He decided, however, to be guided by the next day's letters.
CHAPTER XI.—“THE WOMAN WHO DELIBERATES.”
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” is an excellent maxim. Its only fault is its capacity of a too wide extension. If a saying clause had been added with reference to its non-application to one's neighbour's business, it would have been perfect. But, perhaps, after all, in its faultiness lies its excellence, for counsels of perfection are of no great use to mankind, which, in its ethical systems, loves disguised loopholes for original sin.
However little the inmates of the Pension Boccard may have observed the maxim itself, they obeyed its extension to a nicety. Not only because they were women. Sometimes communities of men have been known to gossip about each other's affairs. It is but human to speculate upon events around us, and speculation, anticipating Raine's fear, was rife at the Pension Boccard.
In the first place, the dramatic ending of poor Miss Bunter's romance kept wits and tongues exercised for days. And secondly, certain facts had become common property which pointed to interesting relations between Mrs. Stapleton and Raine Chetwynd. The chief of these facts was the early morning interview. The summer waiter reported it to the cook, who informed Madame Boccard, who mentioned it in confidence to Madame Popea, who in her satirical way described it to Frâulein Klinkhardt. From the latter it passed to Frau Schultz, who barbed it carefully in accordance with her own spite against Katherine, and sent it round on its travels again. In this form it reached Felicia.
The girl found herself just in the humour of bitterness to accept it. After the heartless, systematic deception that had been practised on Miss Bunter for fifteen years, it seemed possible to credit humanity with anything. Not that she felt any resentment against Raine Chetwynd on her own score. She was bound to confess to herself, with tears of self-scorn, that he had never treated her with anything but the most brotherly frankness and courtesy. But in her dislike of Katherine, she certainly credited him with a commonplace amour, and thereby set him down lower in her estimation. Then her pride came, speciously to her rescue, but really, after the way of pride in women's hearts, to embitter the struggle that was taking place within her. One bright, pure feeling, however, rose above the turmoil—an intense pity for the poor frail creature out of whom had been crushed the hope of life. To have stood by as witness and comforter during that agony of despair had been one of those lurid experiences that set in motion the springs of infinitely reaching sympathies.
When old Mr. Chetwynd proposed the trip to Lucerne she sprang at it eagerly. It would be a relief to leave the pension and its associations. For the whole of the day she busied herself feverishly with preparations. It was a keen disappointment when the old man fell ill and the trip had to be indefinitely postponed. She longed passionately for October, when she was to join her uncle and aunt in Bermuda. Meanwhile she copied out manuscript assiduously, nursed the old man as far as he would allow her, and devoted the rest of her time to whatever gaieties were afoot in the pension.
Katherine lived in a fool's paradise after Raine had gone, for a couple of days. His kiss was on her lips, the pressure of his arms lingered round her, the vibrating words rang in her ear. If unbidden thoughts came, she put them aside with a passionately rebellious will. The long morning passed like a dream. The day and evening in an intoxicated sense of happiness. In the night she slept and waked, alternately, heedless of the hours. She had won his love. It had been given to her in full, overflowing measure. It flooded her presence with sunlight. She surrendered herself to the delicious joy that it was to feel, instead of to think.