Launa missed her father; between them there was a perfect relationship; their minds were in tune; she was so certain of his love and care that she feared no diminution thereof. He wrote to her often, and she thought of shutting up the flat and going to join him.
On Lily’s wedding day, Mr. Wainbridge told her he was obliged to travel with his uncle for six weeks. The uncle, Lord Wainbridge, had just constructed a novel; it contained a pinch of all the crazes of the day, and was clever, but not moral. Lord Wainbridge became uneasy, and Lady Wainbridge rampant with rage (designated in this case Christian solicitude about his fall) when she read it. She said the want of morals was his own. She said many things which he did not mind when she only gave utterance to them; but he feared ridicule as he feared nothing else; she said he would be laughed at, so he fled to his nephew, who always had sympathy for him.
Launa received the tidings of Mr. Wainbridge’s departure with indifference, though she did feel it. And he decided that her lack of vanity was her one fault. She really appeared as if she did not care whether she attracted him or not. But she thought very much about him. His interest in her was pleasant. It was more. It was necessary to her, as much as anything can be necessary over which we have no control, and without which we must live if it is withdrawn.
The day of his last visit they spent in reading, when he would have much rather talked. But she had a new book.
“How queer it is that the charm of so few poems lasts,” she said. “What I loved at sixteen I loathe now, and I suppose what I love now I shall hate at thirty-five.”
“We change. You do not love a comic song when your heart aches.”
“I have no heart.”
“Because I said that, you think I meant your heart,” he replied. “I did not.”
“Your own then?”
“Perhaps. Do you believe we are responsible for evil?”