"I wonder if you would be faithful to any woman, Hector? I have often
thought you do not know what it means to love--really to love."
"You were perfectly right once. I did not know," he said; "and perhaps I
don't now, unless to feel the whole world is a sickening blank without
one woman is to love--really to love."
Anne noticed the weariness of his pose and the vibration in his deep
voice. She was stirred and interested as she had never been. This dear
brother of hers was not wont to care very much. In the past it had
always been the women who had sighed and longed and he who had been
amused and pleased. She could not remember a single occasion in the last
ten years when he had seemed to suffer, although she had seen him
apparently devoted to numbers of women.
"And what are you going to do?" she asked, with sympathy, "She is
married, of course?"
"Yes."
"Hector, don't you want me to speak about it?"
He took a chair now by his sister's sofa, and he began to turn over the
papers rather fast which lay on a table near by.
"Yes, I do," he said, "because, after all, you can do something for me.
I want you to be particularly kind to her, will you, Anne, dear?"
"But, of course; only you must tell me who she is and where I shall find
her."
"You will find her at Claridge's, and she is only the wife of an
impossible Australian millionaire called Brown--Josiah Brown."
"Poor dear Hector, how terrible!" thought Anne. "It is not the American,
then?" she said, aloud.
"There never was any American," he exclaimed. "Monica is the most
ridiculous gossip, and always sees wrong. If she had not Jack to keep
her from talking so much she would not leave one of us with a rag of
character."
"I will go to-morrow and call there, Hector," Lady Anningford said. "My
cold is sure to be better; and if she is not in, shall I write a note
and ask her to lunch? The husband, too, I suppose?"
"I fear so. Anne, you are a brick."
Then he said good-night, and went to the opera.
Left to herself, Lady Anningford thought: "I suppose she is some flashy,
pretty creature who has caught Hector's fancy, the poor darling. One
never has chanced to find an Australian quite, quite a lady. I almost
wish he would marry Morella and have done with it."