now again there was a long silence, broken only by the lapping of the flames up the chimney and the soft movements of Jane Amoret among her blocks.
Rhoda turned away at last, facing the fire and looking down at it, her hands on the edge of the mantelpiece, her foot on the fender; and she presently lifted the foot and dealt the logs a kick.
It was all clear to Mrs. Delafield. She was tired of her poet, or, at all events, did not, in the new life, find compensations enough. She had come, hoping to have her way made clear for a reëntry, dignified, if not triumphant, into the old life. And here she was, in her corner, her head fairly fixed to the wall.
Meanwhile, what had become of the mid-Victorian conscience? What had, indeed, become of any conscience at all, since she continued to regret nothing? She even found excuses, perfidious, no doubt, yet satisfactory. It had been the truth she had given Rhoda—the real truth, her own, if not the truth she owed her, not the truth as Tim and Niel had placed it, all confidently, in her hands. But since it was preëminently not the truth that Rhoda had come to seize, she was willing, now that she had fixed her so firmly, to give her something else, and she really rejoiced to find it ready, going on presently and with a note of relief that Rhoda’s ear could not fail to catch:—
“Not only from the point of view of dignity one couldn’t suspect it of you, Rhoda, but—I want to say it to you, having had my glimpse of Mr. Darley—from the point of view of taste. If you were going to do anything of this sort—and I don’t need to tell you how deeply I deplore it nor how wrong I think you—but if you were going to do it, you couldn’t have chosen better. He is gifted; he is charming; he is good. I saw it all at once.”
There was her further truth, and really it was due to Rhoda. Rhoda, at this, faced her again and, highly civilized creature that she was, it was with her genuine grim mirth.
“Upon my word, Aunt Isabel!” she commented. “You are astonishing.”
“Am I? Why?” asked Mrs. Delafield, though she knew quite well.
“Why, my dear? Because you are over sixty years old and you wear caps. I expected to find dismay, reproach, and lamentations—all the strains of poor old father’s harmonium; to have you down on your knees begging me to return to the paths of virtue. And here you are, cool and unperturbed and, positively, patting us on the back; positively giving us your blessing. Well, well, wonders will never cease! Yes, he is charming, no one can deny that; and good and gifted, too. But to think of your having spotted it so quickly! Why, you only saw him once, if I remember, and I don’t remember that you talked at all.”
“We didn’t. I only saw him once.”
“And it was enough! To make you understand! To make you condone!—Come, out with it, Aunt Isabel, you wicked old lady! I see now why I’ve always got on so well with you. You are wicked.”
“To make me understand. I won’t say condone.”
“You needn’t say it. You’ve said enough. And certainly it is a feather in Christopher’s cap. But he is the sort of person one falls in love with at first sight.”
“So I see.”
“And so do I,” said Rhoda, still laughing. But her slightly avenging gaiety dropped from her after the last sally, and turning again to the fire, and again kicking her log, she said, almost sombrely, “He absolutely worships me.”
Was not this everybody’s justification? Mrs. Delafield seized it, rising, as on a satisfying close.
“Will you stay to lunch?” she asked.
“Dear me, no!” Rhoda laughed. “I must get back to Christopher. And the motor is there waiting. So you’ll write to father and tell him that I came here and that you advised me to stick to Christopher.”
"Advised? Have I seemed to advise, Rhoda? Do you mean"—it was, Mrs. Delafield knew, the final peril—“that you had considered not sticking to him?”
Rhoda continued to laugh a little, drawing up her furs.
“Rather not! It couldn’t have entered my head, could it, either from the point of view of dignity or of taste—as you’ve been telling me? You have been very wonderful, you know! Tell father, then, if you like, that you gave us your blessing.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Mrs. Delafield, “that I’m convinced you ought not to go back to Niel.”
"I see,"—Rhoda nodded, and their eyes sounded each other, curiously—“though father thinks I ought.”
“Of course. That’s why you’re here.”
“Father would have gone down on his knees to beg me.”
“Yes. Down on his knees. Poor Tim!”
She was horribly frightened, but she faced Rhoda’s grim mirth deliberate with gravity. And Rhoda, whatever she might have seen or guessed, accepted her defeat; accepted the dignity and taste thrust upon her. “Father, in other words, isn’t a wicked old gentleman as you are a wicked old lady. I see it all, and it’s all a feather in Christopher’s cap. Well, Aunt Isabel, good-bye. Shall I see you again? Will you come and call when I’m Mrs. Darley? I don’t see how, with a clear conscience, you can chuck us, you know.”
“Nor do I,” Mrs. Delafield conceded, after only a pause. “I don’t often go to London, but, when I do, I shall look in upon you, if you want me to.”
“Rather!” Rhoda, now gloved and muffled, had fallen back on her normal rich economy of speech. “You’ll be useful as well as pleasant. And Christopher will adore you, I’m sure. I’ll tell him that you think him charming.”
“Do,” said Mrs. Delafield, following her to the door.
She had forgotten even to kiss Jane Amoret good-bye.
V
Still Mrs. Delafield knew no remorse. Rather, a wine-like elation filled her. She thought of her state of consciousness in terms of wine, and ordered up from her modest cellar a special old port, hardly tasted since her husband’s death, and, all alone, drank at lunch a little glass in honour of Jane Amoret’s advent. Also, though elated, she was conscious of needing a stimulant. The scene with Rhoda had cost her more than could, at the moment, be quite computed.
What it had won for her she was able to compute when, after lunch, she went upstairs to look at Jane Amoret asleep in her white cot. She did not feel like a robber brooding in guilty joy over ill-gotten booty. She could not feel herself that, nor Jane Amoret booty. Jane Amoret was treasure, pure heaven-sent treasure, her flower of miracle. Christmas roses had been in her mind since morning, and the darkness, the whiteness of the child, as well as her beautiful unexpectedness, made her think of them anew; her gravity, too; something of melancholy that the flowers embodied; for they were not smiling flowers—gazing rather at the wintry sky in earnest meditation.
Jane Amoret’s black lashes lay upon her cheek, ever so slightly turned up at the tips, and her great-aunt, leaning over her, felt herself doting upon them and upon the little softly breathing
