Perhaps there had been a particle of truth in the charge so solemnly levelled at her by Mr. Sylvester: it was a false position that she maintained.

The att.i.tude of Lady Garnett and her intimates, of persons (the phrase of Steele's recurred to her as meeting it appropriately) "who had seen the world enough to undervalue it with good breeding," must seem to her at last a little sterile when she was conscious--never more than now--of how clearly and swiftly the healthy young blood coursed through her veins, dissipating any morbid imaginations that she might feel inclined to cherish. She looked out at life, in her conviction that so little of it had yet been lived, that for her it might easily be a long affair, with eyes which were still full of interest and, to a certain degree, of hope; and this did not detract from at least one "impossible loyalty," from which it seemed to her she would never waver. And Charles Sylvester's infelicitous proposal recurred to her, and she was forced to ask herself whether, after all, it was quite so infelicitous as it seemed. Might not some sort of solution to the difficulties which oppressed her be offered by that alliance? Conscientiously she considered the question, and for a long time; but with the closest consideration the prospect refused to cheer her, remained singularly uninviting. And yet, arid as the notion appeared of a procession hand-in-hand through life with a husband so soberly precise, to the tune of political music, she was still hardly decided upon her answer when she at length reluctantly left her comfortable fire and composed herself to sleep.

It was not until a day or two later that a prolonged visit from the subject of these hesitations reminded her--perhaps more forcibly than before--that, however in his absence she might oscillate, in his actual presence a firm negative was, after all, the only answer which could ever suffice.

At the close of what seemed a singularly long afternoon, during which her aunt, who was confined to her room with a bad headache, had left to her the burden of entertaining, Mary came to this conclusion.

Mr. Sylvester had come with the first of her callers, and had made no sign of moving when the last had gone. And in the silence, a little portentous, which had ensued when they were left together, the girl had read easily the reason of his protracted stay. She glanced furtively, with a suggestion of weariness in her eyes, at the little jewelled watch on her wrist, wondering if in the arrival of a belated visitor there might not still be some respite.

"You are not going out?" he asked tentatively, detecting her. "I expect my sister will be here soon."

"No, I am not going out," admitted the girl reluctantly. "I am on duty, you know. Somebody may arrive at any minute," she added, not quite ingenuously. "Let us hope it will be your sister."

"I hope not--not just yet," he protested. "It is so long, Miss Masters, since I have seen you alone. That is my excuse for having remained such an unconscionable time. I have to seize an opportunity."

She made no remark, sitting back in the chair, her fine head bent a little, thoughtfully, her hands folded quietly in her lap, in an att.i.tude of resignation to the inevitable.

"You can't mistake me," he went on at last eagerly. "I have kept to the stipulation; I have been silent for a long time. I have been to see you, certainly, but not so often as I should have liked, and I have said nothing to you of the only thing that was in my head.

Now"--he hesitated for an instant, then completed his phrase with an intonation almost pa.s.sionate--"now I want my reward! Can't you--can't you give it me, Mary?"

The girl said nothing for a moment, looking away from him into the corners of the empty room, her delicate eyebrows knitted a little, as though she sought inspiration from some of Lady Garnett's choicer _bibelots_, from the little rose and amber shepherdess of Watteau, who glanced out at her daintily, imperturbably from the midst of her _fete galante_. At last she said quietly:

"I am sorry, Mr. Sylvester, I can only say, as I said before, it is a great honour you do me, but it's impossible."

"Perhaps I should have waited longer," suggested Charles, after a moment's silence, in which he appeared to be deeply pondering her sentence. "I have taken you by surprise; you have not sufficiently considered----"

"Oh, I have considered," cried the girl quickly, with a sudden flush. "I have considered it more seriously than you may believe, more, perhaps, than I ought."

"Than you ought?" he interrupted blankly.

"Yes," she said simply. "I mean that if it could ever have been right to answer you as you wished, it would have been right all at once; thinking would not alter it. I am sorry, chiefly, that I allowed this--this procrastination; that I did not make you take my decision that night, at Lady Mallory's. Yes, for that I was to blame. Only, some day I think you will see that I was right, that it would never have done."

"Never have done!" he repeated, with an accent full of grieved resentment. "I think it would have done so admirably. I hardly understand----"

"I mean," said poor Mary helplessly, "that you estimated me wrongly.

I _am_ frivolous--your interests would not have been safe in my hands.

You would have married me on a misunderstanding."

"No," said Charles morosely, "I can't believe that! You are not plain with me, you are not sincere. You don't really believe that you are frivolous, that we should not suit. In what way am I so impossible? Is it my politics that you object to? I shall be happy to discuss them with you. I am not intolerant; I should not expect you to agree with me in everything. You give me no reasons for this--this absurd prejudice; you are not direct; you indulge in generalizations."

He spoke in a constrained monotone, which seemed to Mary, in spite of her genuine regret for the pain she gave him, unreasonably full of reproach.

"Ah!" she cried sharply, "since I don't love you, is not that a reason? Oh, believe me," she went on rather wearily, "I have no prejudice, not a grain. I would sooner marry you than not. Only I cannot bring myself to feel towards you as a woman ought to the man she marries. Very likely I shall never marry."

He considered her, half angrily, in silence, with his unanimated eyes; his dignity suffered in discomposure, and lacking this, pretentious as it was, he seemed to lack everything, becoming unimportant and absurd.

"Oh, you will marry!" he said at last sullenly, an a.s.sertion which Mary did not trouble to refute.

He returned the next minute, with a persistency which the girl began to find irritating, to his charge.

"I don't understand it. They seem to me wilful, unworthy of you, your reasons; it's perverse--yes, that is what it is, perverse! You are not really happy here; the life doesn't suit you."

"What a discovery!" cried the girl half mockingly. "I am not really happy! Well, if I admit it?"

"I could make you so by taking you out of it. You are too good for it all, too good to sit and pour out tea for--for the sort of people who come here."

"Do you mean," she asked, with a touch of scorn in her voice, "that we are not respectable?"

"That is not you who speak," he persisted; "it is your aunt who speaks through you. I know it is the fashion now to cry out against one, even in good society, to call one straitlaced, if one respects certain conventions. There are some I respect profoundly; and not the least that one which forbids right-minded gentlewomen to receive men of notoriously disgraceful lives. One should draw the line; one should draw it at that Hungarian pianist who was here this afternoon. Your aunt, of course, is a Frenchwoman; she has different ideas. But you, I can't believe that you care for this society, for people like Kronopolski and--and Rainham. Oh, it hurts me, and I imagine how distasteful it must be to you, that you must suffer these people. I want to take you away from it all."

The girl had risen, flushing a little. She replied haughtily, with a vibration of pa.s.sion in her voice:

"You are not generous, Mr. Sylvester. You are not even just. What right have I ever given you to dictate to me whom I shall know or refuse to know? I, too, have my convictions; and I think your view is narrow, and uncharitable, and false. You see, we don't agree enough.... Ah, let it end, Mr. Sylvester!" She went on more gently, but very tiredly, her pale face revealing how the interview had strained her: "I wish you all the good in the world, but I can't marry you. Let us shake hands on that, and say good-bye."

Sylvester had also risen to his feet, and he stood facing her for a moment indecisively, as though he hardly credited the finality of his rejection.

They were still in this att.i.tude, and the fact gave a certain tinge of embarra.s.sment to their greetings, when the door opened, and Mrs.

Lightmark was announced.

"I was on the point of going," explained Charles nervously. "I thought you were not coming, you know."

Eve made no effort to detain him, half suspecting that she had appeared at a strenuous moment. When the barrister had departed (Mary had just extended to him the tips of her frigid fingers), and Eve's polite inquiries after Lady Garnett's health had been satisfied, she remarked:

"I really only came in for a cup of tea. I walked across from Dorset Square. I have sent the carriage to pick up my husband at his club: it's coming back for me. You look tired, Mary. I think I oughtn't to stay. You look as if you had been having a political afternoon. Poor Charles, since he has been in the House, can think of nothing but blue-books."

"Tired?" queried the girl listlessly; "no, not particularly.

Besides, I am always glad to see you, it happens so seldom."

"Yes; except in a crowd. One has never any time. Have you heard, by the way, that my husband is one of the new a.s.sociates?"

She went on quickly, preventing Mary's murmured congratulations:

"Yes, they have elected him. I suppose it is a very good thing. He has his hands full of portraits now."

Then she remarked inconsequently--the rapidity with which she pa.s.sed from topic to topic half surprised Mary, who did not remember the trait of old:

"We are going to the theatre to-night--that is to say, if my husband has been able to get seats. It's the first night of a new comedy. I meant to ask you to come with us, only it was an uncertainty. If the box is not forthcoming, you must come when we do go. Only, of course, it will not be the _premiere_."

"I should like to," said Mary vaguely. "I don't care so much about first nights. I like the theatre; but I go so seldom. Aunt Marcelle does not care for English plays; she says they are like stale bread-and-b.u.t.ter. I tell her that is not so bad."

"The _mot_, you mean?"

"Partly; but also the thing. Bread-and-b.u.t.ter is a change after a great many _pet.i.ts fours_."

Mrs. Lightmark smiled a little absently as she sat smoothing the creases out of her pretty, fawn-coloured gloves.

"Oh, the _pet.i.ts fours_," she said, "for choice. One can take more of them, and amuse one's self longer."

They heard a carriage draw up suddenly in the street below, and Eve, who had been glancing from time to time expectantly at the window, went over and looked out. She recognised her liveries and the two handsome bays.