"I didn't think you would care to subscribe to a convent."
"Now, why did you think that? Poor devils of nuns, shut up in a convent without enough to eat. Of course I'll subscribe; I'll send them a cheque for ten pounds to-morrow."
This afternoon, whether by accident or design, he said no word that might jar on her religious scruples; he even appeared to sympathise with religious life, and admitted that the world was not much, and to renounce the world was sublime. The conversation paused, and he said, "I think the tea-service suits the room. You haven't thanked me for it yet, Evelyn."
"I don't know that I ought to accept any more presents from you. I have accepted too much as it is."
She was conscious of her feebleness. It would have been better to have said, "I am another man's mistress," but she could not speak the words, and he asked if they might have tea in the new service. She did not answer, so he rang, and when the servant left the room he took her hands and drew her closer to him. "I am another man's mistress, you must not touch me," rang in her brain, but he did not kiss her, and the truth was not spoken.
"Lady Duckle is still at Homburg, is she not?" he asked, but he was thinking of the inexplicable event each had been in the other's life. They had wandered thus far, now their paths divided, for nothing endures. That is the sadness, the incurable sadness! He was getting too old for her; in a few more years he would be fifty. But he had hoped that this friendship would continue to the end of the chapter. And while he was thinking these things, Evelyn was telling him that Lady Duckle had met Lady Mersey at Homburg, and had gone on with her to Lucerne, where they hoped to meet Lady Ascott.
"You are going to shoot with Lord Ascott next month?" she said, and looking at him she wondered if their relations were after all no more than a chance meeting and parting. While he spoke of Lord Ascott's pheasant shooting, she felt that whatever happened neither could divorce the other from his or her faults.
"How beautiful the park is now, I like the view from your windows. I like this hour; a sense of resignation is in the air."
"Yes," she said, "the sky is beautifully calm," and she experienced a return of old tendernesses, and she had no scruple, for he did not make love to her, and did not kiss her until he rose to leave. Then he kissed her on the forehead and on the cheek, and refrained from asking if they were reconciled.
Never had he been nicer than he had been that afternoon, and she dared not look into her heart, for she did not wish to think that she would send him away. Why should she send him away? why not the other? She could not answer this question; she only knew that the choice had fallen upon Owen. She must send him away, but what reasons should she give? She felt that her conduct that afternoon had rendered a complete rupture in their relations more difficult than ever. It was as she lay sleepless in bed long after midnight that the solution of the difficulty suddenly sounded in her brain. She must write to him saying that he might come to see her once more, but that it must be for the last time. This was the way out of her difficulty, and she turned over in her bed, feeling she might now get to sleep. But instead of sleep there began the very words of this last interview, and her brain teemed with different plans for escape from her lover. She saw herself on ocean steamers, in desert isles, and riding wild horses through mountain passes. Barred doors, changes of name, all means were passed and reviewed; each was in turn dismissed, and the darkness about her bed was like a flame. There was no doubt that she was doomed to another night of insomnia. The bell of the French clock struck three, and, quite exhausted, she got up and walked about the room. "In another hour I shall hear the screech of the sparrow on the window-sill, and may lie awake till Merat comes to call me." She lay down, folded her arms, closed her eyes and began to count the sheep as they came through the gate. But thoughts of Owen began to loom up, and in spite of her efforts to repress them, they grew more and more distinct. The clock struck four, and soon after it seemed to her that the darkness was lightening. For a long while she did not dare to open her eyes. At last she had to open them, and the grey-blue light was indescribably mournful. Again her life seemed small, black and evil. She jumped out of bed, passed her arms into a tea-gown, and paced the room. She must see Owen. She must tell him the truth. Once he knew the truth he would not care for her, and that would make the parting easier for both. She did not believe that this was so, but she had to believe something, and she went down to the drawing-room and wrote—