Eve’s eyes were deep and luminous at that moment, but their beautiful glance held no remembrance of her companions. All her thought was for her man.
“Ah, Rupert, yes! you have gained your wish!” Mrs Ingram said deeply. She looked at the two as they sat side by side, and a reflection of their own radiance showed in her own face. “It was a great wish,” she said, “a wish that was worth while, for your treasure can never be taken away. Death itself is powerless to divide your souls. Dear Rupert, I am glad for you. We are all glad! It is good to have you among us to-day...”
Hereward Lowther bent forward in his seat, the firelight playing on his eager, animated face. Throughout the evening he had worn an air of expectancy, and now he burst eagerly into speech.
“Mrs Ingram, I have to thank you for a tremendously interesting evening. My wife told me that she had a special reason for wishing to accept your invitation. I understood that we were to celebrate some sort of anniversary, but as old friends you will remember that she is chary of words, and I was entirely ignorant of its nature. I have been intensely interested in the history of the various wishes, but I confess that my chief feeling has been curiosity. Please tell me! What was my wife’s wish?”
Mrs Ingram looked at the corner by the fireplace where for the last hour a white figure sat, silent, immovable, her face shadowed by an outstanding beam. Even so fifteen years ago had the girl Lilith Wastneys watched and waited, until at her hostess’s summons she had moved softly forward to make her extraordinary pronouncement. The remembrance of that moment was vivid in the minds of her old friends, as Mrs Ingram answered:
“Lilith,” she said deliberately, “wished for Power.”
The next moment the silence was broken by a peal of laughter. It was Hereward Lowther who laughed, giving way to a gust of amusement with the boy-like unrestraint which still characterised his moods. He threw back his head, he clasped his knees, he opened his mouth and let the loud ha-ha’s echo through the hall. In a very paroxysm of amusement he repeated the word, over and again, and between each repetition, swayed with fresh laughter.
“Power! Lilith? Lilith wished for Power? Of all the inexplicable wishes! I might have guessed for months but I should never have guessed that. Lilith? the most humble and retiring of women. Look at her now! That’s where she would always be, if she were not driven forward,—hiding in some out-of-the-way corner. And you tell me that she wished for Power? When was that—fifteen years ago? And we have been married for twelve... How extraordinarily she must have changed!”
Through eight different minds the reflection was passing, how extraordinarily Lilith remained the same, but it did not become mere friends to contradict the verdict of a husband, so they remained silent, and, his outburst of amusement over, Hereward Lowther vouchsafed a more serious attention to the problem.
“Well!” he said thoughtfully, “we may say that vicariously she has gained her wish. As my wife—” He checked himself as though fearful of seeming to boast, and added quickly, “I should be delighted to feel that I have been able to provide Lilith with anything for which she wished!”