The lightning flashed just then and I saw more than his eyes. His whole face was eager and set. I could not help going a little further.
“I used to fancy I had some power over men—at least a good many seemed to love me—but during the last two years I have got out of practice rather. Positively I have not had the tiniest flirtation.”
“No wonder you are so distractingly complete—I am afraid your life has been a sad one these two years,” he added hurriedly, and, actually, his nervous peremptory voice softened. “Tell me something of it—But—pardon me—let me lift your shawl. The wind is coming and it will be very strong.” He folded the shawl about me, and at the same time I heard Agatha reading to Bertie so I felt off duty for the present. And, Polly, I actually talked to him as I never talked to any but the oldest and dearest friend before. But he drew it out of me. I could no more resist that determined concentrated force beside me in the dark than I could push the electric carnival over the mountain. The man seemed magnetism incarnate, and every time the lightning flashed across his face I could see that sympathy which comes not from a soft heart but an intense personal interest. But perhaps that interest is the most highly prized of all by women, and whatever the mainspring, it was sweet to me, after all these months of terrible anxiety and suffering. I never talk things over with Agatha; I have avoided exchanging a glance of alarm with her; that would be too dreadful; and until now I never have felt sufficiently free from care to become interested enough in any one for confidences. But—and I am not the least bit in love with him, Polly—I felt that I could talk to this man all night. The thunder cloud moved down the lake, carrying its rain with it, and I sat there for an hour and talked to him, while Bertie slept on a sofa just beyond the open window and Agatha read on.
“I don’t think you like listening,” I said breaking off abruptly. “I don’t believe you ever listened so long to any one before.”
“That is quite true. I am not a patient man and I am usually thinking about several things at once—But—I am not going to pay you any idle compliments. I will only say that I have great powers of realisation and that I have absolutely understood all you have felt and suffered during the last two years. I have felt it all so keenly that I wish I could do something to help you. I am going to be your friend,” he added in his quick peremptory tones. “I will be your best friend in this country which must be so strange to you. I don’t care a hang about Rogers’ rights of priority. He isn’t capable of understanding you as I do.”
He took my hand suddenly in his warm magnetic clasp, and I had an odd feeling that he never intended to let it go. “This is only by way of pledging friendship,” he said. “I am not going to disturb you by making love to you—not yet. I make no promises for the future. You have roused and bewildered and enthralled me. Whether it is love or not I don’t know. Nor do I know what I can rouse in you. There is heaven and madness for some man. I am sure of that—but I—well, let all that go for the present. In the mean time I am your friend, remember that, and Rogers is to take a back seat.”
I will admit, Polly, that I lay awake a long time that night thinking of him and reliving that peculiar sense of being encircled with warm magnetism. After all, I suppose that what we women want more than anything else is sympathy and a feeling of belonging to some one exclusively. And when a man has the passion to stir and warm and blind us how easily we can persuade ourselves that we are in love. But the grande passion—that is another thing. Of course you are in the throes of that and I rather envy you. Good night.
Helen.
Letter VI
From the Lady Helen Pole to the Countess of Edge and Ross.