“She doesn’t say much,” commented Anne.
“No, not much. I wonder—”
Chapter Thirteen.
If the wonder Philippa expressed related to Claudia’s own feelings, she need have had no misgivings. In spite of hesitation, reluctance, beforehand, in spite of the coldness which stiffened her on the first day that she saw Fenwick in Lady Wilmot’s den, she was becoming, daily, shyly, yet radiantly happy. Fenwick’s treatment of her was subtly admirable. Her reserves, her pride, raised all his masterful instincts, and perhaps the sudden check to his active physical life inclined him the more to concentrate his energies upon conquering her love. It gave these energies a field. More than once she would have revolted from the touch of the new emotion; quivering and startled, she was inclined to fly, and it needed just the treatment he knew how to apply, to soothe her. The first sight of him, stretched helpless, had struck at her heart. The readiness with which he tossed aside her stammering words of regret made a direct appeal to her own generosity, and day by day the bond tightened. He knew—none better—how to play upon her ambitions and interests, talked as if they would continue, planned what further opportunities might be hers, let her suppose that here was perfect, satisfying sympathy, until it seemed to her that a delightful confidence had sprung up between them, such a confidence as even the college had never afforded. He waited for this, waited until, after some tentative advance and shrinking, it stood strong, and the rest was curiously easy. A few sentences instinct, as he knew how to make them, with all that was both tender and dominant, finished his work; Claudia was his almost before she realised that she had yielded, before Lady Wilmot, who was flitting in and out, could frame a tidy excuse for leaving the two alone. And it was extremely simple. Fenwick looked into her eyes, and thought them charming; she, trying to meet his with her usual frank directness, faltered, and could not face them. Then he whispered three words, and she made a mute sign, eloquent in its vagueness. No collapse could have been more complete, nothing could have been more unlike the manner in which she resolved to go through such a scene when, like other girls, she had rehearsed its possibilities. Claudia had always supposed that she should marry, and, when the moment came, intended to speak decidedly, very decidedly, to her lover, and let him make his choice; either take her with the understanding that she would stick to her profession, and accept whatever ties it imposed, or not take her at all. It is true that she almost invariably pictured him as yielding, but she meant to be dignified and quite firm; reflecting with contempt that the old ways of love-making were altogether unsuitable to the new girl, who was made of different stuff.
And this was the result!
Nothing, as she had to own, could have been less impressive than the figure she had cut; nothing more commonplace than the words spoken, except that she had a saving conviction that no one had ever spoken them with Fenwick’s strength, and this made a difference. Indeed, although she was obliged to own that she had failed, the fact did not seem to trouble her. She looked in the glass, and smiled at her own dimpling face, remembering what he had said; and recollecting further that she had heard him remark that he liked a particular shade of yellow, sat down and wrote to London for an evening frock of that colour.
As for the obnoxious pocket-book, it remained where it had been laid the day before.
When she was alone, or with Fenwick, Claudia’s happiness was like herself, eager and brilliant, for all happiness takes its colouring from the person it touches. With others she was not altogether at her ease, having an unacknowledged suspicion that Lady Wilmot was smiling in her sleeve, as indeed she was, and broadly.