Oliver Wyse, his bill paid, followed her with a leisurely step. He greeted Arthur cordially and included the rest of the table in a bow. "I gather you intend to stay a bit," he said to Bernadette, smiling. "I've got an appointment, so if you'll excuse me——?"
"Oh yes, Arthur will look after me." She gave him her hand. "Thanks for your lunch, Sir Oliver."
"It was so good of you to come," he answered, with exactly the right amount of courteous gratitude.
As he went off, she watched him for just a moment, then turned joyously back to her new companions. A casual observer might well have concluded that she was glad to be rid of Oliver Wyse.
Joe was—to use his own subsequent expression—"corpsed"; he had not a joke to make! Perhaps that was as well. But he devoured her with his eyes, manifesting an open admiration whose simple sincerity robbed it of offence. Bernadette saw it, and laughed at it without disguise. Amabel's eyes were even more for frock and hat than for the wearer; this it was to be not merely clothed but dressed. Marie had paid her homage to beauty; she was watching and wondering now. Arthur tasted a new delight in showing off his wonderful cousin to his old friends, a new pride in the gracious kindness of her bearing towards them. And Bernadette herself was as charming as she could be for Arthur's sake, and in gratitude for his appearance—for the casual observer would have been quite right as to her present feeling about Oliver Wyse.
Marie Sarradet revised her notions. She forgave her father his meddling; even against Mrs. Veltheim she pressed the indictment less harshly. Here surely was the paramount cause of her defeat! Mrs. Lisle and what Mrs. Lisle stood for against herself and what she represented—candid-minded Marie could not for a moment doubt the issue. Her little, firmly repressed grievance against Arthur faded away; she must have a grievance against fate, if against anything. For it was fate or chance which had brought Mrs. Lisle on to the scene just when the issue hung in the balance. Yet with her quick woman's intuition, quickened again by her jealous interest, she saw clearly in ten minutes, in a quarter of an hour—while Bernadette chattered about the farce (valuable anyhow as a topic in common!) and wistfully breathed the hope that she would be able to come up from the country for the first night—that the brilliant beautiful cousin had for Arthur Lisle no more than a simple honest affection, flavoured pleasantly by his adoration, piquantly by amusement at him. He was her friend and her plaything, her protégé and her pet. There was not even a fancy for him, sentimental or romantic; at the idea of a passion she would laugh. See how easy and unconstrained she was, how open in her little familiar gestures of affection! This woman had nothing here to conceal, nothing to struggle against. It was well, no doubt. But it made Marie Sarradet angry, both for herself and for Arthur's sake. To take so lightly what had so nearly been another's—to think so lightly of all that she had taken!
The intuition, quick as it was, had its limits; maybe it worked better on women than on men, or perhaps Marie's mind was somewhat matter-of-fact and apt to abide within obvious alternatives—such as "He's in love, or he's not—and there's an end of it!" Arthur loved his cousin's wife, without doubt. But, so far at least, it was an adoration, not a passion; an ardour, not a pursuit. He asked no more than he received—leave to see her, to be with her, to enjoy her presence, and in so doing to be welcome and pleasant to her. Above all—as a dim and distant aspiration, to which circumstances hitherto had shown no favour—to serve her, help her, be her champion. This exalted sentiment, these rarefied emotions, escaped the analysis of Marie's intuition. What she saw was an Arthur who squandered all the jewels of his heart and got nothing for them; whereas in truth up to now he was content; he was paid his price and counted himself beyond measure a gainer by the bargain.
Who was the other man—the man of quiet demeanour and resolute face, who had so held her attention, who had so tactfully resigned the pleasure of her company? Marie's mind, quick again to the obvious, fastened on this question.
Bernadette, under friendly pressure, rose from a hope to an intention. "I will come to the first night," she declared. "I will if I possibly can."
"Now is that a promise, Mrs. Lisle?" asked Joe eagerly. After all, the farce was his discovery, in a special sense his property. He had the best right to a paternal pride in it.