And presently Mrs. Cartwright was writing to her sisters: "A marriage has been arranged between the French Sergeant and the Hotel Spinster I described to you in my last. I think an excellent plan. She wants marriage, he wants money. Translated into English, it is brutal and horrible. But these clear-eyed French make something so different out of all that.
"She is madly in love with him, for the same reason that Eve fell in love with Adam in that Garden; he's the first man she's ever seen. The gap between their worlds is no wider than the gap between her and the world generally. Up to now (35, my dear!) she's belonged to the Great Unkissed.
"He is proud of his achievement, and, consequently, proud of her. I expect he will make her an admirable husband. They'll live in this country, his people will be her people. He will be affectionate, and genuinely fond of her, as only a Frenchman can be fond of the wife who has brought him money, and at whom he would not have looked, but for her income!"
Olwen, behind that startled gaze of hers, was realizing that she, and she alone, was responsible for this projected marriage and for the way in which it would turn out, whether for good or ill.
She had been the first person in the hotel to whom Miss Walsh had confided the great news. With the tremulous face of a girl, with a girl's faltering delight, the Spinster had called into her room an hour before.
"Oh, Olwen, come here a minute. (I'm going to call you Olwen.) Oh, I must tell you first. You were the first person who spoke to me here," she cried. "Oh, can you believe that it was only last Thursday? You said that it would bring me luck—that Charm you gave me. Oh, my little Olwen, it's brought me all the luck and happiness in the world! That's nonsense—I suppose! Still, I am the happiest person in the world. Kiss me. Pierre is so wonderful! You see what's happened? Oh, yes, you must guess——"
Olwen, hardly believing her ears, still guessed. She left Miss Walsh, her small ears buzzing with the woman's pathetic gush of confidences, her mind a welter of emotions. Perhaps the chief feeling was fright....
It was so powerful, then, that Charm? She had not expected this. Not only the swiftness of the wooing, but a definite engagement!...
And a marriage to be expected shortly.... And to—well, not the sort of person whom Olwen, the disposer of the Charm, had meant to see attracted to the wearer of her amulet. At least, she had not expected to see him accepted——! She had hoped—for what? Well, not the first man who asked Miss Walsh; not the man who—who looked rather like their village policeman at home! and not for it to happen in three days! It was rather frightening. Could one count so little upon the way in which that Charm was going to act? Perhaps after all it was not going to prove the unmitigated blessing of the human race which Olwen had at first seen it.... Oh.... Misgivings thronged upon her. For a moment she felt inclined to wish that she could take the Charm by force, if necessary, from Miss Walsh—undo what she had done. That she could steal the Charm away from Mr. Brown's tunic-pocket. That she could snip the ribbon that tied the Charm round Mrs. Cartwright's long slender neck....
As for the Charm that rose and fell with the gentle curve of Olwen's own breast, where it lay, well, that would be all right. For her, Charm or no Charm, there was no question of attracting the wrong man. For her there was only one man in the world; his right sleeve was tucked into his jacket-pocket, and as he smiled teasingly down at her his teeth were a flash of snow across the brown of his self-confident face. For her the Charm that attracted him could only be a beneficent thing.