Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Things were not going well with Laura Pavely. They had begun going ill about a month ago, just after that—that unfortunate outburst on Oliver's part. Yet she had felt so sure, after the talk that she and he had had together, that they would slip back into their old, easy relationship! And for a while, perhaps for as long as a week, it had seemed as if they were going to do so.

But then there had come a change. Godfrey had fallen into the way of coming home early. In old days, both before the coming to England of Oliver Tropenell, and during the months that followed, Godfrey had generally stayed at the Bank rather late, and then, as often as not, he had gone in and had a chat with Katty on his way home. Now he always came back before five, and after his return home he and Oliver would engage in interminable singles on the big tennis court which had been Godfrey Pavely's one contribution to the otherwise beautiful gardens of The Chase.

Sometimes, and especially had this been true these last few days, Laura told herself that perhaps after all, the world, the cynical shrewd world of which she knew so little, was right, and that a close and confidential friendship between a man and a woman is an impossible ideal.

To-day, staring into the fire with dry, unseeing eyes, she felt miserably unhappy—too troubled and uneasy to occupy herself in any of her usual ways. More than had ever been the case before, life seemed to stretch before her in a terrible, dreary, unending monotony.

Something else had come to pass during the last week, the week during which Oliver Tropenell had been away in London, which she scarcely liked to think of, or to make more real by dwelling on. Godfrey had altered in his manner to her, he had become kinder, and yes, more loverlike than he had been for years. He hung about her, when he was at home, indoors and out of doors. In an awkward, clumsy way he actually tried to make himself pleasant! He had even suggested that she should ask one or two people to stay at The Chase. But she had protested that she much preferred being alone, and with a shrug of the shoulders he had given in. After all, he didn't really care for strangers more than she did.

Several times during the last dreary week, he had astonished her by talking to her of Oliver in a rather fretful, complaining way, as if he thought it odd that the other man was staying on in England with his mother, instead of going back to Mexico. He had said that he thought it strange that such a big business as he understood Oliver Tropenell to have built up, could run by itself. She had answered coldly, "You forget that my brother is there." And to that he had made no reply.

Gillie? A pang of pain thrilled through Laura's lonely heart. Oliver had said nothing more concerning Gillie's visit to Europe. Everything which had happened, up to, and including, the evening when she and Oliver had had that curious, intimate conversation when he had promised so solemnly to be her friend, seemed now like a bright, happy dream compared with the drab reality of to-day.

And now, in a few minutes, Godfrey would be coming in, and she would have to rouse herself to listen and to answer, while they had tea together in the cedar drawing-room, for Godfrey did not care for the boudoir.

Suddenly she heard uttered in the corridor, outside the door, the eager words, "Is Mrs. Pavely there? You're sure? All right—I'll go straight in!" And before she could gather her mind together, the door opened, and her brother—the brother she had not seen for years, but of whom she had just been thinking—walked forward into the room, exclaiming heartily, resonantly: "Well, Laura? Well, little girl? Here I am again!"

She started up, and with a cry of welcoming, wondering delight, threw herself into his arms, half laughing, half crying, "Oh, Gillie—Gillie—Gillie! How glad I am to see you! Somehow I thought we were never going to meet again! Have you only just come? Has Oliver Tropenell seen you? Why didn't you wire?"