A day or two later came a telegram from Vicky Sinclair. “Just got your letter. Coming at twelve. Vicky.” Sanchia glowed. “Just like her, the darling.” Philippa's astringent proposal was put aside.
At twelve thirty-five there lit from a hansom an eager and pretty little lady, all in gauzy tissues and lace scarf, who knocked at the door like a postman and flew up the stair into Sanchia's arms. “Oh, Sancie, Sancie, how sweet of you to write! Now we are all going to be happy again forever after. Oh, and here's Cuthbert—I forgot.” In the doorway stood the erect form, and smiled the bronzed face of Captain Sinclair of the Greys. His “How d'ye do, Miss Sanchia!” was accompanied by a look of such curious enquiry that Sanchia gave him two fingers, said, “Quite well, thank you,” and no more. Much more had been expected, and the Captain was somewhat taken aback. He had been ready to welcome the prodigal and admire her too. What's more, he had already very much admired her. To have one's generous motions damped by a coolness of that sort is sickening. But there it was: what could one say? what could one do? He went to the window and stood there, whistling in a whisper until his wife dismissed him. To the Cavalry Club stalked he, working himself into virtuous heat. There, at luncheon with a friend, he expatiated, which was unwise and unmannerly at once. But his own wrongs swallowed up his wife's rights.
“I'll be damned, Jack,” he took up his parable, “I'll be damned if ever I do a woman a good turn any more. Never, never again. Gel I know—relative of mine she is, by marriage—goes a purler with a chap. Knew something of the chap too—so did you, I expect. Not a bad chap, by any means, barring this sort of thing. Well, now she's in town—all over—settled down, y'know. Writes to my wife. Well, I thought it was no good bein' stiff in these things. Against the spirit of the age—what? So I said we'd do the handsome thing and go up. We both wanted a spell of easy—so it was handy. Besides, I wanted to see the gel. I own to that. And there's no doubt she's a clinker; quiet, you know, and steady; looks right at you, far in; sees the lot at a glance. Palish gel, not too big; but well set up. Square shoulders—deep-chested gel. That sort.” He stared at the table-cloth hard.
“I was taken by her, mightily taken. So when she and my wife had done kissin', I put in my little oar. 'How d'ye do, Miss—' I won't mention names, though upon my dick I don't know why I should be squeamish. But there it was; and I'd have kissed her, as you do kiss your wife's—well, cousin, let's say—if you want to. Bless you, not a bit of it. Proud as pepper. Gives me a finger. 'Quite well,' says she. 'Quite well, thank you—' and drops me. Drops me! Good Lord!”
He drank deeply of beer. “Well now, I tell you, that's the last time, absolutely the last time I do the civil thing to—well, to that sort, if she's my wife's grandmother.” He stared out of window, mist over his blue eyes. “They're all for marrying her now. It seems it can be done. Chap's to be screwed up. Then she'll be patronising me, you'll see. Because I was decently civil—that was as far as I was prepared to go; bare civility—and two fingers for it—'Quite well, thank you!' Oh, damn it. Waiter—more beer.”
II
Vicky was enchanting; for half-an-hour Sanchia was at the top of bliss. To be petted and diminutived by a butterfly—it was like that; for though the child was a year older than she, six years of marriage had made a baby of her. Her audacities of old had become artless prattle, her sallies were skips in the air. Yet to be purred over by a kitten was pure joy. “You darling!' You darling little Sancie! You beautiful, pale, Madame-de-Watte-ville kind of person! Oh, my treasure—and I thought I should never see you again!” So she cooed while she cuddled, Sanchia, for her part, saying little, but kissing much. Her lips were famished; but Vicky's must be free for moments if her words were to be intelligible. During such times she stroked or patted the prodigal, and let her browse on her cheeks.
By-and-by, raptures subsiding, the pair settled down for talk, and the discrepancies which eight years had made began to show up, like rocks and boulders in a strand left bare by the ebb. Grotesque the shapes of some of them, comical others; but wrecks and dead things come to light at low water—spectral matter, squalid, rueful matter. And there are chasms set yawning, too, which you cannot bridge. Sanchia was to be lacerated.