He lighted his cigarette. After all, Irene had not made a scene! She
would come round--that was the best of her; she was cold, but not sulky.
And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a lady-bird on the shining table,
he plunged into a reverie about the house. It was no good worrying; he
would go and make it up presently. She would be sitting out there in the
dark, under the Japanese sunshade, knitting. A beautiful, warm night....
In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining eyes, and the
words: "Soames is a brick! It's splendid for Phil--the very thing for
him!"
Irene's face remaining dark and puzzled, she went on:
"Your new house at Robin Hill, of course. What? Don't you know?"
Irene did not know.
"Oh! then, I suppose I oughtn't to have told you!" Looking impatiently
at her friend, she cried: "You look as if you didn't care. Don't you
see, it's what I've' been praying for--the very chance he's been wanting
all this time. Now you'll see what he can do;" and thereupon she poured
out the whole story.
Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested in her
friend's position; the hours she spent with Irene were given to
confidences of her own; and at times, for all her affectionate pity,
it was impossible to keep out of her smile a trace of compassionate
contempt for the woman who had made such a mistake in her life--such a
vast, ridiculous mistake.
"He's to have all the decorations as well--a free hand. It's perfect--"
June broke into laughter, her little figure quivered gleefully; she
raised her hand, and struck a blow at a muslin curtain. "Do you, know
I even asked Uncle James...." But, with a sudden dislike to mentioning
that incident, she stopped; and presently, finding her friend so
unresponsive, went away. She looked back from the pavement, and Irene
was still standing in the doorway. In response to her farewell wave,
Irene put her hand to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door....
Soames went to the drawing-room presently, and peered at her through the
window.
Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade she was sitting very still,
the lace on her white shoulders stirring with the soft rise and fall of
her bosom.
But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless, in the dark,
there seemed a warmth, a hidden fervour of feeling, as if the whole of
her being had been stirred, and some change were taking place in its
very depths.
He stole back to the dining-room unnoticed.