Zillah dried her eyes, feeling that she had betrayed herself for nought, and shivering, asked to return to the drawing-room. As they entered through the somewhat narrow doorway, a slender, white-clad figure rose from the embrasure formed by the window. Coming from without into the glare of the artificial light, Ferdinand could scarcely believe his eyes; but he was not deceived—it was indeed Raie.
“I was so hot that I could not stay in bed, Ferdie,” she explained, putting her arm confidingly in his. “Besides, I could not let you go without saying good-bye properly, dearest, if I had fifty colds.”
And clinging to him like a child, she drew him into the library, whilst Zillah was left to nurse her anger alone. Watching them depart, her heart burned with impotent rage, as she realised how miserably she had been defeated. It seemed to her that failure was written right across her life, that she was pursued by a hard and inexorable fate. Gifted with a good voice and personal charms of no mean order, she had been ambitious—over ambitious to do well. Consequently she had frequently overreached herself when just at the point of success. She was at enmity with God, the world, and herself; and she was obliged to acknowledge it—she had only herself to blame. Nevertheless, her courage revived when her first feelings of depression had dissolved.
“He goes to England to-morrow without me,” she said to herself, in a whisper. “Never mind, I shall soon follow him up. In England I shall at least be happier than here. Assimilation is the way—I ought to have done it long ago. Fool that I was to consider the Montellas! They are intoxicated with their Judaism—but I—I—am a total abstainer from Judaism.”
And then she laughed hysterically at her feeble joke. She was clearly much overwrought.
BOOK III
THE LAST OF THE EDICT
“And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out, I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.”—Jeremiah xii. 15.
CHAPTER I
ENGLAND ONCE MORE
Patricia left the Princess with her husband at Felsen-Schvoenig, and journeyed back to London with Lord Torrens, whom she had met at Port Said. The Earl was somewhat annoyed at having been baulked of his Eastern tour; but as he did not care to visit the Holy Land in his daughter’s absence, his only alternative was to turn back. Secretly, he considered Patricia’s action absurdly quixotic, for he could not in the least understand her point of view. To him all creeds were but variations of one fundamental principle, and to quarrel over individual shades of opinion seemed unnecessary in the extreme. As for sentiment in religion, he refused to recognise that at all, since it could be analysed and physically accounted for by the materialistic exponents of modern thought. Nevertheless he was considerate enough not to add to the girl’s suffering by vain reproaches; he knew that, for the present, it was best to leave her alone.
The home-coming seemed so strange that Patricia felt as if she were in a dream. Coming from the brilliant sunshine of the East, London looked cold and grey, and the dresses of the people curiously prosaic after the gay colours of the Orient. It was about six o’clock in the evening, and the lamps were already lit. Clerks and business people generally were travelling homewards, newspaper boys were calling out the special editions of the evening papers, and the traffic rushed bewilderingly through the crowded streets. Leaning back in the brougham, Patricia’s head seemed to swim, for the roads and shops and people had apparently magnified themselves tenfold, and loomed large and vast through the gloom of the evening twilight. She was thankful when the carriage slackened pace, and pulled up before the familiar door. But even Grosvenor Square seemed to have extended in area. She could not imagine why everything looked so immense.
The house was still in a state of metaphorical curl-papers and overalls, for they intended to stay there only for one night. By Patricia’s orders, Mrs. Lowther—her old companion—had taken a small villa near Richmond, where the girl intended to live out her days. She established herself there the very next morning, thankful to have some occupation to distract her thoughts. The villa, which rejoiced in the romantic name of “Ivydene,” was light and pretty, and more attractive in its way than the solemn magnificence of the parental mansion. Mrs. Lowther, too, had done all in her power to make it home-like: there were bright fires in the grates and flowers in the vases, and the hundred and one little things which contribute to domestic comfort. The girl could not help feeling touched by the thoughtfulness which had evidently been expended on her account, and as she went over the small but prettily-decorated rooms, her eyes grew misty with no far-distant tears. There was one room in particular which held her spellbound, for the wall-paper depicted well-known nursery rhymes, such as “Jack and Jill,” “Little Miss Muffit,” and “Red Ridinghood”; and in one corner stood a brand-new rocking-horse.