little short of the ideal in womanhood. The example influenced her developing character in ways she recognised, and in others of which she remained quite unconscious.
'I think you couldn't do better,' Mrs. Carnaby replied to the last question; 'provided that——'
She paused intentionally, with an air of soft solicitude, of bland wisdom.
'That's just what I wanted,' said Alma eagerly. 'Advise me—tell me just what you think.'
'You want to live alone, and to have done with all the silly conventionalities and proprieties—our old friend Mrs. Grundy, in fact.'
'That's it! You understand me perfectly, as you always do.'
'If it had been possible, we would have lived together.'
'Ah! how delightful! Don't speak of what can't be.'
'I was going to say,' pursued Sibyl thoughtfully, 'that you will meet with all sorts of little troubles and worries, which you have never had any experience of. For one thing, you know'—she leaned back, smiling, at ease—'people won't behave to you quite as you have been accustomed to expect. Money is very important even to a man; but to a woman it means more than you can imagine.'
'Oh, but I shan't be living among the kind of people——'
'No, no. Perhaps you don't quite understand me yet. It isn't the people you seek who matter, but the people that will seek you; and some of them will have very strange ideas—very strange indeed.'
Alma looked self-conscious, kept her eyes down, and at length nodded.
'Yes. I think I understand.'
'That's why I said "provided". You are not the ordinary girl, and you won't imagine that I feared for you; I know you too well. It's a question of being informed and on one's guard. I don't think there's anyone else who would talk to you like this. It doesn't offend you?'
'Sibyl!'
'Well, then, that's all right. Go into the world by all means, but go prepared—armed; the word isn't a bit too strong, as I know perfectly. Some day, perhaps—but there's no need to talk about such things now.'
Alma kept a short silence, breaking it at length with note of exultation.
'I'm quite decided now. I wanted just to hear what you would say. I shan't wait a day longer than I can help. The old life is over for me. If only it had come about in some other way, I should be singing with rapture. I'm going to begin to live!'
She quivered with intensity of feeling, or with that excitement of the nerves which simulates intense feeling in certain natures. A flush stole to her cheek; her eyes were once more full of light. Sibyl regarded her observantly and with admiration.
'You never thought of the stage, Alma?'
'The stage? Acting?'
'No; I see you never did. And it wouldn't do—of course it wouldn't do. Something in your look—it just crossed my mind—but of course you have much greater things before you. It means hard work, and I'm only afraid you'll work yourself all but to death.'
'I shouldn't wonder,' replied the girl, with a little laugh of pride in this possibility.
'Well, I too am going away, you know.'
Alma's countenance fell, shame again crept over it, and she murmured, 'O Sibyl——!'
'Don't distress yourself the least on my account. That's an understood thing; no mention, no allusion, ever between us. And the truth is that my position is just a little like yours: on the whole, I'm rather glad. Hugh wants desperately to get to the other end of the world, and I dare say it's the best thing I could do to go with him. No roughing it, of course; that isn't in my way.'
'I should think not, indeed!'
'Oh, I may rise to those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever seemed worth the trouble.—In a year or two, we shall meet and compare notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do indifferently what other people have done well and put into print—it's a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and original things to tell about; it will read so piquantly, I'm sure, at Honolulu.'
They drank tea together, and talked, in all, for a couple of hours. When she rose to leave, Alma, but for her sombre drapings, was totally changed from the limp, woebegone, shrinking girl who had at first presented herself.
'There's no one else,' she said, 'who would have behaved to me so kindly and so nobly.'
'Nonsense! But that's nonsense, too. Let us admire each other; it does us good, and is so very pleasant.'
'I shall say goodbye to no one but you. Let people think and say of me what they like; I don't care a snap of the fingers. In deed, I hate people.'
'Both sexes impartially?'
It was a peculiarity of their intimate converse that they never talked of men, and a jest of this kind had novelty sufficient to affect Alma with a slight confusion.
'Impartially—quite,' she answered.
'Do make an exception in favour of Hugh's friend, Mr. Rolfe. I abandon all the rest.'
Alma betrayed surprise.
'Strange! I really thought you didn't much like Mr. Rolfe,' she said, without any show of embarrassment.
'I didn't when I first knew him; but he grows upon one. I think him interesting; he isn't quite easy to understand.'
'Indeed he isn't.'
They smiled with the confidence of women fancy-free, and said no more on the subject.
Carnaby came home to dinner brisk and cheerful; he felt better than for many a day. Brightly responsive, Sibyl welcomed his appearance in the drawing-room.
'Saw old Rolfe for a minute at the club. In a vile temper. I wonder whether he really has lost money, and won't confess? Yet I don't think so. Queer old stick.'
'By-the-bye, what is his age?' asked Alma unconcernedly.
'Thirty-seven or eight. But I always think of him as fifty.'
'I suppose he'll never marry?'
'Rolfe? Good heavens, no! Too much sense—hang it, you know what I mean! It would never suit him. Can't imagine such a thing. He gets more and more booky. Has his open-air moods, too, and amuses me with his Jingoism. So different from his old ways of talking; but I didn't care much about him in those days. Well, now, look here, I've had a talk with a man I know, about Honolulu, and I've got all sorts of things to tell you.—Dinner? Very glad; I'm precious hungry.'
CHAPTER 7
About the middle
