Ada’s eyes had fallen, and her face had taken its hardest expression. Her hands were on her lap, the one clutching over the back of the other. When she answered it was in a distant tone.

“I can offer no explanation. I know nothing of Rhoda’s affairs.”

“Now—I have offended you,” said Mr. Meres, with vexation. “Surely, Ada, you see that it was very natural in me to speak to you of this. Rhoda herself will, I am convinced, refuse to give me her confidence, even if I can bring myself to ask it. The difficulty is most serious; how can I tell–? Never mind, we’ll speak no more of it. Tell me what you have been reading.”

“You are far too hasty, and unjust to me,” said Ada, looking up quietly. “I am not at all offended. It is only that I have nothing to say which can help you. On such a subject Rhoda is as little likely to speak with me as with you. She is a reserved girl.”

“Yes, she is, though strangely frank at times; that is my view of her character. Well, I can only ask you to put the matter out of your head. Really, you troubled me; I felt so sure of you, and to see you all at once put on the unintelligent coldness of an ordinary young lady–”

“Am I not an ordinary young lady?” asked Ada, smiling.

“If you were, I should not feel the kind of interest in you that I do, and I should not advise you to read this novel of Tourguéneff, which I hereby do with great fervour. If you don’t rejoice in it, your taste is not what it ought to be.”

The talk went into other channels, for Thomas Meres could at all times overcome his private troubles when there was question of literature.

Having her own sitting-room, Ada was not obliged to mix with the family more than she saw good. Whilst Rhoda was recovering, Ada kept to herself, seeing her friends seldom save at meals; but when the order of the house was restored, Hilda, having once more her hours of leisure, was bold in demands for companionship. It seemed, indeed, as though in future the younger of the two sisters would be Ada’s intimate. Rhoda, who had formerly occupied that position, was much changed; she seldom talked with Ada privately, nor much at all with any one, shutting herself in her bedroom whenever her absence was not likely to be noticed. She always seemed weary, and had lost the pleasant spontaneity of manner which was generally her principal charm. There was no sulking in her diminished sociableness; she simply drooped. When she went to her room, it was to lie on the bed and cry, sometimes for an hour together. A weak and perhaps rather morbid nature, she apparently had not the vital energy to surmount this first disappointment. Her life was not favourable to a recovery of healthy tone, for she had no friends with whom to seek distractions. That was the inevitable result of the family’s circumstances; no position is harder than that of educated girls brought up in London in a poor household. A bachelor is not necessarily shut out of society on account of his poverty; but a family must give and take on equal terms, or be content to hold aloof. Mr. Meres saw very few people excepting half-a-dozen professional acquaintances; he had always shunned miscellaneous companies. When Mrs. Clarendon was in London, he had frequent invitations from her, and these now and then led to others; but then that was not his world, and he was not able to devote himself to a system of social toadyism in the way. that would have suggested itself to a mother with daughters for sale. If ever Rhoda and Hilda were to find husbands it must probably be by the irregular course upon which the former had already made her first essay. To be sure it was a course attended with not a few dangers, but Society intends this presumably; it is its method for keeping up the price of virtue.

Owing to her illness, Rhoda did not hear of the postponement of Ada’s marriage till some weeks had gone by. Mr. Meres had it announced to him in the letter from Mrs. Clarendon which just preceded Ada’s arrival, but he kept the news to himself, not caring to speak with Rhoda of these topics, and taking it for granted that it would come to be spoken of between the three girls sooner or later. Hilda was the first to elicit the fact. This young lady deserves rather more special description than we have yet had time to devote to her. She was delightful. Sixteen years old, already as tall as her sister, delicate in form, delicate in her manners and movements, in watching her you forgot that she was not exactly pretty. Her face, in fact, would not allow you to consider its features individually; together they made one bright, pure, girlish laugh. She crossed your path like a sunbeam; you stopped to gaze after the slim, winsome figure with its airy gait, to wonder at the grace with which she combined the springing lightness of a child and the decorous motions of womanhood. To see her on her way home from school, wishing, yet afraid, to run; books held up against her side, the quick twinkle of her feet and the fairy waft of her skirts—all so fresh, so dainty, so unconscious of things in the world less clean than herself. She met your gaze with delicious frankness; the gray eyes were alive with fun and friendliness and intelligence, they knew no reason why they should not look straight into yours as long as they chose, which, however, was not the same as rendering to you a mutual privilege. If gazed at too persistently she would move her shoulders with a pretty impatience, and ask you some surprising question likely to prove a test of intellectual readiness. Yet it was hard not to take a very long look; the face was puzzling, fascinating, suggestive; there was cleverness in every line of it. Already she had advanced in her studies beyond the point at which Rhoda ceased. How much she knew! She could render you an ode of Horace, could solve a quadratic equation, could explain to you the air-pump and the laws of chemical combination, could read a page of Ælfric’s “Homilies” as if it were modern English. And all the while the very essence of her charm lay in the fact that she knew nothing at all. She lived in a fantastic world, in which every occurrence was stateable in young lady’s language, every person was at heart well-meaning, even if sometimes mistaken, where every joy was refined, and every grief matter for an elegy. Her innocence was primordial. When she came into the room, there entered with her a breath of higher atmosphere; her touch on your hands cooled and delighted like a mountain stream in summer; her laughter was a tradition from the golden age. She was devoted to music, and would have a fine voice; at present she sang everything. When she came back from school in the evening, she would run up to Ada’s room, tap at the door, and look in like a frolicsome fairy.

“Well?” Ada would ask, good-naturedly.

“Come down and sing ‘Patience,’” was the whispered entreaty. “Just half-an-hour.”

The aesthetic opera was fresh then, and Hilda could not have enough of it; and she laughed, she laughed!

Thomas Meres often sat thinking gloomily of this his favourite child. It was well that she was so clever, for she would have to teach, or so he supposed. What else was there for a girl to do? He could not send her into a postoffice, or make her a dispenser of drugs. Poor Hilda!

But I was saying that it was she who first ventured to speak to Ada of the latter’s marriage. It was on a walk they took together, over the bridge and along the Park edge of the river, one windy evening at the end of February. It was dusking, and they had the Embankment to themselves, so ran a race from Chelsea Bridge to Battersea Park Pier, to reach it before a steamer coming from the City; having won the race, they stood to-see the boat move on towards the pier at Chelsea. The lights along the opposite bank were just being lit, and made a pretty effect.

“Ada,” said the younger girl, as they walked on.

“Yes.”

“When are you going to be married?”

A gust of wind excused silence for a moment; they both had to bend forward against it.

“Perhaps never,” was the reply at length. Ada would not have spoken thus at another time and place; just now she was enjoying the sense of full life, quickened in her veins by the run in keen air.

“Never? But I thought it was going to be very soon?—Am I rude?”

“Not at all; there’s no secret conspiracy. It was to have been soon, but that’s altered.”

“Really? And how long will you stay with us?”

“As long as you’ll have me. All the year perhaps.”

“You don’t mean that! Oh, that’s splendiferous!” The school-girl came out now and then. “Really, now that is jolly! Do you know, I find it just a little dull with Rhoda. She doesn’t seem to care to talk, or to sing, or to do anything. I suppose it’s because she hasn’t been feeling well for a long time. I do wish she’d get better; it makes everything rather miserable, doesn’t it?”

“We shall have to take her to the sea-side-at Easter,” Ada said.

“Yes, so father was saying the other day. When you are married, where shall you live, Ada?”

“One of those houses,” Ada replied, pointing to Cheyne Walk.

“That’s a splendid idea! And you’ll have musical parties, won’t you?”

“Certainly I will; and you shall sing.”

“No, that’s too good! Then we shall get more society; you’ll ask us sometimes to dinner in state, won’t you?”

“If you will honour me with your company.”

“Now you shouldn’t be ironical; you know very well the honour will all be on the other side. I mean in the case of us girls; father, of course, could go anywhere.”

It was an article of faith with Hilda that her father was a conspicuous man of letters, welcome at any table.

The same night Rhoda heard what had been imparted to her sister. She appeared to receive the news with indifference.

It was about this time that Ada received a letter, written on club note-paper, and in a scrawl difficult to decipher, from one of the trustees under Mr. Clarendon’s will, the gentleman whose address she had sought from Mrs. Clarendon.

“Dear Miss Warren,

“In reply to your letter of the 26th inst., asking me for information regarding Mrs. Warren, and saying that you had Mrs. C.‘s permission to apply to me, I am sorry to say that I cannot tell you anything of Mrs. W.‘s present whereabouts, and that I do not even know whether she is living. As you expressly state your desire for particulars, whatever may be their nature, I suppose I ought not to hesitate to inform you of such facts as have come under my notice, though I should myself have preferred to suggest that you should let Mrs. C.‘s information suffice; I can’t think that you will derive any satisfaction from pursuing these inquiries. However, I may say thus much: that up to about two years ago, Mrs. Warren was in the habit of making application to me for pecuniary assistance, her circumstances being very straitened, and such assistance I several times rendered. She had abandoned her profession, which was that of the stage, owing to ill-health. But for two years at least I have heard nothing of her. As you express yourself so very emphatically, I engage that I will send you any information about Mrs. W. which may come to my knowledge. I do not know any person that it would be of use to apply to, but you shall hear from me if I have anything to tell.

“Believe me, yours very truly,

“C. Ledbury.”

This letter irritated Ada; she was sorely tempted to write back in yet, plainer terms than she had used before, and to protest that she was not a child, but a woman who had all manner of difficult problems before her, and who sought definite information which she held was due to her. But she remembered that this gentleman would of course only think of her as a girl not yet twenty, and would no doubt persist in what he deemed his duty, of keeping from her disagreeable subjects. And, after all, perhaps his letter contained all she really wished to know.

She had kept closely to her own room for more than a week, when one day at lunch she requested Mr. Meres to let her speak with him for a moment before he left the house. She came to the study holding a roll which looked like manuscript.

“Do you think,” she asked, “that you could find time to look over something that I have been writing? It isn’t long.”

“By all means; I will make time.”

“No, don’t look at it now,” Ada exclaimed nervously, as he put his eyes near to the first page. “Afterwards, when you are at leisure.”

She stopped at the door.

“When shall I come and see you?”

“Say to-morrow morning, the first thing after breakfast,” replied Mr. Meres, smiling benevolently.

This interview accordingly followed. Ada was requested to seat herself, and her friend, half turning from his desk, stroked his nose for some moments in silence.

“Now, Miss Ada Warren,” he began, with a light tone, which rang kindly enough, yet was a little hard for the listener to bear, “I am not going to discourse vanity, and to prophesy smooth things, because I don’t want you to come to me at some future date and inform me that I was an old humbug. I am at present, you understand, the impartial critic, and I shall use purely professional language. What I have to say about this little story of yours is that it shows very considerable promise, and not a little power of expression, but that, for a work of art, it is too—you understand the word—too subjective. It reads too much like a personal experience, which the writer is not far enough away from to describe with regard to artistic proportion. I suspected what was going on upstairs, and, on the whole, I was pleased when you put this into my hands. But, one question. This is not the only story you have written?”

Ada admitted that it was only one of several.

“So I supposed. Now let me have them all, let me look through them. Time, pooh! I am going to help you if I can. I believe you are quite capable of helping yourself if left alone, and for that very reason, a hint or two out of my experience may prove useful. In a manner, you have always been my pupil, and I am proud of you; I will say so much. There are several things in this sketch which I think uncommonly well put; and—a great thing—the style is not feminine. But—it isn’t a piece of artistic workmanship. You haven’t got outside of the subject, and looked at it all round. It is an extempore, in short, and that you mustn’t allow yourself. Will you do something for me?”

“What is it?”

“Will you write a story in which every detail, every person, shall be purely a product of your imagination—nothing suggested by events within your own experience? That is, of course, directly suggested; you must work upon your knowledge of the world. Write me such a story in about a dozen of these pages—will you? Perhaps you have one already written?”

Ada reflected, and, with an abashed smile, thought not.

“Well, let me have all the others, and set to work upon the new one. Mind, I don’t regard this impulse of yours at all in a trivial light. I say get to work; and I mean it. Write with as determined endeavour as if your bread and cheese depended upon it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.”

“Unfortunately?”

“Well, let that pass. I have no right to speak in that way of the priceless blessing of independence—the gift of Heaven–”

“If it be the gift of Heaven,” remarked Ada, with meaning.

“Oh, it always is; though not always used to celestial ends.”

“You meant, though, that you doubted my power of perseverance, when there was temptation to idleness.”

“Something of that, perhaps. But it’s clear you haven’t been idle of late. Did you write any of those stories at Knightswell?”

“One.”

“Did you show it to Mrs. Clarendon?”

She shook her head.

Mr. Meres drummed upon his desk; there was an expression of pain on his forehead. But he dismissed it with a sigh.

“By-the-bye, this is a first manuscript?”

“Yes.”

“Never dare to show me one again! You are to copy the new story twice,—you understand?”

“Copying is terrible work.”

“So is every effort that leads to anything. You are beginning an apprenticeship; don’t think you can carve masterpieces straight from the block, or dash on frescoes without cartoon. Now shake hands with me and go. And Ada, if you can find it in your heart to do me a great kindness–”

“Would I not?”

“Well, I can’t ask it now. Some evening when we have talked the fire low, and our tongues are loosened. To work! To work!”

CHAPTER VII

In the first week of February, Mrs. Clarendon spent a couple of days with the Bruce Pages at Hanford. Among a vast accumulation of county and general news which Mrs. Bruce Page emptied forth for Isabel’s benefit, there was mention of an accident that had befallen Sir Miles Lacour. Whenever, as had lately been the case, there was skating weather, Sir Miles assembled large parties of friends to enjoy this pastime on a fine piece of water that graced his grounds. One evening, when there was torchlight merriment on the ice, Sir Miles had somehow managed to catch a fall; it would have been nothing, but that unfortunately there came immediately behind him a sleigh in which a lady was being whirled along by a couple of skaters. The metal came in contact with the prostrate baronet’s head, and he had remained for an hour in unconsciousness. However, he appeared to be doing well, and probably there would be no further result.

“Do you know,” said Mrs. Bruce Page, “I ran up to town the other day, and took an opportunity of seeing the boy Vincent.”

“Did you?” said Isabel indifferently.

“Shall I tell you something that I found out? But perhaps you have already got at the explanation of that affair?”

“No, I know nothing about it. It really does not concern me.”

“Of course not,” the other lady remarked to herself. She continued aloud. “It was all Ada’s doing; so much is clear. She somehow came to hear of–well, of things we won’t particularise. Vincent is open enough with me, and made no secret of it. I told him plainly that I was delighted; his behaviour had been simply disgraceful. Of course I can never have him here again, at all events not for a long time; whatever you do, don’t mention his name in Emily’s hearing,” her daughter, that was. “And he wasn’t aware that Ada was in town; of course I left him in his ignorance. It is to be hoped the poor girl won’t be so foolish as to give in. Naturally, one understands her—her temptations only too well. And, my dear, you know I always say just what I think—you won’t take it ill—I can’t help blaming you; it was so clearly your duty to refuse consent. You were actuated by the very highest and purest motives, that I am well aware. But you are too unworldly; to suffer ourselves to be led by our own higher instincts so often results in injustice to other people. I really don’t think principles were meant to be acted upon; they are ornaments of the mind. My set of Sèvres is exquisite, but I shouldn’t think of drinking tea out of them.”

On returning to Knightswell, Isabel was Informed that Mr. Robert Asquith had made a call that morning; hearing that she would be back before night he had written on his card that he should wait at the inn in Winstoke, as he wished to see her.

She took the card to the drawing-room, and stood bending it between her fingers, not yet having removed her bonnet. She was thinking very hard; her face had that expression which a woman never wears save when alone; the look of absolute occupation with thoughts in which her whole being is concerned. It ended in her passing to the boudoir, hastily writing a note, and ringing the bell.

“Let this be taken at once,” she said to the servant who appeared. “And tell Hopwood to bring tea upstairs.”

Robert Asquith was pleased to receive a summons to dine, with the information added that his cousin was alone.

At dinner the conversation busied itself with everything save the subject which was uppermost in the minds of both. Isabel was all the more delightful for having to exert herself a little to sustain her gaiety, and Asquith was in unfeigned good spirits. He gave an account of his progress in Anglicisation, related many drily humorous stories.

When the meal was over he said:

“You don’t demand of me that I shall sit in solitary dignity over the claret for-half-an-hour? Is it de rigueur in my quality of English gentleman?”

“Perhaps you would like to smoke?”

“No.”

“In that case come to the drawing-room.”

He held the door open, and she swept gently past; Robert smiled, so pleasantly did her grace of movement affect him. There are women who enter a room like the first notes of a sonata, and leave it like the sweet close of a nocturne; Isabel was of them.

“How long does Miss Warren intend to stay in London?” he inquired, as they seated themselves.

“Indefinitely.”

“Her friends there are congenial?”

“Entirely so. Mr. Meres is a clever man; he has more influence over her than any one else.”

“You give that as an illustration of his cleverness?”

“No; as the result of it. Ada wants intellectual society; she has no pleasure in talking of anything but books and art. And he has always been a sort of guide to her.”

“Then you have the prospect of being alone for some time?”

“I shall go up as usual in May. Have you read this account of Indian jugglers in the Cornhill?”

“No, I have not.”

“You really should; it is astonishing. Take it away with you; I have done with it.”

“Thanks. I will. You wish to be in London in May? Two clear months before then. Could you be ready in, say, three days to go southwards?”

Isabel was quite prepared for this, but not for the way in which it was put. A man whose character finds its natural expression in little turns of this kind has terrible advantages over a woman not entirely sure of her own purpose. She looked for a moment almost offended; it was the natural instinctive method of defence.

“To go southwards?” she repeated, rolling up the magazine she held.

“The yacht is at Marseilles,” Robert pursued, watching her with eyes half-closed. “The Calders have made every preparation, and some friends of theirs, Mr. and Mrs. Ackerton—very nice people—are to be of the party.”

She answered nothing. As he waited, coffee was brought in.

“I don’t think I know anything of the Ackertons,” Isabel said, naturally, as the servant held the tray.

“They are Somersetshire people, I believe. The lady was a Miss Harkle.”

“Not a daughter of Canon Harkle?”

“Can’t say, I’m sure.”

The servant retired, and they sipped coffee in silence. Isabel presently put hers aside; Asquith then finished his cup at a draught, and walked to a table with it.

“I don’t think you have any excuse left, have you?” he said, leaning over the back of a chair.

“That is a decidedly Oriental way of putting an invitation, Robert.”

He was surprised at the amount of seriousness there was in her tone; she would not raise her face, and her cheeks were coloured.

“Let me be more English, then. Will you give us—give me—the great pleasure of your company, Isabel?”

“But I tell you so clearly that under no circumstances should I leave England just now. It is a little—unkind of you.”

“Unkind? It is not exactly a spirit of unkindness that actuates me. It would do you no end of good, and you will find the people delightful.”

Probably Isabel had by this time made up her mind, but disingenuousness was a mistake on Robert’s part. He only slipped into it because he began to fear that he had really offended her, and the feeling disturbed his self-possession for the moment.

“Thank you,” Isabel said. “I appreciate your kindness at its full, but you must not ask me again. I shall remain at Knightswell till I go to London.”

He made a slight motion of assent with his hand.

“Now to think,” Isabel said, with sudden recovery of good-humour—that sort of “well done, resolution!” which we utter to ourselves with cheering effect—“that you should have troubled to come all this way on what you might have known was an errand of disappointment!”

“Oh, I wanted, in any case, to see you before starting. I should have been very disappointed if I had missed you.”

He began at once to give a lively sketch of the expedition he had planned, and Isabel listened with much attention, though she interposed no remarks.

“You will bring me an account of it all when you come back,” she said on his ceasing to speak.

“It’s not very clear to me whether I shall come back,” Robert returned. “I have a friend in Smyrna whom I shall go to see, and I shouldn’t wonder if I am tempted to stay out there.”

“What, after all your perseverance in mastering English accomplishments?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t quite know what I shall do with myself if I stay here. Most probably I shall decide to go into harness again, one way or another. And that reminds me of the ‘Coach and Horses.’ I will wend my way to that respectable hostelry.”

“You’ll come and breakfast in the morning?”

“No; I must leave by the 8.15. I want to be early in London.”

“You are rather an unreasonable man, my cousin Robert,” said Isabel, as she stood at leave-taking. “Because I am forced, with every expression of regret, to decline an invitation to a yachting expedition, you are more than half angry with me. I thought you and I were beyond these follies.”

“Did you? But, you see, I am not a hardened giver of invitations. The occasion has a certain uniqueness for me.”

“Take courage. If one whom you invite declines, there is always a better one very ready to fill the place.”

Robert went his way, and before many days Isabel had a written “good-bye” from London:

“To-morrow we start. It would have been a different thing if you had been with us here to-night. There are mysteries about you, cousin Isabel, and I rather think I was more at my ease before I began to puzzle over such things. If I settle in Smyrna, I will send you muscatels. Here or there, I believe I am always yours, Robert Asquith.”

He never wrote a letter much longer than this.

The day after his visit, Isabel took up her pen to talk with Kingcote.

“What do you think I have just done? Refused an invitation to go with friends yachting in the Mediterranean—an invitation it would have been lovely to accept. And why did I refuse? Wholly and solely on your account, sir. Will you not thank me? No, there was no merit in it, after all. How could I have been happy on the coasts of Italy and Greece, whilst you, my dearest, were so far from happy in London? You must get over that depression, which is the result of sudden change, and of the gloomy things you find yourself amongst. Do not be so uneasy about the future. Try to write to me more cheerfully, for have not I also a few hard things to bear? Indeed, I want your help as much as you need mine. Yet in one thing I have the advantage—I look to the future with perfect trust. I laugh at your doubts and fears. Do you doubt of me? Do you fear lest I shall forget? I dare you to think such a thought! If I could but give you some of my good spirits. To me the new year makes a new world. I long for the bright skies and spring fields that I may enjoy them; they will have a meaning they never had before. It will soon be May, and then shall we not see each other?”

February passed, March all but passed. There were guests at Knightswell, and one fair spring morning, about eleven o’clock, Isabel was on the point of setting forth to drive with three ladies. The carriage was expected to come up to the door, and Isabel was just descending the stairs with one of her friends, when she saw the servant speaking with some one who had appeared at the entrance. A glance, and she perceived that it was Kingcote. She was startled, and had to make an effort before she could walk forward. She motioned to Kingcote to enter, and greeted him in the way of ordinary friendliness.

“We were on the very point of going out,” she said, her voice shaken in spite of all determination. “Will you come into the library?”

She turned and excused herself to her companion, promising to be back almost immediately.

“What has brought you?” was her hurried question, when the library door was closed behind them. “Has anything happened?”

“Nothing,” Kingcote answered, turning his eyes from her. “But I see you have no time to give me. I mustn’t keep you now. I thought perhaps I might find you alone.”

“And you have come–?”

“To see you—to see you—what else?” burst passionately from his lips. “I was dying with desire to see you. Last night it grew more than I could bear. I left the house before daylight, and I find myself here. I had no purpose of coming; I have done it all in a dream. My life had grown to a passion to see you!”

He caught her hand and kissed it again and again, kissed the sleeve of her garments, pressed her palm against his eyes.

“You have made me mad, Isabel,” he whispered. “It is terrible not to be able to see you when that agony comes upon me. I neither rest nor employ myself; I can only pace my room, like an animal in his cage, with my heart on fire. Oh, I suffer—life is intolerable!”

“Bernard, let me go to that chair—to see you gave me a shock. For heaven’s sake do speak less wildly, dear! Why should you suffer so? Have I not written to you often? Do you doubt me? What is it that distresses you?”

He stood, and still held her hand.

“Don’t speak, but look at me very gently, softly, with all the assurance of tenderness that your eyes will utter. You have such power over me, that your gaze will soothe and make me a reasonable being again. No, not your lips! Only that still, smiling look, that I may worship you.”

Her bosom trembled.

“Do you know yourself?” Kingcote went on, under his breath. “Have you any consciousness of that fearful power which is in you? No more, I suppose, than the flower has of its sweetness. You have so drawn my life into the current of your own, that I have lost all existence apart from you. I have dreamed of loving, but that was all idle; I had no imagination for this spell you have cast upon me.”

“I am glad you came! I too was longing to touch your hand.”

She pressed it to her lips.

“Oh, if I could only stay with you, now!”

“Yes, I know I must not keep you. You have friends waiting. They have a better right.”