The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

'Yes,' he answered at once, 'I remember the terms quite well. The buildings are left in trust, and my father is one of the trustees; but the income remains entirely in your hands. You could withdraw all supplies to-morrow, or, to put it in another way, you could spend all your income, and so have to pay the claims of the Settlement out of capital. I always thought it a very bad arrangement.' He spoke with a certain sharpness, as if the discussion were distasteful to him.

Penelope looked up with some anger, and 'My husband trusted me absolutely,' she said rather proudly.

The man sitting opposite to her reddened darkly. He always disliked to hear Penelope mention Melancthon Robinson; the slightest allusion to the founder of the Settlement, when made by her, roused a violent primeval instinct, which insisted on recognition of his own original claim to the beautiful, elusive creature with whom his relations had now been for so long lacking in sincerity. 'That's nonsense,' he said harshly. 'He had no right to do such a thing with a girl of two-and-twenty.'

'One-and-twenty,' she corrected quickly.

He went on, avoiding her eyes, but his voice lowering, losing its harshness, in spite of himself. 'It was a most unfair responsibility to put upon you. However intelligent and businesslike,' he added, 'however trusted and worthy of trust——'

It was Penelope's turn to redden. 'I do not say I was, or am, worthy of such a trust,' she said rather coldly. 'You know, or perhaps you have forgotten, that I thought my cousin would help me. He refused, and it was because you, David, were so good to me then'—Penelope leant forward; she put her hand, her slender, ringless left hand, on his sleeve for a moment, and the blue eyes which met his in quick appeal seemed darker, softer than usual—'because you have always been good to me, that I now ask your advice. It is for the last time——'

Winfrith suddenly focussed his mind into close attention. Very slowly, hardly conscious of what he was doing, he moved the chair on which he was sitting further away from hers, and set a guard on his face.

There had been a time, shortly after the renewal of their intimacy, when David Winfrith had schooled himself, with what he thought was easy philosophy, to hear the announcement of Penelope's remarriage. But curiously soon, and Mrs. Robinson had watched with mischievous interest the different workings of his mind, the young man had seen reason to assure himself that his new-found friend would do wisely to remain free as himself from all sentimental entanglements, while yet always able to benefit by his superior masculine sense and knowledge, both of the world and of affairs.

Soon also he had come to fear for her, and this quite honestly, the fortune-hunters with whom he felt rather than knew her to be, in those early days, encompassed. A word denying any intention of remarriage—and it was a word which Penelope, at that time of her life and even for long after, could have uttered with all sincerity—would have made Winfrith easy in his mind; but the word was never uttered. Mrs. Robinson had had no desire to let the nearest, in a sense the dearest, and in any case the most faithful and trustworthy of her mentors, feel too great a sense of security.

And so their strange relationship had remained, and that over years, a source of pleasant confidence and sentimental amusement to the woman, of subtle charm and ever-recurring interest to the man.