As she had read them, driving through all the memories they suggested, like a keen and bitter wind that kills and blights the spring bloom, there had pressed upon her the last memory of all,—the memory of this forlorn, this intolerable day. Had Manisty ever yet forgotten her so completely—abandoned her so utterly? She had simply dropped out of his thoughts. She had become as much of a stranger to him again, as on her first arrival at Rome. Nay, more! For when two people are first brought into a true contact, there is the secret delightful sense on either side of possibilities, of the unexplored. But when the possibilities are all known, and all exhausted?
What had happened between him and Lucy Foster? Of course she understood that he had deliberately contrived their interview. But as Lucy and she came home together they had said almost nothing to each other. She had a vision of their two silent figures in the railway-carriage side by side,—her hand in Lucy's. And Lucy—so sad and white herself!—with the furrowed brow that betrayed the inner stress of thought.
Had the crisis arrived?—and had she refused him? Eleanor had not dared to ask.
Suddenly she rose from her chair. She clasped her hands above her head, and began to walk tempestuously up and down the bare floor of her room. In this creature so soft, so loving, so compact of feeling and of tears, there had gradually arisen an intensity of personal claim, a hardness, almost a ferocity of determination, which was stiffening and transforming the whole soul. She could waver still—as she had wavered in that despairing, anguished moment with Lucy in the Embassy garden. But the wavering would soon be over. A jealousy so overpowering that nothing could make itself heard against it was closing upon her like a demoniacal possession. Was it the last effort of self-preservation?—the last protest of the living thing against its own annihilation?
He was not to be hers—but this treachery, this wrong should be prevented.
She thought of Lucy in Manisty's arms—of that fresh young life against his breast—and the thought maddened her. She was conscious of a certain terror of herself—of this fury in the veins, so strange, so alien, so debasing. But it did not affect her will.
Was Lucy's own heart touched? Over that question Eleanor had been racking herself for days past. But if so it could be only a passing fancy. It made it only the more a duty to protect her from Manisty. Manisty—the soul of caprice and wilfulness—could never make a woman like Lucy happy. He would tire of her and neglect her. And what would be left for Lucy—Lucy the upright, simple, profound—but heartbreak?
Eleanor paused absently in front of the glass, and then looked at herself with a start of horror. That face—to fight with Lucy's!
On the dressing-table there were still lying the two terra-cotta heads from Nemi, the Artemis, and the Greek fragment with the clear brow and nobly parted hair, in which Manisty had seen and pointed out the likeness to Lucy. Eleanor recalled his words in the garden—his smiling, absorbed look as the girl approached.
Yes!—it was like her. There was the same sweetness in strength, the same adorable roundness and youth.