Braybrooke's visit had disturbed her. She had known him for years, and knew the type of man he was--careful, discreet, but often very busy. He had a kind heart, but a brain which sometimes wove little plots. On the whole he was a sincere man, except, of course, sometimes socially, but now and then he found it necessary to tell little lies. Had he told her a little lie that day about young Craven and Beryl Van Tuyn? Had he been weaving the first strands of a little plot--a plot like a net--and was it his intention to catch her in it? She knew he had had a definite motive in coming to see her, and that the motive was not connected with his visit to Paris.

His remarks about Craven had interested her because she was interested in Craven, but it was not quite clear to her why Braybrooke should suddenly concentrate on the young man's future, nor why he should, with so much precaution, try to get at her opinion on the question of Craven's marriage. When Braybrooke had first spoken to her of Craven he had not implied that he and Craven were specially intimate, or that he was deeply interested in Craven's concerns or prospects. He had merely told her that Craven was a clever and promising "boy," with an interesting mind and a nice nature, who had a great desire to meet her.

And she had good-naturedly said that Craven might call. It had all been very casual. But Braybrooke's manner had now completely changed. He seemed to think he was almost responsible for the young man. There had even been something furtive in his demeanour when speaking about Craven to her, and when she had forced him to explain and to say what was in his mind, for a moment he had been almost confused.

What had it to do with her whether Craven married Beryl Van Tuyn or did not marry her?

Although she had been interested when Braybrooke had spoken of Craven's cleverness and energy, of his good prospects in his career, and of the appreciation of Eric Learington--a man not given to undue praises--she had been secretly irritated when he had come to the question of Beryl Van Tuyn and the importance of Craven's marrying well. Why should he marry at all? And if he must, why Beryl Van Tuyn?

Lady Sellingworth hated the thought of that marriage and the idea that Braybrooke was probably intent on trying to bring it about, or at any rate was considering whether he should make the endeavour, roused in her resentment against him.

"Tiresome old man!" she said to herself, as she stood by the fire. "Why won't he let things alone? What business is it of his?"

And then she felt as if Braybrooke were meditating a stroke against her, and had practically asked her to help him in delivering the blow.

She felt that definitely. And immediately she had felt it she was startled, and the strong sensation of being near to danger took hold of her.

In all the ten years which had pa.s.sed since the theft of her jewels she had never once deliberately stretched out her hands to happiness.

Palliatives she had made the most of; compensations she had been thankful for. She had been very patient, and considering what she had been, very humble. But she had definitely given up the thought of ever knowing again any intimate personal happiness. That book was closed. In ten years she had never once tried to open it.

And now, suddenly, without even being definitely conscious of what she was doing, she had laid her hands on it as if--The change in her, the abrupt and dangerous change, had surely come about two nights ago. And she felt now that something peculiar in Craven, rather than something unusual in herself, had caused it.

Beryl Van Tuyn and she were friends because the girl had professed a cult for her, had been very charming to her, and, when in London, had persistently sought her out. Beryl had amused her. She had even been interested in Beryl because she had noted in her certain traits which had once been predominant in herself. And how she had understood Beryl's vanity, Beryl's pa.s.sion for independence and love of the unconventional!

Although they were so different, of different nations and different breeds, there was something which made them akin. And she had recognized it. And, recognizing it, she had sometimes felt a secret pity and even fear for the girl, thinking of the inevitable fading of that beauty, of the inevitable exasperation of that vanity with the pa.s.sing of the years. The vanity would grow and the beauty would diminish as time went on. And then, some day, what would Beryl be? For in her vanity there was already exaggeration. In it she had already reached a stage which had only been gained by Lady Sellingworth at a much later period in life.

Already she looked in the highways and byways for admiration. She sought for it even among Italian hairdressers! Some day it would make her suffer.

Lady Sellingworth had seen young Craven go away from his visit to her in Beryl's company with perhaps just a touch of half-ironical amus.e.m.e.nt, mingled with just a touch of half-wistful longing for the days that were over and done with. She knew so well that taking possession of a handsome young man on a first meeting. There was nothing in it but vanity. She had known and had done that sort of thing when she was a reigning beauty. Craven had interested and pleased her at once; she hardly knew why. There was something about him, about his look, bearing and manner which was sympathetic to her. She had felt a quiet inclination to know more of him. That was all. Seymour Portman had liked him, too, and had said so when the door had closed behind the young couple, leaving the old couple to themselves. He would come again some day, no doubt. And while she and Sir Seymour had remained by the fire talking quietly together, in imagination she had seen those two, linked by their youth--that wonderful bond--walking through the London twilight, chattering gaily, laughing at trifling jokes, realizing their freemasonry. And she had asked herself why it was that she could not feel that other freemasonry--of age. Seymour Portman had loved her for many years, loved her now, had never married because of her, would give up anything in London just to be quietly with her, would marry her now, ravaged though she was, worn, twice a widow, with a past behind her which he must know about, and which was not edifying. And yet she could not love him, partly, perhaps chiefly, because there was still rooted in her that ineradicable pa.s.sion--it must be that, even now, a pa.s.sion--for youth and the fascination of youth. When at last he had gone she had felt unusually bitter for a few minutes, had asked herself, as human beings ask themselves every day, the eternal why. "Why, why, why am I as I am? Why can't I care for the suitable? Why can't I like the gift held out to me? Why doesn't my soul age with my body? Why must I continue to be lonely just because of the taint in my nature which forbids me to find companionship in one who finds perfect companionship in me? Why--to sum up--am I condemned eternally to be myself?"

There was no answer. The voice was not in the whirlwind. And presently she had dismissed those useless, those d.a.m.nable questions, which only torture because they are never answered.

And then had come the night in Soho. And there for the first time since they had known each other she had felt herself to be subtly involved in a woman's obscure conflict with Beryl Van Tuyn. She was not conscious of having taken up weapons. Nevertheless she had no doubt about the conflict. And on her side any force brought into play against her beautiful friend must have issued simply from her personality, from some influence, perhaps from some charm, which she had not deliberately used.

(At least she thought she was being sincere with herself in telling herself that.) Craven had been the cause of the conflict, and certainly he had been fully aware of Beryl Van Tuyn's part in it. And he had shown quiet determination, willfulness even. That willfulness of his had pleased Lady Sellingworth more than anything had pleased her for a very long time. It had even touched her. At first she had thought that perhaps it had been prompted by chivalry, by something charmingly old-fashioned, and delicately gentlemanly in Craven. Later on she had been glad--intimately, warmly glad--to be quite sure that something more personal had guided him in his conduct that night.

He had simply preferred her company to the company of Beryl Van Tuyn.

She was woman enough to rejoice in that fact. It was even rather wonderful to her. And it had given Craven a place in her estimation which no one had had for ten years.

Beryl's pressure upon him had been very definite. She had practically told him, and asked him, to do a certain thing--to finish the evening with her. And he had practically denied her right to command, and refused her request. He had preferred to the Georgians and their lively American contemporary, sincerely preferred, an Edwardian.

The compliment was the greater because the Edwardian had not encouraged him. Indeed in a way he had really defied her as well as Beryl Van Tuyn.

She had loved his defiance. When he had flatly told her he did not intend to go back to the Cafe Royal she had felt thankful to him--just that. And just before his almost boyish remark, made with genuine vexation in his voice, about the driving of London chauffeurs had given her a little happy thrill such as she had not known for years.

She had not had the heart to leave him on her doorstep.

But now, standing by the fire, she knew that it would have been safer to have left him there. And it would be safer now to ring the bell, summon the footman, and say that she was not at home to anyone that afternoon.

While she was thinking this the footman entered the room. Hearing him she turned sharply.

"What is it?"

"Sir Seymour Portman has called, my lady. I told him you were not at home. But he asked me to make quite sure."

Lady Sellingworth hesitated. After a moment's pause she said, in a dry voice:

"Not at home."

The footman went out.

There are moments in life which are full of revelation. That was such a moment for Lady Sellingworth. When she had heard the door open her instinct had played her false. She had turned sharply feeling certain that Craven had called. The reaction she felt when she heard the name of Sir Seymour told her definitely that she was in danger. She felt angry with herself, even disgusted, as well as half frightened.

"What a brute I am!"

She formed those words with her lips. An acute sense of disappointment pervaded her because Craven had not come, though she had no reason whatever to expect him. But she was angry because of her feeling about Seymour Portman. It was horrible to have such a tepid heart as hers was when such a long and deep devotion was given to it. The accustomed thing then made scarcely any impression upon her, while the thing that was new, untried, perhaps worth very little, excited in her an expectation which amounted almost to longing!

"How can Seymour go on loving such a woman as I am?" she thought.

Stretching herself a little she was able to look into an oval Venetian mirror above the high marble frame of the fireplace. She looked to scourge herself as punishment for what she was feeling.

"You miserable, ridiculous old woman!" she said to herself, as she saw her lined face which the mirror, an antique one, slightly distorted.

"You ought to be thankful to have such a friendship as Seymour's!"

She said that, and she knew that if, disobeying her order to the footman, he had come upstairs, her one desire would have been to get rid of him, at all costs, to get him and his devotion out of the house, lest Craven should come and she should not have Craven alone. If Seymour knew that surely even his love would turn into hatred!

And if Craven knew!

She felt that day as if all the rampart of will, which ten years' labour had built up between her and the dangers and miseries attendant upon such a temperament as hers, were beginning before her eyes to crumble into dust, touched by the wand of a maleficent enchanter.

And it was Craven's fault. He should have been like other young men, obedient to the call of beauty and youth; he should have been wax in Beryl Van Tuyn's pretty hands. Then this would never have happened, this crumbling of will. He had done a cruel thing without being aware of his cruelty. He had been carried away by something that was not primarily physical. And in yielding to that uncommon impulse, which proved that he was not typical, he had set in activity, in this hidden and violent activity, that which had been sleeping so deeply as to seem like something dead.

As Lady Sellingworth looked into the Venetian mirror, which made her ugliness of age look uglier than it was, she regretted sharply that she had allowed herself to grow old in this fearfully definite way. It was too horrible to look like this and to be waiting eagerly, with an almost deceiving eagerness, for the opening of a door, a footfall, the sound of a voice that was young. Mrs. Ackroyd, Lady Archie Brook--they looked surely twenty years younger than she did. She had been a fool! She had been a pa.s.sionate, impulsive fool!

No; she was being a fool now.

If only Caroline Briggs were in London! At that moment Lady Sellingworth longed to be defended against herself. She felt that she was near to the edge of a precipice, but that perhaps a strong hand could pull her away from it into the safety she had known for ten years.

"I am sixty. That settles it. There is nothing to be excited about, nothing to look for, nothing to draw back from or refuse. The fact that I am sixty and look as I do settles the whole matter."

They were brave words, but unfortunately they altered nothing.

Feeling was untouched by them. Even conviction was not attained. Lady Sellingworth knew she was sixty, but she felt like a woman of thirty at that moment. And yet she was not deceived, was not deceiving herself.

She did know--or felt that she absolutely knew--that the curious spell she had evidently been able, how she scarcely knew, to exert upon Craven during his visit to her that night could not possibly be lasting. He must be a quite unusual young man, perhaps even in some degree abnormal.

But even so the fascination he had felt, and had shown that he felt, could not possibly be a lasting fascination. In such matters she _knew_.

Therefore surely the way was plain before her. Ten years ago she had made up her mind, as a woman seldom makes up her mind. She had seen facts, basic facts, naked in a glare of light. Those facts had not changed. But she had changed. She was ten years older. The horror of pa.s.sing into the fifties had died out in the cold resignation of pa.s.sing into the sixties. Any folly now would be ten times more foolish than a folly of ten years ago. She told herself that, reiterated it.

The clock struck six. She heard it and turned from the fire. Certainly Craven would not call now. It was too late. Only a very intimate friend would be likely to call after six o'clock, and Craven was not a very intimate friend, but only a new acquaintance whom she had been with twice. When he had said good-bye to her after their long talk by the fire on the night of the dinner in Soho she had said nothing about his coming again. And he had not mentioned it. But she had felt then that to speak of such a thing was quite unnecessary, that it was tacitly understood between them that of course he would come again, and soon. And she believed that he had felt as she did. For despite her self-mockery, and even now when looking back, she had known, and still knew, that they had gone quite a long way together in a very short time.

That happens sometimes; but perhaps very seldom when one of the travellers is sixty and the other some thirty years younger. Surely something peculiar in Craven rather than something unusual in herself had been at the root of the whole thing.

That night he had seemed so oddly at home in her house, and really he had seemed so happy and at ease. They had talked about Italy, and he had told her what Italy meant to him, quite simply and without any pose, forgetting to be self-conscious in the English way. He had pa.s.sed a whole summer on the bay of Naples, and he had told her all about it. And in the telling he had revealed a good deal of himself. The prelude in Soho had no doubt prepared the way for such talk by carrying them to Naples on wings of music. They would not have talked just like that after a ba.n.a.l dinner at Claridge's or the Carlton. Craven had shown the enthusiasm that was in him for the sun, the sea, life let loose from convention, nature and beautiful things. The Foreign Office young man--quiet, reserved, and rather older than his years--had been pushed aside by a youth who had some Pagan blood in him, who had some agreeable wildness under the smooth surface which often covers only other layers of smoothness. He had told her of his envy of the sea people and she had understood it; and, in return, she had told him of an American boy whom she had known long ago, and who, fired by a book about life on the bay of Naples which he had read in San Francisco, had got hold of a little money, taken ship to Naples, gone straight to the point at Posilpipo, and stayed there among the fishermen for nearly two years, living their life, eating their food, learning to speak their argot, becoming at length as one of them. So thoroughly indeed had he identified himself with them that often he had acted as boatman to English and American tourists, and never had his nationality been discovered. In the end, of course, he had gone back to San Francisco, and she believed, was now a lawyer in California. But at least he had been wise enough to give up two years to a whim, and had bared his skin to the sun for two glorious summers. And not everyone has the will to adventure even so far as that.