[CHAPTER XXXI]
CONCERNING A ROSEBUD, AND MARIANNE'S TORTOISESHELL KNIFE. CHALLIS'S PRESENCE OF MIND. THE FOOL ON FIRE. DEFINITION WANTED OF DEFINITION. CHALLIS'S SUDDEN CALL BACK TO TOWN. HOW SIBYL HAD SEEN IT ALL
There was a little fountain in the middle of the little garden, with a little amorino from the court of the Signoria at Florence to attend to the squirting. The moon was comparing the light she could make on its shower of drops with sparkles from the lady's dress who stood beside it. It was in no hurry to decide—might perhaps ask a tiny cloud, that was coming, to help. Once inside the garden Challis was committed to approaching its centre. There was—remember!—no official recognition of any change in the position of the two since Trout Bend.
"I came here to be alone, but you may come." Judith's words might well have made matters worse. But her tranquil, unconcerned, almost insolent beauty in the moonlight was fraught with a sense of self-command that more than counterbalanced them. It gave her hearer a sort of rangé feeling—determined his position—put him on his good behaviour. He could trust to her control of their interview, but all the same a little resented feeling so much like a child in her hands.
"I came here to be alone, too," said he.
"Perhaps I ought to go?" Manifestly not spoken seriously, but not jestingly enough to set badinage afoot. She did not wait for his answer, but went on, "Perhaps we both ought, for that matter. Did you find the politics bored you?... oh!—metaphysics, was it? I came here because I found my little sister unendurable."
Challis thrust what he had overheard, when eavesdropping, into the background of his mind: "About the stage, I suppose? Why do you not tell her—set her mind at ease?" But he knew Sibyl knew already, and this was only to help him to keep his foreground clear.
Judith appeared to select her answer at leisure, from among reserves. "Sibyl knows," she said. "The indictment related to something else this time." Then, as though she were weighing a possibility: "No—I suppose I could hardly tell you about that. One is too artificial. We should be much nicer if we were small children. Never mind! Some day, perhaps!"
Challis decided on saying, with a laugh, "I suppose I mustn't be inquisitive and ask questions," as the best way of suggesting that his own guesses, if any, were trivial and impersonal. She ended a silence in which he fancied the subject was to be forgotten by saying: "I should tell you nothing, whatever you asked. Besides, you have never had a little sister, and would not understand. Family relations are mysteries."