She was first with Frank, the only thing that mattered in his life. He had told her so often and often. Perhaps, yes, perhaps she would give herself to him, and make him happy, make herself happy. Stupid Jack had said that illicit relations with a man would never make her happy. But he was an ass, anyway. Why should not Frank make her happy? Why should Circe’s daughter not be happy as, apparently, her mother had been? Perhaps Circe had gone through a similar period of happiness and hesitation before she—— No, she could not honestly follow that line of argument. Her mother had only made a marriage of convenience, her father had never counted at all, and she knew instinctively, without any harsh judgment, that Circe had an entirely different nature from her own. There were no subtle shades of feeling in her mother, no understanding of intellectual and emotional heights. Claudia had discovered that as a child. Her mother never shared her enthusiasm for books or pictures, she would have looked with but languid interest that morning at the blue mist of the hyacinths stretching far away under the trees. Claudia had felt like shouting as she and Pat turned the corner and saw the beautiful carpet at their feet, but her mother would only have feared that she might be getting her feet damp on the grass. No, the example of Circe taught her nothing. They were mother and daughter, but they were different.
She went to the window and leaned out, looking up at the darkly blue sky and the steady stars, which watched in remote peacefulness over the traffic of Knightsbridge.
Her only justification now or at any time would be the strength of her love. She had her heritage of passion, but something that had not restrained her mother would always restrain her. Did she love Frank? He loved her, she never doubted that, but did she love him? She asked herself if the secrecy of such relationship would not harass her? Would the stolen meetings be the sweeter for the necessary secrecy, or would there not be a certain degradation in the whispered rendezvous? She could hear herself as a girl calling it, with fine youthful dogmatism, a “hole-and-corner” business. Did love save it from that reproach?
At the back of her Billie barked sharply, and withdrawing her head from the window, Claudia heard two voices raised in unusual excitement outside her door. She went across to it and threw it open.
She just caught the end of a sentence spoken by her husband in his most dictatorial, angry tones. “ ... you can take a month’s notice. I refuse to overlook the matter. I have enough affairs on my hands without keeping a man I cannot rely on. You can go.”
The man, who was an excellent valet, answered with considerable conviction. “You did not tell me, sir. I know you did not. You may have thought you did, but you did not say anything about the suit-case.”
The man went towards the servants’ quarters, and Gilbert, turning, saw her in the doorway. His face was very unbeautiful in its anger. He looked almost apoplectic, his skin was so red and mottled. He had grown lately to look many years older than his age.
“Gilbert, did I hear you giving Marsh notice to go? He is such an excellent servant. What has he done?”
He came inside and sat down on the couch, breathing rather heavily. For a moment he seemed unable to answer.
“Forgot some instructions I gave him this morning, and then had the impertinence to say I never gave them. How”—irritably—“could I forget such an important thing?”