"She is such a little childish thing," observed Miss Althea afterwards; "and yet she has plenty of character. We are very unconventional people, Doreen, you and I; but I never could endure these artificial barriers. My dignity, such as it is, is innate; it does not need bolstering up. I could not be stiff and proper with Everard Ward's daughter;" and then a strangely sad look came into Althea's eyes, as though some ghost from the past had crossed her path; "no, certainly not to Everard Ward's daughter;" and Doreen smiled as though she understood her.
Doreen's world was inhabited by warm-blooded human beings; no ghostly visitants ever haunted her. "I am a woman without a story," she would say. "Most people have some sort of romance in their lives—even unmarried women have their unfinished idylls; but my life has been bare prose." But she always laughed when she made these speeches, for there was nothing morbid in Doreen's character.
Althea proposed, as the evening was mild and balmy, that they should take a turn in the garden.
"It will be very pleasant on the terrace, and in the kitchen-garden," she remarked, "but, of course, we must avoid the grass. Are not these shut-in lawns pretty? Through that arch, if it were light enough, you would have a glimpse of my flower-garden. I call it mine, because I give it my special supervision. Doreen takes more interest in the kitchen-garden, and when I boast of my roses and begonias, she is dilating on the excellence of her strawberries and tomatoes."
"I think I should care most for the flower-garden," observed Waveney. And then, of her own accord, she began telling Miss Althea about the pensioners' little gardens, and the corporal's flowers.
Althea listened with much interest, and then, little by little, her quiet questions and sympathetic manner induced Waveney to break through her shy reserve, and speak of her home. Althea soon found out all she wanted to know: the home that was so perfect in Waveney's eyes, the little warm nest that held all her dear ones, seemed meagre and bare to the elder woman, who had been used to luxury all her life, and had never had a want ungratified.
As the girl talked on in a naive way, all at once a vision rose before Althea's eyes of a brilliantly-lighted ball-room, and of a fair, boyish-looking man, with stephanotis in his buttonhole, standing before her with eager looks.
"It is our valse, Althea, and I have been looking forward to it all the evening." And then—and then——But she started from her reverie with a quick feeling of shame. Why had these thoughts come to her? He was Dorothy's lover, not hers. Had he ever cared for her really? "It was all a mistake. It was not he who was to blame, it was I—I!" and even in the September darkness she smote her hands angrily together. The love had been in her imagination; it had never existed—never. She had bartered her warm woman's heart for a shadow, and alas, alas! it was not in Althea's nature to change. "If I love once, I love for ever," she had once said in a bitter moment to Doreen. How she repented that speech afterwards! "No; you do not understand, neither do I; but I think it is my nature to be faithful."
When Althea roused from her brooding, she found that Waveney had become silent. "You were speaking of your sister, were you not?" she said, gently. "Some one told me," she continued, a little vaguely, "that she was very pretty."
"Oh, yes," returned Waveney, eagerly, "everyone thinks Mollie quite lovely. It is such a pity she is lame. It spoils things so much for her, poor darling! But people admire her just the same—in the street they turn round and stare at her; but Mollie never seems to notice them a bit. That reminds me of such a funny speech"—and here Waveney began to laugh. "An old Irishwoman who works for us sometimes, once said to her, 'It is my belief, Miss Mollie darlint, that the Powers above were after fashioning an angel, and then they thought better of it, and changed it into a flesh-and-blood woman. For the angel still laughs out of your eyes, mavourneen.' And would you believe it, Miss Harford, that Mollie only burst out laughing when Biddy said that, but I think it was beautiful."