"It makes me afraid!" said Alice, breaking the silence. "Perhaps nobody is allowed to keep too great a happiness."
He winced. "She was always kind to me," he said, evading the train of her reflection. "I spent many hours at my post in those ancient times, and there were always unobtrusive attentions that made my work the easier."
"I should like to know and love her," said Alice pensively.
Wyndham was silent. Her words startled and embarrassed him, since he had been taking it for granted that she and Lady Betty would never come into contact. Besides, in a way, Alice had given utterance to more of a thought than a wish, so that a response hardly seemed necessary. They lunched together, and Alice went off soon after, leaving him to receive his sitters—the president and his wife, who were both to arrive that afternoon.
"Of course, you won't expect me at Hampstead," he reminded her. "You remember I put my name down for a club dinner to-night."
"Of course I remember," she said. "But I shall write you a letter instead. Please look for it when you come home to-night."
But Wyndham did not dine at the club after all; at the last moment he decided to spend the evening alone at his studio. It seemed a long time since he had had a few quiet hours all to himself. Moreover, it was strangely a boon to hear no other voices for once, and he lay back pleasantly in his chair, though conscious of an uncommon degree of weariness. And, in the calm and solitude of the studio, intensified by the echoing of his occasional movements through the empty rooms beneath him, the Robinsons seemed indeed a long way off up at Hampstead there, and for the first time it seemed a positive bondage to him, this constant duty of journeying across town to dine with them.
The nine o'clock post brought the promised letter from Alice, but from amid the little heap in the box he picked out another eagerly. The writing was Lady Betty's. He had never seen very much of it in the old days, yet he recognised it at once.
He remembered just then a shrewd dictum of Schopenhauer—that, if we wished to learn our real attitude towards any person, we should watch and estimate our exact emotion at catching sight of the well-known handwriting on a letter we are just receiving. He certainly could not help observing the contrasting emotions with which he welcomed these two letters. Alice's, at his first glimpse of it, had given him a deepened sense of the irrevocable. Yet there went with this a kind, affectionate thought in which was a world of appreciation. But he knew pretty nearly what the letter would contain; it could well be read at leisure.
He tore open Lady Betty's at once, and read it feverishly as he stood there in the hall. "MY DEAR FRIEND," it ran—"My father was so disappointed when he got home at hearing that you had been, and had already flown. He suggests that you should stay to-morrow and join us at luncheon, and he asks me to bend your mind well in advance to the contemplation of such an ordeal—as he seriously considers it. The present cook doesn't meet with his approval, but be reassured! It was only a new sauce sent up one day with pride; but that unfortunate sauce has since flavoured everything. My father has naturally imagination; at his age he has prejudices. Could even a Vatel face the combination?