Volume Ii Part 33 (2/2)
A flash of pain struck through her brightness.
”No, no!” she said, protesting. ”But I know--you don't!”
He rose deliberately, and bowed with the air of obeying her commands.
Then suddenly he bent down to her.
”I knew perfectly well that she was in the Long Gallery! But I also knew that Mrs. Bayle had chosen to join her there. The coast, you may perceive, is now clear.”
He walked away. Marcella looked round, and saw an elegant little bride, Mr. Bayle's new wife, rustling into the room again. She leant back in her chair, half laughing, yet her eyes were wet. The new joy brought a certain ease to old regrets. Only that word ”rule” rankled a little.
Yet the old regrets were all sharp and active again. It seemed to be impossible now to talk with George Tressady, to make any real breach in the barrier between them; but how impossible also not to think of him!--of the young fellow, who had given Maxwell his reward, and said to herself such sad, such agitating things! She did think of him. Her heart ached to serve him. The situation made a new and a very troubling appeal to her womanhood.
The night was warm, and still, and the windows were open to it as they had been on that May night at Castle Luton. Maxwell came to look for Tressady, and took him out upon a flagged terrace that ran the length of the house.
They talked first of the Ancoats incident, George supplementing his letters by some little verbal pictures of Ancoats's life and surroundings that made Maxwell laugh grimly from time to time. As to Mrs. Allison, Maxwell reported that Ancoats seemed to have gained his point. There was talk of the marriage coming off some time in the winter.
”Well, Fontenoy has earned his prize,” said George.
”There are more than twelve years between them. But she seems to be one of the women who don't age. I have seen her go through griefs that would kill most women; and it has been like the pa.s.sage of a storm over a flower.”
”Religion, I suppose, carried to that point, protects one a good deal,”
said George, not, in truth, feeling much interest in the matter or in Mrs. Allison now that his task was done.
”And especially religion of the type that allows you to give your soul into someone else's keeping. There is no such anodyne,” said Maxwell, musing. ”I have often noticed how Catholic women keep their youth and softness. But now, do allow me a few words about yourself. Is what I hear about your withdrawal from Parliament irrevocable?”
George's reply led to a discussion in which Maxwell, without any attempt at party proselytism, endeavoured to combat all that he could understand of the young man's twofold disgust, disgust with his own random convictions no less than with the working of the party machine.
”Where do I belong?” he said. ”I don't know myself. I ought never to have gone in. Anyway, I had better stand aside for a time.”
”But evidently the Malford people want to keep you.”
”Well, and of course I shall consult their convenience as much as I can,”
said George, unwillingly, but would say no more.
Nothing, indeed, could be more flattering, more healing, than all that was implied in Maxwell's earnestness, in the peculiar sympathy and kindness with which the elder man strove to win the younger's confidence; but George could not respond. His whole inner being was too sore; and his mind ran incomparably more upon the d.a.m.nable letter that must be lying somewhere in the archives of the memory of the man talking to him, than upon his own political prospects. The conversation ended for Maxwell in mere awkwardness and disappointment,--deep disappointment if the truth were known. Once roused his idealism was little less stubborn, less wilful than Marcella's.
When the ladies withdrew, a brilliant group of them stood for a moment on the first landing of the great oak staircase, lighting candles and chattering. Madeleine Penley took her candle absently from Marcella's hand, saying nothing. The girl's curious face under its crown of gold-red hair was transformed somehow to an extraordinary beauty. The frightened parting of the lips and lifting of the brows had become rather a look of exquisite surprise, as of one who knows at last ”the very heart of love.”
”I am coming to you, presently,” murmured Marcella, laying her cheek against the girl's.
”Oh, _do_ come!” said Madeleine, with a great breath, and she walked away, unsteadily, by herself, into the darkness of the tapestried pa.s.sage, her white dress floating behind her.
Marcella looked after her, then turned with s.h.i.+ning eyes to Letty Tressady. Her expression changed.
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