Leo Ulford was rather like a younger and coarser Lord Holme. In him Lady Holme recognised an effective weapon for the chastisement, if not for the eventual reclamation, of her husband. It was characteristic of her that this was the weapon she chose, the weapon she still continued to rely on even after her conversation with Robin Pierce. Her faith in white angels was very small. Perpetual contact with the world of to-day, with life as lived by women of her order, had created within her far other faiths, faiths in false gods, a natural inclination to bow the knee in the house of Rimmon rather than before the altars guarded by the Eternities.
And then—she knew Lord Holme; knew what attracted him, what stirred him, what moved him to excitement, what was likely to hold him. She felt sure that he and such men as he yield the homage they would refuse to the angel to the siren. Instead of seeking the angel within herself, therefore, she sought the siren. Instead of striving to develope that part of her which was spiritual, she fixed all her attention upon that part of her which was fleshly, which was physical. She neglected the flame and began to make pretty patterns with the ashes.
Robin came to bid her good-bye before leaving London for Rome. The weeping woman was gone. He looked into the hard, white face of a woman who smiled. They talked rather constrainedly for a few minutes. Then suddenly he said:
“Once it was a painted window, now it’s an iron shutter.”
He got up from his chair and clasped his hands together behind his back.
“What on earth do you mean?” she asked, still smiling.
“Your face,” he answered. “One could see you obscurely before. One can see nothing now.”
“You talk great nonsense, Robin. It’s a good thing you’re going back to Rome.”
“At least I shall find the spirit of beauty there,” he said, almost with bitterness. “Over here it is treated as if it were Jezebel. It’s trodden down. It’s thrown to the dogs.”
“Poor spirit!”