She had unconsciously slipped from her fairy-godmother attitude. Her simple mind could not look upon welcoming his letters as an act of graciousness.
“Would you sing to me once more before I go?” he asked, a little later. “I don’t know when I shall see you again, and I should like to carry away a song of yours to cheer me.”
She sat down at the piano and sang Gounod’s Serenade. Something in its yearning tenderness touched the man in his softened mood. The pure passion of Yvonne’s voice pierced through the thick layers of shame and dead hopes and deadening memories that had encrusted round his heart, and met it in a tiny thrill. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the walls, which grew misty before his eyes. The scene changed and he was back again in his mother’s house and Yvonne was singing this song. The benumbing spell that had kept him dry-eyed since the news came to him of his mother’s death, was lifted for the moment. But, only when a sudden silence broke the charm, was he aware that tears were on his face.
He brushed them away quickly, rose, took her hand and kissed it, and then he laughed awkwardly, and bade her good-bye.
On his way downstairs he brushed against a man ascending. It was a squarely-built, keen-faced man of forty in clerical attire. Each stepped aside to apologise, and then came the flash of recognition. Joyce looked down in some confusion. But Canon Chisely turned on his heel and continued his ascent.
Joyce walked away moodily. His cousin’s cut brought back the old familiar sense of degradation which Yvonne had charmed away. Again he realised that he was an outcast, a blot upon society, an object of scorn for men of good repute. No one but Yvonne could have befriended him and forgotten what he was. And Yvonne herself,—was her friendship not perhaps solely due to her childlike incapacity to appreciate the depths of his disgrace? He would have given anything not to have met the Canon on the stairs.
Three weeks afterwards Yvonne was at Brighton for change of air and holiday, accompanied by Geraldine Vicary, her dearest friend, confidante, and chastener. They had taken lodgings in Lansdowne Place, where they shared a sitting-room and discussed Yvonne’s prospects and peccadilloes. Not but what the discussion was continued out of doors, on the Parade, or in a quiet nook on the sands at Shoreham; but it proceeded much more effectively within four walls, where there was nothing to distract Yvonne’s attention. Miss Vicary had her friend’s good most disinterestedly at heart, and Yvonne herself loved these discussions, very much as she loved church. She felt a great deal better and wiser, without in the least knowing why. In intervals of leisure they idled about, dissected passing finery, and ate prodigious quantities of ices—which, as all the world knows, is the proper way to enjoy Brighton.
They were sitting in one of the shelters on the cliff overlooking the electric toy-railway. It was a lovely day. A sea-breeze ruffled the blue Channel into a myriad dancing ridges, and blew Yvonne’s mass of dark hair further back from her forehead. Suddenly she slipped her hand into her friend’s.
“Oh, Dina, is n’t this delicious!”