He said nothing; he gently pressed her hand in encouragement.
She looked up at him and whispered, "Must I come away—now, directly?"
"Soon at all events."
"I must go down to Hilsey to—to see Margaret, you know, and——"
"Well, go. Make an excuse to come up from there, and I'll meet you."
"As if I should dare to do it without you to help me! You must come to Hilsey too, Oliver, and we—we'll start from there."
It was a fluttering faltering consent, but a consent it was; though still deferred, it was definite. It agreed not only to give him what he wanted, but to give it in the way he liked—openly, before the world. The short delay—to be spent largely in her company—weighed lightly against all this. He caught her in his arms in gratitude and passion, pouring out endearing words, beyond himself in exultation because "it was settled."
Now at last she too was moved to the depths of her nature. She sat clinging to him, with his strong arms about her, very quiet, smiling, yet drawing her breath in long low pants, her dim eyes very tender and never leaving his. So she heard his half-whispered protestations and encouragement, smiling at them, just now and then murmuring a faint "Yes." Her fears were silenced, her scruples scattered to the winds while she sat thus.
It was strange when that same evening (on which, she thanked heaven, she had no engagement) she sat—quite otherwise—at the head of her table with her husband opposite, Judith Arden and Arthur Lisle on either side—a little family party, a little domestic structure, so to say, of which she was the keystone and which she was about to shatter. Yet it seemed so firm, so habitual, the manner of its life so inveterate. Even Arthur, the latest comer, was like a native part of it now. Its permanence had looked so assured a few short weeks ago, when Oliver's infatuation was a thing to smile over in amused secrecy. But it was not permanent. She was going, by an arbitrary exercise of power, to end it. Nay, she was going to end herself, the self she had been all these last years—Godfrey's wife, Margaret's mother, Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey and of Hill Street, W. This woman, with all her various functions and relations, was going to disappear, like a bit of fluff blown into the air. Enter—through a somewhat stormy passage—a new woman, utterly different and conditioned absolutely otherwise, a person of whom Mrs. Lisle really knew very little, though she reached out to the comprehension of her and to the vision of her life with an ache of curiosity.
The other three—that all unconscious trio—were in good spirits. Even Godfrey was cheerful at the prospect of escaping from London and talked quite gaily. Judith was looking forward to seeing Margaret and to the country pursuits she loved; her talk was of riding, fishing, and tennis. Arthur was gleeful; the short separation seemed but to flavour the prospect of long and blissful days at Hilsey. Bernadette herself was the most silent of the party, a thing quite contrary to her wont. She sat there with a queer attractive sense of power—in kind perhaps like what they say has sometimes tempted men to secret murder—as though she dispensed fate to her companions and disposed of their lives, though they knew nothing of it. About them, even as about the new woman who was to come into being, her dominant feeling was not compunction but curiosity. How would they take it? Imagine them at dinner at Hilsey—say this day three weeks or this day month! Three, not four, at table, and Mrs. Lisle of Hilsey not merely not there, but for all purposes important for them non-existent! An exultation mingled now with her eager curiosity. She marvelled that she had courage to wave the mystic wand which was to destroy the structure. She looked on the three with an ironical pity.