Once when she was feeling the drag of it all a little keenly she told the man in the picture: “Mother is splendidly handsome, and I daresay I owe her a good deal; but thank God you were there with your fine old name and family to give me the things that matter most. It sometimes seems as if we had got each other still, dad, and, for the rest, some are frail in one way and some another, and fretting doesn’t help any one.” The fine eyes had grown more whimsically wistful looking into the face of the huntsman as she finished: “Anyhow, the last favourite is second cousin to a duke, and she pointed out to me, he might have been only a butcher.”
How much Hal knew of her mother’s life Lorraine had never been able to gauge, but she had reason to think she knew something and was sporting enough to pretend otherwise. If so, she blessed her for it, feeling that by that generous non-acknowledgment she rendered a service both to her and her dead father.
Yet it seemed strange that any one so young and fresh as Hal should be able to act thus, instead of suffering a violent repulsion. Was it the depth of her splendid friendship; or was it a naturally adaptable, common-sense nature; or was it non-comprehension?
As time passed and she grew to know Hal yet better, she felt instinctively it was the first of these, coupled with that true sportsman-spirit which was one of her strongest attributes.
Lorraine was not the only one who felt that whether Hal had any religion or not, or any faith, through good and ill, by easy paths and difficult, one might be absolutely sure that she would “play the game.” It made her feel herself richer with her one friend than with her mother’s admitted hosts, and though she seemed to hesitate and reason on that Sunday morning, both knew the cheque would finally be written, and the coveted garment rescued in time for the important lunch.
Only, afterwards, a shadow seemed to linger today that heretofore would have vanished with the departing figure. The sunshine crept through the drawn curtains, lying like a shaft of hope across the gloom, but it brought no answering gleam into the beautiful eyes, with their tired, far-off gaze.
It was all very well for Hal to be a main feature in her life, blessing it with her friendship, while she turned kindly, unseeing eyes away from the corners where the murky shadows lay: Hal, who knew about the mad, discreditable marriage and its violent termination, and probably also of her mother’s insatiable thirst for admiration and excitement at any cost.
There was something about Hal in herself that was as a shining armour, against which unkind barbs fell harmlessly, and enabled her to go on her serene and joyful way in blissful non-attention.
But could it be the same with this treasured only son, who was doubtless destined for a high place in the world by doting parents, and other proud bearers of the same old name? Of course he might sup and trifle with certain denizens of the theatrical world galore; it would only be part of his education, and a thing to wink at, but she already doubted whether such a slight companionship would have any attraction.
In spite of his youthfulness, there was something in him that would naturally and quickly respond to the fine shades in herself, and grow into a friendship that had no part with the casual, gay acquaintanceships of the theatre and the world.