What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright."—Shelley.
At Chetwoode they are all assembled in the drawing-room,—except Archibald, who is still confined to his room,—waiting for dinner: Cyril alone is absent.
"What can be keeping him?" says his mother, at last, losing patience as she pictures him dallying with his betrothed at The Cottage while the soup is spoiling and the cook is gradually verging toward hysterics. She suffers an aggrieved expression to grow within her eyes as she speaks from the depths of the softest arm-chair the room contains, in which it is her custom to ensconce herself.
"Nothing very dreadful, I dare say," replies Florence, in tones a degree less even than usual, her appetite having got the better of her self-control.
Almost as she says the words the door is thrown open, and Cyril enters. He is in morning costume, his hair is a little rough, his face pale, his lips bloodless. Walking straight up to his mother, without looking either to the right or to the left, he says, in a low constrained voice that betrays a desperate effort to be calm:
"Be satisfied, mother: you have won the day. Your wish is fulfilled: I shall never marry Mrs. Arlington: you need not have made such a difficulty about giving your consent this morning, as now it is useless."
"Cyril, what has happened?" says Lady Chetwoode, rising to her feet alarmed, a distinct pallor overspreading her features. She puts out one jeweled hand as though to draw him nearer to her, but for the first time in all his life he shrinks from her gentle touch, and moving backward, stands in the middle of the room. Lilian, going up to him, compels him with loving violence to turn toward her.
"Why don't you speak?" she asks, sharply. "Have you and Cecilia quarreled?"