"From your Gorsts and Hannays and people."

"Oh, from them." Anne felt that she was shielding him.

Mrs. Eliott marked the flag of defiance and the att.i.tude of defence. If Anne had meant to "give him away," she could not have given him more lavishly. Mrs. Elliott's sad inward comment was that there was more in all this than met the eye.

And Anne's life now continued on this rather uncomfortable footing. The Hannays came to dinner, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. The Ransomes came, and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. Mr. Gorst came (for the fourth time in as many weeks), and she dined with Mrs. Eliott. She began to wonder whether the Eliotts' hospitality would stand the strain. She also wondered whether her other friends in Thurston Square were wondering; and what Canon Wharton must think of it. It had not occurred to her to wonder what Mr. Gorst would think.

At first he thought nothing of it. When he found that he had not to encounter the terrible eyes of Mrs. Majendie, Mr. Gorst's relief was so great that it robbed him of reflection. And when he began to think, he merely thought that Majendie had asked him because his wife was absent, rather than that Majendie's wife was absent because he had been asked.

Majendie had calculated on this. He was not in the least distressed by Anne's absences. He believed that she was thoroughly enjoying both her own protest and Mrs. Eliott's society. And the arrangement really solved the problem nicely. Otherwise the whole thing was trivial to him. He remained unaware of the tremendous spiritual conflict that was being waged round the person of the unhappy Gorst.

But Christmas was now at hand and Christmas brought the problem back again in a terrific form. For ten years poor Gorst had dined with his friends in Prior Street on Christmas Day. His presence was considered by Edith to borrow a peculiar significance and sanct.i.ty from the festival. Did they not celebrate on that day the birth of the Divine Humanity, the solemn advent of redeeming love? Punctually on Christmas Day the prodigal returned from his farthest wanderings, and made for Prior Street as for his home. He had never missed a Christmas. And how could they expel him now? His coming was such a sacred and established thing, that he had spoken of it to Edith as a certainty. And it was as a certainty that Edith spoke of it to Majendie.

She asked him how they were to break the news to Anne.

"Better not break it at all," said he. "Just let him come."

"If he does," said Edith, "she'll walk straight out of the house."

"Oh no, she won't."

"Yes, she will. On principle. I understand her."

"I confess I don't."

"But I believe," said she, "if you explained it all to her, she'd give in for once."

Rather against his judgment, he endeavoured to explain, "We simply can't not ask him, you know."

"Ask him by all means. But I shall have to put myself on the Gardners, or the Proctors, for the Eliotts are away."

"Don't be absurd. You know you won't be allowed to do anything of the sort."

"There's nothing else left for me to do."

He looked at her gravely; but his speech was light, for it was not in him to be weighty. "Don't you think that, at this holy season, for the sake of peace, and good-will, and all the rest of it, you might drop it just for once? And let the poor chap have a happy Christmas?"

She seemed to be considering it. "You think me very hard," said she.

"Oh no, no, not hard." But he was wondering for the first time what this wife of his was made of.

"Yes, hard. I don't want you to think me hard. If you could understand why I cannot meet that man--what it means to me--the effect it has on me."

"What," he said, "is the precise effect?" He was really interested. He had always been curious to know how different men affected different women, and to get his knowledge at first hand.

"It's the effect," said she, "of being brought into contact with something terribly painful and repulsive, the effect of intense suffering--of unbearable disgust."

He listened with his thoughtful, interested air. "I know. The effect that your friend Canon Wharton sometimes has on me."

"I see no resemblance between Canon Wharton and your friend Mr. Gorst."

"And I see no resemblance between my friend Mr. Gorst and Canon Wharton."

She was silent, gathering all her strength to deliver her spirit's last appeal.

"Dear," said she (for she wished to be very gentle with him, since he had thought her hard), "dear, I wonder if you ever realise what the thing we call--purity is?"

He blushed violently.

"I only know it's one of those things one doesn't speak about."

"I must speak," said she.

"You needn't," he said curtly; "I understand all right."

"If you did you wouldn't ask me. All the same, Walter--" She lifted to him the set face of a saint surrendered to the torture--"If you compel me--"

"Compel you? I can't compel you. Especially if you're going to look like that."

"It's no use," he said to Edith. "First she talks of dining with the Gardners--"

"She will, too--"

"No. She'll stay--if I compel her."

"Oh, I see. That's worse. She'd let him see it. He wouldn't enjoy his Christmas if he came."

"No, poor fellow, I really don't think he would. She's awfully funny about him."

"You still think her funny?"

"My dear--it's the only way to take her. I'm sorry, but I can't let Charlie spoil her Christmas; nor," he added, "Anne his."

So Mr. Gorst did not come to Prior Street that Christmas. There came instead of him whole sheaves and stacks of flowers, Christmas roses and white lilies, the sacred flowers which, at that festival, the poor prodigal brought as his tribute to his adored and beloved lady.

He spent the greater part of his Christmas Day in the society of Mr. d.i.c.k Ransome, and the greater part of his Christmas Night in the society of pretty Maggie Forrest, the new girl in Evans's shop who had sold him the Christmas roses and the lilies. "For," said he, "if I can't go and see Edie, I'll go and see Maggie." And he enjoyed seeing Maggie as much as it was possible to enjoy anything that was not seeing Edie.

And Edie lay among her Christmas roses and her lilies, and smiled, with a high courage, at Nanna, at Majendie, and Anne; and did her best to make everybody believe that she was having a very happy Christmas. But at night, when it was all over, Majendie held a tremulous and tearful Edie in his arms.

"Don't think me a brute, darling," he said. "I would have insisted, only if he'd come to-day he'd have found out he wasn't wanted."

"I know; and he never would have come again."

He didn't come. For Canon Wharton enlightened Mrs. Hannay, and Mrs.

Hannay enlightened Mr. Hannay, and Mr. Hannay enlightened Mr. Gorst.

"Of course," said the prodigal, "if she walks out of the house when I walk into it, I can't very well go."

"Well, not at present, perhaps, for the sake of peace," said Hannay. "It strikes me poor old Majendie's in a pretty tight place with that wife of his."