A few moments later Kendal let himself into his rooms, where lights were burning, and threw himself into his reading-chair, beside which his books and papers stood ready to his hand. Generally, nothing gave him a greater sense of bien-être than this nightly return, after a day spent in society, to these silent and faithful companions of his life. He was accustomed to feel the atmosphere of his room when he came back to it charged with welcome. It was as though the thoughts and schemes he had left warm and safe in shelter there started to life again after a day's torpor, and thronged to meet him. His books smiled at him with friendly faces, the open page called to him to resume the work of the morning—he was, in every sense, at home. Tonight, however, the familiar spell seemed to have lost its force. After a hasty supper he took up some proofs, pen in hand. But the first page was hardly turned before they had dropped on to his knee. It seemed to him as if he still felt on his arm the folds of a green, fur-edged cloak, as if the touch of a soft cold hand were still lingering in his. Presently he fell to recalling every detail of the afternoon scene,—the arching beech trees, the rich red and brown of the earth beneath, tinged with the winter sheddings of the trees, the little raised bank, her eyes as she looked up at him, the soft wisps of her golden brown hair under her hat. What superb, unapproachable beauty it was! how living, how rich in content and expression!
'Am I in love with Isabel Bretherton?' he asked himself at last, lying back on his chair with his eyes on the portrait of his sister. 'Perhaps Marie could tell me—I don't understand myself. I don't think so. And if I were, I am not a youngster, and my life is a tolerably full one. I could hold myself in and trample it down if it were best to do so. I can hardly imagine myself absorbed in a great passion. My bachelor life is a good many years old—my habits won't break up easily. And, supposing I felt the beginnings of it, I could stop it if reason were against it.'
He left his chair, and began to pace up and down the room, thinking. 'And there is absolutely no sort of reason in my letting myself fall in love with Isabel Bretherton! She has never given me the smallest right to think that she takes any more interest in me than she does in hundreds of people whom she meets on friendly terms, unless it may be an intellectual interest, as Wallace imagines, and that's a poor sort of stepping-stone to love! And if it were ever possible that she should, this afternoon has taken away the possibility. For, however magnanimous a woman may be, a thing like that rankles: it can't help it. She will feel the sting of it worse to-morrow than to-day, and, though she will tell herself that she bears no grudge, it will leave a gulf between us. For, of course, she must go on acting, and, whatever depressions she may have, she must believe in herself; no one can go on working without it, and I shall always recall to her something harsh and humiliating!'
'Supposing, by any chance, it were not so—supposing I were able to gather up my relation with her again and make it a really friendly one—I should take, I think, a very definite line; I should make up my mind to be of use to her. After all, it is true what she says: there are many things in me that might be helpful to her, and everything there was she should have the benefit of. I would make a serious purpose of it. She should find me a friend worth having.'
His thoughts wandered on a while in this direction. It was pleasant to see himself in the future as Miss Bretherton's philosopher and friend, but in the end the sense of reality gained upon his dreams. 'I am a fool!' he said to himself resolutely at last, 'and I may as well go to bed and put her out of my mind. The chance is over—gone—done with, if it ever existed.'
The next morning, on coming down to breakfast, he saw among his letters a handwriting which startled him. Where had he seen it before? In Wallace's hand three days ago? He opened it, and found the following note:—
'MY DEAR MR. KENDAL—You know, I think, that I am off next week—on Monday, if all goes well. We go to Switzerland for a while, and then to Venice, which people tell me is often very pleasant in August. We shall be there by the first week in August, and Mr. Wallace tells me he hears from you that your sister, Madame de Châteauvieux, will be there about the same time. I forgot to ask you yesterday, but, if you think she would not object to it, would you give me a little note introducing me to her? All that I have heard of her makes me very anxious to know her, and she would not find me a troublesome person! We shall hardly, I suppose, meet again before I start. If not, please remember that my friends can always find me on Sunday afternoon.—Yours very truly, ISABEL BRETHERTON.'
Kendal's hand closed tightly over the note. Then he put it carefully back into its envelope, and walked away with his hands behind him and the note in them, to stare out of window at the red roofs opposite.
'That is like her,' he murmured to himself; 'I wound and hurt her: she guesses I shall suffer for it, and, by way of setting up the friendly bond again, next day, without a word, she asks me to do her a kindness! Could anything be more delicate, more gracious!'
Kendal never had greater difficulty in fixing his thoughts to his work than that morning, and at last, in despair, he pushed his book aside, and wrote an answer to Miss Bretherton, and, when that was accomplished, a long letter to his sister. The first took him longer than its brevity seemed to justify. It contained no reference to anything but her request. He felt a compulsion upon him to treat the situation exactly as she had done, but, given this limitation, how much cordiality and respect could two sides of letterpaper be made to carry with due regard to decorum and grammar?