'I know, Alice dear, I am writing violently, that I am letting my temper get the better of me, and this is very wrong; you have often told me it is very wrong; but I cannot help it, my darling, when I think of the danger you are in. I cannot tell you how, but I do know you are in danger; something, some instinct has put me in communication with you: there are moments when I see you, yes, see you sitting by that man—I see you now:—the scene is a long blue drawing-room all aglow with gold mirrors and wax candles—he is sitting by you, I see you smiling upon him—my blood boils, Alice—I fear I am going mad; my head drops on the table, and I strive to shut out the odious sight, but I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. . . .
'I am calmer now: you will forgive me, Alice dear? I know I am wrong to write to you in this way, but there are moments when I realize things with such horrible vividness that I am, as it were, maddened with pain. Sometimes I awake in the night, and then I see life in all its hideous nakedness, revealed, as it were, by a sudden flash of lightning. Oh, it is terrible to think we are thus. Good-bye, dear, I know you will forgive me, and I hope you will write at once, and will not leave me in suspense: that is the worst torture. With love to our friends Olive, May, and Violet, believe me, darling Alice, 'Yours affectionately, 'CECILIA CULLEN.'
She read steadily, word by word, and then let the letter fall.
Her vision was not precise, but there were flashes of sun in it, and her thoughts loomed and floated away. She thought of herself, of Harding, of their first meeting. The first time she had seen him he was sitting in the same place and in the same chair as she was sitting in now. She remembered the first words that had been spoken: the scene was as clear to her as if it were etched upon her brain; and as she mused she thought of the importance of that event. Harding was to her what a mountain is to the level plain. From him she now looked forward and back. 'So people say that I am in love with him! well, supposing I were, I do not know that I should feel ashamed of myself.'
The reflection was an agreeable one, and in it her thoughts floated away like red-sailed barges into the white mists that veil with dreamy enchantment the wharves and the walls of an ancient town. What did she know of him? Nothing! He was to her as much, but no more, than the author of a book in which she was deeply interested: with this difference:—she could hear him reply to her questions; but his answers were only like other books, and revealed nothing of his personality. She would have liked to have known the individual man surrounded with his individual hopes and sufferings, but of these she knew nothing. They had talked of all things, but it seemed to her that of the real man she had never had a glimpse. Never did he unbend, never did he lift the mask he wore. He was interesting, but very unhuman, and he paraded his ideas and his sneers as the lay figures did the mail-armour on the castle stairway. She did not know if he were a good or a bad man; she fancied he was not very good, and then she grew angry with herself for suspecting him. But honest or dishonest, she was sure he could love no one; and she strove to recall his face. She could remember nothing but the cold merciless eyes—eyes that were like the palest blue porcelain: 'But how ungrateful I am,' thought the girl, and she checked the bitter flow of reproaches that rose in her mind.
Two old ladies sat on the sofa under the window, their white hair and white caps coming out very white upon the grey Irish day; and around the ottoman the young ladies, Gladys and Zoe Brennan, one of the Miss Duffys, and the girl in red, yawned over circulating novels, longing that a man might come in—not with hope that he would interest them, but because they were accustomed to think of all time as wasted that was not spent in talking to a man.
Nor were they awakened from their languid hopes until Olive came rushing into the room with a large envelope in her hand.
'Oh, I see,' she said, 'you have got a letter from Cecilia. What does
she say? I got one this morning from Barnes;' and, bending her head,
Olive whispered in Alice's ear: 'She says that everyone is talking in
Galway of when I shall be a marchioness!'
'Is that the letter?' asked Alice innocently.
'No, you silly, this is a Castle invitation.'