Sinking into Lady Forsyth’s armchair, she let the crowding memories sweep through her brain, while her eyes ranged from picture to picture, from statue to statue, as it were learning them by heart, because in future the right of entry she so prized would belong to another. For her, Mark and his art were one and indivisible; and, by an unerring instinct, she dreaded the effect of Bel’s demoralising influence on both.
Dearly she loved the virile figure of Triumph; more dearly still, the Viking. Him, she saw and felt as Mark had hoped that Bel might see and feel him. She had been at Wynchcombe Friars during those wonderful days when he came to life under Mark’s hands; and in her private heart she saw him as the symbol of his creator’s unquenchable spirit.
In all these children of his hand and brain, she found the quintessence of the man, and it was her instinct to seek the essence of things.
Mark himself, without and within, was all that she would have a man be—she, who seemed fated to attract only the ‘poor things’ of earth. Since Ailsa’s death and his return from Europe, she had worshipped him, with the still intensity of her northern nature. So felicitous had been their relation, and she so young, so happy in a home atmosphere the very antithesis of her own, that no afterthought had troubled her unclouded content.
For this reason, she had been able to accept, loyally, uncritically, his sudden and bewildering infatuation for a girl obviously unworthy of him; an infatuation that could survive even his knowledge of the motive which had prompted Bel to such unsparing use of her power. Entirely one with him in spirit, she could not choose but will what he willed: and conviction that Bel honestly loved him had mitigated the pain of her own hidden disappointment in him.
But now even that faint consolation was gone: and here, where associations were more intimate than at Inveraig, the shock to her belief in him seemed infinitely harder to bear. Here the question forced itself upon her—how could he, being what he was?
And his fresh appeal on behalf of Bel had badly shaken her innate capacity for acceptance.
Because of that appeal—which would also be made to the others—this girl, who had so cruelly tormented him for her own ends, must not be allowed to suffer a twinge of the discomfort she so richly deserved. For the first time, Sheila was goaded almost to the point of rebellion. For the first time her will was at odds with his: and it hurt more than she chose to admit. From a child she had invented her own private code of courage that never allowed her to say ‘I can’t bear it.’ And she would not say it now.
She would do what he asked, under protest, because he asked it. Her attitude, she was convinced, would matter nothing to Bel, who obviously looked down on her, from the attitude of her twenty-nine years, with a mild good-humoured contempt. But it would matter greatly to Mark;—and that sufficed.
She rose at last and wandered round the beloved room. Before the Viking she stood a long while, trying to draw the valiant soul of him into her own soul: then she went reluctantly out.