"Oh, of course, yes! At least I shall be to-morrow morning. Let me go now." Really, at the moment, to be let go was her only desire.
"Be off with you, then," he said, smartly tapping—almost slapping—her cheek. "But you'll have to give me twice as long to-morrow."
He turned on his heel. With a smarting cheek she fled down the passage.
Though disappointed of his ten minutes, Wellgood was on the whole not ill-pleased. The calm composure, the suppression of emotion which he admired so much in theory—and as exhibited in Vivien's companion—he had begun to find a little overdone for his taste in his own lover. To-night there was a softness about her, a gentleness—signs of fear. The signs of fear were welcome to his nature. He felt that he had taken a step towards asserting his proper position, and she one towards acknowledging it. He was also more than ever sure that he need pay no heed to Belfield's silly hints. The old fellow seemed to assume that his precious son was irresistible! Wellgood chuckled over that. He chuckled again over the thought that, if Isobel were going to be like this, they might have a difficulty in keeping their secret till the proper time.
Isobel's confession to Harry was a confession to herself also. If it left her with one great excuse, it stripped her of all others. She could no longer say that she was making her woman's protest against being reckoned of no account, or that she was merely punishing Harry for daring to think that he could play with her and come off scathless himself. Even the great excuse found its force impaired, because she had brought her state upon herself. Led by those impulses of pride or of spite, she had set herself to tamper with Vivien's happiness; in the attempt she had fatally involved her own.
Some of her old courage—her old hardness—remained, not altogether swept away by the new current. "I shall get over it in time," she told herself impatiently. "These things don't last a lifetime." True, perhaps! But meanwhile—the time before the wedding? To-morrow, when she had promised to meet Harry? Every day after that—when he must come to woo Vivien? There had been protection for her in pretences. Pretences were over with Harry; they had to go on with Vivien and with Wellgood. On both sides of her position she felt herself now in a sore peril; it had become so much harder to blind the others, so infinitely harder to hold Harry back, if it were his mind to advance. Tasks like these perhaps needed the zest of pride and spite to make them possible—to make them tolerable anyhow. She loathed them now.
Next day she kept her room. Courage failed. Wellgood grumbled about women's vapours, but in his caution asked no questions and showed no concern. Harry, coming in the afternoon, in his caution risked no more than a polite inquiry and a polite expression of regret. Yet he had come hot of heart, resolved—resolved on what? To break his engagement? No, he was not resolved on that. To know in future only Vivien's companion, Miss Vintry? No. He had been resolved on nothing, save to see Isobel again, and to hear once more her love. To what lay beyond he was blind; his heart was obstinately set on the one desire, and had eyes for nothing else. But Isobel was not to be seen; he accused her of her old tactics—making advances, then drawing back. The whole thing had begun that way; she was at it again! Was he never to feel quite sure of her? She paid the price of past cunning, she who now lay in simple fear.
Vivien watched her lover's pale face and fretful gestures. Harry seemed always on a strain now, and the means he adopted to relieve it would not be permanently beneficial to his nerves; whisky-and-soda and cigarettes in quick succession were his prescription this afternoon. In vain she tried to soothe him, as she still sometimes could. He was now merry, now moody, often amusing, gay, gallant. He was everything except the contented man he had been in the early days.
"The dear old Rector's a little tiresome, Harry, isn't he? He won't fix the date of his return within a week. And I couldn't be married by anybody else, he'd be so hurt. Naturally he doesn't think a few days one way or the other matter. He doesn't think of my frocks!"
"Nor of my feelings either," said Harry, gallantly kissing her hand.