As Pamela's claims and her own ceaseless fear of inadequacy made her increasingly unsure of Violet, Alex became less and less at ease with her.

The old familiar fear of being disbelieved gave uncertainty to every word she uttered and she could not afford to laugh at Pam's merciless amus.e.m.e.nt in pointing out the number of times that she contradicted herself. Violet always hushed Pamela, but she looked puzzled and rather distressed, and her manner towards Alex was more compa.s.sionate than ever.

Alex, with the impetuous unwisdom of the weak, one day forced an issue.

"Violet, do you trust me?"

"My dear child, what _do_ you mean? Why shouldn't I trust you? Are you thinking of stealing my pearls?"

But Alex could not smile.

"Do you believe everything that I say?"

Violet looked at her and asked very gently:

"What makes you ask, Alex? You're not unhappy about the nonsense that child Pamela sometimes talks, are you?"

"No, not exactly. It's--it's just everything...." Alex looked miserable, tongue-tied.

"Oh, Alex, do try and take things more lightly. You make yourself so unhappy, poor child, with all this self-torment. Can't you take things as they come, more?"

The counsel found unavailing echo in Alex' own mind. She knew that her mental outlook was wrenched out of all gear, and she knew also, in some dim, undefined way, that a worn-out physical frame was responsible for much of her self-inflicted torment of mind. Sometimes she wondered whether the impending solution to her whole destiny, still hanging over her, would find her on the far side of the abyss which separates the normal from the insane.

The days slipped by, and then, just before the general dispersal, Pamela suddenly announced her engagement to Lord Richard Gunvale, the youngest and by far the wealthiest of her many suitors.

"Oh, Pam, Pam!" cried Violet, laughing, "why couldn't you wait till after we'd left town?"

But every one was delighted, and congratulations and letters and presents and telegrams poured in.

Pamela declared that she would not be married until the winter, and refused to break her yachting engagement. She was more popular than ever now, and every one laughed at her delightful originality and gazed at the magnificence of the emerald and diamond ring on her left hand.

And Alex began to hope faintly that perhaps when Pamela was married, things might be different at Clevedon Square.

Then one night, just before she was to go to Hampstead, she overheard a conversation between Cedric and his wife.

She was on the stairs in the dark, and they were in the lighted hall below, and from the first instant that Cedric spoke, Alex lost all sense of what she was doing, and listened.

"...they're wearing you out, Pam and Alex between them. I won't have any more of it, I tell you."

"No, no, my dear old goose. Of course they're not." Violet's soft laughter came up to Alex' ears with a m.u.f.fled sound, as though her head were resting against Cedric's shoulder. "Anyhow, it isn't Pam--I'm _delighted_ about her, of course. Only Alex--I wish she was happier!"

"And why isn't she? You're a perfect angel to her," said Cedric resentfully.

"I'm so _sorry_ for her--only it's difficult sometimes--a feeling like shifting sands. One doesn't know what to be _at_ with her. If only she said what she wanted or didn't want, right out, but it's that awful anxiety to please--poor darling."

"She always was like that, from our nursery days. You never could get the rights of a matter out of her--plain black or white--she'd say one thing one day and another the next, always."

"That's what I find so difficult! It's impossible to do anything for a person like that--it's the one thing I _can't_ understand."

"Pack her off to Hampstead tomorrow," Cedric observed gruffly. "I _will_ not have you bothered."

"Oh, Cedric! I'm not bothered--how can you? She'll be going next week, anyway, poor dear, and it may be easier for her to be herself with Barbara, who's her own sister, after all. But I don't know what about afterwards--when we get back."

"You'll have quite enough to think about with Pam's wedding, without Alex on your hands as well. Violet," said Cedric, with a note in his voice that Alex had never heard there, "when I think of the way you've behaved to all my wretched family--"

Alex did not hear Violet's answer, which was very softly spoken.

She had turned and gone away upstairs in the dark.

XXVI

August

Was it, after all, only for Cedric's sake that Violet had kept her at Clevedon Square--had shown her such heavenly kindness and gentleness?

Alex asked herself the question all night long in utter misery of spirit. She had craved all her life for an exclusive, personal affection, and had been mocked with counterfeit again and again. She knew now that it was only in despair at such cheating of fate that she had flung herself rashly to the opposite end of the scale, and sought to embrace a life that purported detachment from all earthly ties.

"_I will have all or none_" had been the inward cry of her bruised spirit.

Fate had taken her at her word, this time, and she had not been strong enough to endure, and had fled, cowering, from the consequence of her own act.

Tortured, distraught, with self-confidence shattered to the earth, she had turned once again, with hands that trembled as they pleaded, to ask comfort of human love and companionship. Violet had not condemned her, had pitied her, and had shown her untiring sympathy and affection--for love of Cedric.

Alex rose haggard, in the morning. She wanted to be alone. The thought of going to Barbara in Hampstead had become unendurable to her.

It was with a curious sense of inevitability that she found a letter from Barbara asking her if she could put off her visit for the present.

The admirable Ada had developed measles.

"Good Lord, can't they send her to a hospital?" exclaimed Cedric, with the irritability of a practical man who finds his well-ordered and practical plans thrown out of gear by some eminently unpractical intervention on the part of Providence.

"I'm sure Barbara never would," said Violet, laughing. "Poor dear, I hope she won't catch it herself. It'll mean having the house disinfected, too--what a nuisance for her. But, Alex, dear, you must come with us! I'll send a wire today--mother will be perfectly delighted."

"Couldn't I stay here?" asked Alex.

Cedric explained that the house would be partially shut up, with only two of the servants left.

"I shouldn't give any trouble--I'd so much rather," Alex urged, unusually persistent.

"My dear, it's out of the question. Not a soul in London--you forget it's August."

"But, Cedric," said Violet, "I don't see why she shouldn't do as she likes. It will be only till Barbara can have her, after all--I suppose Ada will be moved as soon as she's better, and the disinfecting can't take so very long. If she wants to stay here?"

"I do," said Alex, with sudden boldness.

"You don't think you'll be lonely?"