"Those apartments you spoke of in London, in German Street. Tell me—is that some colony where musicians, perhaps, gather, or the long-haired art students I have heard so much about?"
Crabbe stared.
"Students! Colony! Jermyn Street? Oh—I see—German Street—I see,
I understand."
He laughed, but not quite freely—spontaneously. Indeed, so much did he feel some unaccustomed stress, he did not stop to set her right. What did her ignorance of a certain London locality matter? what did anything matter just now but the one leading uppermost thought—let nothing prevent our leaving this place together and leaving it soon, no failure of mine, no caprice of hers, no interference of another? New resolution showed in his features; he dropped her hand which he had been holding and turned back towards Poussette's.
"You are right, as usual," he said soberly. "There's no need for me to go with you. I'll turn home-along as they used to say in Devonshire, and try to do a little writing while I can, for after to-morrow I fear it will not be easy. So good-bye to you, lady dear, good-bye for an hour or two, good-bye!"
A little chilled by standing, in spite of that soft wind, Pauline ran lightly along towards Lac Calvaire, conscious always of her fine appearance and humming operatic snatches as she ran, bent upon an errand, which if not precisely one of mercy was yet one prompted by good-will and a belated sisterliness. The glowing prospects ahead opened her heart, not by nature a hard one, and happy in the character of grande dame and patron of the afflicted she went forth briskly on her long walk at first. She reflected that her thirtieth birthday was past, but that before a year had elapsed she would be firmly planted abroad enjoying plenty of money, change of scene, and variety of occupation, and even should Crabbe relapse, she saw herself rejuvenated and strong in hope, capable of studying fresh parts beneath a new and stimulating sky. Yet under these comforting reflections there lurked an uneasy fear; the Clairville streak in her made her suspicious of her present happiness, and as she perceived the well-known reddish gables of her home, through the surrounding pines and snow, a qualm of unrest shot through her. It was only a week since she had driven away with Dr. Renaud, and here she was, again drawn by irresistible force towards the detested Manor House of her fathers, now completely in the hands of the Archambaults, with the giggling, despised Artémise and the afflicted Angeel seated in possession, and this unrest, this fear, was intimately concerned with the future and the fate of Ringfield.
She said to herself as if speaking to Miss Cordova:—
"You have not felt the force of that strong character pushing against your own, nor the terrible grip of that hand-pressure, nor the insistence of those caresses which hurt as well as delighted, so different from the lazy, careless little appropriations of my present lover,—pats and kisses he might give to a child."
Ringfield's arms had drawn her to him till she could have cried out with fear, his eyes had shudderingly gazed into hers as if determined to wrest any secret she possessed, his lips had pained her with the fierce anger and despair of those two long kisses he had pressed upon her own—how could she forget or belittle such wooing as that, so different from Crabbe's leisurely, complacent courting! She neither forgot nor underrated, but she had deliberately and cruelly left one for the other, and deep in her heart she knew that something sinister, something shocking and desperate, might yet befall, and what she feared to hear was of Ringfield's suicide, for she fancied him capable of this final act of self-pity and despair.
By the time she reached Clairville the sun was again shining and the beauty of the glissade beginning to wane. Dark-haired Archambaults flitted about behind dingy windows—and, wondrous sight on a mid-December day—the white peacock, tempted by the calm air, was taking a walk in the wintry garden. Pauline summoned up her courage to enter the house and was rewarded by the hysterical delight of Angeel, brought up to admire and adore this haughty relation, who was soon dispensing her small bounties in order to make the visit as short as possible.