There was a new gentleness in Viola, a new tenderness. Both put him—as one lifted and dropped—a step below her. He pulled his bronze moustache over it with vigour.
His wife showed no desire to control his proceedings, to know what he was about. When she spoke of Miss Schley she spoke kindly, sympathetically, but with a dainty, delicate pity, as one who secretly murmurs, “If she had only had a chance!” Lord Holme began to think it a sad thing that she had not had a chance. The mere thought sent the American a step down from her throne. She stood below him now, as he stood below Viola. It seemed to him that there was less resemblance between his wife and Miss Schley than he had fancied. He even said so to Lady Holme. The angel smiled. Somebody else in her smiled too. Once he remarked to the angel, a propos de bottes, “We men are awful brutes sometimes.” Then he paused. As she said nothing, only looked very kind, he added, “I’ll bet you think so, Vi?”
It sounded like a question, but she preferred to give no answer, and he walked away shaking his head over the brutishness of men.
The believers in the angel naturally welcomed the development in Lady Holme and the unbelievers laughed at it, especially those who had been at Arkell House and those who had been influenced by Pimpernel Schley’s clever imitation. One night at the opera, when Tannhauser was being given, Mr. Bry said of it, “I seem to hear the voice of Venus raised in the prayer of Elizabeth.” Mrs. Wolfstein lifted large eyebrows over it, and remarked to Henry, in exceptionally guttural German:
“If this goes on Pimpernel’s imitation will soon be completely out of date.”
To be out of date—in Mrs. Wolfstein’s opinion—was to be irremediably damned. Lady Cardington, Sir Donald Ulford, and one or two others began to feel as if their dream took form and stepped out of the mystic realm towards the light of day. Sir Donald seemed specially moved by the change. It was almost as if something within him blossomed, warmed by the breath of spring.
Lady Holme wondered whether he knew of the fight between her husband and his son. She dared not ask him and he only mentioned Leo once. Then he said that Leo had gone down to his wife’s country place in Hertfordshire. Lady Holme could not tell by his intonation whether he had guessed that there was a special reason for this departure. She was glad Leo had gone. The developing angel did not want to meet the man who had suffered from the siren’s common conduct. Leo was not worth much. She knew that. But she realised now the meanness of having used him merely as a weapon against Fritz, and not only the meanness, but the vulgarity of the action. There were moments in which she was fully conscious that, despite her rank, she had not endured unsmirched close contact with the rampant commonness of London.
One of the last great events of the season was to be a charity concert, got up by a Royal Princess in connection with a committee of well-known women to start a club for soldiers and sailors. Various amateurs and professionals were asked to take part in it, among them Lady Holme and Miss Schley. The latter had already accepted the invitation when Lady Holme received the Royal request, which was made viva voce and was followed by a statement about the composition of the programme, in which “that clever Miss Schley” was named.
Lady Holme hesitated. She had not met the American for some time and did not wish to meet her. Since she had bathed her husband’s wound she knew—she could not have told how—that Miss Schley’s power over him had lessened. She did not know what had happened between them. She did not know that anything had happened. And, as part of this new effort of hers, she had had the strength to beat down the vehement, the terrible curiosity—cold steel and fire combined—that is a part of jealousy. That curiosity, she told herself, belonged to the siren, not to the angel. But at this Royal request her temper waked, and with it many other children of her temperament. It was as if she had driven them into a dark cave and had rolled a great stone to the cave’s mouth. Now the stone was pushed back, and in the darkness she heard them stirring, whispering, preparing to come forth.
The Royal lady looked slightly surprised. She coughed and glanced at a watch she wore at her side.