Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Lord St. Amant and Oliver only stayed on at the dining-table a very few minutes after Mrs. Tropenell and Laura had gone off into the drawing-room.

Though now on very cordial terms, the two men never had very much to say to one another. Yet Lord St. Amant had always been fond of Oliver. Being the manner of man he was, he could not but feel attached to Letty Tropenell's child. Still, there had been a time, now many long years ago, just after the death of his wife, when he had been acutely jealous of Oliver—jealous, that is, of Mrs. Tropenell's absorption, love, and pride, in her son. She had made it so very clear that she desired no closer tie to her old friend—and this had shrewdly hurt his self-esteem. But he had been too much of a philosopher to bear rancune, and such a friendship as theirs soon became had, after all, its compensations.

When Oliver settled in Mexico the time had passed by for a renewal of the old relations, and for a while the tie which had lasted for so long, and survived so many secret vicissitudes, appeared to loosen....

But now, again, all that was changed. Lord St. Amant had given up his wanderings on the Continent, and he had come once more very near to Mrs. Tropenell, during this last year. He and Oliver were also better friends than they had ever been; this state of things dated from last winter, for, oddly enough, what had brought them in sympathy had been the death of Godfrey Pavely. They had been constantly together during the days which had followed the banker's mysterious disappearance, and they had worked in close union, each, in a sense, representing Laura, and having a dual authority from her to do what seemed best.

Still, to-night, excellent as were the terms on which each man felt with the other, neither had anything to say that could not be said better in the company of the ladies. And when in the drawing-room, which now looked so large and empty with only two, where last night there had been twelve, women gathered together about the fireplace, the four talked on, pleasantly, cheerfully, intimately, as they had done at dinner.

After a while Laura and Oliver slipped away into the smaller drawing-room, and Lord St. Amant and Mrs. Tropenell, hardly aware that the other two had left them, went on gossiping—harking back, as they now so often did, to the old stories, the old human tragedies and comedies, of the neighbourhood.

Soon after ten Laura and Oliver came back, walking side by side, and Oliver's mother looked up with a proud, fond glance.

They were a striking, well-matched couple—Laura looking more beautiful than ever to-night, perhaps because she seemed a thought more animated than usual.

"I've come to say good-night," she exclaimed. "I feel so sleepy! Oliver and I had such a glorious walk this afternoon."

She bent down and kissed Mrs. Tropenell. And then, unexpectedly, she turned to Lord St. Amant, and put up her face as if she expected him also to kiss her.