She had seen through him and she continued to see through him.
She had little opportunity for more than this passive part on the next day, a day of goings and comings, when the Pottses went, and Rose, Mary, and Eddy, arrived.
He was guarding her mother's lover for her, guarding him from the allurement of her own young loveliness; that was the way Jack saw it. He was very skilful, very competent, she had to own that as she watched him; but he was not quite so omniscient as he imagined himself to be, for he did not know that she saw. That was Imogen's one clue in those two or three days of fear and confusion, days when, actually, Jack did succeed in keeping her and Sir Basil apart. And she must make no endeavor to thwart his watchfulness; she must yield with apparent unconsciousness to his combinations, combinations that always separated her and Sir Basil; she must see him drive off with Sir Basil to meet the new-comers; must see him lead Sir Basil away with himself and Eddy for a masculine smoke and talk; must see him, after dinner, fix them all, irrevocably, at bridge for the rest of the evening,—and not stir a finger;—for he did not know that she saw and he did not know that she, as well as Sir Basil, needed guarding. It was here that Imogen's intuition failed her, and that her blindness made Jack's task the easier.
Imogen, in these days, had little time for self-observation. She seemed living in some dark, fierce region of her nature, unknown to her till now, where she found only fear and fury and the deep determination not to be defeated and bereft. So supremely real were will and instinct, that, seen from their dominion, conscience, reason, all the spiritual tests she had lived by, looked like far, pale clouds floating over some somber, burning landscape, where, among flames and darkness, she was running for her life. Reason, conscience, were still with her, but turned to the task of self-preservation. "He is mine. I know it. I felt it. They shall not take him from me. It is my right, my duty, to keep him, for he is all that I have left in life." The last veil descended upon her soul when, her frosty young nature fired by the fierceness of her resolution, she felt herself to be passionately in love with Sir Basil.
On the third day, the third day of her vita nuova—so she named it—Jack had organized a picnic. They were to drive ten miles to a mountain lake among pine woods, and, thrilling all through with rage, Imogen saw Sir Basil safely maneuvered into the carriage with her mother, Rose, and Eddy, while she was assigned to Jack, Miss Bocock, and Mary.
She heard herself talk sweetly and fluently during the long, sunny, breezy drive, heard Jack answering and assenting with a fluency, a sweetness as apt. Mary was very silent, but Miss Bocock, no doubt, found nothing amiss in the tone of their interchange. Arrived at the beautiful spot fixed on, sunlight drifting over glades of fern, the shadowy woods encircling a lake of blue and silver, she could say, with just the right emphasis of helpless admiration: "Wonderful—wonderful;"—could quote a line of Wordsworth, while her eye passed over the figure of Sir Basil, talking to Rose at a little distance, and over Jack's figure, near at hand.
Jack and Eddy had driven, and the moment came when they were occupied with their horses. She joined the others, and, presently, she was able to draw Sir Basil a little aside, and then still a little further, until, among the rosy aisles, she had him to herself. Stooping to gather a tiny cone she said to him in a low voice:—"Well?—well?—What did she say?"
Sir Basil, too, lowered his voice:—"I've wanted a chance to tell you about it. My dear child, I'm so very sorry, but I've been a failure. She won't hear of it. You'll have to give it up."
"She utterly refused?" How far this matter of her father was from her thoughts—as far as the pale clouds above the fierce, dark landscape.
"Utterly."