Jim had nothing for it but to go disconsolately away. So he went.
While George Dallas and Clare Carruthers were talking together at Sir Thomas Boldero's house in Chesham-place, while the hours--never to be forgotten by either--were passing over them, the same hours were witnessing an interview not less-momentous for Harriet Routh and her beautiful foe.
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was ready to receive her visitor; and as her coquetry and vanity were omnivorous, much as she despised women, and sincerely as she enjoyed the knowledge of her power to make most of them envious and miserable, she had dressed herself very carefully. She was just a little bored by her present mode of existence. Routh could not be much with her; and though she had brought herself to believe that she really did feel an absorbing passion for him, somehow or other it left a good deal of her thoughts and her time unabsorbed, and she did not exactly know how to dispose of either. The romance of this kind of incognito life was all very well in its way, which was a pleasant way, and as far as it went, which certainly was very far, but not quite far enough. And she did get horribly bored, there was no denying it. When Routh's daily letter had been read--for she exacted that of him, of him who hated letter-writing, and whose hard actuality of nature needed all the incitement of her beauty, her coquetry, and her artfulness to rouse him to sentiment and give his language the eloquence of love--she had nothing but novels to fall back upon, and the vague prospect of a supplementary note or two, or trying on a new dress, or thinking what theatre she would go to, or what direction her afternoon drive should take. She was glad of the chance of seeing a new face, though it was only a woman's; and then the reason for receiving her was so sound, it was impossible Routh could object. Indeed, she could not see the force of his objections to her going out more, and seeing people in general; it could not matter now, and would sound better hereafter than this hidden residence in London; however, it could not last long, and it was very romantic, very. She had not had much chance in all her previous prosperous life of playing at romance, and she liked it; she would not like it, if it continued to mean boredom, much longer, but there was no danger of that.
No. 4 Hollington-square was one of those London houses which every one knows, furnished for people who take houses for the season, prettily, flimsily, sparingly; a house which tenants with money and taste could make very striking and attractive, which tenants without money and without taste would find very tolerable in its original condition. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge possessed both; and as she made it a rule to have every advantage procurable by the use of either, the drawing-room in which she awaited the coming of her visitor was as pretty and coquettish a room as could easily have been seen. She had chosen a becoming costume, and an equally becoming attitude; and she looked beautiful indeed, in her rich morning dress of black silk, faced with rose-coloured satin and costly lace. The masses of her dark hair were coiled smoothly round her head, her white arms were without a jewel to turn the eye from their shapely beauty. She glanced at one of the many mirrors in the room as the page announced "a lady," and felt perfectly satisfied.
The room was long and narrow, though not large; and as Harriet walked from the door to the hearth-rug on which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge stood, having gracefully risen in an attitude especially intended for her visitor's admiration, that lady had time to observe her appearance, and to experience a certain vague sense of discomfort not altogether unlike alarm. She saw a face which she remembered, but with which she could not connect any distinct recollection; a pale, fair, determined face with smooth light-brown hair framing a broad low brow, with keen piercing blue eyes, which looked steadily at her, and never dropped their fine-fringed lids, blue eyes in which power, will, and knowledge dwelt, as the shallow-souled woman they looked at, and through, felt, but did not understand. A face, so fixed in its expression of irremediable woe, a face so lost with all its self-possession, so full of despair with all its might of will, that a duller intellect than that of a meagre-brained woman must have recognized a story in it such as happily few human beings have to tell or to conceal. Harriet did not speak, or make any sign of salutation; but when she had quite reached her, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge recovered herself, and said, with all her accustomed grace:
"I am so much obliged to you for calling. Pray take a seat. I think I know to what I am indebted for the pleasure of your visit;" and then she sank gracefully back into her low chair, and smiled her very best smile. The very best of those suited to the feminine capacity, of course. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had quite a different set of smiles for men.
"I am quite sure you do not," said Harriet, in a low firm voice, and without availing herself of the invitation to be seated. "I am quite sure you have no notion of my business here. You shall know it; it is important, but brief."
"Madam," said the other, sitting upright, and turning slightly pale.
Harriet extended her hand with a gesture habitual to her, and said:
"Stay. You must hear me for your own sake. You will do well to hear me quietly, and to give me your very best attention. If I do not make the impression on you which I desire and intend to make, there is one other person beside myself who will suffer by my failure, and that person is you."