They went on to talk of many things. In all she showed the same calm candor and tenderness. In all he showed the same humorous quaintness and good sense. Lawrence Newt observed that these interviews were becoming longer and longer, although the affairs to arrange really became fewer. He could not discover that there was any particular reason for it; and yet he became uncomfortable in the degree that he was conscious of it.
When the Round Table met, it was evident from the conversation between Hope Wayne and Lawrence Newt that he was very often at her house; and sometimes, whenever they all appeared to be conscious that each one was thinking of that fact, the cloud of constraint settled more heavily, but just as impalpably as before, over the little circle. It was not removed by the conviction which Amy Waring and Arthur Merlin entertained, that at all such times Hope Wayne was trying not to show that she was peculiarly excited by this consciousness.
And she was excited by it. She knew that the interviews were longer and longer, and that there was less reason than ever for any interviews whatsoever. But when Lawrence Newt was talking to her—when he was looking at her—when he was moving about the room—she was happier than she had ever been—happier than she had supposed she could ever be. When he went, that day was done. Nor did another dawn until he came again.
Perhaps Hope Wayne understood the meaning of that mysterious constraint which now so often enveloped the Round Table.
As for Arthur Merlin, the poor fellow did what all poor fellows do. So long as it was uncertain whether she loved him or not, he was willing to say nothing. But when he was perfectly sure that there was no hope for him, he resolved to speak.
In vain his Aunt Winnifred had tried to cheer him. Ever since the morning when he had told her in his studio the lovely legend of Latmos he could not persuade himself that he had not unwittingly told his own story. Aunt Winnifred showered the choicest tracts about his room. She said with a sigh that she was sure he had experienced no change of heart; and Arthur replied, with a melancholy smile, “Not the slightest.”
The kind old lady was sorely puzzled. It did not occur to her that her Arthur could be the victim of an unfortunate attachment, like the love-lorn heroes of whom she had read in the evil days when she read novels. It did not occur to her, because she could as easily have supposed a rose-tree to resist June as any woman her splendid Arthur.
If some gossip to whom she sighed and shook her head, and wondered what could possibly ail Arthur—who still ate his dinner heartily, and had as many orders for portraits as he cared to fulfill—suggested that there was a woman in the case, good Aunt Winnifred smiled bland incredulity.
“Dear Mrs. Toxer, I should like to see that woman!”
Then she plied her knitting-needles nimbly, sighed, scratched her head with a needle, counted her stitches, and said,