At half-past nine, Robert stood waiting in the hall for his wife. In a few minutes her bedroom door opened and she came out, followed by a maid who held her evening cloak ready.
Robert regarded her critically. She wore a white gown, which he, a connoisseur of women’s dress, thoroughly approved. Moreover, as he could not fail to see, it was extraordinarily becoming. Her dark hair looked very soft and cloudy, the color in her cheeks was faint and delicate as a wild rose. He looked at her, and saw she was a beautiful woman.
“Do I look nice?” she asked, smiling. Oddly enough Robert felt depressed that the smile was so cordial.
“Very,” he returned, and did not speak again till they were in the hansom that the hall porter had called. Even then it was she who broke the silence.
“You look rather tired,” she said, glancing at him. “Are you?”
“Not tired. Beastly depressed.” He spoke in the tone of a child who needs comfort, a tone which Cecily knew well. It never failed to move her.
“Things aren’t going very well just now?” she asked, gently. “It’s frightfully worrying while it lasts, isn’t it? But it won’t last. Nothing lasts. Why, next year, I shall be down there”—she indicated infinite depth,—“and you, towering on pinnacles above me!”
“Oh, no!” returned Robert, bitterly. “You’ve come to stay.”
Cecily shrank back a little into the corner of the cab. When she replied, her voice trembled.
“You speak almost as though you were sorry,” she said. “And that makes me miserable. There’s no comparison between your best work and mine, Robert—but there’s also no accounting for what will succeed.”