“I have been telling Mr Gloucester, Edith, that when I was very good you used to read me extracts from his letters, and thrill me by repeating his adventures. They were such nice, full, detaily letters. I think you would get a prize in a foreign correspondence competition, Mr Gloucester. Most men write such scrappy notes.”
“Ah, I should have been ungrateful if I had done that, for Edith sent me such splendid letters from home. No one knows how a fellow appreciates letters when he is abroad—a blank mail is a blighting experience. Edith has been a brick to me in that way; as good as any sister.”
He smiled at the girl as he spoke, and Edith Morton smiled bravely back. Gloucester saw nothing strained or unnatural in that smile, but the three women divined its secret with lightning intuition. Poor Edith who had watched and waited all these years, counting each day as it passed, enduring a grey present in the hope of a golden future which would surely begin when the Prince returned to his own. And now her long wish was fulfilled—her hero was restored to her side, not unconscious of her care, but full of gratitude and affection. He smiled at her with kindly eyes, he paid her public thanks, he compared her to a sister, and Edith’s heart cramped with despair.
She was a tall, slight girl, with dark hair, a dull complexion, and pretty eyes. She dressed tastefully, though without style, and spoke with a delightfully clear, musical intonation. When addressed she had a trick of drooping her head, which gave her a somewhat timid and shrinking air, and her hands were small and white. Women admired and loved her, and constantly asked of each other, “Why is she not married?” Men passed her by as if unconscious of her presence. The mysterious quality which attracts masculine approval was lacking in her case, and until the present she had not regretted its absence.
The while Gloucester continued an easy flow of conversation, the same thought passed through the mind of each feminine hearer. If Edith wished to appropriate this man for herself, why had she so hastened to bring him into the temptation of Jean Goring’s presence? Jean, with her characteristic impulsiveness made a dozen impossible resolutions to keep out of Robert’s path; to be cold to him, to refuse to speak. Vanna sighed over the hardness of fate which ever advances to its festivals over the corpses of the slain. Mrs Goring, with tightened lips, sneered at the blindness of men whose vision was blinded by a pretty face. Edith, with a sad pride, told herself that above all things sincerity was the most precious, and that if Gloucester were to be hers, it must be of his own unbiased will. If he loved her—if he were even beginning to love her—Jean’s beauty would leave him untouched. Every day one beheld ordinary-looking women wooed by men who had passed by others infinitely more favoured, to seek them out. Beauty meant much, but it was not all. The mystic tie of affinity in no way depended on its presence. Robert and Jean were bound to meet during the next few weeks; her own influence should be used to make those meetings more frequent, rather than less. She would condescend to no scheming to attain what was worth having only if it came as a free-will gift.
When she spoke again it was to invite Jean and her friend to dinner the next evening.
“We are expecting some of Robert’s old friends, and we need you two girls to balance numbers. You must come!”
Jean hesitated. She had just decided to refuse all invitations; but this was put in the light of a favour, which it would seem discourteous to refuse. Besides, Vanna had seemed interested in Robert Gloucester. She must consider poor, dear Vanna!
“You are sure you want us? Really? It seems so soon to come again. If any of the men drop out, be sure to let us know. We shall quite understand,” she replied, assuaging her conscience with this loophole of escape, and Edith rose to say good-bye, smiling another difficult smile.
It was Jean’s usual custom to accompany her friend downstairs at the end of each visit, linking arms, and standing long in the hall as one item of news after another presented itself for discussion; but to-day she rang the bell for a maid, and made her adieux at the drawing-room door; the most careless and perfunctory of adieux to the man, to the girl a kiss, and an eloquent grip of the hand. Edith was her friend, a friend of years’ standing; and Jean, for all her flirtatious nature, was loyal to her sex. The last thing she would wish to do would be to annex another girl’s lover. Nevertheless it was with a sigh and an unusual sense of depression that she re-entered the drawing-room. Vanna was standing by the sofa in the corner, looking down on the carved oak table. Jean’s eyes followed hers, and her heart gave a sudden, startling leap. The bowl of roses was untouched, but the table was bare, the faded bud had disappeared!