"You must do exactly as I tell you."
"But that is not fair," cried she.
"Why not?" inquired he. "Without me you have no hope—none whatever."
"I don't believe that," declared she. "It is not true."
"Very well. Then we'll drop the business," said he tranquilly. "If the time comes when you see that I'm your only hope, and if then I'm in my present humor, we will go on."
And he lapsed into silence from which she soon gave over trying to rouse him. She thought of what he had said, studied him, but could make nothing of it. She let four days go by, days of increasing unrest and unhappiness. She could not account for herself. Donald Keith seemed to have cast a spell over her—an evil spell. Her throat gave her more and more trouble. She tried her voice, found that it had vanished. She examined herself in the glass, and saw or fancied that her looks were going—not so that others would note it, but in the subtle ways that give the first alarm to a woman who has beauty worth taking care of and thinks about it intelligently. She thought Mrs. Brindley was beginning to doubt her, suspected a covert uneasiness in Stanley. Her foundations, such as they were, seemed tottering and ready to disintegrate. She saw her own past with clear vision for the first time—saw how futile she had been, and why Keith believed there was no hope for her. She made desperate efforts to stop thinking about past and future, to absorb herself in present comfort and luxury and opportunities for enjoyment. But Keith was always there—and to see him was to lose all capacity for enjoyment. She was curt, almost rude to him—had some vague idea of forcing him to stay away. Yet every time she lost sight of him, she was in terror until she saw him again.
She was alone on the small veranda facing the high-road. She happened to glance toward the station; her gaze became fixed, her body rigid, for, coming leisurely and pompously toward the house, was General Siddall, in the full panoply of his wonderful tailoring and haberdashery. She thought of flight, but instantly knew that flight was useless; the little general was not there by accident. She waited, her rigidity giving her a deceptive seeming of calm and even ease. He entered the little yard, taking off his glossy hat and exposing the rampant toupee. He smiled at her so slightly that the angle of the needle-pointed mustaches and imperial was not changed. The cold, expressionless, fishy eyes simply looked at her.
"A delightful little house," said he, with a patronizing glance around. "May I sit down?"
She inclined her head.
"And you are looking well, charming," he went on, and he seated himself and carefully planted his neat boots side by side. "For the summer there's nothing equal to the seashore. You are surprised to see me?"