"I am so glad!" she cried with sincerity—"so glad for both of you!" Impulsively she caught Joan's hands, drew the girl to her—"May I, my dear? We're to be great friends, you know!"—kissed her; then swinging round—"Vincent!" she called gaily. "Such news! Do come here immediately!"
Marbridge showed a face strongly marked with the enquiry of his heavy, lifting eyebrows. His glance comprehended Joan with kindling interest. With Helena he approached, his heavy body rolling a little in spite of the elasticity of his stride.
"My husband, Vincent Marbridge. Vincent, this is Joan Thursday. She's engaged to Jack Matthias. Isn't it wonderful? And aren't they both fortunate? And isn't she pretty?"
Marbridge's unctuous and intimate smile accompanied his reply: "Yes to all—twice yes to your last question." His warm strong hand closed over Joan's diffident fingers. "My heartiest congratulations to you both.... Ah, Mr. Matthias, how are you? So we meet again—at Tanglewood!"
The hands of the two men touched and fell apart. But this clue was wasted upon Joan, who stood silently abashed and sullen with consciousness of her own inept awkwardness as contrasted with the amiable aplomb of these people with whom good breeding was a cult, the practice of the art of self-possession its primary rite.
To Marbridge she stammered: "Pleased to meet you." And immediately felt her face burning and as if she could faint for sheer mortification.
It was Helena who, pitiful for the gaucherie of the girl, saved the situation by raising the issue of tea. Venetia demurred: they were, it seemed, visiting friends in Southampton; had driven over only for a call of a moment; would be late for dinner if they tarried. But Marbridge settled the question by dropping solidly into a chair and announcing that there he was and there would stay pending either tea or a highball. Venetia, unable to disguise a flush of resentment, showed her back to her husband and devoted herself to George Tankerville. As Helena summoned a servant, Marbridge hitched his chair closer and inaugurated a rather one-sided conversation with Joan.
Again in her basket-chair, knees daintily crossed in imitation of a pose mentally photographed from the stage, Joan experienced renewed consciousness of her attractions, and with it regained a little ease. It could scarcely be otherwise under the wondering regard that Marbridge bent upon the girl. His admiration was unconcealed, and to Joan at first the sweeter since it was diverted from his wife.
But insensibly the situation began to affect her less pleasantly. She grew sensitive to an effect of strain in the atmosphere, made up in equal parts of Venetia's indignation, Matthias's annoyance, Helena's suave but quite fruitless efforts to interpose and distract the interest of Marbridge to herself.
And there was a confusing and disturbing element of familiar and personal significance in the man's undeviating and brazen stare. Truly, in the older sense of the word, impudent, it hinted an understanding so complete as to be almost shameful—worse, it educed a real if unspoken response from the girl; unwillingly she admitted the existence of a bond of sympathy between herself and this man whom she had never seen before, a feeling more true and intimate than that which her association with Matthias had inspired, than any she had ever known. For a time she fought against this impression, in a bewilderment that evoked from her only witless and hesitant responses. Then suddenly encountering his eyes—actually against her will—she was stricken dumb and breathless by comprehension of their intent; in effect, they stripped her: bodily and mentally they made her naked to this man.