Good-night, Zella dear."
Aunt Marianne vanished, but reappeared next moment at the door in order to add, in a slightly Scriptural tone which she would not have employed had she been aware that she was quoting no more sacred authority than the poet Shakespeare:
"Remember, Zella, that one is expressly told to go down upon one's knees and thank Heaven fasting for a good man's love."
Upon which Zella heard her footsteps finally retreating down the passage.
She did not go down upon her knees, but went slowly to the window and seated herself upon the broad cushioned sill.
Zella wanted to think.
The habit of introspection was far too strong for her not to be aware that this was the appropriate frame of mind for the occasion, but she could tell herself with truth that uncertainty was amongst her predominant emotions.
She did not know if she loved Stephen. That he was in love with her she felt certain, and she wondered vaguely if the exultation raised in her at the thought was due to vanity or to a love that answered his.
The latter explanation was naturally the more gratifying of the two, and that both might be true did not enter into Zella's calculations.
She saw herself listening to Stephen's voice making love to her, heard herself replying, wisely, tenderly, yet with judgment, reserving her final decision until they should have known one another longer; no silly girl, blinded by the glamour of first love, but a thoughtful, self-controlled woman, whose surrender, when it came, should prove worth the waiting.
She lingered for some time over this fancy portrait. A formal troth-plighting between herself and Stephen. The interest, congratulations, excitement, that Muriel's engagement had provoked, multiplied a thousand-fold. The engagement-ring—certainly a diamond marquise engagement-ring; a trousseau; a choice of bridesmaids. A wedding that even Aunt Marianne should see to be far prettier than Muriel's, although with a distinctive touch of unconventionality. A honeymoon in Egypt; or it would be slightly original to suggest Japan. And then
Zella abandoned side-issues, and suddenly found herself envisaging the endless series of tête-à-têtes with Stephen, of which she supposed marriage would consist.
"But we have all our interests in common," she told herself, and her own instinctive use of the qualifying "but" conveyed nothing to her. "Even Aunt Marianne says that he cares for my sort of things—books and poetry and—and Nature. And I'm not as young and childish as Aunt Marianne thinks me, or in the least romantic, and I know perfectly well that being in love doesn't last, whereas intellectual companionship does. That, and love, is the ideal foundation for marriage. And I think Stephen is in love with me."
The thought suddenly became overwhelming, and she hid her face in her hands.
Then the old feeling of distrust came over her:
"Would he love me if he really knew me—knew all about the times that I have told lies, and pretended to be nicer than I am? If I told him he probably wouldn't believe me; he'd think I was being humble, or exaggerating my faults to myself."
And the old conviction rushed upon her once more.
"No one could ever know me absolutely, and then love me just the same."
She did not dwell upon the conviction, which was, however, the most fundamental one that her undeveloped nature was to know.
She thought instead: "Stephen would trust me, and that would make me true. I should really become all that he thinks I am; it would-be the beginning of a new life. I could get away from everyone and everything, and start quite fresh. Up till now I've always been in the wrong atmosphere—at Aunt Marianne's, and at the convent, and even here, where I am still looked upon as a child."
The words produced in her an unexpected and rather disconcerting phenomenon. The days of her childhood, which during the last four years had become infinitely more remote than they would ever be again, sprang into sudden life, and became the only reality in the world.
Stephen—love—marriage: all were words standing for shadowy fancies and remote possibilities, and the actualities of life took shape in the common everyday trivialities that she had always known. Early morning rides with her father; the small plot of earth where she and James and Muriel had dug a hole that was to reach through to Australia; the old Wedgwood blue vase that had stood in the hall ever since she could remember—these were the real things that made up life, after all.
Zella sat amazed.
"What is truth?" she asked despairingly, and dropped on to her knees by the open window.
As though in answer to her question, there was a sudden sound on the terrace below, and she saw the red light of a cigar moving up the flight of stone steps.
With a violently beating heart, Zella bent forward and swiftly extinguished the candles burning on the dressing-table. Then, secure of being herself unseen, she gazed out into the moonlit garden.
Stephen came slowly up the steps and on to the terrace. His fair head was bent, and he was plainly visible in the streaming moonlight.
Zella drew back farther into the shadow of the curtains, her gaze still riveted on the tall figure of the man below.
Almost opposite her window he stopped, and she saw him throw away the unfinished cigar with the abrupt gesture of dismissal that already seemed to her characteristic of him.
"Why is he there, and what is he thinking about?" she wondered wildly, at the same time stifling the conjecture that had instantly occurred to her as to the reason for Stephen's presence and the subject of Stephen's thoughts.
But his next movement answered both questions almost as she asked them. Raising his head with a sudden gesture, Stephen looked straight up at the darkened window, and raised both his arms towards it, outstretched. He remained so for perhaps the space of a second, then let his arms drop to his sides, and turned slowly upon his heel.
Zella heard the sound of the gravel beneath his feet as he moved away.
"He does love me," she thought with triumphant, chaotic joy, and a violent excitement possessed her.
She lit the candles again, and moved rapidly and aimlessly about the room, finally halting before the looking glass.
Her brown hair was tumbled over her shoulders, and her eyes were gleaming like stars.
"He does love me," she repeated to her own image in the glass, and then she suddenly turned and flung herself upon her knees by the bed, hiding her face against it.
For what seemed a long time she was conscious of nothing definite, but presently she found herself deliriously repeating again and again, "He does love me."
Gradually the chaos, into which the world seemed flung, abated. And she stammered the words of the old prayer that alone seemed to come to her: "Oh God, let it be all right. Stephen does love me. I don't deserve for anyone to love me. I will marry Stephen and begin again. Let it be all right."
Later on in the night, as she lay sleepless and wide-eyed in the semi-darkness, Zella told herself that no words of Stephen's could ever prove more eloquent than that mute gesture when he had thought himself unseen.
"And to think I wasn't sure, and wondered if
