Changing Winds / A Novel

by St. John G. Ervine

"He didn't write or come to see me!" she protested.

It was probable that Gilbert forgot his duty in the excitement of hearing that his play was to be produced....

"I suppose so," she said.

She talked to him about his books and about Ireland. She had been to Dublin once and had gone to the Viceregal Lodge ... Lady Dundrum had taken her to some function there ... and she was eager for the tittle-tattle of the Court. Was it true that Lord Kelpie was indifferent to his lady?... Henry knew very little of the Dublin gossip. "I haven't been there since I left Trinity," he said, in explanation, "and the only people who write to me don't take any interest in Court functions!"

He rose to go, but she asked him to stay to tea with her, and so he remained.

"I don't suppose any one will call," she said, "but in case ..."

She told a servant that she was "not at home" to any one, and Henry, wondering why she had done so, felt vaguely flattered and as vaguely nervous. Her beauty filled him with desire and apprehension and left him half eager, half afraid to be alone with her. He understood Gilbert's fear that if he yielded to Cecily, she would destroy him. There was something in this woman that overpowered the senses, that made a man as will-less as a log, and left him in the end, spent, exhausted, incapable. He saw the danger that had frightened Gilbert, but he could not make up his mind to run away from it. There was something so exquisitely sensual in her look as she lay on the couch, looking at him and chattering in the Lensley style, that he felt inclined to yield himself to her, even if in yielding he should lose everything.

"Of course," he said to himself, "this is all imagination. She doesn't want me at all ... she wants Gilbert!"

She asked for another cigarette, and he took one and placed it in her lips and lit it for her, and again his fingers touched hers, and again he trembled with unaccountable emotion. As he bent over her, holding the match to the cigarette, he felt the blood rushing to his head and for a moment or two his eyes were blurred and he could not see clearly. Then his eyes cleared and he saw that she was looking steadily at him, and he knew that she understood what was passing in his mind. He dropped the match on to the ash-tray and bent a little nearer to her. He would take her in his arms, he said to himself, and hold her tightly to him....

"Won't you sit down," she said, pointing to his chair.