She sprang up from the couch,—her tears dried on her cheeks as though by sheer heat of the crimson glow that flushed them, and she laughed wildly.
“Yes, that is it!” she exclaimed—“Hysteria!—nothing else! It is accountable for everything that moves a woman’s nature. A woman has no right to have any emotions that cannot be cured by smelling-salts! Heart-ache?—pooh!—cut her stay-lace! Despair and a sense of sin and misery?—nonsense!—bathe her temples with vinegar! An uneasy conscience?—ah!—for an uneasy conscience there is nothing better than sal volatile! Woman is a toy,—a breakable fool’s toy;—and when she is broken, throw her aside and have done with her,—don’t try to piece together the fragile rubbish!”
She ceased abruptly, panting for breath,—and before I could collect my thoughts or find any words wherewith to [p 339] reply, a tall shadow suddenly darkened the embrasure of the window, and a familiar voice enquired—
“May I, with the privilege of friendship, enter unannounced?”
I started up.
“Rimânez!” I cried, seizing him by the hand.
“Nay, Geoffrey, my homage is due here first,”—he replied, shaking off my grasp, and advancing to Sibyl, who stood perfectly still where she had risen up in her strange passion—“Lady Sibyl, am I welcome?”
“Can you ask it!” she said, with an enchanting smile, and in a voice from which all harshness and excitement had fled; “More than welcome!” Here she gave him both her hands which he respectfully kissed. “You cannot imagine how much I have longed to see you again!”
“I must apologise for my sudden appearance, Geoffrey,”—he then observed, turning to me—“But as I walked here from the station and came up your fine avenue of trees, I was so struck with the loveliness of this place and the exquisite peace of its surroundings, that, knowing my way through the grounds, I thought I would just look about and see if you were anywhere within sight before I presented myself at the conventional door of entrance. And I was not disappointed,—I found you, as I expected, enjoying each other’s society!—the happiest and most fortunate couple existent,—people whom, out of all the world I should be disposed to envy, if I envied worldly happiness at all, which I do not!”
I glanced at him quickly;—he met my gaze with a perfectly unembarrassed air, and I concluded that he had not overheard Sibyl’s sudden melodramatic outburst.