Recalling all this, Gwendolyn drew a long breath of dismay. Then the maid came in with a sheaf of household bills and the announcement that she and the cook had determined to leave when the month should be up. An organ-grinder in the street outside began to play:
“O! bella Napoli!
O! dolce Napoli!”
The sunshine that streamed through the panes of her south windows was full of suggestions of purple seas, overarched by an azure dome, beneath which roses bloomed along the shore, and jasmine and orange flowers distilled their richest perfume. Oh! to be in the South—far from the sound of trolley cars and all the tokens of a city’s overcrowded life that, day or night, can never be hushed!
If she had something of her very own—some hearthside idol to go and come in her little home, she would be more than content to stay there.
Then Gwendolyn subjected herself to a secret crucial test. She opened a case of photographs—a receptacle made of old brocade, broidered with silver thread, that she had picked up in the Palais Royal in 1893—and extracted one of its portraits. This was an up-to-date affair, executed by a New York photographer of note. It represented a man of five-and-thirty, good looking, amiable, and weak.
She looked at it long and studiously. A line dashed off at her writing-table, a call for a messenger, a few hours’ delay, and he would be with her. The very next day she might announce to all interested her engagement to marry Mr. Ernest Blythe. As Mrs. Blythe, provided she could maintain a sufficient interest in yachting and its devotees, no injunction would be laid upon her habits or inclination. Blythe was rich, easy-going to a ridiculous degree, as much in love with her as his capacity would admit, and was hers to take or leave.
But—Gwendolyn glanced up at an enlarged photograph of the late Lieutenant West, hanging in an ebony frame above that very writing-table, as if to control its output of chirographical amenities.
Her survey was not reassuring. “Oh! never, never again!” she murmured audibly. It is only once in a long while that women really speak to themselves aloud, and that is when they want a witness to some vow of a peculiarly binding character.