muriel lancing, having partaken of breakfast in her own room, was now lying in luxurious and dainty négligé among a pile of extremely snowy pillows. anne, who had breakfasted in the dining-room some half hour previously, was sitting by the open window talking to her.
“anne,” said muriel suddenly, glancing at her from beneath lowered eyelashes, “i believe i owe you a confession and an apology.”
“yes?” queried anne, smiling. “and for what?”
“i wasn’t,” confessed muriel, “one bit ill when i wrote to you. i was only mentally sick because i wanted tommy, and he had to go away on horrid business where i couldn’t accompany him—at least, he said i couldn’t; and that comes to the same thing—with tommy.” muriel heaved a prodigious sigh.
“darling!” laughed anne.
muriel wrinkled her porcelain-like brows. “oh, anne, life is heavenly! there’s only just one long big beautiful moment with me and love and tommy. but there are ten million years of purgatory to get through when he is away from me, and then i’m soul-sick. and i tell myself i’m a sentimental little fool, but it doesn’t do one bit of good. so i wrote to you to come to me till patricia, who is a cheerful soul, can join me. and i didn’t want to tell you it was sheer silly loneliness, so i told you a little white lie,” she ended tragically.
“of course,” said anne serenely. “i knew.”
“did you?” muriel was half incredulous.
“yes; your letter just breathed ‘i want tommy’ all through it. and as a kind of postscript it added, ‘but you’re better than nothing to this poor moping person, so for heaven’s sake come.’”
“and i,” murmured muriel pathetically, “thought my letter the height of diplomatic lying.”
“on the contrary,” anne assured her, “it was as transparent as a crystal bowl.”
for a few moments there was a silence. the [pg 145]warm sun was pouring through the open window, falling across the bed and the slightly tumbled bedclothes, and glinting on the fair hair of the woman who lay among the pillows. strictly speaking, muriel lancing was not beautiful, she was not even pretty. but there was an odd charm about her thin little face, her great grey-green eyes, and her wide mouth. she had a curious, almost elfin-like appearance. she was not at all unlike arthur rackham’s pictures of undine as she lay there in some flimsy and diaphanous garment suggestive of sea-foam. herself—her whole surroundings—held a suggestion of elusiveness, a kind of cobwebby grace and charm. tommy—adored of muriel—once said that the house was like an oyster-shell, rough and ugly on the outside, but inside all soft and shimmery with a pearl in it. it was his most brilliantly poetical effusion, and never likely to be surpassed by him. the only single thing in the room that struck an incongruous note was a large—a very large—photograph frame on a table by muriel’s bed. it was a rough wooden frame, distinctly crooked, and with the glue showing somewhat in the corners. it held a [pg 146]full-length photograph of an ugly, snub-nosed, but quite delightful-faced young man with a wide mouth and an appearance that rightly suggested red hair and freckles. this was the adored tommy, and the frame was his own manufacture. next to the man himself they were muriel’s most treasured possessions.
anne looked across at it. she had often seen it before, but finding it difficult to discover the most tactful observation to make regarding it, had refrained from making any. this time, however, muriel seemed to notice the direction of anne’s eyes.
“tommy made it himself,” she said, stretching out one white arm, from which a flimsy covering of lace and gauze-like material fell away, disclosing its slender roundness. she moved the frame to an angle better calculated to show off its superior qualities.
“really!” said anne, politely incredulous, but understanding. it explained what had hitherto been a cause for wonderment, namely, why muriel should choose to disfigure her room with such a piece of furniture. its size almost calls for the designation.
“yes,” said muriel proudly, “himself. i think,” she continued, contemplating the picture with her head at as one-sided an angle as her recumbent position would allow, “that it is a beautiful frame.” there was the faintest suspicion of a challenge in her voice.
“i am quite sure,” said anne in a perfectly grave voice, “that you could not possibly have a frame which you would value more. i know i couldn’t if i happened to be you.”
muriel laughed like a contented child. “anne, you’re several kinds of angels, and you have the heavenliest way of saying the right thing and yet speaking the truth. of course i know that its sides are crooked, and that there are little mountains of glue in the corners. but you should have seen tommy’s face when he brought it to me. the darling was so afraid it was not of quite the most finished workmanship. oh, anne, between the comicality of his face and the lop-sided expression of the sticky frame—the glue wasn’t quite dry—and the little lump in my own throat for the darlingness of the thought, i very nearly had hysterics. but i hid them on tommy’s waistcoat, and i adore the frame.”
“of course,” said anne, smiling.
again there was a little pause. then muriel spoke suddenly.
“what do you think of general carden? he monopolized you in the most disgraceful way last night.”
“i liked him,” returned anne, calmly ignoring the question of monopoly. “it is delightfully refreshing to meet a man so entirely of the old school of thought and manners.”
“i think he’s quite a dear,” returned muriel comfortably. “i’ve known him since i was in short frocks and a pigtail. he was a friend of my father’s. they were at harrow together and afterwards in the same regiment in india. he thinks me—well, just a little flighty, but he doesn’t altogether hate me; and he’s quite paternally fond of tommy,” she ended with a gay little laugh.
“by the way,” asked anne, curious, “why does he so dislike millicent sheldon? it is quite obvious he does dislike her.”
muriel gave a little start. then she looked at anne, doubtful, hesitating. “oh, my dear anne, don’t you know? somehow i fancied that every one—” she stopped.
“know what?” queried anne idly, but interested.
“it’s really gossip—if true things are gossip,” said muriel half apologetically; “still, some one is sure to tell you sooner or later since you’ve met general carden.” again she stopped.
“but tell me what!” demanded anne. “since you’ve said so much, had you not better give me the rest? besides, since you say some one is sure to tell me, why not let me hear the story from you? you can sweeten it, add sugar and cream, if you will, or vinegar and spice, if those ingredients will flavour it better.”
muriel laughed. “i’ll omit the garnishings; you shall have the facts plain and simple. millicent was once upon a time engaged to general carden’s son. then—for certain reasons—she threw him over, and married the highly respectable and bald-headed theobald horatio sheldon, whose money—of which he has a very considerable quantity—was made by inventing those little brush things that are fixed on behind carts and sweep up the dirt in the roads.”
“i see,” mused anne, comprehending. “but of course, as i had never met general carden before, i naturally did not know that he possessed a son. he did not, either, happen to mention him to me.”
“but of course not,” said muriel tragically. “that’s exactly where the reasons and the real gossip come in. he spent three years in portland prison for forgery, or embezzlement, or something of the kind. he’s out now, but he was in.”
“oh!” said anne seriously.
“and,” ended muriel, still more tragically, “general carden has never seen his son again nor forgiven millicent for throwing him over. it’s rather contradictory, isn’t it?”
anne looked down into the street where a flower-girl was standing on the pavement with a basket full of great white lilies. she contemplated her for a few moments in silence, and seemingly drew conclusions from the flowers. she looked round again at muriel.
“i think i understand,” she said quietly.
muriel looked at her curiously. “then it’s quite remarkably intelligent of you.”
“no,” said anne calmly. “he loves his son and has never forgotten him. she has forgotten [pg 151]him and probably never loved him. that’s why he can’t forgive her.”
“oh!” said muriel. “i’m sure you’re right that he has not forgotten. he’s eating his heart out for him, or i’m much mistaken, and he’s too proud to own it by the quiver of an eyelash. we women have the easier time. it’s our rôle to keep our arms and hearts open to sinners, and thank heaven for it.”
anne was again looking at the flowers. she had said she understood, but in reality it was only partly. she did understand general carden, but millicent with her serious speeches on nobility and bigness of character was another matter. she voiced her perplexity to muriel.
“oh, but millicent!” said muriel in a tone that quite disposed of the question.
“yet,” said anne, “millicent has always talked as if she would help any one re-make his life, as if it were the one thing she would do, and—” she broke off.
muriel gurgled. “oh, anne darling, you’re so big-minded and truthful—in spite of your occasional woman-of-the-world airs, which are only a veneer—that you accept people at their own valuation. the things that people say they will do are the very things that at a crucial moment they do not do. i think crucial moments are a kind of revolution which turns the other side of the person completely to the fore.” and then her tone changed to one of solemn warning. “you, anne, doubtless consider yourself a luxury-loving woman, to whom the bare prospect of coarse underclothes, cold rooms, ill-cooked food, and commonplace surroundings would be appalling. yet i firmly believe that if the crucial moment came you would tramp the roads with your man.”
“mmm!” said anne. and that rose colour stole into the ivory of her face, a colour not unnoticed by the watchful eyes of muriel. “perhaps, the roads; but do you think it would carry me to a suburban house with a glass fanlight over the front door? it would be the bigger test. but, and there i think you’ve omitted a point, how about the second moment, the moment when the crucial moment is passed?”
muriel raised herself on one arm and spoke firmly. “love—real love—is one long crucial moment. i speak from experience because i love tommy.” she tumbled flat again among her pillows, and looked across at anne to challenge her experience if she dared.
anne, being of course an unmarried woman with no experience of the kind, merely smiled, a tiny smile which ended in a half sigh.
