Mr. Hoope-Arkwright’s most characteristic activities had hitherto lain rather in doing others than in doing things for them. Also, he had very different views on the use of money from those so correctly enunciated by Gundred. So he preserved a discreet silence on the point, and listened unprotesting while she proceeded to enlarge on the more idyllically beautiful possibilities of life. He inserted ‘Ah yes,’ and ‘Ah no,’ at intervals into the interstices of her remarks, and cast about for an early opportunity of taking refuge with his other neighbour. Mr. Hoope-Arkwright did not really share his wife’s hospitable instincts, and he did not care two straws about Lady Gundred Darnley—or, for that matter, about Lady Anybody Anything. ‘To do the civil’ he saw to be his duty, but the moment that dinner was half over and his duty duly discharged, he meant to indemnify himself for his endurance of this dull, pretty woman and her boring platitudes by having a good time with his other partner, Sir Nigel Pope’s second wife, a young woman of a gay and kindred spirit. Accordingly, when the roast peacock had arrived, he seized his moment with great promptitude.
‘Now, that is what I call quite poetic,’ he exclaimed, when Gundred had finished by saying that she thought a good, useful life was like some fragrant flower. ‘What do you think, Lady Pope?’
Lady Pope made a prompt, flashing reply, and in another moment was engaged in a warm duologue with her host; Gundred was left out in the cold. She felt a certain annoyance at being dropped like this. Her self-complacence would not, of course, let her know that she had been dropped. She knew that she had been giving poor dear Mr. Hoope-Arkwright one of the pleasantest half-hours of his life—a little uplifting talk with a really refined woman—but still it was just a trifle tiresome that he should have so very keen a sense of duty. Evidently it was only the strictest sense of duty that had made him change partners so precisely at the halfway house of the meal; but Gundred would have been better pleased if he had not allowed his sense of duty to be quite so minute and intrusive. Very proper and right, of course, yet almost too scrupulously right and proper to be altogether tactful. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she in turn ought to talk to her horror on the other side. No, that she would not. Duty and right themselves should not compel her. She stared stonily before her, eating the peacock with wrathful and mincing precision. She would hear no preliminaries on her right. She gazed straight out across the table. Far off she saw her husband looking at her. Watchful interest and curiosity filled his expression as he glanced from her neighbour to herself. Perhaps he was wondering why she was not talking to him. Duty clearly commanded her to. But for once in her life correct, decorous Gundred would be deaf to the call which she usually heard and obeyed so sedulously. She nibbled at a pastry faggot, and kept a stern silence. Her neighbour made two attempts at conversation, but she answered so coldly as to nip them both in the bud. Then, abruptly, her attention was caught and riveted. The pink candle-shade in front of her was tilting to one side, threatening every moment to take fire. She looked anxiously round to her host for help, but he was by now far too deeply engaged with Lady Pope. Gundred gazed in annoyance at the paper shade. Surely it was beginning to smoulder? Ever since the catastrophe at Brakelond Gundred had disliked fire hardly less than the burned child, and now her untutored desires would have prompted her to get up and move away. But she had the martyr-like courage of her breeding and conventions. She sat there in suspense, smiling, calm, and altogether smooth to look at. However, there was no need, after all, to feel so helpless. She must inevitably appeal to the young man on her right. Speech had become a necessity, though always a distasteful one. Besides, after all, how absurd to let even so strong an instinct make one uncivil! Gundred fought down her reluctance bravely, and turned to her neighbour.
‘Do you think,’ she asked firmly, though in a low, rather strained voice, ‘that you could lower that shade a little? Do you see, I believe it will catch fire in a moment—yes?’
No answer followed her appeal. In astonishment she repeated it, and raised her eyes to her enemy’s face. She was astounded by what she saw there. She herself had been put out, even alarmed for a minute by the imminent fate of the candle-shade; but her neighbour’s gaze was fixed on the point of peril in a set white pallor of pure terror. Never in her life had she seen such an agony of dread on any human countenance. The young man, so beautiful, so lithe, so strong, was a monstrous coward. His face was rigid with fear, his eyes staring horribly. The sight was indecent in its nude revelation of weakness. In an instant all Gundred’s courage came back to her, and at the same moment her hatred for her neighbour was mitigated by a cold ferocity of contempt. He was still evil and hateful, but now he was contemptible also. He, a man, to be so terrified of a little burning candle-shade! At that same moment the shade tilted further, caught, and flamed. Gundred was conscious that her neighbour’s hands clenched upon his chair in a convulsive jerk of fright. Calmly, firmly she reached forth her arm, and crushed the blazing paper into a blackened flake. Servants came running to sweep up the ashes, and Mr. Hoope-Arkwright confounded himself in apologies for his neglect. Gundred showed herself perfectly amiable to her host, but on her other neighbour she would have no mercy.
‘I saw it was going to catch,’ she said gently, ‘and I asked Mr.—this gentleman, to put it out. But he cannot have heard me, I think.’ She included both men in her remarks, and spoke in soft, far-reaching tones that could not escape their attention. Mr. Hoope-Arkwright made some polite rejoinder, gave her a few compliments, then went back to his dialogue with Lady Pope. Gundred, reinstated in her own self-esteem, turned to see what effect her cut had had upon the coward. Had he winced beneath the lash? Yes, evidently he had. Gundred was justly pleased. Heaven had made her the instrument of his well-merited punishment. And now he was trying to make excuses. She would listen, so as the better to slight them. She offered a coldly acquiescent air as he began to speak.
‘I am sorry,’ he said in a slow, hesitating voice, hardly yet restored to equanimity. ‘I am afraid I heard you perfectly.’
Gundred would see no courage in the confession. It was mere effrontery. ‘Yes?’ she replied. There was a pause. ‘Yes?’ repeated Gundred cruelly, demanding an answer.
The young man went on, speaking with difficulty. Gundred felt a keen joy in thus dragging the coward through a confession of his cowardice. To be a man and a coward—that was not punishment enough. He should also know what a woman thought of him.
‘I ... well, the long and the short of it is, I can’t face fire,’ continued the hesitating, painful voice.