Thelma
And he fumbled hastily with some papers, and began to talk of something
else. His embarrassed manner caused her to wonder a little at the time
as to the reason of it,--but she had many other things to think about,
and she soon forgot a conversation that might have proved a small
guiding-link in the chain of events that were soon about to follow
quickly one upon another, shaking her life to its very foundation. Lady
Winsleigh found it almost impossible to get her on the subject of the
burlesque actress, Violet Vere, and Sir Philip's supposed admiration for
that notorious stage-siren.
"I do not believe it," she said firmly, "and you--you must not believe
it either, Clara. For wherever you heard it, it is wrong. We should
dishonor Philip by such a thought--you are his friend, and I am his
wife--we are not the ones to believe anything against him, even if it
could be proved--and there are no proofs."
"My dear," responded her ladyship easily. "You can get proofs for
yourself if you like. For instance, ask Sir Philip how often he has seen
Miss Vere lately,--and hear what he says."
Thelma colored deeply. "I would not question my husband on such a
subject," she said proudly.
"Oh well! if you are so fastidious!" And Lady Winsleigh shrugged her
shoulders.
"I am not fastidious," returned Thelma, "only I do wish to be worthy of
his love,--and I should not be so if I doubted him. No, Clara, I will
trust him to the end."
Clara Winsleigh drew nearer to her, and took her hand.
"Even if he were unfaithful to you?" she asked in a low, impressive
tone.
"Unfaithful!" Thelma uttered the word with a little cry. "Clara, dear
Clara, you must not say such a word! Unfaithful! That means that my
husband would love some one more than me!--ah! that is impossible!"
"Suppose it were possible?" persisted Lady Winsleigh, with a cruel light
in her dark eyes. "Such things have been!"
Thelma stood motionless, a deeply mournful expression on her fair, pale
face. She seemed to think for a moment, then she spoke.
"I would never believe it!" she said solemnly. "Never, unless I heard it
from his own lips, or saw it in his own writing, that he was weary of
me, and wanted me no more."
"And then?"
"Then"--she drew a quick breath--"I should know what to do. But, Clara,
you must understand me well, even if this were so, I should never blame
him--no--not once!"
"Not blame him?" cried Lady Winsleigh impatiently. "Not blame him for
infidelity?"
A deep blush swept over her face at the hated word "infidelity," but she
answered steadily--
"No. Because, you see, it would be my fault, not his. When you hold a
flower in your hand for a long time, till all its fragrance has gone,
and you drop it because it no longer smells sweetly--you are not to
blame--it is natural you should wish to have something fresh and
fragrant,--it is the flower's fault because it could not keep its scent
long enough to please you. Now, if Philip were to love me no longer, I
should be like that flower, and how would HE be to blame? He would be
good as ever, but I--I should have ceased to seem pleasant to him--that
is all!"
She put this strange view of the case quite calmly, as if it were the
only solution to the question. Lady Winsleigh heard her, half in
contemptuous amusement, half in dismay. "What can I do with such a woman
as this," she thought. "And fancy Lennie imagining for a moment that HE
could have any power over her!" Aloud, she said--
"Thelma, you're the oddest creature going--a regular heathen child from
Norway! You've set up your husband as an idol, and you're always on your
knees before him. It's awfully sweet of you, but it's quite absurd, all
the same. Angelic wives always get the worst of it, and so you'll see!
Haven't you heard that?"
"Yes, I have heard it," she answered, smiling a little. "But only since
I came to London. In Norway, it is taught to women that to be patient
and obedient is best for every one. It is not so here. But I am not an
angelic wife, Clara, and so the 'worst of it' will not apply to me.
Indeed, I do not know of any 'worst' that I would not bear for Philip's
sake."
Lady Winsleigh studied the lovely face, eloquent with love and truth,
for some moments in silence;--a kind of compunction pricked her
conscience. Why destroy all that beautiful faith? Why wound that grandly
trusting nature? The feeling was but momentary.
"Philip _does_ run after the Vere," she said to herself--"it's true,
there's no mistake about it, and she ought to know of it. But she won't
believe without proofs--what proofs can I get, I wonder?" And her
scheming brain set to work to solve this problem.
In justice to her, it must be admitted, she had a good deal of seeming
truth on her side. Sir Philip's name _had_ somehow got connected with
that of the leading actress at the Brilliant, and more people than Lady
Winsleigh began to make jocose whispering comments on his stage
"amour"--comments behind his back, which he was totally unaware of.
Nobody knew quite how the rumor had first been started. Sir Francis
Lennox seemed to know a good deal about it, and he was an "intimate" of
the "Vere" magic circle of attraction. And though they talked, no one
ventured to say anything to Sir Philip himself;--the only two among his
friends who would have spoken out honestly were Beau Lovelace and
Lorimer, and these were absent.
One evening, contrary to his usual custom, Sir Philip went out after the
late dinner. Before leaving, he kissed his wife tenderly, and told her
on no account to sit up for him--he and Neville were going to attend to
a little matter of business which might detain them longer than they
could calculate. After they had gone, Thelma resigned herself to a
lonely evening, and, stirring the fire in the drawing-room to a cheerful
blaze, she sat down beside it. First, she amused herself by reading over
some letters recently received from her father,--and then, yielding to a
sudden fancy, she drew her spinning-wheel from the corner where it
always stood, and set it in motion. She had little time for spinning
now, but she never quite gave it up, and as the low, familiar whirring
sound hummed pleasantly on her ears, she smiled, thinking how quaint and
almost incongruous her simple implement of industry looked among all the
luxurious furniture, and costly nick-nacks by which she was surrounded.
"I ought to have one of my old gowns on," she half murmured, glancing
down at the pale-blue silk robe she wore, "I am too fine to spin!"
And she almost laughed as the wheel flew round swiftly under her
graceful manipulations. Listening to its whirr, whirr, whirr, she
scarcely heard a sudden knock at the street-door, and was quite startled
when the servant, Morris, announced--"Sir Francis Lennox!"
Surprised, she rose from her seat at the spinning-wheel with a slight
air of hauteur. Sir Francis, who had never in his life seen a lady of
title and fashion in London engaged in the primitive occupation of
spinning, was entirely delighted with the picture before him,--the tall,
lovely woman with her gold hair and shimmering blue draperies, standing
with such stateliness beside the simple wooden wheel, the antique emblem
of household industry. Instinctively he thought of Marguerite;--but
Marguerite as a crowned queen, superior to all temptations of either man
or fiend.
"Sir Philip is out," she said, as she suffered him to take her hand.
"So I was aware!" returned Lennox easily. "I saw him a little while ago
at the door of the Brilliant Theatre."
She turned very pale,--then controlling the rapid beating of her heart
by a strong effort, she forced a careless smile, and said bravely--
"Did you? I am very glad--for he will have some amusement there,
perhaps, and that will do him good. He has been working so hard!"
She paused. He said nothing, and she went on more cheerfully still--
"Is it not a very dismal, wet evening! Yes!--and you must be cold. Will
you have some tea?"
"Tha-anks!" drawled Sir Francis, staring at her admiringly. "If it's not
too much trouble--"
"Oh no!" said Thelma. "Why should it be?" And she rang the bell and gave
the order. Sir Francis sank lazily back in an easy chair, and stroked
his moustache slowly. He knew that his random hit about the theatre had
struck home,--but she allowed the arrow to pierce and possibly wound her
heart without showing any outward sign of discomposure. "A plucky
woman!" he considered, and wondered how he should make his next move.
She, meanwhile, smiled at him frankly, and gave a light twirl to her
spinning-wheel.
"You see!" she said, "I was amusing myself this evening by imagining
that I was once more at home in Norway."
"Pray don't let me interrupt the amusement," he responded, with a sleepy
look of satisfaction shooting from beneath his eyelids. "Go on spinning,
Lady Errington! . . . I've never seen any one spin before."
At that moment Morris appeared with the tea, and handed it to Sir
Francis,--Thelma took none, and as the servant retired, she quietly
resumed her occupation. There was a short silence, only broken by the
hum of the wheel. Sir Francis sipped his tea with a meditative air, and
studied the fair woman before him as critically as he would have studied
a picture.
"I hope I'm not in your way?" he asked suddenly. She looked up
surprised.
"Oh no--only I am sorry Philip is not here to talk to you. It would be
so much pleasanter."
"Would it?" he murmured rather dubiously and smiling. "Well--I shall be
quite contented if you will talk to me, Lady Errington!"
"Ah, but I am not at all clever in conversation," responded Thelma quite
seriously. "I am sure you, as well as many others, must have noticed
that. I never do seem to say exactly the right thing to please
everybody. Is it not very unfortunate?"
He laughed a little. "I have yet to learn in what way you do not please
everybody," he said, dropping his voice to a low, caressing cadence.
"Who, that sees you, does not admire--and--and love you?"
She met his languorous gaze without embarrassment,--while the childlike
openness of her regard confused and slightly shamed him.
"Admire me? Oh yes!" she said somewhat plaintively. "It is that of which
I am so weary! Because God has made one pleasant in form and face,--to
be stared at and whispered about, and have all one's dresses
copied!--all that is so small and common and mean, and does vex me so
much!"
"It is the penalty you pay for being beautiful," said Sir Francis
slowly, wondering within himself at the extraordinary incongruity of a
feminine creature who was actually tired of admiration.
She made no reply--the wheel went round faster than before. Presently
Lennox set aside his emptied cup, and drawing his chair a little closer
to hers, asked--
"When does Errington return?"
"I cannot tell you," she answered. "He said that he might be late. Mr.
Neville is with him."
There was another silence. "Lady Errington," said Sir Francis
abruptly--"pray excuse me--I speak as a friend, and in your
interests,--how long is this to last?"
The wheel stopped. She raised her eyes,--they were grave and steady.
"I do not understand you," she returned quietly. "What is it that you
mean?"
He hesitated--then went on, with lowered eyelids and a half-smile.
"I mean--what all our set's talking about--Errington's queer fancy for
that actress at the Brilliant."
Thelma still gazed at him fixedly. "It is a mistake," she said
resolutely, "altogether a mistake. And as you are his friend, Sir
Francis, you will please contradict this report--which is wrong, and may
do Philip harm. It has no truth in it at all--"
"No truth!" exclaimed Lennox. "It's true as Gospel! Lady Errington, I'm
sorry for it--but your husband is deceiving you most shamefully!"