"Not yet; not now," replies he, in the softest tone he has yet used, a gleam of anguish flashing across his face. "Yes, you were always true to her, my good little Lilian!" Then, sinking his voice, "I am leaving home, perhaps for years; do not forsake her. Try to console, to comfort——" He breaks down hopelessly; raising her hand to his lips, he kisses it fervently, and a second later has left the room.
For quite two minutes after the door had closed upon him, no one stirs, no one utters a word. Guy is still standing with downcast eyes upon the spot that witnessed his repulse. Lilian is crying. Lady Chetwoode is also dissolved in tears. It is this particular moment Florence chooses to make the first remark that has passed her lips since Cyril's abrupt entrance.
"Could anything be more fortunate?" she says, in a measured, congratulatory way. "Could anything have happened more opportunely? Here is this objectionable marriage irretrievably prevented without any trouble on our parts. I really think we owe a debt of gratitude to this very unpleasant husband."
"Florence," cries Lady Chetwoode, with vehement reproach, stung to the quick, "how can you see cause for rejoicing in the poor boy's misery! Do you not think of him?" After which she subsides again, with an audible sob, into her cambric. But Lilian is not so easily satisfied.
"How dare you speak so?" she says, turning upon Florence with wet eyes that flash fire through their tears. "You are a cold and heartless woman. How should you understand what he is feeling,—poor, poor Cyril!" This ebullition of wrath seems to do her good. Kneeling down by her auntie, she places her arms round her, and has another honest comfortable cry upon her bosom.
Florence draws herself up to her full height, which is not inconsiderable, and follows her movements with slow, supercilious wonder. She half closes her white lids, and lets her mouth take a slightly disdainful curve,—not too great a curve, but just enough to be becoming and show the proper disgust she feels at the terrible exhibition of ill-breeding that has just taken place.
But as neither Lilian nor Lady Chetwoode can see her, and as Guy has turned to the fire and is staring into its depths with an expression of stern disapproval upon his handsome face, she presently finds she is posing to no effect, and gives it up.
Letting a rather vindictive look cover her features, she sweeps out of the drawing-room up to her own chamber, and gets rid of her bad temper so satisfactorily that after ten minutes her maid gives warning, and is ready to curse the day she was born.
The next morning, long before any one is up, Cyril takes his departure by the early train, and for many days his home knows him no more.
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