CHAPTER XIV
Heartsick with longing for Gerard, she opened her front door. A maidservant met her in the hall. “Has your master come home?”
“He has been in and gone out again, ma’am. He told me to let you have this note when you arrived.” She handed her mistress the brass letter-tray where it was lying. Irene tore open the envelope with shaking fingers. It contained a hasty line scribbled in pencil.
“I am going away for the night. Will see you in the morning. G. M.”
She staggered as if he had struck her. What did it mean? It was difficult enough to grasp the fact; to pierce to the underlying motive was beyond her powers. A nameless fear assailed her. How could she live alone through all the hours until to-morrow morning? She stared at the words until they danced before her eyes. The fact was plain. In this hour of her most awful need of him, he had gone from her side. Her dismay was child-like in its piteousness.
“Did your master take any luggage with him?” she asked, steadying her voice.
“Just his dressing-bag,” replied the maid; then breaking through the restraint she had imposed upon herself: “And, oh, ma’am!—Mr. Colman——?”
“He is acquitted, Jane,” said Irene.
The maid burst into tears, after the manner of her class. Suspense had been great in the kitchen, where Hugh Colman had been invested with mythical excellences. The cook, upon whom he had never set eyes, had been weeping intermittently all day long. A fortiori, the naturalness of the emotions of the parlourmaid who had waited upon him at table and helped him on with his overcoat. It is odd how readily domestic servants receive the impression of a guest’s personality and how genuinely their sympathy or antipathy may be aroused. Perhaps, like silly women, they viewed Hugh in too heroic a light—but, nevertheless, the girl’s outburst was sincere. Irene, touched for the moment, forgot her anxiety. But it returned swiftly as soon as she was alone. She twisted the paper nervously in her hands, sat down upon one of the oak settles and tried to reason away the fear. Presently she rose and went upstairs to her room. She was desperately tired. She unpinned her veil, made a weary pretence of rolling it up, and then sank down helpless on the edge of the bed, her hands in her lap.
In this relaxed moral condition a woman cries softly, if a sympathetic arm, man’s or woman’s, is put around her. When she is alone, however, crying seems futile and undignified; she arises soon afterwards, as Irene did, and mechanically changes her dress for a comfortable wrapper, freshens her face-with the trivial comfort of a powder-puff’s softness, tidies her hair, with dull, half-observant glances in her mirror, puts eau de cologne upon a clean handkerchief and wearily hangs up her discarded garments. The lighter feminine instincts float like straws upon the surface, beneath which other things have sunk for very heaviness.