Part 36 (1/2)

The woman by the fire had risen, and stood in the firelight and the twilight, which seemed to join hands just where she was. She greeted the specialist in a girl's young voice, and he glanced at her with the furtive thought, ”Does she know yet?”

She looked twenty-two, not more.

Her eyes were dark grey, and her hair was bronze. Her figure was thin almost to emaciation; but health glowed in her smooth cheeks, and spoke in her swift movements and easy gestures. Her expression was responsive and devouringly eager. Life ran in her veins with turbulence, never with calm. Her mouth was pathetic and sensitive, but there was an odd suggestion of almost boyish humour in her smile.

Before she smiled, Fane thought, ”She knows.”

Afterwards, ”She cannot know.”

”Have you a few moments to spare?” Brune asked him. ”Will you have tea with us?”

Fane looked at Mrs Brune and a.s.sented. He felt a strange interest in this man and this woman. The tragedy of their situation appealed to him, although he lived in a measure by foretelling tragedies. Mrs Brune touched an electric bell let into the oak-panelled wall, and her husband drew a big chair forward to the hearth.

As he was about to sit down in it, Gerard Fane's eyes were again irresistibly drawn towards the statue; and a curious fancy, born, doubtless, of the twilight that invents spectres and of the firelight that evokes imaginations, came to him, and made him for a moment hold his breath.

It seemed to him that the white face menaced him, that the white body had a soul, and that the soul cried out against him.

His hand trembled on the back of the chair. Then he laughed to himself at the absurd fancy, and sat down.

”Your husband has been working?” he said to Mrs Brune.

”Yes, all the day. I could not tempt him out for even five minutes. But then, he has had a holiday, as he says, although it was only a fortnight. That was not very long for--for a honeymoon.”

As she said the last sentence she blushed a little, and shot a swift, half-tender, half-reproachful glance at her husband. But he did not meet it; he only looked into the fire, while his brows slightly contracted.

”I think Art owns more than half his soul,” the girl said, with the flash of a smile. ”He only gives to me the fortnights and to Art the years.”

There was a vague jealousy in her voice; but then the footman brought in tea, and she poured it out, talking gaily.

From her conversation, Fane gathered that she had no idea of her husband's condition. With a curious and fascinating naturalness she spoke of her marriage, of her intentions for the long future.

”If Reginald is really seedy, Dr Fane,” she said, ”get him well quickly, that he may complete his commissions. Because, you know, he has promised, when they are finished, to take me to Italy, and to Greece, to the country of Phidias, whose mantle has fallen upon my husband.”

”Do not force Dr Fane into untruth,” said Brune, with an attempt at a smile.

”And is that statue a commission?” Fane asked, indicating the marble figure, that seemed to watch them and to listen.

”No; that is an imaginative work on which I have long been engaged. I call it, 'A Silent Guardian.'”

”It is very beautiful,” the doctor said. ”What is your idea exactly?

What is the figure guarding?”

Brune and his wife glanced at one another--he gravely, she with a confident smile.

Then he said, ”I leave that to the imagination.”

Dr Fane looked again at the statue, and said slowly, ”You have wrought it so finely that in this light my nerves tell me it is alive.”

Mrs Brune looked triumphant.