CHAPTER V
A SLEEPER WAKES
With the first frost Judith closed her house at Braeburn and returned to the city. For a little while she rested quietly, recovering from the strenuous gaieties of the summer. Her friends—particularly the men—smiled when she said that she never had a vacation: but that was literally true. The demands upon her time were far more rigorous than were those of any business man of her acquaintance. In the conventional significance of the word her life was hardly toilsome, but it was none the less most arduously occupied.
There was the management of her huge house—in itself a task of no mean proportions. There were the board meetings of the various civic, religious and charitable organisations, to which she devoted a very conscientious interest. There were the inescapable appointments with her hairdresser, her manicurist, her masseuse, and the small army of personal attendants who joined their efforts in the conservation and embellishment of her body beautiful. There were the "courses" she must take, the books that must be read, and the plays that must be seen. And finally, as an end or as a cause—she never could determine which—were the luncheons, the receptions, the dinners, the calls, and the balls, which followed one another in never ending course and in never ending monotony.
After a few weeks of what was as near to inaction as she ever attained, Judith plunged anew into the rapid course she had swum since childhood. But for the first time in her life, she was consciously dissatisfied. For the first time she knew, and admitted that she knew, that her multifarious activities were not enough. There was something lacking. It was in such a mood that Imrie found her when he came up to see her one evening. For the first time in the years he had known her, there were little lines of discontent and ennui about her mouth. Her usual vivacity, her cheerful wit, seemed to have vanished, and in their place was a seriousness that was almost sullen, a conversational reserve that was almost hostile.
But he was not wholly sorry that he found her so. He had come on a mission of business, and he was rather glad that her attitude seemed to preclude anything savouring of the personal. He still felt somewhat sensitive at the recollection of the circumstances of their last meeting. He broached his topic quickly.
"I've brought the plans," he said briskly, "and some sketches. They are wonderful, I think. McKee has spent a lot of time on them. It won't be a Westminster, of course, but there will be nothing in this part of the country to compare with it."
He spread the prints out before her with a curious mixture of pride and enthusiasm and complacency; pride in this long-cherished darling of his heart, a St. Viateur's which should rival the most splendid temples of the old world; enthusiasm for the co-operation accorded by architects and designers; complacency for the magnitude of his own achievement. He was not aggressively self-satisfied: but he was far from insensible to the fact that he was extraordinarily young to be the rector of as rich and powerful a congregation as that of St. Viateur's. And a chance remark, overheard one day in the University Club, spoken by his bishop to one of his vestrymen, sounded not unreasonably in his ears—"He will go far—young Imrie."
But he was disappointed at Judith's reception. She fingered the drawings listlessly, and admired them without enthusiasm. His own eagerness cooled before her unexpressed indifference. He had come fired with his dream. Before her it paled and died to grey ashes. Its beauty faded, leaving only a question and dull pain. It was very dear to him. It represented achievement, success, glory—and all three won in the service of man and to the greater honour and glory of God: but Judith was dearer still. For her not to rejoice with him was to take all joy out of it. He sat wounded and silent, unable to go on, almost not caring.
"It will cost ... a great deal...." she said, more meditatively than interrogatively. He nodded, wondering at her tone.