"Ah! I might have guessed it. And I—was vain enough and rash enough to think I could fill her place to you. Poor, dear John, what you have lost, and what have you got instead?"
"Far more than I merit in any case, dear. It is her secret, and, but that I dared not deceive you, should never have passed my lips. It is over, Posey, buried forty fathoms deep. You see, now, that each of us has need of charity and forbearance with the other, and you must set me an example of kind forgivingness for all I have done or left undone toward you."
"My dear boy," said Mr. Winstanley, who, at this moment, came shuffling out from the library to join them, "you are late for luncheon, but how long wouldn't I wait to see you and Posey standing there together? It's better than any sun-bath to have you around, I tell you! I feel years younger since you came."
"So do I, father," said Posey. "After this I am going to wear a collar with a little bell and a leash, and let John lead me upon the Croisette. It is good to have some one to be will and conscience, both, for me!"
"I'm afraid I've spoiled her for you, just a little, John," added her father wistfully.
"You and others, perhaps. But such as she is, she's a lot too good for me, sir—or any man. All the same, I think you'll have to be giving me Posey before the time you fixed for our probation. We are young and will grow together, and she'll help me to do big work. And it seems to me, Mr. Winstanley, that she's got a dose of this Old World at the start that'll make her willing to settle down in our own country."
"We'll see," nodded the old gentleman. And, indeed, the idea of an earlier marriage chimed in with his own notions. Since the wing of the Angel of Death had brushed so near his face in passing, Herbert Winstanley often thought that to put the future of his impetuous child into safe hands would give him a happier feeling when he lay down to sleep o' nights.
Thus Miss Bleecker was wiser than she knew, in predicting a matrimonial conclusion to the Winstanley winter in Cannes. When she and Helen accepted Posey's invitation to dine with them "to meet a few friends" on the night but one following their arrival—an invitation, needless to say, accepted by Miss Carstairs with perturbation of spirit and the feeling that she was walking up to the cannon's mouth—things seemed to point that way. They found Mr. Winstanley, simple and gentle as ever, standing to receive his guests in the drawing-room with its famous tapestries, surrounded by gems of art that for the first time in years had emerged from their Holland cerements. The stately room had flowers massed in its corners, and a great fire of logs was leaping under a carved stone mantelpiece also banked high with plants and blossoms. At her father's right hand stood Posey, blushing and dimpling with artless pleasure in receiving her friend under circumstances so radically different from those in which they had met and parted a few months before; but in dress and bearing so perfectly adapted was she to her luxurious entourage, that Miss Bleecker blinked when looking upon her, and refused to believe her eyes. And on Mr. Winstanley's other side, quiet, grave, a little pale, but collected and fully determined to maintain his position with dignified acceptance, stood Glynn—as handsome and bonny a lad as ever rejoiced a father's heart, Mr. Winstanley was saying inside his own warm receptacle of human emotions.
As Helen's eyes met John's and dropped away; as he clasped her gloved fingers, marvelling at her grace and distinction in the trailing dinner gown of pale rose satin without frill or furbelow, each felt that this occasion had for them the solemn significance of a final renunciation of their love. It was as if she were standing in the church seeing Glynn take Posey to be his wife. A keen pang of shame for the weakness that had overcome her on their journey shot through her being. Ah, well! Fate had been too strong for her then. That was the last, the very last—like a farewell breathed into already deadened ears.
Posey's attitude toward Helen also touched Miss Carstairs acutely. That there was in it a new consciousness she felt immediately. She recognized that Glynn must have eased his honest heart of its burden by telling his betrothed of his former love for her, and felt that this was as it should be, if Posey were to remain her friend. It was not tender apology, or loving sympathy, that Posey showed, nor yet bashful consciousness that she had in some way taken the ground from under Helen's feet, but an exquisite mixture of all these. Her high spirits had for the moment deserted her. She kept close to her father's side, answered Miss Bleecker's fulsome greetings with no attempt at tart or witty answers, and, as their other guests came in, proceeded to do the honors as if "born to the purple" (so Miss Bleecker whispered to John Glynn).