Lady Royd was no cynic now. The peril and discomfort of the times had been opening closed windows for her, as for others who lived near this wind-swept heath. By stealth, and fearing much, she had peered out through these unshuttered casements; and Nance was speaking outright of the fugitive, dim thoughts that she herself had harboured.
“Go, my dear,” she said gently. “You’ve the voice you sing with—the voice that Rupert praises. Go, sing to me again of—of love and honour, child.”
Nance flushed. She scarcely knew what she had said. “I do not need,” she said, with instinctive grace and dignity. “You know so much of them, and I so little; and I am sorry if—if I spoke in haste. I am so tired, and I forget the—the deference owing to your years.”
So then, because they stood very near each other for this moment, and because she feared intimacy just yet with the simple, happy glimpse of life that Nance had shown her, Sir Jasper’s wife drew her skirts about her and picked up the yapping, pampered thing she called a dog and kissed its nose. It was her signal for good-night.
“A woman likes deference, my dear,” she said sharply, “deference of all kinds, except that owing to—to advancing years. You sang out of tune there, Nance. Never to be made love to again; never again, so long as one’s little world lasts, to catch the glance, the little broken word of tribute—things that do not wrong one’s husband, Nance, but add a spice to the workaday, quiet road of love for him; they’re hard to give up, my dear.”
Nance looked at her with frank surprise. She was strong and untried yet; and Lady Royd was frail, but experienced so far as indolence allowed. And there was a deep gulf between them.
“I will take my candle up,” said Nance lamely.
“Yes, and sleep well, child. Dream of—oh, of love and honour and the foolish rosemary of life. And come sing to me to-morrow—of the things you’ve dreamed. Perhaps I spoke at random, Nance. I’m widowed of my husband; and this Rising never wore a lucky face to me—and—my temper is not gentle, Nance, I know.”
That night there were few who slept at Windyhough. Sir Jasper’s wife, alone with the wind that rattled at her window, made no disguise of the love that beat, strong and trusty, underneath her follies. Despite herself, she had come out at last into the road of life—the road of mire and jealousies and tragedy, lit far ahead by the single lamp of honour, for those whose eyes were trained to see it.
“I’m not worthy of him,” she moaned, drawing the sleepy spaniel toward her. “My husband climbs the bigger hills, while I—am weak, as Rupert is.”