At that moment the footman brought in coffee, and while they were taking it the Rector came up, and the talk became general.
Soon after Everest rose, with the excuse that he must not disturb their early country hours, and said "Good-night." Regina, watching him as he got up and stood, felt an electric wave of pleasure pass through her from head to foot. The well-cut and fitting evening clothes displayed all the admirable lines of his figure. The slimness and the grace of it were a revelation to her. The light from the centre swinging lamp, falling on the pale well-bred face, showed its perfection of carving, its look of power and intellect. As he said good-night to her, she gazed upon him, wide-eyed and in silence, and Everest, reading her thoughts, felt amused and pleased.
When he reached his rooms he turned the key in the lock and then threw himself into the arm-chair by the open window. The soft air of the June night came in, full of fragrance, from the Rectory garden. In the copse beyond, the nightingales here and there burst into little trills and long calls, and then were silent again, preparing for their unbroken, tireless melody of the later hours. Everest sat very still in his chair, one hand hanging idly over its arm, his even brows contracted, thinking. Before coming down to the Rectory he had made up his mind very decidedly that he would not allow this visit to draw him into any complicated ties with the daughters of the house. Marriage was far from his wishes or plans at that moment, and any relations with anybody almost equally distasteful, since they would rob him of that peace of mind and rest which his doctor had told him were essential, and which he had come to the country rectory to find. He had heard that the Misses Marlow were handsome girls of the ordinary type, and the ordinary type, he knew, had no attraction for him. Certainly after the conversation of the evening, he was convinced of his perfect safety with either Jane or Violet. But Regina; at the first meeting of the eyes, at the sight of that sweet enthusiasm of admiring welcome in hers, at the touch of her hand, full of electric fire, he had realised instantly that there was every danger here. And so strongly did this feeling envelop him again when they said good-night that he felt inclined, now, to summon his valet, and tell him to repack everything for a return journey on the morrow. But the thought of the surprise, the disappointment, the hurt feeling he would occasion checked him.
His gaze wandered round his apartment. His quick eyes told him at once how much personal care and pains had been bestowed on the room, to give it the particular air of welcoming comfort it possessed.
It was not the hands of servants that had looped up so gracefully with bows of lilac ribbon the curtains of his bed, nor arranged all those books of reference and the latest weekly papers on his writing-table.
He took up idly the silver pen, put ready in the inkstand tray, and saw it had "Violet" engraved upon it, and a handsome leather blotting-book, filled with every writing necessity, even to stamps of many denominations, bore its owner's monogram, "J. M."
These things spoke to him, though many men might not have even noticed them, and many others only noticed them to jeer. How kindly old John Marlow had received him; and his wife—what pains she had taken probably in thinking out that excellent dinner they had given him, and the girls were all so pretty and fresh and eager to please.
It would go against the grain of Everest's nature to wound them all by suddenly leaving. Whatever excuses he made, they would still believe his departure was due to some error of their own. But an intuitive voice within him warned him that if the Devon coast was just the place to eradicate the traces of African fever, from which he was suffering, Stossop Rectory and Regina were not the best adjuncts to it.
As he sat there, undecided, in the silence, the soft sound of a casement above his own being set open came to him, and without any particular intent or reason in his mind he rose and went to his own window and looked out. The moon had just climbed above the copse, and sent a warm, pale light across the sleeping garden. Everest looked up, and there above him was the girl who was in his thoughts. She had opened her window, apparently to look at the night, for her face was turned towards the rising moon, and, quite unconscious, seemingly, of any spectator, she leaned a little forward. Of her face Everest could see nothing except the under part of her chin, but the light fell full on the round column of her neck, upon the white expanse of her bosom, upon the perfect arms supporting her, as her hands clasped the sill. Its pale radiance invested the dazzling whiteness of the skin with a peculiar and mystic brilliance, and, accustomed though he was to women's beauty in any and every form, Everest drew in his breath sharply with surprised admiration. She had taken off her evening dress, and the low bodice she now wore possessed only two narrow straps holding it to the shoulders, and passed below the snowy swell of the breast, leaving it and the soft modelling of the arms and shoulders all revealed. Yet the silver light, falling down and over and round her, seemed to clothe her in shining armour. To any man, even to the most material, it must have seemed a vision more of heaven than of earth, and to Everest, with his artist's eye and mind, the sight had a magic and a charm he could hardly define to himself. Silent, almost breathless, he stood watching her, as silent and absorbed she herself stood watching the moon slowly mount in the purple sky.
Then suddenly she turned her head and looked down, why, Everest could not tell, since he had made no sound. For one instant their eyes met. He saw the beautiful arms bend at the elbows, with the change of position; the face, a dark oval now, as it turned downwards, hung over his; he saw the silver light illuminate all the masses of the fair hair round it, for one second, that leapt by him into eternity all too quickly; then she vanished noiselessly. The casement remained open, but the light fell now only on its glittering panes. For a long time the man waited by the window, his heart beating hard, but she did not come back, and at last he turned away to his room and commenced his undressing. The nightingales, perfectly attuned, now began to pour out in the stillness the raptures of their song. Everest's face was dark as he moved about the room.