The candle, throwing a small hemisphere of feeble radiance in the vastness of the dim hall, sat on its chair between them.
"I can help you," she said, suddenly, after grunts from James. "I'm calling on the Swetnams the day after to-morrow. I'll tell them about—about to-day, and when Mrs. Swetnam asks me for an explanation of it, I will be mysterious. If Lilian is there, Mrs. Swetnam will certainly get her out of the room. Then I will just give the faintest hint that the explanation is merely jealousy between Emanuel and Mr. Dean concerning—a certain young lady. I shall treat it all as a joke; you can rely on me. Immediately I am gone Lilian will hear about it. She will quarrel with Andrew the next time she sees him; and if he wishes to be free, he may be."
She smiled the arch, naughty, pleasantly-malign smile of a terribly experienced dowager. And she seemed positively anxious that James should have Andrew Dean for a son-in-law.
James, in his simplicity, was delighted. It appeared to him a Mephistophelian ingenuity. He thought how clever women were, on their own ground, and what an advantage they had in their immense lack of scruple.
"Of course," said she, "I have always said that a marriage between Andrew Dean and Lilian would be a mistake—a very serious mistake. They are quite unsuited to each other. She isn't in love with him—she's only been flattered by his attentions into drawing him on. I feel sorry for the little thing."
At a stroke, she had converted a shameful conspiracy into an act of the highest virtue. And her smile changed, too—became a good smile, a smile on which a man might depend. His heart went out to her, and he contemplated the smile in a pleased, beatific silence.
Just then the candle—a treacherous thing—flamed up and went out.
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Prockter.
And James had not a match. He never smoked. And without an atlas of the Hall, showing the location of match-boxes, he saw no hope of finding a match.
The fire was as good as gone. A few cinders burnt red under the ash, showing the form of the chimney-piece, but no more.