Kingston did not take the trouble to endorse this sentiment, and Gundred did not wait for him to do so. She knew it was too sound to need any such endorsement—so obvious, indeed, that she had only thrown it out in obedience to her unvarying custom of trying to improve her husband whenever she could.

‘Well,’ she went on, after a pause, ‘I must really go about my duties now. One has so much to do. I don’t suppose I shall see you again, dear, shall I, before you start? I hope you will have a delightful day. Do take care of your poor eyes. And give my love to Jim, and tell him always to change his boots when he comes in, and be sure to read his Chapter morning and evening; he will find it such a help. And say how we are looking forward to the holidays—yes?’

Kingston promised vaguely to give his wife’s messages. Then Gundred passed on her way to interview the cook, and complete arrangements for the effectual dazzling of the mothers from Kensington and Campden Hill. Left alone, her husband took refuge for a moment or two in dreamland. This life of his, orderly, decorous, colourless, with Gundred superintending its details, and seeing that its food was good and hot—this life of his was not a real life at all. It was a vapour, a phantom, having no part in the true life of his soul. His body moved on its appointed course from breakfast through the day to bed, bandying banalities with its tongue, looking out on Gundred’s world with amiable eyes; but he himself, the real man, belonged to a remoter world. In strange, far-off lands he roamed, seeking that which for a time was lost; the gorgeous, sombre mysteries of life and death were about his head, shedding a glamour of ecstasy on the secret byway that he was treading. How Gundred would stare, what pious sillinesses would she not utter, if for a moment—if only for the smallest fragment of a moment—her eyes could be unsealed to see the magic tangle of visions in which her husband was wandering, all the while that his earthly gaze was fixed on her, his earthly ears politely attentive to her talk, his earthly stomach contentedly absorbing the food that she made it her daily duty to provide. Dressed, brushed, washed, and fed, the simulacrum of her husband passed through the world at her side, but the thing she walked with was a changeling; the man she loved and looked after was the mere shell of a stranger—of a stranger whose eyes were fixed on the immensities, whose ears received her words as jargon in a tongue unknown, whose whole life was passed in that world of reality whose shadows now and then are cast across this life of ours that we call real, in the glimpses of what we call a dream. Little, visible, tangible, clear was the life that Gundred thought the true; vast, illimitable, without end or beginning was that enormous infinite where the soul of Kingston ceaselessly went seeking for the lost.

‘By kind permission of the Lady Gundred Darnley, the Mothers’ Educational Union—called for short the M.E.U.—held a most enjoyable meeting at 53, Grosvenor Street. The hostess’s demeanour gave great satisfaction, and her gown was held to shed real lustre on the occasion. It was a wonderful arrangement in blue and mauve, and no other woman of her age could have worn it; but the delicacy of her colouring, the serene charm of her features, were only enhanced by it, and the mothers from Kensington and Campden Hill spent a happy hour in devising means of copying its most successful features. Meanwhile, an American spinster, of world-wide renown but unappetizing appearance, gave an interesting and exhaustive address on the proper upbringing of children; and a Bishop’s wife in voluminous black brocade, with a bonnet built of bluebells, brought up the rear with an account of how her own darlings had been triumphantly reared on a system of perfect freedom tempered by whippings administered officially by each other. A discussion followed, in which old maids and childless widows vied with the mothers in expounding the secrets of education. The Lady Gundred Darnley herself contributed a brief but very pleasant little allocution, in which she insisted on the efficacy of prayer, and attributed her own success in dealing with her dear little son entirely to her inculcation of sound religious principles.’ Gundred was at the height of her glory; her graciousness was delightful, her condescension so profound that neither she herself nor anyone else could guess that it was condescension at all. When the meeting had concluded in a volley of mutual compliments, and a unanimous vote of thanks had been offered to their charming hostess, she shepherded the mothers down to food with the sublimest cordiality. The iced coffee flowed like milk and honey; tea was nothing accounted of, any more than was silver in King Solomon’s time. Eclairs, sandwiches, and buns disappeared like snow in summer; of every dish Gundred felt a calm confidence that each mother present was eyeing it carefully with a view to imitation. Of all life’s duties, Gundred perhaps best loved that of setting an example to others. She felt that the Creator had specially ordained her for that end, and was never so completely and conscientiously happy as when possessed with the certainty that she was duly fulfilling His design.

But at last the meeting began to melt away, and Gundred was left alone in the large deserted room. Up and down among the little gilded chairs she roamed, pondering with complacency the success of the entertainment. In the course of her wanderings, she came into view of the great mirror that filled the space between two of the windows. She stood for a while in front of it, contemplating the perfections that it reflected. From the crown of her head to the glistering point of her shoe, she, ‘the Lady Gundred Darnley,’ the fastidious critic, had not the smallest fault to find. Her gown was an inspiration, and its fit an earthly manifestation of the ideal.

‘Really,’ said Gundred to herself, ‘God has been very good to me indeed. I declare I do not look a day over twenty-five. No one would ever believe that I am forty. That is what comes of having a good conscience, and being a little careful what one eats. And it is not many women of five-and-twenty that could dare to wear a colour like this. My figure is positively girlish, and my complexion—well, one does not often see a better one, even among quite young girls.’ But at this point her meditations were interrupted by the sound of a ringing at the bell. She concluded that it must be some belated mother, who would be politely turned away by the butler. So she gave no further attention to the sound, but still stood admiring what the mirror revealed, with both hands caressing the beautiful lines of her waist. In this pleasant employment, however, she was startled by a discreet cough behind her. She wheeled hastily round.

A small elderly gentleman was approaching, ushered by the butler. Gundred summoned her presence of mind to confront this unexpected apparition. The butler, meanwhile, was murmuring an unintelligible name. The visitor peered inquiringly up at her. For he was a very minute personage, smaller even than his hostess; he had an air of patient antiquity, and his thin neck poked forward till he had the look of a very shrunken, very wise, very benevolent little old tortoise. He was dressed, too, in the quaintest clothes, that somehow suggested that they had been bought ready-made, and were mysteriously, strangely inappropriate, seeming as if their present wearer were accustomed to quite different garb, and only wore these clumsy reach-me-downs in deference to European convention. He conveyed an impression of feeling fettered and uncomfortable in them, of longing for freer and more flowing vestments.

Gundred assumed a smile of gracious interrogation.

‘Mr. ——?’

‘You are Mr. Darnley’s wife?’ inquired the new-comer.