Since it was her whim and the winds indulged, Helena had ordered that
the rite of the late dinner be celebrated by candlelight alone. Ten
shaded candles graced the places. In the centre of the table an ancient
candelabrum of gold added the mellow illumination of its seven alabaster
arms, whose small flames yearned upward ardently, with scarce a
perceptible flicker, though every window was wide to the whispering
night.
One of these that faced Matthias framed a shimmering sky of stars and
the still black shield of the Sound, on which the fixed and undeviating
glare of a remote light-house was reflected darkly, a long unwavering
way of light; he thought of a tall wax candle burning amid the
sanctified shadows of some vast and dark and still cathedral....
They were ten at table: from Helena's right, Pat Atherton (Tankerville's
partner), a Mrs. Majendie, Marbridge, a Mrs. Cardrow, Tankerville at the
head; on his right, Mrs. Pat Atherton, Matthias, Venetia Tankerville,
Majendie. The latter and his wife were almost strangers to Matthias,
having arrived only the previous afternoon: but he thought them as
pleasant and handsome people as any of those with whom the Tankervilles
liked to fill their house. The Athertons were old friends; he had known
them well, long before Helena dreamed of marrying Tankerville. Marbridge
was an indifferently familiar figure in the ways of his life; they
frequented the same clubs, and of late he had begun to encounter the
older man more and more frequently in his theatrical divagations.
Remained Mrs. Cardrow, a widow, the acquaintance of a week's standing.
Cardrow had been in some way connected with the enterprises of Messrs.
Tankerville & Atherton; how, Matthias didn't remember; a man of whom
rumour said little that was good until it began to say _De mortuis_....
He had killed himself for no accountable reason. His widow seemed to
have survived bereavement with amazing grace.
Matthias admired her greatly. Women, he knew--Helena in their
number--mistrusted her for no cause perceptible to him. He liked her,
thought her little less than absolutely charming. So, evidently, did
Marbridge, whose attitude toward her this evening was a little more
noticeably attentive than ever before. He seemed to exert himself to
interest and divert. His black eyes snapped. As he talked his heavy body
swayed slightly from the hips, lending an accent to his animation. His
laugh was frequent and infectious.
She was a woman who smiled more than she laughed. She smiled now,
inscrutably, her beautiful, insolent eyes half veiled with demure
lashes, her face turned to Marbridge, her chin a trifle high, bringing
out the clear strong lines of her throat and shoulders, which had the
texture, the pallor, and the firmness of fine ivory. Her eyes, when she
chose to discover them, were brown, her eyebrows almost black, her hair
dull gold, the gold of the candelabrum--the gold of artifice, on the
word of Helena.
Perhaps it was to this odd colouring--ivory and brown, black and
gold--that Mrs. Cardrow owed most of her strange and provoking quality.
But there was something else, something one could not define: at once
stimulating and elusive; less charm than allure; nameless; that
attracted and repelled....
These were thoughts set stirring by a dozen semi-curious glances at the
woman, in pauses in his conversation with Venetia. Matthias was in fact
indifferent to Mrs. Cardrow. But he was tremendously interested in
Venetia. It could hardly be otherwise--since his talk with Helena. He
was to marry Venetia. Amazing thought!
She was adorable. Of the other women, none compared with Mrs. Cardrow:
even Helena's beauty paled in contrast. But Venetia was to Mrs. Cardrow
as dawn to noon. One looked at Venetia and thought of a still sea at
daybreak, mobile to the young and fitful airs, radiant with sunlight,
breathless with apprehension of the long, golden hours to come. One
looked at Mrs. Cardrow and thought--of Woman. Venetia was dark, and the
other fair; Venetia was by no means a child, Mrs. Cardrow not yet
thirty. The gulf that set them apart was not so much of years as of
caste: they lived and thought on different levels, mental if not social.
Matthias liked to think Venetia of the higher order.
He was to marry her. Incredible!
And tonight her eyes were warm and kind for him, and all for him. He
could not see that there was anything of self-interest in the infrequent
glances she cast at those who sat opposite, playing their time-old game
with such engaging candour. If she had thought much of Marbridge, surely
she must have betrayed some little pique or chagrin. She was not blind;
neither was she patient and prone to self-effacement. Matthias had known
her long enough to have garnered vivid memories of her resentment of
slights, whether real or fancied. She was unique and wonderful in many
ways, but (he told himself in a catch-phrase of the hour) she was
essentially human. He could not have cared for a woman without temper:
he cared intensely for this girl-woman whose rare loveliness seemed
almost exotic in its singular scheme, whose skin, fine of texture and
colourless as milk-white satin, was splashed with lips of burning
scarlet, whose eyes of deepest violet were luminous in the shadow of
hair of the richness and lustre of burnished bronze ... luminous and
kind to him: he dared to hope greatly of their sympathy.
Through dinner she had entertained him with a mirthful, inconsecutive
narrative of the adventures of the day. Now, as ices were served, her
interest swerved suddenly and found a new object in himself.
"Why did you run away last night?"
"You really noticed it?"