"It seems to me, Owen, I am just as human, more human than ever, only it is a different kind of humanity."

"Pedantry doesn't suit women, nor does cruelty; cruelty suits no one and you were very cruel when we parted."

"Yes, I suppose I was, and it is always wrong to be cruel. But I had to send you away; if I hadn't I should have been late for the concert. You don't realise, Owen, you can't realise--" And as she said those words her face seemed to freeze, and Owen thought of the idea within her turning her to ice.

"The wind! Isn't it uncanny? You don't know the glen? One of the most beautiful in Scotland." And he spoke of the tall pines at the end of it, the finest he had ever seen, and hoped that not many would be blown down during the night. "Such a storm as this only happens once in ten years. Good G.o.d, listen!" Like a savage beast the wind seemed to skulk, and to crouch.... It sprang forward and seized the house and shook it. Then it died away, and there was stillness for a few minutes.

"But it is only preparing for another attack," Evelyn said, and they listened, hearing the wind far away gathering itself like a robber band, determined this time to take the castle by a.s.sault. Every moment it grew louder, till it fell at last with a crash upon the roof.

"But what a fool I am to talk to you about the wind, not having seen you for three months! Surely there is something else for us to talk about?"

"I would sooner you spoke about the wind, Owen."

"It is cruel of you to say so, for there is only one subject worth talking about--yourself. How can I think of any other? When I am alone in Berkeley Square I can only think of the idea which came into your head and made a different woman of you." Evelyn refrained from saying "And a much better woman," and Owen went on to tell how the idea had seized her in Pisa. "Remember, Evelyn, it played you a very ugly trick then. I'm not sure if I ought to remind you."

"You mean when you found me sitting on the wall of an olive-garth?

But there was no harm in singing to the peasants."

"And when I found you in a little chapel on the way to the pine-forest--the forest in which you met Ulick Dean. What has become of that young man?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard of him."

"You once nearly went out of your mind on his account."

"Because I thought he had killed himself."

"Or because you thought you wouldn't be able to resist him?"

Evelyn did not answer, and looking through the rich rooms, unconsciously admiring the gleaming of the red silk hangings in the lamplight, and the appearance of a portrait standing in the midst of its dark background and gold frame, she discovered some of the guests: two women leaning back in a deep sofa amid cushions confiding to each other the story of somebody's lover, no doubt; and past them, to the right of a tall pillar, three players looked into the cards, one stood by, and though Owen and Evelyn were thinking of different things they could not help noticing the whiteness of the men's shirt fronts, and the aigrette sprays in the women's hair, and the shapely folds of the silken dresses falling across the carpet.

"Not one of these men and women here think as you do; they are satisfied to live. Why can't you do the same?"

"I am different from them."

"But what is there different in you?"

"You don't think then, Owen, that every one has a destiny?"

"Evelyn, dear, how can you think these things? We are utterly unimportant; millions and billions of beings have preceded us, billions will succeed us. So why should it be so important that a woman should be true to her lover?"

"Does it really seem to you an utterly unimportant matter?"

"Not nearly so important as losing the woman one loves." And looking into her face as he might into a book, written in a language only a few words of which he understood, he continued: "And the idea seems to have absorbed you, to have made its own of you; it isn't religion, I don't think you are a religious woman. You usen't to be like this when I took you away to Paris. You were in love with me, but not half so much in love with me as you are now with this idea, not so subjugated. Evelyn, that is what it is, you are subjugated, enslaved, and you can think of nothing else."

"Well, if that is so, Owen--and I won't say you are utterly wrong-- why can't you accept things as they are?"

"But it isn't true, Evelyn? You will outlive this idea. You will be cured."

"I hope not."

"You hope not? Well, if you don't wish to be cured it will be difficult to cure you. But now, here in this house, where everything is different, do you not feel the love of life coming back upon you?

And can you accept negation willingly as your fate?"

Evelyn asked Owen what he meant and he said:

"Well, your creed is a negative one--that no man shall ever take you in his arms again, saying, 'Darling, I am so fond of you!' You would have me believe that you will be true to this creed? But don't I know how dear that moment is to you? No, you will not always think as you do now; you will wake up as from a nightmare, you will wake up."

"Do you think I shall?" Soon after their talk drifted to Lady Ascott and to her guests, and Owen narrated the latest intrigues and the mistake Lady Ascott had been guilty of by putting So-and-so and So-and-so to sleep in the same corridor, not knowing that their _liaison_ had been broken off at least three months before.

"Jim is now in love with Constance."

"How very horrible!"

"Horrible? It is that fellow Mostyn who has put these ideas into your head!"

"He has put nothing into my head, Owen."

"Upon my word I believe you're right. It is none of his doing. But he has got the harvesting; ah, yes, and the nuns, too. You never loved me as you love this idea, Evelyn?"

"Do you think not?"

"When you were studying music in Paris you were quite willing I should go away for a year."

"But I repaid you for it afterwards; you can't say I didn't. There were ten years in which I loved you. How is it you have never reproached me before?"

"Why should I? But now I've come to the end of the street; there is a blank wall in front of me."

"You make me very miserable by talking like this."

They sat without speaking, and Lady Ascott's interruption was welcome.

"Now, my dear Sir Owen, will you forgive me if I ask Evelyn to sing for us? You'd like to hear her sing--wouldn't you?"

Owen sprang to his feet.

"Of course, of course. Come, Miss Innes, you will sing for us. I have been boring you long enough, haven't I? And you'll be glad to get to the piano. Who will accompany you?"

"You, Sir Owen, if you will be kind enough."

The card-players were glad to lay down their cards and the women to cease talking of their friends' love affairs. All the world over it is the same, a soprano voice subjugating all other interests; soprano or tenor, baritone much less, contralto still less. Many came forward to thank her, and, a little intoxicated with her success, she began to talk to some of her women friends, thinking it unwise to go back into a shadowy corner with Owen, making herself the subject of remark; for though her love story with Owen Asher had long ceased to be talked about, a new interest in it had suddenly sprung up, owing to the fact that she had sent Owen away, and was thinking of becoming a nun--even to such an extent her visit to the convent had been exaggerated; and as the women lagging round her had begun to try to draw from her an account of the motives which had induced her to leave the stage, and the moment not seeming opportune, even if it were not ridiculous at any moment to discuss spiritual endeavour with these women, she determined to draw a red herring across the trail. She told them that the public were wearying of Wagner's operas, taste was changing, light opera was coming into fashion.

"And in light opera I should have no success whatever, so I was obliged to turn from the stage to the concert-room."

"We thought it was the religious element in Wagner."

A card party had come from a distant drawing-room and joined in the discussion regarding the decline of art, and it was agreed that motor-cars had done a great deal to contribute--perhaps they had nothing to do with the decline of Wagner--but they had contributed to the decline of interest in things artistic. This was the opinion of two or three agreeable, good-looking young men; and Evelyn forgot the women whom she had previously been talking to; and turning to the men, she engaged in conversation and talked on and on until the clock struck eleven. Then the disposition of every one was for bed.

Whispers went round, and Lady Ascott trotted upstairs with Evelyn, hoping she would find her room comfortable.

It was indeed a pleasant room, wearing an air of youthfulness, thanks to its chintz curtains. The sofa was winning and the armchairs desirable, and there were books and a reading-lamp if Evelyn should feel disposed to draw the armchair by the fire and read for an hour before going to bed. The writing-table itself, with its pens and its blotting-book, and notepaper so prettily stamped, seemed intended to inveigle the occupant of the room into correspondence with every friend she had in the world; and Evelyn began to wonder to whom she might write a letter as soon as Lady Ascott left the room.