Yes, malicious, malicious to the point of vulgarity; that was Althea's thought as, like an arrow released from long tension, she sped away, the turn of the square once made and Mrs. Mallison and her dogs once more received into the small house in an adjacent street. Tears were in Althea's eyes, hot tears, of fury, of humiliation, and—oh, it flooded over her—of bitterest sorrow and yearning. Gerald, radiant Gerald—lost to her for ever; not even lost; never possessed. And into the sorrow and humiliation, poisonous suspicions crept. When did it happen? Where was she? What had been done to her? She must see; she must know. She hailed a hansom and was driven to old Miss Buchanan's house in Belgravia.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Helen was sitting at her writing-table before the window, and the morning light fell on her gracefully disordered hair and gracefully shabby shoulders. The aspect of her back struck on Althea's bitter, breathless mood. There was no effort made for anything with Helen. She was the sort of person who would get things without seeking for them and be things without caring to be them. She had taken what she wanted, when she wanted it; first Franklin, and then—and perhaps it had been before Franklin had failed her, perhaps it had been before she, Althea, had failed Gerald—she had taken Gerald. Althea's mind, reeling, yet strangely lucid after the shock of the last great injury, was also aware, in the moment of her entrance, of many other injuries, old ones, small ones, yet, in their summing up—and everything seemed to be summed up now in the cruel revelation—as intolerable as the new and great one. More strongly than ever before she was aware that Helen was hard, that there was nothing in her soft or tentative or afraid; and the realisation, though it was not new, came with an added bitterness this morning. It did not weaken her, however; on the contrary, it nerved her to self-protection. If Helen was hard, she would not, to-day, show herself soft. It was she who must assume the air of success, and of rueful yet helpless possessorship. These impressions and resolutions occupied but an instant. Helen rose and came to her, and what Althea saw in her face armed her resolutions with hostility. Helen's face confirmed what Mrs. Mallison had said. It was not resentful, not ironically calm. A solicitous interest, even a sort of benignity, was in her bright gaze. Helen was hard; she did not really care at all; but she was kind, kinder than ever before; and Althea found this kindness intolerable.
'Dear Helen,' she said, 'I'm so glad to see you. I had to come at once when I heard that you were back. You don't mind seeing me?'
'Not a bit,' said Helen, who had taken her hand. 'Why should I?'
'I was afraid that perhaps you might not want to—for a long time.'
'We aren't so foolish as that,' said Helen smiling.
'No, that is what I hoped you would feel too. We have been in the hands of fate, haven't we, Helen? I've seemed weak and disloyal, I know—to you and to Gerald; but I think it was only seeming. When I found out my mistake I couldn't go on. And then the rest all followed—inevitably.'
Helen had continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and she continued to gaze at her for another moment before, pressing it, she let it fall and said: 'Of course you couldn't go on.'