That was what I told myself at first. But after we had met in the hall of the hotel, and Ivor had seemed confused, and wouldn’t give up his mysterious engagement, or say what it was, though Lisa chaffed him and he must have known what I thought, I suddenly forgot the slight he had put upon me. Instead of being angry with him, I was afraid for him, I couldn’t have explained why, unless it was the look on his face when he turned away from me.
No man would look like that who was going of his own free will to a woman with whom he was in love, that same queer something whispered in my ear. Instead of feeling sick and sorry for myself and desperately angry with him, it was Ivor I felt sorry for.
I pretended not to care whether he stayed or went, and talked to Lord Robert West as if I’d forgotten that there was such a person as Ivor Dundas. I even turned my back on him before he was gone. Still I seemed to see the tragic look in his eyes, and the dogged set of his jaw. It was just as if he were going away from me to his death; and his face was like that of the man in Millais’ picture of the Huguenot Lovers. I wondered if that girl had been broken-hearted because he wouldn’t let her tie round his arm the white scarf that might have saved him.
It is strange how one’s mood can change in a moment—but perhaps it is like that only with women. A minute before I’d been trying to despise Ivor, and to argue, just as if I’d been a match-making mamma, to myself that it would be a very good thing if I could make up my mind to marry Lord Bob; that it would be rather nice being a Duchess some day; and that besides, perhaps Ivor would be sorry when he heard that I was engaged to somebody else.
But then, as I said, quite suddenly it was as if a sharp knife had been stuck into my heart and turned round and round. I would have given anything to run after Ivor to tell him that I loved him dreadfully and would trust him in spite of all.
“You look as pale as if you were going to faint,” said Lisa, in her little high-keyed voice, which, though she doesn’t speak loudly, always reaches to the farthest corners of the biggest rooms.
I did think it was unkind of her to call everyone’s attention to me just then, for even strangers heard, and turned to throw a glance at me as they passed.
“It must be the light,” I said, “for I don’t feel in the least faint.” That was a fib, because when you are as miserable as I was at that minute your heart feels cold and heavy, as though it could hardly go on beating. But I felt that if ever a fib were excusable, that one was. “I’m a little tired, though,” I went on. “None of us got to bed till after three last night; and this day, though very nice of course, has been rather long. I think, if you don’t mind, Aunt Lil, I’ll go straight to my room when we get upstairs.”
We all went up together in the lift, but I said good-night to the others at the door of the pretty drawing-room at the end of Uncle Eric’s suite.
“Shan’t I come with you?” asked Lisa, but I said “no.” It was something new for her to offer to help me, for she isn’t very strong, and has always been the one to be petted and watched over by me, though she’s a few years older than I am.