“Sit down, Beryl,” she said.
The girl looked at her wondering, feeling a great change in her and not understanding it.
“Why?” she said.
“I have something I must say to you.”
Beryl dropped her muff and sat down. Lady Sellingworth stood near her.
“Beryl,” she said, “you think I have been and am your enemy. I must show you I am not. And there’s only one way. You say I can’t bear to see you happy. I don’t think that’s true. I hope it isn’t. I don’t think I wish unhappiness to others, but, even at my age, I still wish to have a little happiness myself. There’s never a time in one’s life, I suppose, when one doesn’t long to be happy. But I don’t want to interfere with your happiness, I only want to interfere between you and a very great danger, something which would certainly bring disaster into your life.”
She stopped speaking. She was looking grave, indeed almost tragically sad, but calm and resolute. The spots of red had faded out of her cheeks. There was no fever in her manner. Miss Van Tuyn’s wonder grew as she looked at her former friend, who now dominated her, and began to extort from her a strange and unwilling admiration, which recalled to her the admiration of that past time when she had first met Alick Craven in this drawing-room.
After a long pause Lady Sellingworth continued, with a sort of strong simplicity in which there was moral power:
“Don’t be angry with me, Beryl, when I tell you that you have one of my dominant characteristics.”
“What is it?” Miss Van Tuyn asked, in a low voice.