Part 5 (1/2)

'I don't say that, necessarily. But I've seen a great deal of life. I've lived everywhere, and just the very households--_menages,_ as we say abroad--that seem most calm and peaceful, sometimes--It would be, anyhow, very dreadful, wouldn't it--to live a double life?'

Edith thought her friend rather enjoyed the idea, but she said:

'You don't imagine, I hope, that there's anything in the nature of an intrigue going on between me and Mr Mitch.e.l.l?'

'No, no, no--not now--not yet--but you don't quite know, Edith, how one can be carried away. As I was sitting up in my room--thinking--'

'You think too much,' interrupted Edith.

'Perhaps so--but it came to me like this. I mean to be the one to put things right again, if I can. My dear child, a woman of the world like myself sees things. You two ought to be ideally happy. You're meant for one another--I mean you and Bruce.'

'Do you think so?'

'Absolutely. But this--what shall I say?--this fascination is coming between you, and, though you don't realise it, it's saddening Bruce's life; it will sadden yours too. At first, no doubt, at the stage you're in, dear, it seems all romance and excitement. But later on--Now, Edith, promise me you won't be angry with me for what I've said? It's a terrible freedom that I've taken, I know. Really a liberty. But if I were your'--she glanced at the mirror--'elder sister, I couldn't be fonder of you. Don't think I'm a horrid, interfering old thing, will you?'

'Indeed I don't; you're a dear.'

'Well, we won't speak of it any more till after Tuesday,' said Madame Frabelle, 'and take my advice: throw yourself into other things.'

She glanced round the room.

'It's a splendid idea to divert your thoughts; why don't you refurnish your boudoir?'

Edith had often noticed the strange lack in Eglantine of any sense of decoration. She dressed charmingly, but with regard to surroundings she was entirely devoid of taste. She had the curious provincialism so often seen in cosmopolitans who have lived most of their lives in hotels, without apparently noticing or caring about their surroundings.

Edith made rather a hobby of decoration, and she had a cultured and quiet taste, and much knowledge on the subject. She guessed Madame Frabelle thought her rooms too plain, too colourless. Instead of the dull greys and blues, and surfaces without design, she felt sure her friend would have preferred gorgeous patterns, and even a good deal of gilt. Probably at heart Madame Frabelle's ideal was the crimson plush and stamped leather and fancy ceilings of the lounge in a foreign hotel.

'I rather like my room, you know,' said Edith.

'And so do I. It's very charming. But a change, dear--a change of _entourage_, as we say abroad, would do you good.'

'Well, we must really think that out,' said Edith.

'That's right. And you're not cross?'

'Cross? I don't know when I've enjoyed a conversation so much,' said Edith, speaking with perfect truth.

CHAPTER V

The Ottleys and Madame Frabelle were in the drawing-room awaiting their guests. (I say advisedly their guests, for no-one could help regarding Madame Frabelle as essentially the hostess, and queen of the evening.) One would fancy that instead of entertaining more or less for the last twelve years the young couple had never given a dinner before; so much suppressed excitement was in the air. Bruce was quiet and subdued now from combined nervousness and pride, but for the few days previous he had been terribly trying to his unfortunate wife; nothing, according to him, could be good enough for the purpose of impressing Madame Frabelle, and he appeared to have lost all his confidence in Edith's undeniable gift for receiving.

The flowers, the menu, the arrangement of the eight people--for the dinner was still small, intimate and distinguished, as he had first suggested--had been subjected to continual and maddening changes in its scheme. Everyone had been disengaged and everyone had accepted--then he wished he had asked other people instead.

When Edith was dressed Bruce put the last touch to his irritating caprices by asking Edith to take out of her hair a bandeau of blue that he had first asked her to put in. Every woman will know what agony that must have caused. The pretty fair hair was waved and arranged specially for this ornament, and when she took it out the whole scheme seemed to her wrong. However, she looked very pretty, dressed in vaporous tulle of a shade of blue which only a faultless complexion can bear.

Edith's complexion was her strong point. When she was a little flushed she looked all the better for it, and when she was pale it seemed to suit her none the worse. Hers was the sort of skin with a satiny texture that improves under bright suns.h.i.+ne or electric light; in fact the more brilliantly it was lighted the better it looked.