"Yes, it's rather unlikely, isn't it?" said Clare, with an intimate smile. "But you're not going?"
"I must. Look at the time! Elsbeth will be having fits!" Alwynne called from the hall where she was hastily slipping on her coat and hat.
Clare stood a moment—thinking.
So the duel had been with Elsbeth! So that negligible and mouse-like woman had been aware—all along ... had prepared, with a thoroughness worthy of Clare herself, for the inevitable encounter ... had worsted Clare completely.... It was amazing.... Clare was compelled to admiration. It was clear to her now that Elsbeth must have distrusted her from the beginning. It had been Elsbeth's doing, not hers, that their intercourse had been so slight.... Yet she had never restrained Alwynne; she had risked giving her her head.... She was subtle! This affair of the Christmas dinner for instance—Clare appreciated its cleverness. Elsbeth had not wanted her, Clare now saw clearly; had been anxious to avoid the intimacy that such an invitation would imply; equally anxious, surely, that Alwynne should not guess her uneasy jealousy: so she had risked the invitation, counting on her knowledge of Clare's character (Clare stamped with vexation—that the woman should have such a memory!) secure that Clare, unsuspicious of her motives, would, by refusing, do exactly as Elsbeth wished. It had been the neatest of gossamer traps—and Clare had walked straight into it.... She was furious. If Alwynne, maddeningly unsuspicious Alwynne, had but enlightened her earlier in the evening! Now she was caught, committed by her own decision of manner to the course of action she most would have wished to avoid.... She could not change her mind now without appearing foolishly vacillating.... It would not do.... She had been bluffed, successfully, gorgeously bluffed.... And Elsbeth was sitting at home enjoying the situation ... too sure of herself and Clare even to be curious as to the outcome of it all. She knew. Clare stamped again. Oh, but she would pay Elsbeth for this.... The casus belli was infinitely trivial, but the campaign should be Homeric.... And this preliminary engagement could not affect the final issues.... She always won in the end.... But, after all, Elsbeth could not be blamed, though she must be crushed; Alwynne was worth fighting for! Elsbeth was a fool.... If she had treated Clare decently, Clare might—possibly—have shared Alwynne with her.... She believed she would have had scruples.... Now they were dispelled.... Alwynne, by fair means or foul, should be detached ... should become Clare's property ... should be given up to no living woman or man.
She followed Alwynne into the hall and lit the staircase candle. She would see Alwynne out. She would have liked to keep Alwynne with her for a month. She was a delightful companion; it was extraordinary how indispensable she made herself. Clare knew that her flat would strike her as a dreary place to return to, when she had shut the door on Alwynne. She would sit and read and feel restless and lonely. Yet she did not allow herself to feel lonely as a rule; she scouted the weakness. But Alwynne wound herself about you, thought Clare, and you never knew, till she had gone, what a difference she made to you.
She wished she could keep Alwynne another couple of hours.... But it was eleven already ... her hold was not yet strong enough to warrant innovations to which Elsbeth could object.... Her time would come later.... How much later would depend on whether it were affection that swayed Alwynne, or only a sense of duty.... She believed, because she hoped, that it was duty—a sense of duty was more easily suborned than an affection.... For the present, however, Alwynne must be allowed to do as she thought right. Clare knew when she was beaten, and, with her capacity for wry admiration of virtues that she had not the faintest intention of incorporating in her own character, she was able to applaud Alwynne heartily. Yet she did not intend to make victory easy to her.
They went down the flights of stairs silently, side by side. Alwynne opened the entrance doors and stood a moment, fascinated.
"Look, Clare! What a night!"
The moon was full and flooded earth and sky with bright, cold light. The garden, roadway, roofs, trees and fences glittered like powdered diamonds, white with frost and moonshine. The silence was exquisite.
They stood awhile, enjoying it.