Mrs. Ames was a practical woman, and though her imagination had run unreasonably riot, so she told herself, over these late events, so that she already contemplated a contingency that she had no real reason to anticipate, she considered what should be her practical conduct if this remote state of affairs should cease to be remote. She had altogether passed from being in love with her husband, so much so, indeed, that she could not recall, with any sense of reality, what that unquiet sensation was like. But she had been in love with him years ago, and that still gave her a sense of possession over him. She had not been in the habit of guarding her possession, since there had never been any reason to suppose that anybody wanted to take it away, but she remembered with sufficient distinctness the sense that Lyndhurst’s garden was becoming to him the paramount interest in his life. At the time that sense had been composed of mixed feelings: neglect and relief were its constituents. He had ceased to expect from her that indefinable sensitiveness which is one of the prime conditions of love, and the growing atrophy of his demands certainly corresponded with her own inclinations. At the same time, though this cessation on his part of the imperative need of her, was a relief, she resented it. She would have wished him to continue being in love with her on credit, so to speak, without the settlement of the bill being applied for. Years had passed since then, but to-day that secondary discontent assumed a primary importance again. It was more acute now than it had ever been, for her possession was not being quietly absorbed into the culture of impersonal flowers, but, so it seemed possible, was directly threatened.
There was the situation which her imagination presented her with, practically put, and she proceeded to consider it from a practical standpoint. What was she to do?
She had the justice to acknowledge that the first clear signals of coolness in their mutual relations, now fifteen years ago, had been chiefly flown by her: she had essentially welcomed his transference of affection to his garden, though she had secretly resented it. At the least, the cooling had been condoned by her. Probably that had been a mistake on her part, and she determined now to rectify it. She, pathetically enough, felt herself young still, and to confirm herself in her view, she took the trouble to go indoors, and look at herself in the glass that hung in the hall. It was inevitable that she should see there not what she really saw, but what, in the main, she desired to see. Her hair, always slightly faded in tone, was not really grey, and even if there were signs of greyness in it there was nothing easier, if you could trust the daily advertisements in the papers, than to restore the colour, not by dyes, but by “purely natural means.” There had been an advertisement of one such desirable lotion, she remembered, in the paper to-day, which she had noticed was supplied by any chemist. Certainly there was a little grey in her hair: that would be easy to remedy. That act of mental frankness led on to another. There were certain premonitory symptoms of stringiness about her throat and of loose skin round her mouth and eyes. But who could keep abreast of the times at all, and not know that there were skin-foods which were magical in their effect? There was one which had impressed itself on her not long before: an actress had written in its praise, affirming that her wrinkles had vanished with three nights’ treatment. Then there was a little, just a little, sallowness of complexion, but after all, she had always been rather sallow. It was a fortunate circumstance: when she got hot she never got crimson in the face like poor Mrs. Taverner.... She was going to town next week for a night, in order to see her dentist, a yearly precaution, unproductive of pain, for her teeth were really excellent, regular in shape, white, undecayed. Lyndhurst, in his early days, had told her they were like pearls, and she had told him he talked nonsense. They were just as much like pearls still, only he did not tell her so. He, poor fellow, had had great trouble in this regard, but it might be supposed his trouble was over now, since artifice had done its utmost for him. She was much younger than him there, though his last set fitted beautifully. But probably Millie had seen they were not real. And then he was distinctly gouty, which she was not. Often had she heard his optimistic assertion that an hour’s employment with the garden-roller rendered all things of rheumatic tendency an impossibility. But she, though publicly she let these random statements pass, and even endorsed them, knew the array of bottles that beleaguered the washing-stand in his dressing-room, where the sweet-peas were not.
The silent colloquy with the mirror in the hall occupied her some ten minutes, but the ten minutes sufficed for the arrival of one conclusion—namely, that she did not intend to be an old woman yet. Subtle art, the art of the hair-restorer (which was not a dye), the art of the skin-feeder must be invoked. She no longer felt at all old, now that there was a possibility of her husband’s feeling young. And lip-salve: perhaps lip-salve, yet that seemed hardly necessary: a few little bitings and mumblings of her lips between her excellent teeth seemed to restore to them a very vivid colour.
She went back to the verandah, where her little luncheon-party had had their coffee, and pondered the practical manœuvres of her campaign of invasion into the territory of youth which had once been hers. The lotion for the hair, as she verified by a consultation with the Sunday paper, took but a fortnight’s application to complete its work. The wrinkle treatment was easily comprised in that, for it took, according to the eminent actress, no more than three days. It might therefore be wiser not to let the work of rejuvenation take place under Lyndhurst’s eye, for there might be critical passages in it. But she could go away for a fortnight (a fortnight was the utmost time necessary for the wonderful lotion to restore faded colour) and return again after correspondence that indicated that she felt much better and younger. Several times before she had gone to stay alone with a friend of hers on the coast of Norfolk: there would be nothing in the least remarkable in her doing it again.
An objection loomed in sight. If there was any reality in the supposition that prompted her desire to seem young again—namely, a possible attraction of her husband towards Millie Evans, she would but be giving facility and encouragement to that by her absence. But then, immediately the wisdom of the course, stronger than the objection to it, presented itself. Infinitely the wiser plan for her was to act as if unconscious of any such danger, to disarm him by her obvious rejection of any armour of her own. She must either watch him minutely or not at all. Mr. Pettit had alluded in his sermon that morning to the finer of the two attitudes when he reminded them that love thought no evil. It seemed to poor Mrs. Ames that if by her conduct she appeared to think no evil, it came to the same thing.
Her behaviour towards Lyndhurst, when he should come back from Millie’s house, followed as a corollary. She would be completely genial: she would hope he had had a pleasant lunch, and, if he made any apology for his absence, assure him that it was quite unnecessary. Her charity would carry her even further than that: she would say that his absence had been deplored by her guests, but that she had been so glad that he had done as he felt inclined. She would hope that Millie was not tired with her party, and that she and her husband would come to dine with them again soon. It must be while Harry was at home, for he was immensely attracted by Millie. So good for a boy to think about a nice woman like that.
Mrs. Ames carried out her programme with pathetic fidelity. Her husband did not get home till nearly tea-time, and she welcomed him with a cordiality that would have been unusual even if he had not gone out to lunch at all. And to do him justice, it must be confessed that his wife’s scheme, as already recounted, was framed to meet a situation which at present had no real existence, except in the mind of a wife wedded to a younger husband. There were data for the situation, so to speak, rather than there was danger of it. He, on his side, was well aware of the irregularity of his conduct, and was prepared to accept, without retaliation, a modicum of blame for it. But no blame at all awaited him; instead of that a cordiality so genuine that, in spite of the fact that a particularly good dinner was provided him, the possible parallel of the prodigal son did not so much as suggest itself to his mind.
Harry had retired to his bedroom soon after dinner with a certain wildness of eye which portended poetry rather than repose, and after he had gone his father commented in the humorous spirit about this.
“Poor old Harry!” he said. “Case of lovely woman, eh, Amy? I was just the same at his age, until I met you, my dear.”