The Rector turned to her blandly:
"Jane, don't be ridiculous. You would have been very pleased if Everest had sent it to you. And if there would be no harm in your accepting it, neither is there in Regina's case. She is quite entitled to have it and enjoy it."
Jane turned away, the muscles of her face quivering, shaken with the blackest envy and hatred from head to foot. She had so planned and hoped to win this man for herself. In all her low-nerved, weakly, doll-like body there was not a single pulse or fibre, which could tremble to the music of love. But, like her father, she was dominated by intensely worldly instincts, and to be married to a man of wealth and position, no matter what the individual, was her dream and her constant obsession by night and day, the only thing that filled her little atrophied soul.
Everest's looks she had hardly seen, of his personality she never thought, but night by night she dreamed of herself, sitting in motor or carriage, driving to some great house, where, resplendent in jewels, she would pass amongst the crowd admiring her beauty.
And she had so tried to please him.... She had taken him to her poor, and let him see how charitable and devoted, and domestic she was. She had taken him to church, and knelt so devoutly, and yet so prettily, and in such becoming dresses, before him, at the communion-table; she had never let any frivolous or unseemly word pass her lips to him; she had never, while he was there, quarrelled with her sisters or abused her mother. She had been the perfect, pure, sedate Rector's daughter, and he had seemed lately to appreciate it.... Regina?... What had she done?... She had been just as she always was. She had taken no trouble, but it seemed now it was she who would have the motor and the jewels, and live in town, while Jane would be left to grow mouldy in the horrid old Rectory! It was too much!... She could not control herself!... She burst into a flood of angry tears, and rushed out of the room as the Rector was beginning to say grace.
When grace was over, Regina fastened the star at her neck, and her sister Violet sat staring at it, in a dull solid way, through the meal. In her heavy, apathetic mind she had recognised early that Everest was not for her, and in some dim, instinctive way she was not dissatisfied that it was so. He alarmed her. To her, with her fishlike circulation, and her unused brain, the sense of virile strength and power about him, which so delighted Regina, brought oppression. His experiences, his brilliant intellect, his knowledge, put him outside the circle of her stupid little thoughts.
She could not understand one-tenth of his conversation with Regina, nor follow what he said, and his presence, his glance only, vaguely frightened and confused her. Great things are for great people, and little things for little people, and Violet, during Everest's visit, had begun to realise dimly that, if a fine marriage meant belonging to an incomprehensible and terrifying individual like this, the idle novel-reading, the church-going, the humdrum little potter of home life, were more suited to her mental and physical equipment. So she stared at the brooch without any deep resentment, only the general sisterly dislike that Regina should have any present at all.
After breakfast Regina slipped away, and in the heat of the morning sun walked to the garden, as fast as her swift-moving feet would carry her, and once beyond its magic gate took out the dear letter, and with beating heart unfolded it.
"My Darling,—I miss you so much, and want to have you in my arms again. I send you a little brooch I have had made for you, my Empress. I went about our flat, yesterday, as soon as I got back from Scotland. I have a good one in view, and will let you know as soon as it is ready for you. Only these few lines now, as I have so much to do.
"Till we meet again, my sweet.
"Everest."
When she had read it more than a hundred times, lingering over each word, she kissed it and slipped it back in her bodice.