Left alone, Olivia knew she was glad that day after to-morrow Sabine would no longer be here. She saw now what John Pentland meant when he said, “Sabine ought never to have come back here.”
5
The heat clung on far into the evening, penetrating with the darkness even the drawing-room where they sat—Sabine and John Pentland and old Mrs. Soames and Olivia—playing bridge for the last time, and as the evening wore on the game went more and more badly, with the old lady forgetting her cards and John Pentland being patient and Sabine sitting in a controlled and sardonic silence, with an expression on her face which said clearly, “I can endure this for to-night because to-morrow I shall escape again into the lively world.”
Jean and Sybil sat for a time at the piano, and then fell to watching the bridge. No one spoke save to bid or to remind Mrs. Soames that it was time for her shaking hands to distribute the cards about the table. Even Olivia’s low, quiet voice sounded loud in the hot stillness of the old room.
At nine o’clock Higgins appeared with a message for Olivia—that Mr. O’Hara was being detained in town and that if he could get away before ten he would come down and stop at Pentlands if the lights were still burning in the drawing-room. Otherwise he would not be down to ride in the morning.
Once during a pause in the game Sabine stirred herself to say, “I haven’t asked about Anson’s book. He must be near to the end.”
“Very near,” said Olivia. “There’s very little more to be done. Men are coming to-morrow to photograph the portraits. He’s using them to illustrate the book.”
At eleven, when they came to the end of a rubber, Sabine said, “I’m sorry, but I must stop. I must get up early to-morrow to see about the packing.” And turning to Jean she said, “Will you drive me home? Perhaps Sybil will ride over with us for the air. You can bring her back.”
At the sound of her voice, Olivia wanted to cry out, “No, don’t go. You mustn’t leave me now ... alone. You mustn’t go away like this!” But she managed to say quietly, in a voice which sounded far away, “Don’t stay too late, Sybil,” and mechanically, without knowing what she was doing, she began to put the cards back again in their boxes.
She saw that Sabine went out first, and then John Pentland and old Mrs. Soames, and that Jean and Sybil remained behind until the others had gone, until John Pentland had helped the old lady gently into his motor and driven off with her. Then, looking up with a smile which somehow seemed to give her pain she said, “Well?”