There was no trace of any fire about him, however, except the harmless irradiation of youth and good spirits, when he opened the door of his mother’s drawing-room a few minutes before their dinner-hour. He had spent the intervening hour at his club, the most lightly good-natured, and thoroughly easy-going and irresponsible young man there, and there was precisely the same character about him now as he crossed the room to his mother.
CHAPTER XIII
There had been a slight, sudden movement as Julian opened the door, as though Mrs. Romayne had changed her attitude quickly. She was leaning forward now, looking at an illustrated paper, but the cushions behind her were tumbled and crushed, as if she had been leaning back on them, and leaning heavily. She was wearing a tea-gown, and she seemed to keep her face rather carefully in shadow.
“Rather an amusing party, wasn’t it?” she said lightly, looking up as he came in. “Everybody goes to that woman’s. I can’t imagine why. Well, and is there any news, sir?”
“I’m afraid not,” returned Julian gaily. “I’ve spent an hour at the club to try and pick up some crumbs for you, but there was nothing going.”
The manner of each to the other was precisely the same, now that they were alone together, as it had been when they addressed one another incidentally in the course of general conversation. The very familiarity between them had a flavour of artificiality about it, and that flavour was mainly given, strangely enough, by Mrs. Romayne rather than by Julian. It was her manner, not his, that lacked ease and overdid the spontaneity. They chatted brightly about men and things, but she never asked him a single personal question, though at any incidental allusion let fall by him as to his doings a faint contraction of the muscles about her eyes gave her a hungry, concentrated look, as of a creature catching at a crumb. It seemed to be in a great measure that tendency to keen intentness of expression which had so greatly altered her face.
“You see I’ve been lazy!” she said lightly, indicating her dress with a slight gesture as they sat down to dinner. They were going out in the evening, and she usually dressed before dinner on such occasions. “I really couldn’t be bothered to dress before!”
The lamplight was full on her face now, and Julian, his attention drawn to her by the words, saw that she looked frightfully haggard and worn under her paint and her little air of gaiety. Paint had ceased to be an appendage of full dress with her since her three days’ illness. The combination added a touch of repulsion to his feeling towards her. But his tone as he answered her was the tone of affectionate concern, over-elaborated by the merest shade only.
“You’ve not over-tired yourself, I hope, dear?” he said. “I don’t believe you ought to go out again to-night, do you know!”
Mrs. Romayne’s thin fingers were tearing fiercely at the pocket-handkerchief in her lap as he spoke, and her eyes were bright with pain. It seemed as though her ears had caught that subtle shade of over-elaboration, though they must have been quick indeed to do so. But she answered, almost before he had finished speaking, in a rather high-pitched tone of eager determination.