CHAPTER XX
Mrs. Herbert was unhappy. She clothed herself with discrimination, and drove frequently with Sir Ralph. She had given up her reputation, and cared nothing for what people thought or said, and they said all they could say. The subject of the behaviour of a woman whose husband is away, and who is continually (they said always) with another man, is inexhaustible. Sir Ralph was kind to her. His was the kindness of stupidity, and he did not mind her being very silent.
She despised herself. It would have been brave of her to have sent him away. Sir Ralph never kissed her, and he seldom stayed later than eleven o’clock. No one knew this, nor would they have believed it if she said so.
Lily bore the cold and indifferent greetings of her friends with an absence of notice which could only be attributed to guilt.
It was September. Mrs. Herbert was in town, with occasional days at the sea. She preferred to remain at her flat. Sir Ralph thought she stayed because town was empty, therefore a constant recognition of him and of her, when together, by their mutual friends was impossible, and they could meet in peace and in half secret.
This was not Mrs. Herbert’s real reason. She was waiting for her husband. She was always expecting him, always hoping that he might come back, and very often she seemed to hear his step on the stairs, to hear the click of his latch-key, and that was all. She feared to be away for long; he would perhaps come, and not finding her waiting would imagine things. She tolerated Sir Ralph while she slightly despised him. Love always bored her; he had told her he loved her. She had replied that love was a detail. He might love her if he liked; it kept him from mischief, no doubt.
“And you?” he asked.
“Oh, me! From suicide, perhaps.”
The day was fine. Mrs. Herbert put on her newest dress to drive and lunch and dine with Sir Ralph somewhere out of town.
“Have you seen the papers?” he asked, when they had shaken hands, and he had not kept the resolution, which he made every day, of kissing her. It was easy to resolve when he came up in the lift.