"Why Vane!" she exclaimed, in a voice which was still as sweet and soft as ever, but which seemed to him to have a strange and somewhat discordant note in it, "you don't mean to say that it's you. I suppose, as a matter of fact, I ought to say Mr. Maxwell now—I mean now that you're a clergyman—but after all, those little things don't matter between such very old friends as we are, and I'm sure Reggie won't mind, in fact, I shan't let him if he does. Just fancy meeting you here! I suppose you're one of the Fathers—is that it?—at the little monastery up there. I've only been home a week, and last night I heard about this place, so I drove over to see it. But you haven't told me how you are yet, and how you like your—your new life."
As a matter of fact, she had rattled all this off so quickly that Vane had not had time to reply to her greeting. He had taken her hand and, somewhat tremblingly, returned the frank, firm pressure. While she was speaking, he looked into her face and saw that she had already assumed the invisible but impenetrable mask in which the society woman plays her part in the tragic comedy of Vanity Fair. It was the same face and yet not the same, the same voice and yet a different one, and the sight and sound acted upon him like a powerful tonic. This was not the Enid he had loved, after all, at least, so it seemed to him. He had forgotten, or had never known that every woman is a born actress, and that even the brief training which Enid had already had was quite enough to enable her to say one thing, while thinking and feeling something entirely different.
He smiled for the first time as their hands parted, and said, in a voice whose calm frankness surprised himself:
"Good morning, Mrs. Garthorne!"—he absolutely couldn't trust himself to pronounce the word "Enid"—"Thanks, I'm very well, and, as you have guessed, I am located for the present up in the Retreat yonder. I confess I was a little startled to see you coming up the road, although I saw from the Times the other day that you had come back from the Continent and were coming down here to the Abbey. Of course, you would hear of the Retreat sooner or later, and as it's a bit of a show place in its humble way, I had an idea that you would come over some time to see it."
"Oh, but I suppose you don't allow anything so unholy as a woman to enter the sacred precincts, do you?"
The artificial flippancy of her tone annoyed him perhaps even more than it shocked him. There was a sort of scoff in it which rightly or wrongly he took to himself. It seemed to say "You, of course, have done with women now and for ever; henceforth, you must only look upon us as temptations to sin, and so I can say what I like to you."
"On the contrary," he replied, forcing a smile, "the Retreat is as open for visiting purposes to women as it is to men. It is nothing at all like a monastery, you know, although report says it is. It is simply a place where clergymen who have need of it can go and rest and think and pray in peace, and act as curates to the Superior who is also vicar of the parish. In fact, it has been known for mothers and sisters of the men to take rooms in the villages, and they are even invited to lunch."
"Dear me," she said, "how very charming! Of course, you will come over to the Abbey and have dinner some evening, and sleep, and the next morning I shall expect you to let me drive you over here and invite me to lunch."
"Of course, I shall be delighted," he said, purposely using the most conventional terms, "but I ought to tell you that there is a condition attached to our hospitality."
"Oh, indeed, and what is that?" she said, glancing up at him with one of her old saucy looks. "I hope it isn't very stringent. Won't you turn and walk a little way with me and tell me all about it? There is my pony carriage coming up the hill after me. It will overtake us soon, and then I won't take up your time any longer, for I daresay you are going on some good work."