Part 62 (1/2)

Miss Van Tuyn left that at once.

”So Adela has run away!” she said.

She sat for a moment quite still, like one considering something carefully.

”But she will come back,” she said presently, looking up at him, ”bringing her sheaves with her.”

”What do you mean?”

”Don't you remember--in the Bible?”

”But what has that to do with Lady Sellingworth?”

”Perhaps you'll understand when she comes back.”

”I am really quite in the dark,” he said, with obvious sincerity. ”And it's nothing to me whether Lady Sellingworth comes back or stops away.”

”I thought you joined with me in adoring her.”

”Adoration isn't the word. And you know it.”

”And letters are not to be forwarded?” said Miss Van Tuyn.

”I heard so.”

”Ah! when you went to call on her!”

”Now you are merely guessing!”

”It must be terrible to be old!” said Miss Van Tuyn, with a change of manner. ”Just think of going off alone to the Riviera in the autumn at the age of sixty! Beauties ought to die at fifty. Plain women can live to a hundred if they like, and it doesn't really matter. Their tragedy is not much worse then than it is at thirty-five. But beauties should never live beyond fifty--at the very latest.”

”Then you must commit suicide at that age.”

”Thank you. The old women in hotels!”

She s.h.i.+vered, and it seemed to him that her body shook naturally, as if it couldn't help shaking.

”But--remember--she'll come back with her sheaves!” she added, looking at him. ”And then the 'old guard' will fall upon her.”

For a moment she looked cruel, and though he did not understand her meaning Craven realized that she would not have much pity for Lady Sellingworth in misfortune. But Lady Sellingworth was cruel, too, had been cruel to him. And he saw humanity without tenderness, teeth and claws at work, barbarity coming to its own through the varnish.

He only said:

”I may be very stupid, but I don't understand.”

And then he changed the subject of conversation. Miss Van Tuyn became gradually nicer to him, but he felt that she still cherished a faint hostility to him. Perhaps she thought he regarded her as a subst.i.tute.

And was not that really the fact? He tried to sweep the hostility away.

He laid himself out to be charming to her. The Lady Sellingworth episode was over. He would give himself to a different side of his nature, a side to which Miss Van Tuyn appealed. She did not encourage him at first, and he was driven to force the note slightly. When he went away they had arranged to play golf together, to dine together one night at the _Bella Napoli_. It was he who had suggested, even urged these diversions. For she had almost made him plead to her, had seemed oddly doubtful about seeing more of him in intimacy. And when he left her he was half angry with himself for making such a fuss about trifles. But the truth was--and perhaps she suspected it--that he was trying to escape from depression, caused by a sense of injury, through an adventure. He felt Miss Van Tuyn's great physical attraction, and just then he wished that it would overwhelm him. If it did he would soon cease from minding what Lady Sellingworth had done. A certain recklessness possessed him.