“You didn’t know her. You’d never understand——”
“Ah,” she said, pressing forward to him, “why do you take that tone? What is it I don’t understand? If you’d help me with what you know, it could be big stuff. I’d forgive you for the letter if you’d work with me.” She hung on his answer.
But he only said, not looking at her, in the same tone—
“You’d never understand.” And then, with an effort—“I’ll go, Anita. I’m going. I’d better go.”
Without waiting for her answer he went across the room to the little sofa near me where the hats and coats lay piled. I heard him fumbling for his things.
But Anita went back to the others. The watching group seemed to open to receive, to enclose her. Her head had touched the lamp as she passed under it, and set it swaying wildly, so that I could scarcely see their faces in that shift of light and shadow through the thickened air. But I heard her angry laugh, and her voice overtopping the murmur—“Mad! He was always mad! If he weren’t such an old friend——” And then the Baxter girl’s voice—“Think of the sketches there must be!” And Miss Howe—“What I say is—you don’t want to quarrel!” And hers again—“Did you hear him? I not understand Madala! Mad, I tell you! If I don’t know Madala——”
It was at that moment that I looked up and saw a woman standing in the doorway.
“Anita!” I murmured warningly. But my voice did not reach her, and indeed, she and the little gesticulating group in the further room seemed suddenly far away. The air had been thickening for the last hour, and now, with the opening of the door, the fog itself came billowing in on either side of the newcomer as water streams past a ship. It flooded the room, soundlessly, almost, I remember thinking, purposefully, as if it would have islanded us, Kent and me. It affected me curiously. I felt muffled. I knew I ought to get up and call again to Anita or attend to the visitor myself, but the quiet seemed to dull my wits. I found myself placidly wondering who she was and why she did not come in; but I made no movement to welcome her. I just sat still and stared.
She was a tall girl—woman—for either word fitted her: she had brown hair. She was dressed in—I should have said, if you had asked me, that I could remember every detail, and I can in my own mind; but when I try to write it down, it blurs. But I know that there was blue in her dress, and bright colours. It must have been some flowered stuff. She looked—it’s a silly phrase—but she looked like a spring day. I wanted her to come into the room and drive away the fog that was making me blink and feel dizzy. There was a gold ring on her finger: yes, and her hands were beautiful—strong, white hands. In one she held the brass candle-stick that stood in the hall, and with the other she sheltered the weak flame from the draught. Yet not only with her hand. Her arm was crooked maternally, her shoulder thrust forward, her hip raised, in a gesture magnificently protecting, as though the new-lit tallow-end were fire from heaven. Her whole body seemed sacredly involved in an act of guardianship. But half the glory of her pose—and it was lovely enough to make me catch my breath—was its unconsciousness; for her attention was all ours. Her eyes, as she listened to the group by the hearth, were sparkling with amusement and that tolerant, deep affection that one keeps for certain dearest, foolish friends. It was evident that she knew them well.
“Can’t you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——”