How long such an aim was likely to satisfy her, or how natural or unnatural her course, she left with all the other questions, to be faced, if necessary, later on, or to pass with the swift joy into oblivion.
At least it was not the first time a woman, scarcely young, and having her full measure of success, had turned unaccountably to a man very much her junior, for something she apparently sought in vain from men of her own age. It might be strange, but it was not unique; and for the rest, were not the ways of the little god Love like the ways of many events—“stranger than fiction”?
His magnificent physique, his extraordinarily beautiful head, and his no less extraordinary, unassuming modesty, attracted and held her with links that grew stronger and stronger, and her happiest hours now were those in which he made himself delightfully at home in her flat, and added to his charm by talking to her with the old-fashioned, grandfatherly air she had enjoyed from the first.
And so Hal found a younger and softer Lorraine than she had known for a long time, waiting to hear the burden of her tale of woe.
They talked it over in every aspect, Hal sitting in her favourite attitude on a stool at Lorraine’s feet; but very little light could be won through the clouds. All the consolation Lorraine could suggest was a possibility that to be engaged and married to a man like Dudley might change Doris altogether for the better; but Hal, beyond feeling brighter for having spoken out her dismay, felt there was little indeed hope of that.
“Have you seen Sir Edwin Crathie again?” Lorraine asked presently, and she was surprised to see a spot of colour instantly flame into Hal’s cheeks.
“I’ve had a long motor ride with him,” she said, speaking as if it were a mere detail.
“Have you?” was Lorraine’s very expressive rejoinder.
“Why do you say it like that?” Hal laughed with seeming lightness. “He just took me for a treat. He’s rather sorry for me, being boxed up in an office, as he calls it.”
“I see. Well, don’t forget he has the reputation for being rather a dangerous man, old girl.”