Meryon stopped. “I’m glad you don’t think it was cheek of me. I’d better go back now; I’ll just catch my train.”
“Did you come here simply to tell me this?” said Dolly. “You’re a good friend.”
“There wasn’t anything in it. I didn’t think you’d snub me; and if you had I’d have been bound to tell you just the same. Laurenson’s been no end good, being friends with an outsider like me,” said Meryon, with simplicity.
Poor outsider! From a great way off his tired eyes had seen the bright circle of happiness; he came to the light, passed through it, and so out into the cold and lonely twilight, where his own lot was cast. He was made for the life of a home: sociable, contented, affectionate, fond of quiet pleasures, a lover of little children. But the tyrannous demon who had ruled him would grant no peace; Meryon was driven out into the wilderness, where he lived and where he died.
XVI
A NIGHT-PIECE
It might have been supposed that Dolly would be anxious to make amends for her injustice. When Bernard came in, saying that Mrs. Merton had invited them both to dinner the next day but one, and that he had accepted her kindness, she should have been pleased; in place of which she declared that she could not go. She had no dress, she said. Bernard pointed out that she had dined with the Mertons before. “Oh yes,” said Dolly; “but one can’t wear the same thing twice over,” and she stood upon her argument till Bernard calmly told her that he should go and she could stay. Dolly came near to a quarrel with him; she did actually provoke one with her father; and then she went to bed.
In the morning she awoke reasonable and sweeter-tempered, and begged her father’s pardon in words, and Bernard’s in deeds by making hot cakes for breakfast. Peace reigned over the house of Fanes, except in Dolly’s mind, which was still disturbed. For yesterday, in the flush of her indignation and reasonable anger, she had taken a step that she could not retrace. Waiting under the white sign-post at Dove Green for the smith’s report on her shattered dog-cart, Dolly had made up her mind upon one point, and had clinched the matter at once in the post-office adjoining the smithy; and now the contemplation of the consequences filled her with lively discomfort. She calculated that these consequences could not arrive for two days, or possibly three; she had two days to prepare; but how she was to do so presented a problem of weight. Dolly felt that she had made a fool of herself, a sensation disagreeable to a girl so proud as she; of all troubles she could least stomach humiliation. Then, also, she knew that her blunder would bring distress on Lucian, and was heartily sorry, for she loved him dearly. But there was another, darker thought which would stay in her mind, despite of reason and despite of resolution. Dolly had felt the merciless power of Farquhar’s strength; she feared his jealousy, cruel as the grave. Vainly she told herself that he was Lucian’s friend; he was her lover, but that had not shielded her. Imagination offered lurid pictures of a battle to the death between the rivals. Vague ideas of sending Bernard out to Petit-Fays as peace-maker crossed her mind, but the irrepressible voice of common-sense pointed out that her brother’s attitude towards Noel Farquhar was not usually conciliatory; also that, even if she sent him at once, he could not possibly get there in time to do any good. In view of this last consideration, Dolly let the matter drop; but her mind was ill at ease.
Next evening when Bernard came down into the hall he found her waiting, muffled in a big white shawl. Bernard’s hands and head were too fully occupied with his white kid gloves to allow him to draw deductions, and he discerned nothing until she walked out in front of him; then he said:
“Thought you weren’t coming?”
“I’ve changed my mind.”