‘Talk of angels,’ she observed, raising her finger to her lips, ‘and straightway we hear the flutter of their wings! It would be wise to choose a rather less invidious theme than the demerits of cross-stitch.’
And then, almost before she finished speaking, Gaston Arbuthnot, with the quiet air of a man certain of the reception that awaits him, entered upon the scene.
Next Wednesday’s yachting expedition continued to be the subject of talk among Linda’s visitors. But it was talk with a difference; the character of Ophelia cut, by desire, from the play. Hard to bewail the lot of gifted creatures, or discuss the necessity, in these democratic days, of bowing down to Beauty, with Dinah’s husband taking part in one’s conversation! When the party had dispersed, however,—Lord Rex, in spite of his disenchantment, escorting Rosie Verschoyle home,—when Linda Thorne was left alone with Gaston Arbuthnot, she spoke her mind. And her tone was one which all her social knowledge, all her powers of self-command and self-effacement, failed to render sweet.
Now it was a peculiarity belonging to Gaston Arbuthnot’s character that he was apt to mystify every human creature, his cousin Geoffrey excepted, with whom his relations were near. The more intimate you became with this man the less firm seemed the moral grip by which you held him. Dinah’s over-diffident heart perpetually doubted the stability of his love. She was unhappy with him, dreading lest, in her society, he were not enough amused. She was unhappy away from him, dreading lest in her absence he were amused too well! Linda Thorne was equally at fault as to the texture of his friendship. Long years ago, Gaston Arbuthnot’s boyish good looks—perhaps it must be owned, Gaston Arbuthnot’s devoted attentions—won all of tender sentiment that Linda, then a neglected, overworked governess, had to give. She had been to India in the interval. She had learnt the market worth of sentiment. There was Dr. Thorne ... Rahnee! There were her duties, real and histrionic, to fill her life. And the days of her youth had reached the flickering hour before twilight.
But Linda had not forgiven Gaston Arbuthnot. She had not forgotten how near she once came to loving him. And she was sorely, unreasonably wounded, through vanity rather than through feeling, by Dinah’s fresh and girlish charm.
An anomalous position; perhaps, a commoner one than some young wives, morbidly sensitive as to alien influence over their husbands, may suspect.
‘So there has been a small imbroglio about Wednesday’s arrangements! I cannot tell you how glad I am to be relieved from a weight of sea-going responsibility. Mrs. Arbuthnot, I am sure, will enact hostess for our young subalterns so much more gracefully than I could. She is a good sailor, doubtless?’
Gaston had taken up a morsel of drawing-paper and some red chalk—every kind of artistic appliance had found its way, of late, into Mrs. Thorne’s drawing-room—some ideal woman’s face with beauty, with anger on it, was growing into life under his hand. He finished, in a few delicate, subtle touches, the shadow between a low Greek brow and eyelid ere he spoke.
‘Dinah is a famous sailor. We look back to a little Scottish yachting tour we made, soon after our marriage, as about the best time of our lives.’