"Do you find life such a grind, auntie?" she said, rather falteringly, knowing whose fault it was that "Laddie" was riding more recklessly than ever, and how Lavinia suffered over it, for he was the dearest thing in the whole world to her, as perhaps now she was the dearest thing to him.
"Well, my dear," said Lavinia quaintly, "life goes on with ups and downs, with long oases of worry, stagnation, and brief thrills of pleasure, until one day, we suddenly awaken to find people packing up in all directions—some have gone without our noting it, or saying farewell, others are in too great a hurry to think of us. Then in a panic, we decide to call together our friends of long ago, to come and make merry with us, and half the invitations come back to us, with 'gone away' scrawled across them. Then we rub our eyes, and realise that our going away time is near also, and henceforth we don't trouble much about the affairs of life, only how to get ourselves off decently, and in order."
Gay stooped and kissed the sweet little face, but was far from understanding then.
Rensslaer had been away during the autumn, hunting at Spa, then he had been shooting grizzlies in one place, and lions in another, but with late November, he was back again, and the first thing he did was to persuade Gay and the fairly convalescent Professor, to come and stay with him at Elsinore, where Frank spent his whole time in the library, save when dragged out for a drive.
Gay was abroad all day, either hunting with Rensslaer, or about those stables of whose inmates she never wearied, and once she found her way alone to St. Swithin's Court, going soft-footed over the house that was to have been hers—hers and Chris's....
It was very quaint, and old, and beautiful, and she peopled it with happy folk, and happy voices, not all grown up. Standing in the empty rooms, with doors hanging melancholy on their hinges, she saw it a nest of warmth, and love, and laughter, heard the cheery voice, the ringing tread that made the sweetest music in all the world to her—felt with a passion of longing, Chris's arm round her shoulder, and his hard, lean young face pressed close to hers....
She came to herself with a start, and there rushed over her the memory of a big house in town, all swept and garnished, waiting for her to walk in, and take possession.... She covered her eyes with her hands as if to shut out the face of the man who would share it with her.... strange that what held all Heaven to Lossie, should be so hateful to herself ... for both would have regarded the world well lost for the man they loved, yet the world, not that particular man, was to be their portion.
The girls were better friends now than they had ever been, greatly to the delight of Lavinia (who held a brief for unsatisfactory people), for generous Gay had come to understand Lossie better now, discovered how much worse her bark was than her bite.
Selfish she undoubtedly was, and in some things unprincipled, but, like many other idle, clever women, who have no hobby to occupy their time, no great love, no real work to sweeten their lives, she had turned her unused energies into mischief, talked scandal, done spiteful things, mainly for want of something better to do.
Certainly she had many things to embitter her that Gay had not, for by her own recent experiences, Gay knew that suffering of a certain kind does not ennoble, on the contrary, it tends to deteriorate the character, and ruin the temper. With the ease of mind that wealth brings, Lossie might develop into a very different woman—and yet—and yet—now and again would come to Gay flashes of insight, in which she seemed to see poor blundering George Conant, a mere hopeless pawn in the game that Lossie was playing with such consummate audacity and skill.