“Myra! How dare you?”
The thin lips parted in a half smile.
“Have you ever known me not to dare anything for your good?”
Myra, with all the privileges of illness, had her at a disadvantage. Olivia was silenced. She unpinned her hat and threw it on a chair and sat by the bedside.
“I see that you acted for the best, Myra.”
Not only her cheeks, but her body flamed at what seemed now the humiliating allusion. Myra was fully aware, if not of the actual kiss—oh, no—nothing horrible of servant’s espionage in Myra—at any rate of the emotionality in which it had culminated—on her part sex, sense, the unexpected thrill, the elemental between man and woman, the hunger for she knew not what—but superficial, tearing at her nerves, but never, oh, never touching the bed-rock of her spiritual being. A great passionate love for Blaise, she knew, Myra with her direct vision, would have understood. For the assurance of her life’s happiness Myra would have sacrificed her hope of eternal salvation.
But the worn woman who had had but one’s week’s great fulfilment of love in her life, knew what love meant, and she had sounded the shallows of her pitiful love—if love it could be called—for Blaise Olifant; and now, in her sad, fatalistic way she shewed her the poor markings of the lead.
“So you have seen him?” asked Myra quietly.
“Yes I’ve seen him. God knows how you know.”
“Well?”