Helena felt that, irrational as she knew the feeling to be, she could not but think ill of Ursula.
“I forgot one of the poor children’s birthdays last week,” wailed the Baroness—she alluded to her dead infants that slept beneath “The Devil’s Doll”—“and Ursula didn’t remind me to take any flowers. I have never forgotten before.”
Ursula entered at the moment, tall and straight in her heavy gown. To both the gracefully drooping women, whose soft clothes and figures intermingled against the darkening window, her presence at that moment seemed more than ever an insult.
“Shall we have lights?” she said, in her clear voice.
“Oh, in the drawing-room, pray,” replied her mother-in-law, pettishly. “Mynheer van Helmont is gone in there. He was looking for you.”
Ursula withdrew into an adjoining apartment. It was very large and lofty, and the figures on its tapestried walls, half hidden under the great masses of shadow now clouding around them, peered forth in vaguely distorted gloom. Theodore was pacing the parqueted floor with moody tramp. He came forward at once.
“I want you,” he said, hurriedly. “I must leave to-night. So we may as well have our talk at once.”
“I am quite ready,” she answered. “I did not wish to press you. Will half an hour suffice?”
“Ten minutes. Everything worth saying in this world by one human being to another can be said in ten minutes. But I should like you to sit down.”
“Very well,” she said. “No, not an easy-chair. Thanks.”