"Good heavens, is that what she did? I didn't know——"
"Of course not. But you needn't mind so dreadfully. She's much more comfortable in the nursing home with the best attention than in her own. And, as a reward, we'll dedicate the book to her."
Aline said this as a queen might have suggested lending her crown to a loyal servitor. Basil laughed, rather uncomfortably, and his sister looked up hastily into his face, to see if he were making fun of her. Just then they were drawing near the open windows of the drawing-room, and the lamplight shone out so brightly through the old-fashioned embroidered lace curtains that she could see his profile. Hers too was clearly outlined as she lifted her chin anxiously.
The brother and sister were both good to look at, in ways so different that the two made a striking contrast. Aline knew that in appearance they were a romantic pair of travelling companions. Every one stared at them when they were together, for he was very tall and dark, more like an Italian or a Spaniard than an Englishman, and she was gracefully slender and fair, dressing with a subtle appreciation of herself and all her points. Aline West's and Basil Norman's photographs, taken together or apart, for newspapers and magazines, were extremely effective, and were considered by publishers to help the sale of their books. Norman might have sat for Titian's Portrait of a Gentleman: and there were those who thought Mrs. West not unlike Lady Hamilton. Since the first expression of this opinion in print, she had changed the fashion of her hair, and at fancy-dress balls, of which she was fond, she generally appeared as the beautiful Emma. Certainly the cast of her features and the cutting of her lips faintly recalled those of Romney's ideal; but Mrs. West's pretty pale face had only two expressions: the one when she smiled—always the same delicate curving of the lips which lit no beam in the deep-set forget-me-not eyes; the one when she was grave and wistfully intellectual. She had a beautiful round white throat which she never hid with a high collar. Her hair was of that sun-in-a-mist gold that eventually fades almost imperceptibly into gray—if left to itself. But in Aline's case it was improbable that it would be left to itself. Every morning when dressing she examined it anxiously, even fearfully, to see whether it was becoming thinner or losing its misty glints of gold. Yet she knew that her fears were likely to advance the day she dreaded, and tried to shut them out of her mind.
"Why do you laugh?" she inquired almost irritably, for she was secretly afraid always of missing something that was seen by others to be amusing. She talked constantly of a sense of humour, pitying those not blessed with it, but there were moments when she wondered bleakly if she had it herself. "Have I said anything funny?"
"Only you seem so sure that the dedication will be a panacea for every wound."
"So it will be for Mrs. Keeling."
"I thought you had the idea of dedicating it to Somerled, as he'll be taking us through Scotland in his car."
"I had. But I feel now it would be a mistake. He couldn't refuse, and one wouldn't be sure he was pleased. He's so horribly important, you know. I don't mean in his own eyes, but in the eyes of the world; so nothing we could do for him would really confer an honour. And the reason he's cynical and bored is because people have fussed over him so sickeningly, more and more every year, since he began to rise to what he is."
"Yet I don't think he's conceited."