The servant entering to remove the tea things was a signal for Irene to dress for dinner. She left the room, and then Gerard rose, and, walking to the window, took out his pocket handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
The result of her knowledge of this fact in the lives of Hugh and Gerard was an added tenderness of gratitude in her feelings towards the former. During the past few months he had been slipping somewhat apart from her. He had lost his old buoyancy of manner, and it was easy for her feminine intuition to perceive that the change had some radical cause. Now she blamed herself for not having taken the initiative, and offered him more openly the aid of her friendship. The chance of doing so occurred on the following Sunday, when, in response to an urgent little note, Hugh came to lunch. Gerard was absent. Business had summoned him to Edinburgh, where he was likely to remain some time. The two sat down to table alone together, and, while the servant was in the room, talked of divers matters: the waif who had been admitted into St. Katherine’s school, the Institution which was flourishing, and extending its sphere of benevolence. At last she touched upon literary matters.
“When are we to see a new volume?”
He lifted his shoulders slightly, and fingered the stem of his old German wine glass.
“When I have regained my lost youth,” he said, ironically. “One must have enthusiasm even for that kind of rubbish. Don’t look so concerned,” he added, with a laugh; “I’m not hypochondriac yet. My view of life is only growing a little more materialistic, that is all. I share Peter Bell’s conception of the primrose.”
He quoted the lines jestingly, and, the meal being over, drew out his cigarette case and began to smoke.
“You are talking for the sake of talking,” said Irene. “I wish you wouldn’t. Hugh,” she continued, with a certain shy softness that had its charm, “don’t be vexed with me. Tell me what is changing you. You know that I owe to you the existence of all that is dearest to me in the world, and I long so to pay you back a little in the help that friendship can give.”
“You can’t do it now, Renie,” he said, abruptly. “Afterwards you may. That is, if you and Gerard don’t think me a pitiful scamp. You won’t have long to wait.”
The sudden realisation that this was perhaps the last of the brotherly meals he should have with her, dismayed him. In a few days he would be either the acknowledged betrothed or the acknowledged husband of another woman—her bitterest enemy. The old dear order had changed. Hitherto he had held a unique and delicate position in her thoughts, that of the loyal friend and honourable lover. Henceforward he would be another woman’s husband, which would make an immeasurable difference. He looked round the familiar walls of the cosy dining-room, and then with unconscious wistfulness upon her face in profile. To him there was none more beautiful in all the world. The broad forehead; the delicate, sensitive nose; the strong, pointed chin; the mobile, faintly coloured lips; the eyes capable of great passion, yet showing habitually a grave and luminous kindness; the noble up sweep of her hair from the temple contours, giving an impression of queenliness; the soft, fair gold of her hair itself, crowning her head too lightly to be a crown and too individually to be a halo; the head poised with tender dignity upon a broad, full throat—all the conflicting features combined harmoniously together to form in a lover’s eyes a face telling of a great and tender womanhood. And the picture of that other rose before him, beautiful, too, in its sensuous duskiness, yet stamped forever with his own condemnation of commonness. His glance grew troubled as it met Irene’s.
“There is nothing in the wide world that we would not do for you, Hugh,” she said.