that I have seen your wife.”
“That is my own good Lisa! She is a sweet wife, is she not? Worthy that
a man should love her?”
“Yes, she is worthy; and she is fair and beautiful, like the
Mary-lilies. I don’t wonder that you love her. And she has never done
any evil thing in her life, has she? If a young man had said to her,
‘Come with me to Venice, and be my little wife,’ she would not have
believed him, as I did. She would have said, ‘You must marry me first
in the church.’ She would have believed in nothing but the church and
the priest. She was not ignorant and poor, like me.”
“Lisa, do you suppose that I was making any unkind comparisons? I said
only that she is worthy to be loved--that all men and women must love
and honour her, and that her husband must needs adore her. And now,
Si’ora, promise me that you will respect her jealousy, which is only
the shadow cast by her love, and that you will do or say nothing that
can make her unhappy.”
“I will do or say nothing to hurt you,” Lisa answered, somewhat
sullenly. “She has little need to be unhappy, having all your love. But
she is very sweet, as you say. She spoke to me graciously the other
night, although she had a curious look, as if she were half afraid of
me. Yes, she is beautiful. Did you know her and love her long before
that day on the Lido, when you were so friendly with my aunt and me?”
“No, Si’ora.”
“What! your heart was free then?”
“Free as air.”
“And afterwards--when I saw you at the opera? When you came to our
lodgings?”
“Ah, then I had seen her, I was captive. I loved her at first sight,
but went about foolishly hiding my chains, trying not to love her.
And now that we understand each other fully upon one point--now that
I can trust my happiness in your hands, I want to talk to you about
yourself, Lisa. I am not over-fond of that Mr. Sefton with whom you are
so friendly.”
“No more am I over-fond of him. He is kind to us. He brings toys for
Paolo; and he takes us on the river. He is the only friend little Zinco
has allowed me to have.”
“He gives Paolo toys? And he gave you that diamond necklace, did he
not?”
“Gave me my necklace! I should think not! Do you suppose I would
be beholden to him, or to any one? Do you know how many bracelets
and brooches I have sent back to the fools who bought them for me?
Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires--all the colours of the rainbow.
I just look at them and laugh, and carry them off to little Zinco,
and he packs them up and sends them back to the giver, with his
compliments, and his assurance that Signora Vivanti is not in the habit
of accepting gifts. Mr. Sefton give me my necklace! Why, my necklace is
my fortune!”
And then she told him how she and la Zia had scraped and saved, and
lived upon pasta and Swiss cheese, in order to buy that necklace from
Mr. Attenborough, who had allowed her to pay a considerable part of the
price by weekly instalments. It was a bankrupt Contessa’s necklace--a
Contessa who had run away from her husband.
“I am very glad to hear that,” said Vansittart. “I was afraid all was
not well when I saw my little Si’ora blazing in diamonds.”
“Did they blaze?” she cried, delighted. “You thought that I was like
some of the singers who spend all their salary on a carriage, and grand
dinners, and fine silk gowns--a hundred pounds for a single gown! I
wanted to buy something that would last, something that I could turn
into money whenever I liked.”
“But your diamonds yield no interest, Si’ora, so they are hardly a wise
investment.”
“I don’t want interest; I want something that is pretty to look at. Did
my diamonds blaze? Your sister’s is the only grand house I have sung
at. I sing for Mrs. Hawberk, but her house is not grand, and I take no
money for singing at her parties. But I had ten guineas for singing at
Lady Hartley’s--ten guineas for two little songs.”
“Bravissima, Si’ora! There are plenty of drawing-rooms in London where
you may pick up gold and silver. There is a freshness about you and
your singing that people will like, as a pleasant relief, after a grand
opera. But now, Cara, I would earnestly warn you to have very little
to do with Mr. Sefton, to keep him at the furthest possible distance.
Believe me, he is a dangerous acquaintance.”
“Not to me,” said Lisa, snapping her fingers. “He is nothing to me,
niente, niente, niente! My heart has never beat any faster for his
coming. I am never sorry when he goes. He is kind to Paolo, and my
aunt thinks him a delightful gentleman. He tells us stories about the
lords and ladies he knows, and he helps me with my English. He makes
me read to him. He tells me the meaning of words, and teaches me how
to pronounce them. I should not have got on nearly so fast without his
help.”
“Dangerous help, Si’ora. You are encouraging a traitor. Be sure his
kindness springs from no good motive. He doesn’t want to marry you.”
“Do you think I want him for a husband?” exclaimed Lisa, with supreme
contempt. “I shall never marry. No one will ever have the right to
question me about Paolo’s father.”
There was a dignity in this assertion which showed that the
unsophisticated daughter of the Isles had made some progress in social
science. She knew at least that a husband was a person who might call
her to account for her past life.
“I tell you that I don’t care for Mr. Sefton; but he amuses la Zia and
me, and our lives would be very dull without him.”
“Better dulness than danger. The man is bad, Lisa, bad to the core.
Some men are made so. In the county where he was born, among the
neighbours who respected his father and mother, and who tolerate him
for his name’s sake, he is neither trusted nor liked. Before he left
the University, when he had only just come of age, there was a village
tragedy in which he was known to be implicated, a tenant-farmer’s
pretty daughter drowned in the mill-dam with her nameless child. The
girl’s father was a tenant on the Sefton estate, as his father and
grandfather had been before him. A connection of that kind with most
young men would be sacred--but Wilfrid Sefton had no compunction. He
was saved from exposure, for the love that the sufferers bore to his
people; but the scandal became pretty well known in the neighbourhood,
and the friends of his family who might have pitied him for the awful
consequences of his sin, were disgusted by the indifference with which
he treated the tragedy--living it down with a brazen front, and later,
when he was owner of the estate, turning the girl’s father out of his
holding, on the flimsiest excuse. Do you think such a man as that is
worthy to be admitted to the home of an unprotected woman on a footing
of friendship?”
“No, no, he is not worthy. If you tell me to shut my door against him,
the door shall be shut. But is it true? Did this poor girl really drown
herself because she could not bear to live disgraced? Are there women
in England like that?”
“Yes, Lisa. There have been many such women. This girl belonged to the
yeoman class--her forefathers had been settled in the land for two
hundred years, sons of the soil, respected by their neighbours, and
as proud of their good name as if it had been a patent of nobility;
and this girl was young and sensitive. I have heard her story from
those who saw her grow up from infancy to womanhood--gentle, yielding,
guileless--an easy prey for an unscrupulous young man with a handsome
face and a winning manner. He won her, blighted her, murdered her.
Yes, Lisa, his crime came nearer murder than that dagger-thrust at
Florian’s.”
“Don’t speak of that,” she cried, putting her fingers on his lips.
“We must forget it. There never was such a thing--or at least you had
nothing to do with it. It was Fate, not your will, that he should die
like that. It was to be. Non si muove foglia che Iddio non voglia. I am
glad you have told me about that girl. I never liked Mr. Sefton--never
really liked him. However pleasant he was I had always a feeling that
he was hiding something. There is a light in his eyes as if he were
laughing at one. He is like Mephistopheles in the opera. It is not in
his nature to be sorry for any one.”
“And you will give him his _congé_?”
“Yes; he shall come here no more. I shall not let him know that you
have told me that poor girl’s story. He might want to fight a duel with
you, if he knew what you have said of him.”
“I don’t think he would, Lisa; but it is wiser to tell him nothing. You
can say you have been told you are compromising yourself by receiving
his visits.”
“Little Zinco does not love him,” said Lisa; “he will be pleased to see
him dismissed. He says I should have no friend but him and my piano.”
“Zinco is a worthy soul.”
“Is he not? He pretends to be very proud of my success. For the first
year of my engagement at the Apollo I used to give him a quarter of my
salary; but now I only pay him for my lessons. He goes on teaching me
grand opera. It broadens and refines my style, he tells me--but Mr.
Hawberk implores me never to leave off being vulgar. It would be my
ruin, he says.”
“Be yourself. Lisa--bright, candid, and original. Your transparent
nature will always pass for genius, from its rarity. And now good-bye.
I must not come here any more. I came to-day because I felt I had a
duty to do as your friend, but my wife would not like to hear of me
as your visitor. She and I love each other too well not to be easily
jealous.”
“It has been sweet to see you,” answered Lisa, gravely, “but I will not
ask you to come again. Yes, yes,” she added musingly. “I understand!
Love is always jealous.”
She gave him her hand, and bade him good-bye, with a gentle resignation
which touched him more deeply than her passionate moods had ever
done. The beautiful dark eyes looked into his, and said, “I love you
still--shall love you always,” in language which a man need not be a
coxcomb to understand. And so they parted, each believing that this
might be a final parting.
Vansittart looked at his watch as he ran downstairs. It was nearly
six o’clock. At the bottom of the last flight he met Sefton, who was
entering with an easy air and self-satisfied smile, which changed to a
frown as he recognized Lisa’s departing visitor.
“I have just come from Charles Street,” he said, recovering himself
instantly, “where I expected to find you. But I dare say you have been
more amused here than you would have been there. The narrow footpaths
and shady woodland walks are generally pleasanter than the broad
high-road.”
“Is that a truism, or an allegory? If the latter, it bears no
application to my visit here.”
“Doesn’t it really? You don’t mean that you, Mrs. Vansittart’s husband,
call upon Signora Vivanti in the beaten way of friendship?”
“In friendship, at least, if not in the beaten way; but whatever my
motive in visiting that lady, I don’t admit your right to question me
about it; or”--with a laugh--“to resort to allegory. Good day to you.”
He ran down the steps to his hansom, and Sefton went slowly up the
three flights of stone stairs which led to Signora Vivanti’s bower,
brooding angrily upon his encounter with Vansittart. He had never been
able to extort any admissions from Lisa about this man. She had been
secret as the grave; yet he was convinced that her past history was
the history of an intrigue with Vansittart; and after that effusive
greeting from the boat, and remembering the expression of her face more
than two years ago, as she hung upon his arm on the Embankment, he was
convinced that she loved him still, and that this passion was the cause
of her coldness to him, Wilfred Sefton.