"Theo has been--fairly contented--and I have been trying to tide things over--no, I haven't, I've just funked it, Pam. I don't know what I'm to do. I've loved being here, for you and M. de Lensky are so good to me--but I'm afraid he might come----"

"Theo?"

"_No_," sharply, "Joyselle. He adores Theo and would hack me to pieces if it would do him any good. And--well, I'm afraid of him."

Pam, in like case, would have faced the whole family, successfully broken her engagement, protected her own secret, and done her hiding afterwards, but she was too wise to say so.

"I am sorry for Theo," she remarked presently.

"So am I. And for Tommy, too. Tommy has been staying in Golden Square ever since Joyselle came home, and he is so happy, poor child. It's--all hideous. Will you read his letter?"

There was no need for Pam to ask whose letter, as she took it, and felt Brigit's hot, dry fingers tremble against her own.

"My dear Daughter," she read, "you must come back to us. We want you. Theo says nothing, but I can see how he misses you, and surely it is but natural? And _pet.i.te mere_ and I want you. Surely you have had enough of the South? It is unfitted for you, my beautiful one. You are too strong to like warm air in the winter. Come back and go out into the fog with me, and let the chill rain dampen your hair. Come back to your lover who sighs for you, to your old adoring Beau-papa who longs to see again the face of his beautiful child. "Joyselle."

"Brigit--you must go."

Brigit poked at a clump of moss among the tangled roots of the tree under which they sat, and sulked.

"You must, dear. And--you must buck up and break the engagement. It isn't fair," continued Pam, energetically, "to go on stealing their love."

"I stealing their love!--_I!_ And what has he done to me, pray? Do you know that I haven't slept more than an hour at a time, for months? Do you know that I cannot get away from the horrible, haunting thought of him? That a flower, a book, a s.n.a.t.c.h of music--anything that reminds me of him, turns me cold all over and takes my breath away, so that I simply cannot speak? You are an idiot, an utter fool, to talk that way.

He has ruined my life, and you say I have stolen his love!" She gasped in very truth as she ceased, and stood with one hand on her heaving breast, her face white with anger.

"You have, my dear. The man seems really to love you as a father. And you certainly have no right to that kind of affection from him! You _must_ break your engagement."

Suddenly, after a long pause, during which she gazed blindly at the brilliant sea, Brigit sat down, and turning, buried her face in her arms and burst out crying.

It was nervous, irregular sobbing, cut by moans and muttered words, broken by the convulsive movement of her shoulders. Pam was appalled, much as a man might have been, for she herself had never been hysterical, and this mixture of anguish and anger, given vent to so openly, was a strange and horrible thing to her.

However, she knew enough to let the storm pa.s.s without interruption, although it took nearly ten minutes for it to subside, and then, while Brigit, her face red and disfigured, sat up and smoothed back her hair and wiped her eyes, Pam spoke.

"It must be lunch-time," she said with great wisdom, and Brigit rose, with a nod.

"I'll go for a walk. Don't want any lunch."

"All right. Good-bye."

Then they separated, Pam going up the sunny slope to her husband and children, Brigit, down through the deserted garden of a long uninhabited house, to the lonely sea.

CHAPTER THREE

Brigit left the villa the next morning and went straight to London. And the nearer she got to the old town which contained, for her, the very kernel of life, her spirits mounted and mounted in spite of herself. She had for so long been "down among the dead men," as Tommy called depression, that her sudden change of mood affected her strangely.

"If I must never see him again," she repeated over and over again aloud to herself, in the solitude of her compartment, "I shall at least see him once, and--hear him speak. I'll make him play to me, too; and I shall see his big unseeing eyes, and his wonderful hands!" The very wheels of the train seemed to be saying, "I'll see him, I'll see him, I'll see him," and when she landed at Dover, in a pouring rain, she could have laughed aloud for sheer joy.

Her mother was living in town, in the tiny house in Pont Street, but had gone to the country for the week-end, so the girl, to her great delight, was alone with the servants.

Putting on a dressing-gown she sat down by her fire and closed her eyes.

"Three months, a fortnight, and six days," she thought. "It seems years.

I wonder what he will say to me? Will he be glad to see me? And--how am I to do? Shall I tell Theo, and make him tell? Or shall I be brave--as Pam would--and tell him myself!"

Then, realising her absurdity in forgetting that after all it was more Theo's affair than his father's, she laughed aloud.

It was easy to laugh, for whatever happened she would see Victor Joyselle that evening, and beyond that she could not, would not, look.

The world might end to-morrow, and it mattered nothing to her. That night he and she would be face to face.

She shuddered, for he would call her his daughter and kiss her forehead.

Then the smile came back to her lips, and she rose. It didn't matter; nothing mattered but the great, primary fact that in--how many hours?--four, she would see him. Let his mood be what it would--fatherly, aloof, impish--he would be himself, she would see him, and she loved him.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Wight had written to her, and going to her dressing-table she re-read the note.

It was short, simply telling her that her mother had told of her arrival, and asking her to dine at 8.30 in Charles Street. Not she, she would not lose one second of the glorious antic.i.p.ations that were hers now. She would sit here close to her fire and gloat over her joy.

Sitting down, she took a sheet of paper and began to write----

"Dear d.u.c.h.ess,--Thanks so much for asking me to dine, but----"

She broke off and sat staring at the wall. To-morrow at this time what would have become of her? The world would have run its course, come to its end, and yet she would be still alive! Could she bear it?

She would have told her story; made these people understand that she could never be one of them; broken (for the time) Theo's young heart, and been reviled and cast out by Joyselle.

And she would have to return here, alone, broken with grief, hopeless.

Drearily she looked round the room. It would all be the same; nothing would change; the very roses on her dressing-table would still be fresh and sweet, and--she?

Raising her head, she met her own eyes in a gla.s.s, and started. Her own beauty amazed her. "If he could see me now," she said aloud, "he couldn't call me '_pet.i.te fille_.' He doesn't know I _am_ a woman; he has seen me--as if through spectacles. If I had never known Theo, and then met him somewhere by chance----"

She recalled his frank, wondering amazement as she raised her veil that evening in the train.

"He sees me always with Theo's shadow between us. It is--unfair--and----"

She took a fresh sheet of paper and began her letter again:

"Dear d.u.c.h.ess.--Thanks so much for asking me to dine to-night.

I shall be delighted to come.

Yours sincerely. "Brigit Mead."

Then she rang for the housemaid, who would in the absence of her half of Amelie have to help her dress, and gave her certain directions.