Part 86 (2/2)
”I shall be his wife the day after the race. I am going to him in London--to warn him against You!”
”You will find me in London, before you--with this in my hand. Do you know his writing?”
She held up the letter, open. Mrs. Glenarm's hand flew out with the stealthy rapidity of a cat's paw, to seize and destroy it. Quick as she was, her rival was quicker still. For an instant they faced each other breathless--one with the letter held behind her; one with her hand still stretched out.
At the same moment--before a word more had pa.s.sed between them--the gla.s.s door opened; and Julius Delamayn appeared in the room.
He addressed himself to Anne.
”We decided, on the terrace,” he said, quietly, ”that you should speak to Mrs. Glenarm, if Mrs. Glenarm wished it. Do you think it desirable that the interview should be continued any longer?”
Anne's head drooped on her breast. The fiery anger in her was quenched in an instant.
”I have been cruelly provoked, Mr. Delamayn,” she answered. ”But I have no right to plead that.” She looked up at him for a moment. The hot tears of shame gathered in her eyes, and fell slowly over her cheeks.
She bent her head again, and hid them from him. ”The only atonement I can make,” she said, ”is to ask your pardon, and to leave the house.”
In silence, she turned away to the door. In silence, Julius Delamayn paid her the trifling courtesy of opening it for her. She went out.
Mrs. Glenarm's indignation--suspended for the moment--transferred itself to Julius.
”If I have been entrapped into seeing that woman, with your approval,”
she said, haughtily, ”I owe it to myself, Mr. Delamayn, to follow her example, and to leave your house.”
”I authorized her to ask you for an interview, Mrs. Glenarm. If she has presumed on the permission that I gave her, I sincerely regret it, and I beg you to accept my apologies. At the same time, I may venture to add, in defense of my conduct, that I thought her--and think her still--a woman to be pitied more than to be blamed.”
”To be pitied did you say?” asked Mrs. Glenarm, doubtful whether her ears had not deceived her.
”To be pitied,” repeated Julius.
”_You_ may find it convenient, Mr. Delamayn, to forget what your brother has told us about that person. _I_ happen to remember it.”
”So do I, Mrs. Glenarm. But, with my experience of Geoffrey--” He hesitated, and ran his fingers nervously over the strings of his violin.
”You don't believe him?” said Mrs. Glenarm.
Julius declined to admit that he doubted his brother's word, to the lady who was about to become his brother's wife.
”I don't quite go that length,” he said. ”I find it difficult to reconcile what Geoffrey has told us, with Miss Silvester's manner and appearance--”
”Her appearance!” cried Mrs. Glenarm, in a transport of astonishment and disgust. ”_Her_ appearance! Oh, the men! I beg your pardon--I ought to have remembered that there is no accounting for tastes. Go on--pray go on!”
”Shall we compose ourselves with a little music?” suggested Julius.
”I particularly request you will go on,” answered Mrs. Glenarm, emphatically. ”You find it 'impossible to reconcile'--”
”I said 'difficult.'”
”Oh, very well. Difficult to reconcile what Geoffrey told us, with Miss Silvester's manner and appearance. What next? You had something else to say, when I was so rude as to interrupt you. What was it?”
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