Israel Rank

by Roy Horniman

She detected the irony.

“Lionel never says such things to me.” For one instant I felt the lash and smarted. I was half inclined to retort “Lionel is the prince of good manners,” but that would have given her the satisfaction she was waiting for, and most likely she would have gone to bed.

Grahame at heart was very proud of Sibella, but he, like myself, was under no delusions about her. His special fondness was also partly a result of their having been so much together as children. Mr. and Mrs. Hallward’s other children were much older, and with the exception of Miss Hallward, an unmarried spinster verging on forty, were either married or out in the world. Miss Hallward, who must have been singularly handsome in her youth, and who as a matter of fact was so still, had devoted her whole life to her brothers and sisters, and was particularly fond of Sibella, who made use of her in every possible way. Miss Hallward had always been singularly kind to me, and I liked her.

I could well remember an incident which occurred on the occasion of one of my first visits to the house. Sibella had been asked to do something by Miss Hallward and had refused, and, working herself into a rage, had told her sister, who at that time could not have been more than thirty, that she was a disappointed old maid and that nobody had wanted to marry her because she was so unattractive. Miss Hallward had grown very white, and had turned on Sibella with a fierceness I never saw her display before or after. The occurrence was unimportant, except that it served to frame her, as it were, in the past of an unhappy love story, and she was always the more interesting to me because of it.

When I said good-bye to Sibella I felt sure that she was more interested in me than she had been since as a boy of sixteen I had declared my passion and had been granted the privilege of kissing her when opportunity offered, little love passages of which Grahame had remained in entire ignorance. I also saw that I had succeeded in giving her the impression I was aiming at—that I was wholly freed from her spell. To a girl of Sibella’s temperament this is at all times amazing, and so far from being glad at her rejected lover being in spirits she was at pains to detect the unhealed wound. Still, she was in her way really in love with Lionel Holland, and was not prepared to invest more than the smallest superfluity of coquetry and fascination in bringing me again into her net. I verily believe it would have given her some pleasure to see Holland and myself at each other’s throats. Then she would probably have been content to leave me to some other woman. Had she known how near I was at times to seizing her in my arms and kissing her, with or without her will, she would have been satisfied—more, I think she would have been frightened.

She had a peculiar and unexpected effect on me. I found myself wavering in my purpose, and returning once more to the question which I had thought decided as to whether the risk I ran was worth the prize. I even found myself troubled with scruples as to the taking of life, and for some weeks was in serious danger of abandoning my undertaking.

And yet I cannot say that Sibella had any direct influence for good upon me, and it would have been hard to define why she should have exercised a restraining influence upon me at all.

I continued my visits to the Hallwards and saw that her pique at my apparent indifference to her engagement grew.

She might have been content with the number of admirers to whom it had obviously been a matter of some moment, but Sibella wanted the one admirer to care who was apparently indifferent.

I evidently pleased Mr. Gascoyne at the office, for his cordiality towards me increased daily. I threw into my manner towards him just as much of the filial attitude as I could without suggesting the least desire to usurp the place of his dead son.