"She has a sick headache," returned Claire, with a bit of joyless laughter—the saddest he had ever heard leave her lips. "I don't doubt our disreputable downfall has given it to her. Don't make excuses for her; she is quite right to have her headache. It's a fastidious prerogative, you know. I shan't require a physician's certificate. I only hope that all the others will be cruel in just as civil a manner."
The tragic bitterness of these words, though they were quietly enough uttered, stung Thurston to the quick. When a man loves as he loved, compassion waits the ready vassal of tenderness. He had a momentary feeling of hostility against an elusive, disembodied foe—against circumstance itself, so to speak, for having wrought discord in a life that was meant to hold nothing but melody.
He swiftly decided not to tell the real truth regarding his sister. "I would not concern myself with Cornelia's absence," he said. "Another matter, of much more import, must be brought to your notice. It is then settled that Cornelia remains away. I did not know that she would do so. She made no mention of it during our interview last night."
"Her headache had not arrived. Neither had the morning papers, which said such hard things of my husband."
"As you will. Let all that pass. I wish to speak of a lady who will almost certainly be present at your entertainment to-day. I mean Sylvia Lee. Don't ask me why I warn you against her, for I can't give you any lucid reasons. She intends some mischief. I suspected it last night from something my sister let fall, and I visited Mrs. Lee this morning with a most detective purpose. I gained no clew, and yet my suspicions were by no means lulled. I have never liked Sylvia; we are related, but she has always struck me as an abhorrent kind of creature, bristling with artifice, destitute of nearly all morale, capable of the worst cunning, equipped with the most subtle resources of treachery. Be on your guard against her to-day. This sounds mysterious—melodramatic, if you will; but she has some snare laid for you, some petty but perhaps ugly revenge. You know why I use that last word. She has wanted to marry Goldwin for years. She isn't a bit above the grossest, most unscrupulous hatred. She told me that she didn't believe in your husband's ruin, and that a few more days would see him on his feet again. This makes me all the more convinced that she will not put her little sharpened dagger back into its sheath. She has hatched some sort of horrid plot. Thwart it if you can. I wish I could be here to help you."
Claire had grown very pale, but her eyes sparkled vividly. "I am your debtor for these tidings," she said. She drew a deep breath, and he surmised that under the soft curve of her joined lips she had for a brief moment set her teeth closely together. "I thought the lunch would be a hard ordeal, even as matters stood," she went on, "and that I would need my best nerve and courage to get through it all right, with proper coolness and dignity. But now the task looks far less easy. Still, I shan't flinch. I wish you were to be here; but that is not possible."
Just then a clock on the opposite mantel gave one little silver note that told it was half-past twelve. Claire rose as she heard the sound. "I must leave you now," she pursued. "I have only an hour left for my toilette, and I shall need it all." She threw back her head, and a dreary smile gleamed and fled along her lips. "I mean to meet all these grand ladies without one sign of defeat. I shan't wear my heart on my sleeve. This lunch was to have been my crowning triumph. It proves a funeral-feast, in its way, but they shan't find me playing chief-mourner. I intend to die game, as the phrase is." She gave a slight shudder, drooping her eyes. "It will be as though I stood in a house whose walls might crumble all about me at any moment—as if I could hear the crack of plaster and the creak of beams. But I shan't run away; I shall stand my ground very firmly, depend on it, until the bitter end. When the crash comes nobody will be buried in the ruins but myself—that is certain, is it not?"
Here her joyless laugh again sounded, and Thurston, swayed by an irresistible mood, caught one of her hands, pressing it hard within his own.
"You shall not be buried in the ruins!" he exclaimed. "Take my word for it, you shall not! It will all only be the beginning of a new and better life. You shall have learned a hard yet salutary lesson—that, and nothing more."
She shook her head, meeting his earnest eyes. "You are my good genius," she said. "It is too bad you have not had more power over me."