"But what do you mean? What are you saying? Have you been told all this? It disturbs me; your face is like——"
"Yes! what is it like?" I cried in distress, myself sinking back into myself, as if hiding in a lair.
"I can't say," she faltered. "I didn't know...."
We talked on. But though I tried to blur over and withdraw what I had said, she remained dissatisfied. A thin edge of formality had for the moment pushed in between us.
That night I addressed a belated letter to Wanderslore, reproaching Mr Anon for not writing to me, telling him of Mrs Bowater's voyage, and begging him to assure the garden-house and the fading summer flowers that they had not been deserted in my dreams.
At a quarter to twelve one morning, soon after this, I was sitting with Mrs Monnerie on a stool beneath Chakka's cage, and Susan was just about to leave us—was actually smoothing on the thumb of her glove; when Marvell announced that a Miss Bowater had called. I turned cold all over and held my breath.
"Ah," whispered Mrs Monnerie, "your future Mrs Rochester, my pet."
Every thought scuttled out of my head; my needle jerked and pricked my thumb. I gazed at the door. Never had I seen anything so untransparent. Then it opened; and—there was Fanny. She was in dark gray—a gown I had never seen before. A tight little hat was set demurely on her hair. In that first moment, she had not noticed me, and I could steal a long, steady look at the still, light, vigilant eyes, drinking in at one steady draught their new surroundings. Her features wore the thinnest, unfamiliar mask, like a flower seen in an artificial light. What wonder I had loved her. My hands went numb, and a sudden fatigue came over me.
Then her quiet, travelling glance descended and hovered in secret colloquy with mine. She dropped me a little smiling, formal nod, moistened her lips, and composed herself for Mrs Monnerie. And it was then I became conscious that Susan had quietly slipped out of the room.
It was a peculiar experience to listen to the catechism that followed. From the absorption of her attitude, the large, sidelong head, the motionless hands, it was clear that Mrs Monnerie found a good deal to interest her in the dark, attentive figure that stood before her. If Fanny had been Joan of Arc, she could not have had a more single-minded reception. Yet I was enjoying a duel: a duel not of wits, but of intuitions, between the sagacious, sardonic, watchful old lady, soaked in knowledge of humanity but, as far as I could discover, with extraordinarily small respect for it, and—Fanny. And it seemed to me that Fanny easily held her own; just by being herself, without revealing herself. Face, figure, voice; that was all. I could not take my eyes away. If only, I thought, my own ghost would keep as quiet and hidden as that in the presence of others.