Part 34 (2/2)

He was at the door, and had half-opened it when he turned back, moved by a pa.s.sionate impulse.

”Eve!” he cried, and his eyes seemed asking her for something.

”Yes?” she said, looking away.

There was a silence. Then he said ”Good-bye!” The door closed upon him.

Mrs Glinn stood for a moment where he had left her. In her mind she was counting the seconds that must elapse before he could reach the street.

If she could be untrue to herself till then, she could be untrue to herself for ever. Would he walk down the stairs slowly or fast? She wanted to be a false woman so much, so very much, that she clenched her hands together. The action seemed as if it might help her to keep on doing wrong. But suddenly she unclasped her hands, darted across the room to the door, and opened it. She listened, and heard Hugh's footsteps in the hall. He picked up his umbrella, and unfolded it to be ready for the rain. The _frou-frou_ of the silk seemed to stir her to action.

”Hugh!” she cried in a broken voice.

He turned in the hall, and looked up.

”Come back,” she said.

He came up the stairs three steps at a time.

”Hugh,” she said, leaning heavily on the bal.u.s.trade, and looking away, ”I have a secret to tell you. I have tried to be wicked to-day, but somehow I can't. Listen to the truth.”

”I need not,” he answered. ”I know it already.”

Then she looked at him, and drew in her breath: ”You know it?”

”Yes.”

”How you must love me!”

There was a ring at the hall door. The footman opened it, held a short parley with some one who was invisible, shut the door, and came upstairs with a card.

Mrs Glinn took it, and read, ”Lord Herbert Manning.”

He had decided to be unconventional too late.

A SILENT GUARDIAN

I

The door of the long, dreary room, with its mahogany chairs, its littered table, its motley crew of pale, silent people, opened noiselessly. A dreary, lean footman appeared in the aperture, bowing towards a corner where, in a recess near a forlorn, lofty window, sat a tall, athletic-looking man of about forty-five years of age, with a strong yet refined face, clean shaven, and short, crisp, dark hair. The tall man rose immediately, laying down an old number of _Punch_, and made his way out, watched rather wolfishly by the other occupants of the room. The door closed upon him, and there was a slight rustle and a hiss of whispering.

Two well-dressed women leaned to one another, the feathers in their hats almost mingling as they murmured: ”Not much the matter with him, I should fancy.”

”He looks as strong as a horse; but modern men are always imagining themselves ill. He has lived too much, probably.”

They laughed in a suppressed ripple.

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