"Just this," replied the other. "That I know Mrs Glinn, that I agree with you about her character--"
"You know her? That"s odd!"
"I have known her for a year."
They looked each other in the eyes while a minute pa.s.sed. Then Lord Herbert said slowly, "I understand."
"What?"
"That I have come to the wrong man for advice."
There was a silence, broken only by the ticking of a clock and the uneasy movements of Maine"s fox-terrier, which was lying before the empty grate and dreaming of departed fires.
At last Maine said: "To-day I asked Mrs Glinn to marry me."
The other started perceptibly. "Knowing what I have told you?" he asked.
"Not knowing it."
"What--what did she say?"
"Nothing. I am to see her to-morrow."
Lord Herbert glanced at him furtively. "I suppose you will not go--now?"
he said.
"Yes, Manning, I shall," Maine answered.
"Well," the other man continued, looking at his watch and yawning, "I must be going. It"s late. Glad to have seen you, Maine. I am to be found at 80 St James"s Place. Thanks; yes I will have my coat on. My pipe--oh!
here it is. Good-night."
The door closed, and Maine was left alone.
"Will she tell me to-morrow, or will she be silent?" he said to himself.
"That depends on one thing: Has love of truth the largest half of her heart, or love of me?"
He sighed--at the conventionality of the world, perhaps.
III
"I am not at home to any one except Sir Hugh Maine," Mrs Glinn said to the footman. "You understand?"
"Yes, ma"am."
He went out softly and closed the door.
The English summer had gone back upon its steps that afternoon, and remembered the duty it owed to its old-time reputation. The canary, a puffed-out ball of ragged-looking feathers in its cage, seemed listening with a depressed attention to the beat of the cold rain against the window. The daisies, in their boxes, dripped and nodded in the wind.
There was a darkness in the pretty room, and the smile of the china goblins was no longer yellow. Like many people who are not made of china, they depended upon advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances for much of their outward show. When they were not gilded there was a good deal of the pill apparent in their nature.
Mrs Glinn was trying not to be restless. She was very pale, and her dark eyes gleamed with an almost tragic fire; but she sat down firmly on the white sofa, and read Gyp, as Carmen may have read her doom in the cards.
One by one the pages were turned. One by one the epigrams were made the property of another mind. But through all the lightness and humour of the story there crept like a little snake a sentence that Gyp had not written:--
"Can I tell him?"
And no answer ever came to that question. When the door-bell at last rang, Mrs Glinn laid down her novel carefully, and mechanically stood up. A change of att.i.tude was necessary to her.
Sir Hugh came in, and was followed by tea. They sat down by the tiny table, and discussed French literature. Flaubert and Daudet go as well with tea as Fielding and Smollett go with supper.
But, when the cups were put down, Maine drove the French authors in a pack out of the conversation.
"I did not come here to say what I can say to every woman I meet who understands French," he remarked.
And then Mrs Glinn was fully face to face with her particular guardian devil.
"No?" she said.
She did not try to postpone the moment she dreaded. For she had a strong man to deal with, and, being a strong woman at heart, she generally held out her hand to the inevitable.
"You have been thinking?" Maine went on.
"Yes. What a sad occupation that is sometimes--like knitting, or listening to church-bells at night!"
"Eve, let us be serious."
"G.o.d knows I am," she answered. "But modern gravity is dressed in flippancy. No feeling must go quite naked."
"Don"t talk like that," he said. "As there is a nudity in art that may be beautiful, so there is a nudity in expression, in words, that may be beautiful. Eve, I have come to hear you tell me something. You know that." He glanced into her face with an anxiety that she did not fully understand. Then he said: "Tell it me."
"There is--is so much to tell," she said.
"Yes, yes."
"He does not understand," she thought.
He thought, "She does not understand."
"And I am not good at telling stories."
"Then tell me the truth."
She tried to smile, but she was trembling. "Of course. Why should I not?" She hesitated, and then added, with a forced attempt at petulance, "But there is nothing so awkward as giving people more than they expect.
Is there?"
He understood her question, despite its apparent inconsequence, and his heart quickened its beating: "Give me everything."
"I suppose I should be doing that if I gave you myself," she said nervously.