"If you had asked her, she'd have refused to come," said Lady Wereminster from the door. "She's jealous. A woman who is common at heart takes common means of showing jealousy. But, mark my words, the time will come when Dora's in trouble, and she'll send for you then irrevocably as the one person she can trust."
Fond as she was of Lady Wereminster, Evelyn saw her go with a sigh of relief. Unseen wounds hurt enough in any case, without being torn open daily by our friends.—How hot and sultry it was!
One of the minor evils of what is called the artistic temperament is its dependence on the changes of the season. So far, Evelyn had loved spring and summer, had counted the days till April like a child awaiting some coveted adventure. She loved to see the orchards break into bloom, on the way to Kew; the first pink flush of almond blossom, the coming of little green shoots on barren trees had struck her with a new significance each year till now. The gradual coming of life was so tender, so wonderful, so mysterious.... But this year, the light and glow, the call of mating birds, the caress of the soft air, only served to deepen her sense of pain. Everything spoke of the joy and promise of life from which she stood aloof. Nature itself seemed to have taken up arms against her, and its array of happy changes found her lonely and sad.
The ordinary routine of life went on, untouched by mood or whim. It was an especially busy season, but lately she had lost her hold on things, and found it difficult to keep up even the little weekly salon in which she had once taken such pride. To be mated with sorrow is little by little to lose all vitality and youth; the lassitude that had come upon Evelyn presently became physical, gripped her closer day by day, as she strove against it with ever-weakening strength. Society had no longer any power to amuse her; indeed she dreaded going out, lest she should be forced to listen to more of Dora's confidences about Farquharson. Religion left her cold. At home, Brand was perhaps a trifle more cynical than before; he had found her vulnerable spot, and turned his knowledge to account. On those rare evenings when they were alone together in the little flat at West Kensington (she often dined now in her own room), she would surprise him sometimes watching her through half-closed lids, and smiling as if at some private reminiscence.
"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked one night, when for the third time she had met his mocking look fixed full upon her.
"Oh, I grant you it's rather amazing that a man should find anything to look at in his wife after so many years of marriage," said Brand, flicking the ash from his cigarette. "You should be flattered at the compliment. A husband's tribute to his wife's charms is worth at least twice as much as that of any—other. By the way, our Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is mounting steadily up the ladder of fame, isn't he?"
"The papers seem to think well of him," said Evelyn coldly.
The postman's knock at the door brought welcome interruption in the shape of a bulky letter from Cummings. She took it to her room.
"By the time this reaches you I shall have set sail for the East once more," he wrote. "I have got all the good I shall out of my trip; it's no use staying any longer. It was like you to try to make my father and mother see me again—I knew they would not. Amongst many jealous mistresses—ambition, pleasure, the quest of forgetfulness or peace—love of home never loses her sway on a man's heart. A man may travel far and try to stifle, in other countries and other surroundings, the claims of his own lands and his own people, but their voices compel him, until at last he is bound either to obey or else for ever to cut himself adrift. And for the future I shall cut myself adrift.
"It was like you, too, to collect all that array of good things for my people; thank you for them all. Not one will be wasted, and I shall look upon them with very especial gratitude, because you thought of me in your own trouble.