FullReads

“To such a woman as that–after HER!”

“Dear old mamma!” said Godfrey while he smoked.

Adela rose again, drying her eyes. “It’s like an insult to her; it’s as if he denied her.” Now that she spoke of it she felt herself rise to a height. “He rubs out at a stroke all the years of their happiness.”

“They were awfully happy,” Godfrey agreed.

“Think what she was–think how no one else will ever again be like her!” the girl went on.

“I suppose he’s not very happy now,” her brother vaguely contributed.

“Of course he isn’t, any more than you and I are; and it’s dreadful of him to want to be.”

“Well, don’t make yourself miserable till you’re sure,” the young man said.

But Adela showed him confidently that she WAS sure, from the way the pair had behaved together and from her father’s attitude on the drive home. If Godfrey had been there he would have seen everything; it couldn’t be explained, but he would have felt. When he asked at what moment the girl had first had her suspicion she replied that it had all come at once, that evening; or that at least she had had no conscious fear till then. There had been signs for two or three weeks, but she hadn’t understood them–ever since the day Mrs. Churchley had dined in Seymour Street. Adela had on that occasion thought it odd her father should have wished to invite her, given the quiet way they were living; she was a person they knew so little. He had said something about her having been very civil to him, and that evening, already, she had guessed that he must have frequented their portentous guest herself more than there had been signs of. To-night it had come to her clearly that he would have called on her every day since the time of her dining with them; every afternoon about the hour he was ostensibly at his club. Mrs. Churchley WAS his club–she was for all the world just like one. At this Godfrey laughed; he wanted to know what his sister knew about clubs. She was slightly disappointed in his laugh, even wounded by it, but she knew perfectly what she meant: she meant that Mrs. Churchley was public and florid, promiscuous and mannish.

“Oh I daresay she’s all right,” he said as if he wanted to get on with his work. He looked at the clock on the mantel-shelf; he would have to put in another hour.

“All right to come and take darling mamma’s place–to sit where SHE used to sit, to lay her horrible hands on HER things?” Adela was appalled–all the more that she hadn’t expected it–at her brother’s apparent acceptance of such a prospect.

He coloured; there was something in her passionate piety that scorched him. She glared at him with tragic eyes–he might have profaned an altar. “Oh I mean that nothing will come of it.”

“Not if we do our duty,” said Adela. And then as he looked as if he hadn’t an idea of what that could be: “You must speak to him–tell him how we feel; that we shall never forgive him, that we can’t endure it.”

“He’ll think I’m cheeky,” her brother returned, looking down at his papers with his back to her and his hands in his pockets.

“Cheeky to plead for HER memory?”

“He’ll say it’s none of my business.”

“Then you believe he’ll do it?” cried the girl.

“Not a bit. Go to bed!”

“I’LL speak to him”–she had turned as pale as a young priestess.

“Don’t cry out till you’re hurt; wait till he speaks to YOU.”

“He won’t, he won’t!” she declared. “He’ll do it without telling us.”

Her brother had faced round to her again; he started a little at this, and again, at one of the candles, lighted his cigarette, which had gone out. She looked at him a moment; then he said something that surprised her. “Is Mrs. Churchley very rich?”