CHAPTER XVII.
THE HUSBAND AT KENSINGTON GORE.
To a woman who rules by right of beauty it is a terrible thing to see her empire slipping from her grasp by reason of gray hairs and wrinkles. What desperate efforts does she make to protract her sway, how she dyes and paints and powders and tight laces—all to no end, for Time is stronger than Art, and finally he writes his sign-manual too deep to be effaced by cosmetics. Mrs. Hilliston was not yet beaten in the fight with the old enemy, but she foresaw the future when she would be shamed and neglected close at hand.
Perhaps it was this premonition of defeat that made her so unamiable, sharp, and bitter on the night when Claude came to dine. She liked Claude and had stood in the place of a mother to him; but he was a man, and handsome, so when she saw his surprised look at her changed appearance all the evil that was in her came to the surface.
Yet she need not have felt so bitter a pang, had she taken the trouble to glance at her image in the near mirror. It reflected a tall, stylish figure, which, in the dim light of the drawing room, looked majestic and beautiful. It was all very well to think that she appeared barely thirty in the twilight, but she knew well that the daylight showed up her forty-seven years in the most merciless manner. Velvet robes, diamond necklaces, and such like aids to beauty would not make up for lack of youth, and Claude's ill-advised start brought this home to her.
Ten years before she had married Hilliston in utter ignorance of the house at Hampstead. Though she did not know it she was not unlike her rival. There was the same majesty, the same imperious beauty, the same passionate nature, but Mrs. Bezel was worn and wasted by illness, whereas Mrs. Hilliston, aided by art, looked a rarely beautiful woman.
People said she had not done well to marry Hilliston. She was then a rich widow from America, and wanted to take a position in society. With her looks and her money, she might have married a title, but handsome Hilliston crossed her path, and, though he was then fifty years of age, she fell in love with him on the spot. Wearied of Mrs. Bezel, anxious to mend his failing fortunes, Hilliston accepted the homage thus offered. He did not love her, but kept that knowledge to himself, so Mrs. Derrick, the wealthy widow, secured the man she idolized. She gave all, wealth, beauty, love, and received nothing in return.
During all their married life her love had undergone no abatement. She loved her husband passionately, and her one object in life was to please him. At the time of the marriage she had rather resented the presence of Claude in Hilliston's house, but soon accepted him as an established fact, the more so as he took up his profession shortly afterward, and left her to reign alone over the heart of her husband. When the young man called she was always kind to him, she constantly looked after his welfare, and playfully styled herself his mother. Claude was greatly attached to her, and spoke of her in the highest terms, but for the life of him he could not suppress that start, though he knew it wounded her to the heart. During his five years of absence she had aged greatly, and art seemed rather to accentuate than conceal the truth.
"You find me altered, I am afraid," said she bitterly; "age is robbing me of my looks."