Clare, in soft undertones, was delicately amusing, full of dainty quips that coaxed Alwynne gently back to smiles and naturalness. She spared no pains, and sent Alwynne home at last, with, metaphorically speaking, her blessing.

But Alwynne stooped as she walked, as though she carried a burden.

CHAPTER XXVII

The summer holidays came and went, eight cloudless weeks of them. Clare loved the sun; was well content to be out, day after day, cushioned and replete, on the sunniest strip of sand in the sunniest corner of a parched and gasping England. She found it wonderfully soothing to listen with shut eyes to the purr of the sea and the distant cries of gulls and children, with Alwynne to fan her and shade her, and clamber up and down two hundred feet of red cliff for her when the corkscrew was forgotten, or the salt, or Clare's bathing-dress, or a half-read magazine. Clare grew brown and plump as the drowsy days went by. Alwynne grew brown, too, but she certainly did not grow plumper. But then the heat never suited Alwynne. She had often said so, as she reminded Elsbeth. For, when Alwynne came back to her for the three weeks at home that she had persuaded Clare were due to Elsbeth, Elsbeth was difficult to satisfy.

Elsbeth was inclined to be indignant. What sort of a holiday had it been, if Alwynne could come back so thin, and tired, and colourless under her tan? What had Miss Hartill been about to allow it?

But Alwynne's account of their pleasant lazy days was certainly appeasing.... It must have been the heat.... Not even the most suspicious of aunts could conscientiously suspect Clare of having anything to do with it.... Wait till September came, with its cooling skies.... Alwynne would be better then.

In the meantime Elsbeth tried what care and cookery and coddling could do, and Alwynne submitted more patiently than usual.

Alwynne, indeed, was unusually gentle with Elsbeth in the three weeks they spent together before the autumn term began. She was always good to Elsbeth, considerate of her bodily comforts, lovingly demonstrative. But Clare had taught Alwynne very carefully that she was growing up at last, becoming financially and morally independent, free to lead her own life, that if she stayed with Elsbeth it was by favour, not by duty. And Alwynne, immensely flattered by the picture of herself as a woman of the world, had lived up to it with her usual drastic enthusiasm. Elsbeth, not unused to disillusionment and hopes deferred, could sigh and smile and acquiesce, knowing it for the phase that it was and forgiving Alwynne in advance. But Clare, who owed her neither grat.i.tude nor duty, she never forgave. She was a very human woman, for all her saintliness.

She got her reward that summer, when Alwynne came back, quieted, grave, very tender with Elsbeth, clinging to her sometimes as if she were nearer nine than nineteen. But Elsbeth was fated never to have her happiness untainted. She was haunted by the conviction that Alwynne's subduement was not natural. Her pleasure in being with her aunt was so obvious that Elsbeth was worried, and knowing how infallibly Alwynne turned to her in any trouble, she expected revelations. But none came--only the manner was there that always accompanied them. Yet something was wrong.... A quarrel with Clare Hartill.

But Alwynne, delicately questioned, chattered happily enough of their holiday, and there were frequent letters----She was over-anxious, too, to protest that she was perfectly well, and, in proof, exhausted herself in unnecessary housework. But she continued restless and abstracted, jumped absurdly at any sudden noise, and followed Elsbeth about like a homeless dog.

And she had contracted an odd habit of coming late at night into Elsbeth's room, trailing blankets and a pillow under her arm, to beg to sleep on Elsbeth's sofa--just this once! She would laugh at herself and pull Elsbeth's face down to her for a kiss, but she never gave any good reason for her whim. But she came so often that Elsbeth had a bed made up for her at last, and she slept there all the holidays, or lay awake.

Elsbeth suspected that she lay awake two nights out of three.

With the autumn term Alwynne seemed to rouse herself, and flung herself into her work with her usual energy. Elsbeth saw less of her. The school claimed all her days, and Clare the bulk of her evenings. She had moved back into her own room again, and Elsbeth, her door ajar, would lie and watch the crack of light across the pa.s.sage, and grieve over her darling's sleeplessness, and the shocking waste of electric light.

She wondered if the girl were working too hard.... Could that be at the root of the matter? She grew so anxious that she could even consult Clare on one of the latter's rare and formal calls.

"I am so glad to see you. Alwynne is changing; she'll be down in a minute. I made her lie down. Miss Hartill, I'm very distressed about the child. Do you think she looks well?"

Clare, less staccato than usual, certainly didn't think so.

"So thin--she's growing so dreadfully thin! Her neck! You should see her neck--salt-cellars, literally! And she had such a beautiful neck! But you've never seen her in evening dress."

Yes, Clare had seen her.

"And so white and listless! I don't know what to make of her. I don't know what to do."

Clare, with unusual gentleness, would not advise Elsbeth to worry herself. Possibly Alwynne was doing a little too much. Clare would make enquiries. But she was sure that Elsbeth was over-anxious.

But Elsbeth was not to be comforted. She nodded to the open door.

"Look at her now--dragging across the hall."

But Alwynne, in her gay frock, cheeks, at sight of Clare, suddenly aflame, did not look as if there were much amiss. She was thinner, of course....

Elsbeth, however, had made Clare uneasy. She attacked Alwynne on the following day.

"Your aunt says you're dying, Alwynne. What's the matter?"

"Dear old Elsbeth!" Alwynne laughed lightly.

"_Is_ anything wrong?" Clare did not appear to look at her; nevertheless she did not miss the slight change in Alwynne's face, as she answered with careful cheeriness--

"What should be wrong in this best of all possible----"

Clare caught her up.

"I'm not a fool, Alwynne. What's the matter?"

"I wish you wouldn't discuss me with Elsbeth," said Alwynne uneasily. "I don't like it. I won't have you bothered."

"I'm not," said Clare coolly. "At the same time----"

Alwynne braced herself. She knew the tone.

"--I don't like any one about me with a secret grief and a pale, courageous smile. I can't stand a martyr."

"I'm not!" Alwynne was wincing. Then, suddenly: "What has Elsbeth been saying? Honestly, I didn't know she'd noticed anything."

"What is the matter?" said Clare again, gently enough. "Tell me, silly child!"

Alwynne shrugged her shoulders.

"Nothing! Just life!"

Clare waited.

"I'm sorry if I've been horrid--" she paused--"to Elsbeth."

Clare opened her eyes.

"What about me?"

"I'm never horrid to you," said Alwynne with compunction. "That's what's so beastly of me."

"Well, upon my word!" cried Clare blankly.

"Oh, you know what I mean." Alwynne jumbled her words. "I always want to be nice to you. It's perfectly easy. And then I go home to Elsbeth, the darling, and am grumpy and snappy, and show her all the hateful side of me. Heaven knows why! Only yesterday she said, 'You wouldn't speak to Clare Hartill like that,' in her dear, hurt voice. I felt such a brute."

A little smile hovered at the corners of Clare's mouth.

"I was always so sorry," said Clare smoothly, "that you couldn't spend Christmas Day with me last year."

Alwynne wrinkled her forehead.

"What's that got to do----?"