Part 46 (1/2)

”Not very fit; thin and old. I was with him several times that month and I never saw him crack a smile. That's not like him, you know.”

”What is it? His wife?”

”Well, I fancy it lies somewhere between his mother and his wife--this pre-glacial freeze-up that's made a bally mummy of him.”

And still again, and in the tobacco-scented dusk of Athalie's room, and once more from a man who had just returned from abroad:

”I kept running into Clive everywhere. He seems to haunt the continent, turning up like a ghost here and there; and believe me he looks the part of the lonely spook.”

”Where's his Missis?”

”They've chucked the domestic. Didn't you know?”

”Divorced?”

”No. But they don't get on. What man could with that girl? So poor old Clive is dawdling around the world all alone, and his wife's entertainments are the talk of London, and his mother has become pious and is building a chapel for herself to repose in some day when the cards go against her in the jolly game.”

The cards went against her in the game that autumn.

Athalie had been writing to her sister Catharine, and had risen from her desk to find a stick of sealing-wax, when, as she turned to go toward her bedroom, she saw Clive's mother coming toward her.

Never but once before had she seen Mrs. Bailey--that night at the Regina--and, for the first time in her life, she recoiled before such a visitor. A hot, proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pa.s.s.

But Clive's mother gazed at her gently, wistfully, lingering as she pa.s.sed the girl in the pa.s.sage-way. And Athalie, turning her head slowly to look after her, saw a quiet smile on her lips as she went her silent way; and presently was no longer there. Then the girl continued on her own way in search of the sealing-wax; but she was moving uncertainly now, one arm outstretched, feeling along the familiar walls and furniture, half-blinded with her tears.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there.”]

So the chapel fulfilled its functions.

It was a very ornamental private chapel. Mrs. Bailey, Sr., had had it pretty well peppered with family crests and quarterings, authentic and imaginary.

Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there, the English sunlight filtered through stained gla.s.s; the gla.s.s also was thoroughly peppered with insignia of the House of Bailey. Rich carving, rich colouring, rich people!--what more could sticklers demand for any exclusive sanctuary where only the best people received the Body of Christ, and where G.o.d would meet n.o.body socially unknown.

Clive arrived from Italy after the funeral. The meeting between him and his wife was faultless. He hung about the splendid country place for a while, and spent much time inside the chapel, and also outside, where he directed the planting of some American evergreens, hemlock, spruce, and white pine.

But the aromatic perfume of familiar trees was subtly tearing him to tatters; and there came a day when he could no longer endure it.

His young wife was playing billiards with Lord Innisbrae, known intimately as Cinders, such a languid and burnt out young man was he, with his hair already white, and every lineament seared with the fires of revels long since sunken into ashes.

He watched them for a while, his hands clenched where they rested in his coat pockets, the lean muscles in his cheeks twitching at intervals.

When Innisbrae took himself off, Winifred still lounged gracefully along the billiard table taking shots with any ball that lay for her.

And Clive looked on, absent-eyed, the flat jaw muscles working at intervals.

”Well?” she asked carelessly, laying her cue across the table.

”Nothing.... I think I'll clear out to-morrow.”