“I have never said I would marry him,” interrupted her sister.
“No,” said Kitty doubtfully, “not exactly. Still you intended it.”
“What has Clive done?” said Bice, looking at her with troubled eyes. “We know very little about it all. Oliver always says we cannot understand, and that it is better for us that he should not attempt to explain; but I think it would be better if he did explain; for now it is like some dreadful dark shadow of disgrace hanging over us, never off one’s mind day and night.” Kitty’s eyes filled with tears.
“Is it so bad for you, dear?” she said sadly. “I have not troubled myself much about it since Oliver said he would arrange. Surely he knows best, and he is the only person to do anything.”
“Why shouldn’t Mr Ibbetson help us?” said Bice in a low voice. Her sister cried out in astonishment, but the girl persisted. “There are kind people in the world,” she said, as her eyes brightened. “If you or I saw anyone in trouble we should do what we could; and he is a man, he knows about England and this world into which poor Clive has tumbled—he might advise us.”
“Not better than Oliver!” exclaimed Kitty, amazed. “Oh, I’m tired of Oliver,” cried Bice with petulant impatience. Her heart was rising up in revolt against its fate till it burned within her. She was angry with Clive, with Oliver, with Kitty, who could only praise him; most of all with herself, the self which had grown all of a sudden discontented, frightened, and indignant. How was it that the change had come, if it was a change and not rather an awakening? How was it that life had in a few hours blossomed into a hundred possibilities? She had thought of Oliver Trent before with a sort of dull satisfaction, as a means of helping Clive and of averting sorrow from those she loved; and as he had skilfully managed to make himself necessary to her, her feelings towards him were passive. But this calm was at an end. All that evening she had been comparing, watching, reflecting; a light seemed suddenly to have been turned upon him; she saw things written in his features which she had never discovered before—some, very likely, which were not there at all. “His eyes are close together, and there is a broad piece of face beyond them—that is not good, I know,” said the critic, “and his face is red and hard.” And all the time, joined with this revolt, some strong new hope seemed to have leapt into her heart, uncalled for and inexplicable. “There are kind people in the world,” she had said to Kitty, but what had brought her the sudden conviction? Is it not pathetic sometimes to see how little will win a heart, and yet how much fails to touch it? We take some trifling trouble, and, lo, an affection is laid at our feet which years cannot change or parting cool. And then, again, we give our life blood, and the gift is scorned. Jack had felt attracted and touched, and had looked and spoken as he felt—kindly, but it was no more than the commonest kindness, though to her it seemed altogether special and delightful.
When Ibbetson reached Villa Carlina that morning, only Mrs Masters, in her usual condition of good-natured drowsiness, was in the breakfast-room, eating grapes from a great golden bunch which had just been brought in with stalk and leaves attached; but before he had had much time to ponder where he should find the others, Bice came, flushed and smiling, and carrying a great bunch of flowers, jack felt himself again wondering at her beauty. She had a white dress—indeed, as yet, he had seen her in no other colour—but over her head she had flung a veil of black lace, Milanese fashion, and the bright flowers in her hands—big scarlet lilies, blue larkspurs, and another blue flower with green spikes—made a brilliant flash of colour against the cool white folds. Mrs Masters said plaintively—
“Where can you have been, Bice? They have been looking for you everywhere until Oliver is quite vexed; go and find them in the garden, and say that you are come.”
“There is no hurry,” said the girl lightly; “they do not want me.”
“But where have you been?”