"Ah! you are too young to know the tragedy of giving up, of annihilating self; of being misrepresented, slandered, and beggared. Well, I will tell you all about it some day. I'm coming to see you to-morrow. I am told newcomers call first. And here are the men. Do look at my little travelling friend, Sir Cupid. Ah, there is Phil," and she beckoned him with her fan. "Dear old Phil, how good it is to see you—how you bring back old times. Your wife and I have been making such friends, and having a long chat. Now," as he looked interrogatively from one to the other, "I'm going to have a good long talk with you." As Lola spoke, she rose and laid a small hand upon his sleeve, and with a little gay nod to Angel, glided away with Philip into the great verandah.
Angel sat up and gazed after the couple—Philip slight, erect, and soldierly, his head a little bent, his hands behind his back. No, he had not offered Lola his arm.
And Lola moving beside him with her graceful, undulating walk, looking up, and talking quickly all the time. She felt, as she watched them slowly disappear into the sitting-out verandah, as if the sun had been extinguished by a huge black cloud.
Lola was an enchantress. She herself had felt her influence, and was powerless. As she sat in a sort of dream, she heard a man's voice say, "Is she not ripping? Old Graydon lost his heart to her coming out."
"Yes," said another, "and young Tudor lost two hundred pounds to her, which is ten times worse." But, of course, they were not alluding to anyone she knew.
The tête-à-tête in the verandah lasted till carriages began to come rumbling under the big porch, and when Philip and Lola reappeared, she looked conspicuously radiant.
CHAPTER XXIX
LAST YEAR'S NEST
Residency parties invariably broke up in good time, and it was not more than half-past ten when Colonel Gascoigne handed his wife into her brougham, and set off, according to his custom, to walk home. To-night he had unusual food for thought, as he proceeded at a leisurely pace, smoking a most excellent Residency cheroot. So Lola had risen on the horizon in the character of a fascinating widow, with all the liberty, prestige, and self-possession usual to her class. How wonderful her eyes were! He came to a momentary standstill as he recalled them, and how her voice trembled as she talked of "long ago," and separation, and the cruelty of circumstance, and misapprehension. She revived a phase of his existence that he had almost forgotten; it was a little difficult to realise that he had been madly in love with her once. That was nearly fifteen years ago—how time flew—in the good old days when she could play cricket and rounders, and did not know how to use her eyes. These reflections were abruptly brought to a conclusion by the appearance of a bare-headed lady in silvery opera cloak, who was evidently awaiting him under an acacia tree by the edge of the maidan.
It was Angel, who, acting on a sudden impulse, had stopped the brougham and descended, and sent it home empty. She felt that she must escape from her own company, her own terrible thoughts. She must talk to Philip about Lola without delay. No, she could not wait, even half-an-hour, for she was mentally staggering under the impact of a new sensation—the name of the sensation was jealousy. Her very soul was in a fever. Naturally highly-strung, fervent, and impetuous, Angel's whole being was centred in the longing to know what her husband thought of Lola—what of her—which of them did he love?