“She did like me,” said his lordship, with emphasis and satisfaction—“she really did. And I wouldn't encourage it. I had no notion then of marrying. Her singularity, too, made me cautious. I couldn't believe in her. She talked like an actress in a play. I felt that she was not the woman for me. Essentially she thought as I did, and seemed to comprehend my embarrassment. The worst of it is now—I may have been wrong.”
“I doubt it. You may be sure, on the whole, that your instincts were right.”
“Still, there is a distinct misgiving. I was drawn toward her, and, when I made up my mind to put an end to the matter, our friendship was severely strained. But it was not broken. Something I saw in her face to-day makes me sure that it was not broken.”
While he was speaking the servant entered with a salver, and on the salver was a note. The address showed Sara's large, defiant hand-writing. Reckage, who had a touch of superstition in his nature, changed colour and even hesitated before he broke the seal. The coincidence seemed extraordinary and fatal. What did it mean? He read the letter with an irresistible feeling of proud delight.
“20a, St. James's Square, W.
“My dear Beauclerk,—Will you lunch with us to-morrow at two o'clock? Papa has invited a friend—a dreadful, boring friend—who has been absent from England for five years. Do you know the man? Sir Piers Harding? But I want some one to encourage me. You? Do!
“Yours sincerely,
“S. L. V. de Treverell.
“P.S.—I am so happy about you and Agnes. Be kind to her always? Won't you?”
All his life he had found a difficulty in understanding women—the significance of their words, the precise translation of their glances, and their motives generally. He had nourished his experience on French novels; he had corrected it by various friendships; he had crowned it with the confession that one could never tell what the sex meant one way or the other. But this fact remained—he was a coxcomb, and, whenever he owned himself puzzled, it was on a single ground only—how seriously was the lady at stake affected by his charms? Feeling, as he did, the infinite inequality that existed between men, and conscious of his own reputation as a leader among them, it was not in his conscience to encourage any woman whom he did not find especially attractive or useful. Why spoil her chances? Why make her discontented with the average male creature? Had Sara written to him in ordinary circumstances, inviting him, after some months of mutual coldness, to lunch, he would have replied, with sorrowful dignity, that it was wiser to leave things as they were. But the case had altered. The future Duchess of Marshire was a personage. He made no secret of his admiration for all people of high rank. They represented influence and traditions; what was more, they could exercise a certain power, and introduce, when necessary, the ideas upon which fresh traditions could be based. A friend like Sara de Treverell with her new honours made life itself more rich to him. When he remembered that she was young, handsome, enthusiastic, and impulsive, his pleasure thrilled into something of genuine passion. He told himself that he had always been fond of the girl; that hundreds of times he had felt the hardness of his scrupulous position where she was concerned. If he had been asked what especially he conceived his own duty to be now, he would have said that it was not for him to hang back when she showed a coming spirit. But this was not all. He was a gamester; he was ambitious.
“This is very odd,” said he, reading Sara's note for the second time, “very odd. There's no harm in showing it to you, because there is nothing in it.”
He gave it to his friend, and ate, pleasantly, while Orange glanced down the page. His soul's wish was to be left alone. The effort of forcing himself—not to affect but honestly to feel—an interest in Reckage's conversation had proved successful. He had indeed put aside his own thoughts, and followed, with the exaggerated earnestness of a mind determined on self-sacrifice, every word his companion had uttered. The spirit invisible wears the laurel of mental victories, but the body has to bear the exhaustion, the scars, and the soreness. He was tired, but he stirred himself again to consider Sara's note. In the course of that year she had written several letters to Orange—letters about books, new pictures, and new music. Once she had given him a little song of her own composition as something of which she “desired to hear no more for ever.” The song was sentimental, and he locked it away, wondering at the time whether she really had an unfortunate affection for Lord Reckage. But in reading her note that evening he decided against his original fear. Women did not write in that strain to men whom they loved, or had ever loved ... even passably well. He returned it to the owner with this comment—
“A woman, you know, is like your shadow: run away from her and she follows you; run after her and she flies from you. That's an old saying. It is true so long as she does not love the man. And when she loves the man—well, then she ceases to be a shadow. She becomes a living thing.”