She was standing close to him, her pale face anxiously raised to his. He divined her unuttered request, and slowly bent until his lips met hers.
Then she burst suddenly into tears.
He put his arm tenderly round her waist saying what he could to console her, for her emotion distressed him. Complex as was her character, he saw that his plain, outspoken words had had their effect. When he had told her of his decision that morning at Albert Gate she had been defiant, treating the matter with utter unconcern; but now, as the result apparently of full reflection, she had become filled by a bitter remorse, and was penitent enough to beseech forgiveness.
How little we men know of the true hearts of women! Could we but follow the whole course of feeling in the feminine mind; could we trace accurately the links that connect certain consequences with remote causes, which often render what we most condemn a necessity from which there was never a single chance of escape; could we, in short, see as a whole, and see it clearly, what at present our lack of the right vision causes us to see in part, and obscurely—all that tempted to wrong, all that blinded to right—we should not then presume to theorise so glibly; to set ourselves up as accusers, judges, executioners, in such unbecoming haste. We should have mercy upon women, as befits honest men.
At heart Dudley Chisholm loved the woman he was striving to comfort, even though his association with her had so nearly wrecked his chance of succeeding in an official career. But he hated the artificiality of the smarter set; he detested the fickleness of the flirt; and he had been sadly disillusioned by the gossip that had of late sprung up in connection with the woman who for so long had represented his ideal.
He would have forgiven her without further parley had it not been for the knowledge that vengeance was already close behind him, and that before long she must be left without his love and protection. His secret caused him to preserve silence; but she, ignorant of the truth, believed that the spell she had exercised so long was at last broken.
In the hour of her despair she uttered many passionate words of love, and many, many times their lips met in fervent kisses. Nevertheless, both felt that a gulf yawned between them—a wide gulf caused by her own folly and recklessness.
At length she succeeded in stifling her emotion, drying her eyes, and concealing the traces of her tears by means of the eau de Cologne he handed her and a few dexterous dabs with her tiny powder-puff.
Now that she was calmer, he kissed her upon the forehead, drew her cloak over the still tumultuous breast, and then led her below, where her brougham was awaiting them.
During the drive to Penarth House, that old-fashioned but well-known mansion at the western end of Piccadilly, they sat together in silence.