Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

But if it was only too plain to see how matters stood with Oliver, this was far from being the case as regarded Laura. Katty owned herself quite ignorant of Laura's real nature, and, as is so often the case with those who know nothing, she was inclined to believe that there was nothing to know.

Perhaps, after all, it was only because this man was the son of her friend that Laura allowed him to be always with her. They were always together—not always alone, for Oliver seemed to be at The Chase quite as much when Godfrey was at home, as at other times. But with Katty, she being the manner of woman she was, it was the other times which impressed her imagination. In the six short weeks she, Katty, had been away, Oliver Tropenell had evidently become a component part of Laura Pavely's life.

She knew, vaguely, how the two spent their time, and the knowledge irked her—the more that it suggested nothing of their real relations. Thus gardening was one of Laura's favourite occupations and few pleasures; and Oliver, who could never have gardened before—what gardening could there be to do in Mexico?—now spent hours out of doors with Laura, carrying out her behests, behaving just as an under-gardener would behave, when working under his mistress's directions.

And Godfrey, instead of objecting to this extraordinary state of things, seemed quite pleased. Oliver, so much was clear, had become Godfrey Pavely's friend almost as much as he was Laura's.

As she lay there, straight out on her bed, Katty told herself with terrible bitterness that it was indeed an amazing state of things to which she had come back—one which altered her own life in a strange degree. She had not realised, till these last few weeks, how much Godfrey Pavely was to her, and how jealous she could become even of such an affection as his cordial liking of Oliver Tropenell.

Yet when Godfrey was actually with her, she retained all her old ascendency over him; in certain ways it had perhaps even increased. It was as if his unsuspecting proximity to another man's strong, secret passion warmed his sluggish, cautious nature.

But that curious fact had not made his friend Katty's part any the more easy of late. Far from it! There was no pleasing Godfrey in these days. He was hurt if she was cold; shocked, made uneasy in his conscience, if she responded in ever so slight a way to the little excursions in sentiment he sometimes half-ashamedly permitted himself.

Tears came into her eyes, and rolled slowly down her cheeks, as she recalled what had happened a few moments ago in the hall. He had been aching to take her in his arms and kiss her—kiss her as he had been wont to do, in the old days, in the shabby little lodging where she lived with her father. Poor little motherless girl, who had thought herself so clever. At that time she had believed herself to be as good as engaged to "young Mr. Pavely," as the Pewsbury folk called him. Even now she could remember, as if it had happened yesterday, the bitter humiliation, as well as the pain which had shaken her, when she had learnt, casually, of his sudden disappearance from Pewsbury.

What hypocrites men were! The fact that often they were unconscious hypocrites afforded Katty little consolation.

It was plain that Godfrey was quite unaware of Oliver's growing absorption in Laura, but that surely was not to his credit. A man of his age, and with his experience of life, ought to have known, ought to have guessed, ought to have seen—by now! Instead, he remained absorbed in himself, in the tiresome little business interests of his prosperous life, in his new friendship for Oliver Tropenell, and—in that ambiguous, tantalising friendship with herself.