Yet no more you!....
E. B. Browning.
It was true enough, no doubt, that Phyllis did not care for Darrell in Lucy's sense of the word; but at the same time it was sufficiently clear that he had been the means of injecting a subtle poison into her veins.
Since the night of the conversazione at the Berkeley Galleries, when he had bidden her farewell, a change, in every respect for the worse, had crept over her.
The buoyancy, which had been one of her chief charms, had deserted her. She was languid, restless, bored, and more utterly idle than ever. The flippancy of her lighter moods shocked even her sisters, who had been accustomed to allow her great license in the matter of jokes; the moodiness of her moments of depression distressed them beyond measure.
At Eastbourne she had amused herself with getting up a tremendous flirtation with Fred, to the Devonshires' annoyance and the satisfaction of the victim himself, whose present mood it suited and who hoped that Lucy would hear of it.
After Phyllis's visit to Eastbourne, which had been closely followed by Fanny's wedding, the household at Upper Baker Street underwent a period of dulness, which was felt all the more keenly from the cheerful fulness of the previous summer. Every one was out of town. In early September even the country cousins have departed, and people have not yet begun to return to London, where it is perhaps the most desolate period of the whole year.
Work, of course, was slack, and they had no longer the preparations for Fanny's wedding to fall back upon.
The air was hot, sunless, misty; like a vapour bath, Phyllis said. Even Gertrude, inveterate cockney as she was, began to long for the country. Nothing but a strong sense of loyalty to her sister prevented Lucy from accepting a cordial invitation from the "old folks." Phyllis openly proclaimed that she was only awaiting der erste beste to make her escape for ever from Baker Street.
Phyllis, indeed, was in the worst case of them all; for while Lucy had the precious letters from Africa to console her, Gertrude had again taken up her pen, which seemed to move more freely in her hand than it had ever done before.