"It's the nicest acknowledgment you could possibly make them. I am so glad you thought of it." Her approval of the idea was generous and eager. And she was excitedly interested in the Grosvenor Place household. She plied him with questions. Was it an old peerage? Was there a great country house? Had Lady Lakeden a brother? Then who was the heir to the title?—would it pass to a collateral line? He enlightened her on all these matters, sketching out for her the grooves which the lives of such people generally occupied. And he threw out the reflection that it was lucky indeed the renewal of his relations with Grosvenor Place had not been delayed any further. He had gone back there in the very nick of time, for the house was going to be shut up; the earl leaving in a week or so to take a long sea voyage, whilst Lady Lakeden meditated departure as soon as the portrait was done. Alice remarked that they seemed to be fond of roaming about a great deal, and Wyndham pointed out that Lady Lakeden and her father were exceptionally placed, were to a great extent emancipated from the "swim." The earl had practically retired from society, and his daughter, as a young widow, naturally sought distraction in her own way, though of course she could float brilliantly back into the world whenever the mood took her.
Since the portrait was going to the Salon, he was naturally compelled to tell Alice about it. But the intense way in which she seemed to be fixing her eyes on the Grosvenor Place household disconcerted him beyond measure. This fresh interest of his had become her interest too; she had fastened on it out of all proportion to its visible importance. At uneasy moments he asked himself if she suspected that something lay behind this apparently simple and innocent acquaintanceship; for her insistent and almost morbid return to the subject on the following days indicated its amazing hold of her.
Yet, obviously, it was impossible that she should be cherishing any ideas of that kind. He flattered himself that his demeanour towards her, in this trying and difficult period, was perfect; that he was as tender in all their relations as if his heart were truly hers. Nay, he was devoting even more of his leisure to her than ever before. And for the very reason that the evening journeys to Hampstead had become distasteful, he was the more careful that there should be no falling off in his attendance there. In no wise could he have betrayed himself to his affianced wife. No, she could not possibly have any suspicion of the truth: he was satisfied that her preoccupation with the Grosvenor Place household all arose out of womanly sympathy on her part; that Lady Lakeden's tragic widowhood had touched the depths of her imagination.
Poor Alice! How simple and trusting her surface reading of the facts! How ignorant of the brutal complications, as grotesque as incredible, in which Nature often wrapped up human unhappiness!
What a terrible tangle it was for them all! Were he free now, how gladly would his princess have placed her hand in his! In the old days the possible marriage of the brilliant girl had been hedged around with extraordinary limitations—to which he too had bowed as to something in the order of nature. But, as a widow, she would naturally be expected to please herself when matrimonially inclined. By common social understanding, even the noblest and richest of widows may permit herself a considerable latitude of choice, and no word of criticism can lie against her unless she has travelled rather far out of the conventional grooves. A marriage between him and Lady Betty now might raise a flicker of interest beyond what was usual—considering his notorious poverty—but it could call down nobody's censure.
But all this, alas! was but an idle speculation now. The time sped; the earl bade him goodbye; and he realised that the end was fast approaching. The few days that remained to him of Lady Betty's companionship became trebly precious, to be counted with despair! Though only an hour or two out of the twenty-four was spent in her society, his whole heart and mind, his whole life, were concentrated there. Each day he brought her a bunch of lilies of the valley, which she fixed in her bosom and insisted he must include in the picture. And during the enchanted time they were together, they talked freely and in perfect trust. It was more than a friendship—more than an exchange of confidences; it was more than the intimacy of a soul with itself—for that is not always honest even at its most courageous moments. In this free, splendid realm of communion with her, he stood up in all his manhood: rising to that simple truth which is yet of the heavens and the spaces; measuring himself against great standards; seeing and regretting his egotisms, vanities, self-deceptions; valuing himself humbly. The depths of Lady Betty's sympathy were indeed profound. She could enter into his life, appreciate motives barely realised by himself, and, with charming broad humanity, understand and forgive his actions even when he felt ashamed of them as unworthy and discreditable. No comedy of sentiment here—no playing of the saint on either side; but a noble simplicity, a serene good faith, a spontaneous self-revelation!
He recounted to her, as naturally as everything else, the whole history of his acquaintanceship with the Robinsons. He spared himself not a detail: how he had first dallied with temptation, his moment of panic, his specious reasoning, his ignoble surrender! He laid himself bare as with a scalpel. Yet of Alice he spoke always with reverence and loyalty, dwelling on her devotion, on the little she needed from him to give her happiness. And Lady Betty caught his appreciation of her. "I seem to know and understand her well," she said. "She is a delicate, untarnished soul. She seems more real to me than people who have lived near me all my life. And so her heart has gone out to me! I feel I could never bear to meet her—the moment would be too terrible! Ah, why did you not speak in the old days?"
"I repeat I had not the right. And then I did not dream I was worth one single thought of yours."
"I gave you all my thoughts. You were so serious. You sat with knitted brow, sternly in your work, and I hardly dared to come near you. You seemed remote from women; grimly devoted to your purpose—to triumph or to die! At poor me you scarcely deigned to look. And then you disappeared, and I knew you would not return."
"I disappeared. I left happiness behind me, and retired into my living tomb."