Part 13 (2/2)
Come, you may as well own up. What was it?”
Stella blinked her eyes, and looked round her like a dazzled stranger.
Usually she was very fond of her room,--it was a small back room, over a yard full of London cats,--but it struck her now that there were too many things with which she was familiar. It was the same with Cicely.
She dearly loved and valued Cicely, but she knew the sight and sound of her extraordinarily well.
”Nothing,” said Stella, deprecatingly. ”It's no use applying gimlets and tweezers to my moral sense, Cicely. Not even the Inquisition could deal with a hole. Heretics were solid. I have a perfect right to be ill from a cold wind. The world seemed made of it that night, and I swallowed half the world. It must be rather a strain for a thin person to swallow half the world on an empty stomach. I'm quite all right now, thanks to you. I was thinking I ought to get back to the town hall next week.
Only, queerly enough, I had another offer of work. Still, it's so sketchy, that I couldn't honestly fling up my own job for it, though it sounds rather attractive.”
”Let's see it,” said Cicely, succinctly. ”You do conceal things, Stella.”
Stella withdrew an envelop from under her pillow. She looked a little anxious after its surrender. Cicely always made her a little anxious over a tentative idea. She had a way of materializing a stray thought, and flinging it back upon Stella as an incontrovertible fact. Stella was very anxious not to think that what was in the letter she gave to Cicely was really a fact. It was like some strange dream that hasn't any right to come true. Cicely read:
Dear Miss Waring: You will think this a most extraordinary request for me to make, and in many ways it is too unformulated to be a request. You will have heard from Marian that six months ago her engagement with my son came to an end. This was the natural and right thing to happen, but it has left him in his invalid condition very much without resources.
You were, I remember your telling me, a secretary to Professor Paulson. I am inclined to think that my son might have his mind directed to some scientific work if he could meet any one who would interest him anew in the subject. Probably you are immersed in other work, but if by any possible chance you should be at liberty and cared to make the experiment, could you come here for a few weeks? You would be conferring a great favor upon us, and if the secretarys.h.i.+p developed out of your little visit, we would arrange any terms that suited you. I may add that I find my son has no remembrance of your a.s.sociation with Marian; indeed, he has forgotten the occasion of your meeting.
He has been so very ill that you will understand and excuse this, I feel sure; and in the circ.u.mstances I think we had better not refer to it. I am very anxious to divert his mind from the past, and I have a feeling that if I could count upon your cooperation, we might succeed.
Yours sincerely,
HELEN VERNY.
”I don't see anything sketchy about it,” said Cicely, slowly; ”in the circ.u.mstances, I mean. You needn't definitely chuck the town hall.
You'll get a couple of weeks' holiday. They'll give you a fortnight's extension easily, and if the job comes your way, it would be a suitable one. Anyway, you must of course accept it provisionally--”
”I don't see why I must of course accept it,” said Stella. ”You never see any alternatives, Cicely. Your mind is like one of those sign-posts that have only one name on it, with fields all round and heaps of other places to go to. It must be awfully confusing to be as simple as you are. Why couldn't I go back to the town hall next week?”
”Well, I'll tell you one reason why,” said Cicely, grimly. ”Simple or not, your heart's as weak as a toy watch; you very nearly died a week ago, and in my opinion if you went back to the town hall, you'd be signing your own death-certificate.”
”I couldn't do that,” said Stella, gravely; ”it's not legal. I'm not the next of kin to myself. I know much more about death-certificates than you do. If I go to Lady Verny at Amberley, what's to become of Eurydice?”
”Eurydice will stay where she is,” said Cicely. ”If you ever saw to the end of your nose, you'd know that she is as glued to the town hall as she used to be to 'Shocks,' only this time, let us hope, more successfully. Some women have to be married. They contract a fatal desire for it, like the influenza habit every winter. Eurydice is one of them. It takes different forms, of course. This time it's Mr. Travers; the Mr. Bolt attachment was far more dangerous. I have made up my mind that she will marry Mr. Travers, if it's humanly speaking possible.”
”Oh,” said Stella, ”will she? How clever you are, Cicely! You know nearly everything. Why do you say 'humanly speaking possible?'”
”Because you've always made him out as cold as a fish and as hard as iron,” said Cicely. ”He may be one of the few men who won't yield to vanity or fancy.”
”I see,” said Stella. ”It's not very nice of you to want Eurydice to marry an iron fish. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not quite so certain about Mr. Travers. The iron and the fish are only on the top. I think, humanly speaking, he's quite possible. I'm going to sleep now. When you've made up your mind about Amberley you can wake me up.”
CHAPTER XVI
There are two winds in March; one comes in like a tight-lipped school-master set on punishment. It is frequently accompanied by dust, suns.h.i.+ne, and influenza. It has all the cold of winter, and acts as if life could be produced solely by formidable harshness.
But there is another wind, a mild, sensitive wind which carries the secrets of the spring--a wind that wanders and sings on sunless days, penetrating the hard crust of the earth as softly and as inveterately as love, a wind that opens while its forceful brother shuts.
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