The Man and the Moment

by Elinor Glyn

Then the extreme strangeness of Henry's still being in ignorance of his and Sabine's relations struck him. She had evidently not yet had the courage to tell the truth, and so the thing would come as a shock—and what would happen then? Who could say? In any case, Henry could not feel he had not come up to the scratch. Would Sabine ever tell Henry the whole story? He felt sure she would not. But how could things be expected to go on with the years? It was all unthinkable now that it had come so close.

It was about five o'clock on the next afternoon that the Princess and her party arrived at Héronac. Sabine was waiting for them in the great hall, and greeted them with feverish delight, but Henry's worshipping eyes took in at once the fact that she was greatly changed. She made a tremendous fuss over Girolamo, for whom a most sumptuous tea had been prepared in his own nurseries, and Henry thought how sweet she was with children and how divinely happy they would be in the future, when they had some of their own!

But what had altered his beloved? Her face had lost its baby outline, it seemed, and her violet eyes were full of deeper shadows than even they had been in the first few days of their acquaintance at Carlsbad. He must find all this out for himself directly they could be alone.

This chance, however, did not seem likely to be vouchsafed to him, for on the plea of having such heaps to talk over with Moravia, Sabine accompanied that lady to her room and did not appear again until they were all assembled in the big salon for dinner, where Madame Imogen, who had returned the day before, was doing her best to add to the gaiety of the party by her jolly remarks.

The lady of Héronac had hardly been able to control herself as she waited for her guests' arrival and felt that to rush at Girolamo would be her only hope. For that morning the post had brought the news that the divorce would be granted by the end of January, and she would be free! She had felt very faint as she had read Mr. Parsons' letter. No matter how one might be expecting an axe to fall, when it does, the shock must seem immense.

Sabine lay there and moaned in her bed. Then over her crept a fierce resentment against Henry. Why should she be sacrificed to him? He was forty years old, and had lived his life; and she was young, and had not yet really begun to enjoy her's. How would she be able to bear it; or to act even complaisance when every fiber of her being was turning in mad passion and desire to Michael, her love?

Then her sense of justice resumed its sway. Henry at least was not to blame—no one was to blame but her own self. And as she had proudly agreed with Michael that every one must come up to the scratch, she must fulfil her part. There was no use in being dramatic and deciding upon a certain course as being a noble and disinterested one, and then in not having the pluck to carry it through. She had prayed for guidance indeed, and no light had come, beyond the feeling that she must stick to her word.

The report of the case would be in the Scotch papers, and Michael Arranstoun being such a person of consequence it would probably be just announced in the English journals, too, and Henry would see it. She could delay no longer; he must be told the truth in the next few days.

The sight of his kind, distinguished face shining with love had unnerved her. She must tell him with all seeming indifference, and then close the scene as quickly as she could.

While Sabine and Moravia talked in the latter's room, Moravia was full of discomfort and anxiety. Her much loved friend appeared so strange. She seemed to speak feverishly, as it were, to be trying to keep the conversation upon the lightest subjects; and when Moravia asked her how the divorce was going, she put the question aside and said that they would speak of tiresome things like that when Christmas was over!