The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Of late years he had been often thrown with beautiful and clever women, some of whom had doubtless felt for him that passing, momentary attraction which to certain kinds of natures holds out so great an allurement. But Winfrith, in these matters, was wholly apart from most of those who composed the world in which he had to spend a certain portion of his time.

Even now, while making conversation with Cecily Wake, he was longing to hear what Penelope could be saying that appeared to interest his father so much. Mrs. Robinson had taken the arm of the little old clergyman; they had turned from the wide lawn and steep garden beyond, and were looking at the house, Penelope talking, the other listening silently. 'No doubt,' said Winfrith to himself, 'they are only discussing what sort of creeper ought to be added to the west wall this autumn!'

At last he and his father changed partners, and when the latter, taking charge of Cecily, had led her off to the sloping kitchen-garden, where stood the well, the boring of which had been the old man's one extravagance since he had first come to Shagisham, unnumbered years before, Mrs. Robinson said abruptly: 'Whenever I see your father, David, I can't help wishing that you were more like him! He is so much broader and more kindly than you are—in fact, there seems very little of him in you at all——'

'If you are so devoted to him,' he said, smiling, but rather nettled, 'I wish you would come and see him oftener. You know how fond he is of you.' He added, but in a tone which destroyed the sentiment conveyed in the phrase: 'In that one matter, at any rate, you must admit that he and I are very much alike!'

Something in the way he said the words displeased Mrs. Robinson. To her Winfrith's deep, voiceless affection was as much her own, to do what she willed with, as were any one of her rare physical attributes. The thought of this deep feeling lessening in depth or in extent was even now intolerable; and, while giving herself every licence, and arrogating every right to go her own way, it incensed her that he should, even to herself, allude lightly to his attachment. She answered obliquely, eager to punish him for the lightest deviation from his usual allegiance.

'I know I ought to come oftener,' she said coolly, 'but then, of course, you yourself hitherto have always been the magnet—not, to be sure, a very powerful magnet, for 'tis a long time since I've been here.'

Winfrith reddened. Try as he would—and as a younger man he had often tried—he could not cure himself of blushing when moved or angered. His mother, to the very end of her life, had been proud of a beautiful complexion.

'I was just telling your father'—she gave him a strange sideway glance—'the story of the traveller who, crossing the border of a strange country, came upon a magnificent building which seemed familiar, though he knew it to be impossible that he had ever seen it before. Then suddenly he realized that it was one of the castles he had built in Spain! Now, there, David,' said Mrs. Robinson, pointing with her parasol to the old-fashioned house before them, 'is the only castle I ever built in Spain, and I never come here without wondering what sort of dwelling I should have found it.' As he made no answer, she turned and drew nearer to him, exclaiming as she did so: 'Ah, que j'étais heureuse, dans ces bons jours où nous étions si malheureux!'

French was to Winfrith not so much a language as a vocabulary for the fashioning of treaties and protocols, a collection of counters on whose painfully considered, often tortuous combinations the fate of men and nations constantly depended. It may be doubted therefore, whether, if uttered by any other voice, he would have understood the significance of the odd phrase in which his companion summed up the later philosophy of so many women's lives. As it was, its meaning found its way straight to his heart. He turned and looked at his companion fixedly—a long, searching look. He opened his lips——

But Penelope had said enough—had said, indeed, more than she had meant to say, and produced a far stronger effect than she had intended to produce.