XXII
The Crow stayed on after all the other guests had left. He knew hishostess wished to talk to him.
It had begun to pour with rain, and the dripping streets held out noinducement to them to go out.
They pulled up their two comfortable arm-chairs to the sparkling woodfire, and then Colonel Lowerby said:
"You look sad, Queen Anne. Tell me about it."
"Yes, I am sad," said Anne. "The position is so hopeless. Hector lovesher--loves her really--and I do not wonder at it; and she seems justeverything that one could wish for him. A thousand times above Morellain intellect and understanding. All the things Hector and I like shesees at once. No need of explaining to her, as one has to to mother andMorella always."
"Yes," said the Crow. He did not argue with her as usual.
"It seems so fearful to think of her forever bound to that dreadful oldgrocer, whom she treats with so much deference and gentleness. The wholething has made me sad. Hector is perfectly miserable; and, do you know,they are going to Beechleigh for Whitsuntide. Sir Patrick Fitzgerald isher uncle--and, of course, Hector is going, too, and--"
She did not finish her sentence. Her voice died away in a pathetic noteas she gazed into the fire.
The Crow fidgeted; he had been devoted to Anne since she was a child often, and he hated to see her troubled.
"Look here," he said. "I investigated her thoroughly at luncheon, and Idon't often make a mistake, do I?"
"No," said Anne. "Well--?"
"Well, she appeared to me to have some particular quality ofsweetness--you were right about her looking like an angel--and I thinkshe has got an angel's nature more or less; and when people are reallylike that there is some one up above looks after them, and I don't thinkwe need worry much--you and I."
"Dear old Crow!" said Anne; "you do comfort me. But all the same, angelor not, Hector is so attractive--and he is a man, you know, not one ofthese anaemic, artistic, aesthetic things we see about so often now; andthrown together like that--how on earth will they be able to helpthemselves?"
The Crow was silent.
"You see," she continued, "beyond Morella, who is too absolutelyunalluring and respectable to come to harm anywhere, and Miss Linwood,who only cares for bridge, there will hardly be another woman in thehouse who has not got a lover, and the atmosphere of those things iscatching--don't you think so?"
"It is nature," said Colonel Lowerby. "A woman in possession of herhealth and faculties requires a mate, and when her husband is attendingto sport or some other man's wife, she is bound to find one somewhere. Idon't blame the poor things."
"Oh, nor I!" said Anne. "I don't ever blame any one. And just one,because you love him, seems all right, perhaps. It is six different onesin a year, and a seventh to pay the bills, that I find vulgar."
"Dans les premieres passions, les femmes aiment l'amant; et dans lesautres, elles aiment l'amour," quoted the Crow. "It was ever the same,you see. It is the seventh to pay the bills that seems vulgar andmodern."
"Billy and I stayed there for the pheasant shoot last November, and Iassure you we felt quite out of it, having no little adventures at nightlike the rest. Lady Ada is the picture of washed-out respectabilityherself, and so--to give her some reflected color, I suppose--she asksalways the most go-ahead, advanced section of her acquaintances."
"Well, I shall be there this time," said the Crow; "she invited me lastweek."
This piece of news comforted Lady Anningford greatly. She felt herewould be some one to help matters if he could.
"Morella will be perfectly furious when she gets there and finds she wasnot the reason of Hector's empressement for the invitation. And in herstolid way she can be just as spiteful as Lady Harrowfield."
"Yes, I know."
Then they were both silent for a while--Anne's thoughts busy with themournful idea of the end of the House of Bracondale should Hector nevermarry, and the Crow's of her in sympathy, his eyes watching her face.
At last she spoke.
"I believe it would be best for Hector to go right away for a year orso," she sighed. "But, however it may be, I fear, alas! it can only endin tears."