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Blanche, in a plain black net gown, sat on Lord Redford's right hand at the hastily improvised dinner party that evening. Berenice, more subtly and more magnificently dressed, was opposite, by Mannering's side. The conversation seemed mostly to circle about them.
"A very charming place," Lord Redford declared. "I have enjoyed my stay here thoroughly. Let us hope that we may all meet here again next year," he added, raising his glass. "Mannering, you will drink to that, I hope?"
"With all my heart," Mannering answered. "And you, Blanche?"
She raised her almost untasted glass and touched it with her lips. She set it down with a faint smile. Berenice moved her head towards him.
"Your wife is not very enthusiastic," she remarked.
"She neither plays golf nor bathes," Mannering said. "It is possible that she finds it a little dull."
"Both are habits which it is possible to acquire," Berenice answered. "I am telling your husband, Mrs. Mannering," she continued, "that you ought to learn to play golf."
"Lawrence has offered to teach me more than once," Blanche answered, calmly. "I am afraid that games do not attract me. Besides, I am too old to learn!"
"My dear Mrs. Mannering!" Lord Redford protested.
"I am forty-two," Blanche replied, "and at that age a woman thinks twice before she begins anything new in the shape of vigorous exercise. Besides, I find plenty to amuse me here."
"Might one ask in what direction?" Berenice murmured. "I have found in the place many things that are delightful, but not amusing."
"I find amusement often in watching my neighbours," Blanche said. "I like to ask myself what it is they want, and to study their way of attaining it. You generally find that every one is fairly transparent when once you have found the key—and everybody is trying for something which they don't care for other people to know about."
The Duchess looked at Blanche steadily. There was a certain insolence, the insolence of her aristocratic birth and assured position in the level stare of her clear brown eyes. But Blanche did not flinch.
"I had no idea, Mrs. Mannering, that you had tastes of that sort," Berenice said, languidly. "Suppose you give us a few examples."
"Not for the world," Blanche answered, fervently. "Did you say that we were to have coffee outside, Lord Redford? How delightful! I wonder if Lady Redford is ready."
They all trooped out in a minute or two. Berenice laid her hand upon Mannering's arm.
"Your wife," she said, quietly, "is going a little too far. She is getting positively rude to me!"
Mannering muttered some evasive reply. He, too, had marked the note of battle in Blanche's tone. He had noticed, too, the unusual restraint of her manner. She had drunk little or no wine at dinner time, and she had talked quietly and sensibly. Directly they reached the courtyard she seated herself on a settee for two, and made room for him by her side.
"Come and tell me about the golf match," she said. "Who won?"
Mannering had no alternative but to obey. Lady Redford, however, drew her chair up close to theirs, and the conversation was always general. Berenice in a few minutes rose to her feet.
"Listen to the sea," she exclaimed. "Don't some of you want to come down to the rocks and watch it?"
Blanche rose up at once.
"Do come, Lawrence, if you are not too tired!" she said.
The whole party trooped out on to the promenade. Blanche passed her arm through her husband's, and calmly appropriated him.
"You can walk with whom you please presently, Lawrence," she said, "but I want you for a few minutes. I suppose you will admit that I have some claim?"
"Certainly," Mannering answered. "I have never denied it."
"I am your wife," Blanche said, "though heaven knows why you ever married me. The Duchess is, I suppose, the woman whom you would have married if you hadn't got into a mess with your politics. She is a very attractive woman, and you married me, of course, out of pity, or some such maudlin reason. But all the same I am here, and—I don't care what you do when I can't see you, but I won't have her make love to you before my face."
"The Duchess is not that sort of woman, Blanche," Mannering said, gravely.
"Isn't she?" Blanche remarked, unconvinced. "Well, I've watched her, and in my opinion she isn't very different from any other sort of woman. Do you wish you were free very much? I know she does!"
"Is there any object to be gained by this conversation?" Mannering asked. "Frankly, I don't like it. I made you no absurd promises when I married you. I think that you understood the position very well. So far as I know I have given you no cause to complain."
They had reached the end of the promenade. Blanche leaned over the rail. Her eyes seemed fixed upon a light flashing and disappearing across the sea. Mannering stood uncomfortably by her side.
"No cause to complain!" she repeated, as though to herself. "No, I suppose not. And yet, how much the better off do you think I am, Lawrence? I had friends before of some sort or another. Some of them pretended to like me, even if they didn't. I did as I chose. I lived as I liked. I was my own mistress. And now—well, there is no one! I enjoy the respectability of your name, the privilege of knowing your friends, the ability to pay my bills, but I should go stark mad if it wasn't for Hester. I gave myself away to you, I know. You married me for pity, I know. But what in God's name do I get out of it?"
A note of real passion quivered in her tone. Mannering looked down at her helplessly, taken wholly aback, without the power for a moment to formulate his thoughts. There was a touch of colour in her pale cheeks, her eyes were lit with an unusual fire. The faint moonlight was kind to her. Her features, thinner than they had been, seemed to have gained a certain refinement. She reminded him more than ever before of the Blanche of many years ago. He answered her kindly, almost tenderly.
"I am very sorry," he said, "if I have caused you any suffering. What I did I did for the best. I don't think that I quite understood, and I thought that you knew—what had come into my life."
"I knew that you cared for her, of course," she answered, with a little sob, "but I did not know that you meant to nurse it—that feeling. I thought that when we were married you would try to care for me—a little. I—Here are the others!"
Lord Redford, who had failed to amuse Berenice, and who had a secret preference for the woman who generally amused him, broke up their tête-à-tête . He led Blanche away, and Mannering followed with Berenice.
"What does this change in your wife mean?" she asked, abruptly.
"Change?" he repeated.
"Yes! She watches us! If it were not too absurd, one would believe her jealous. Of course, it is not my business to ask you on what terms you are with your wife, but—"
"You know what terms," he interrupted.
Her manner softened. She looked at him for a moment and then her eyes dropped.
"I am rather a hateful woman!" she said, slowly. "I wish I had not said that. I don't think we have managed things very cleverly, Lawrence. Still, I suppose life is made up of these sorts of idiotic blunders."
"Mine," he said, "has been always distinguished by them."
"And mine," she said, "only since I came to Blakely, and learnt to talk nonsense in your rose-garden! But come," she added, more briskly, "we are breaking our compact. We agreed to be friends, you know, and abjure sentiment."
He nodded.
"It seemed quite easy then," he remarked.
"And it is easy now! It must be," she added. "I have scarcely congratulated you upon your election. What it all means, and with which party you are going to vote, I scarcely know even now. But I can at least congratulate you personally."
"You are generous," he said, "for I suppose I am a deserter. As to where I shall sit, it is very hard to tell. I fancy myself that we are on the eve of a complete readjustment of parties. Wherever I may find myself, however, it will scarcely be with your friends."
She nodded.
"I realize that, and I am sorry," she said. "All that we need is a leader, and you might have been he. As it is, I suppose we shall muddle along somehow until some one comes out of the ruck strong enough to pull us together.... Come and see me in London, Lawrence. Who knows but that you may be able to convert me!"
"You are too staunch," he answered, "and you have not seen what I have seen."
She sighed.
"Didn't you once tell me at Blakely that politics for a woman was a mischosen profession—that we were at once too obstinate and too sentimental? Perhaps you were right. We don't come into touch with the same forces that you meet with, and we come into touch with others which make the world seem curiously upside-down. Good-night, Lawrence! I am going to my room quietly. Lady Redford wants to play bridge, and I don't feel like it! Bon voyage! "
Mannering stood alone in the little courtyard, lit now with hanging lights, and crowded with stray visitors who had strolled in from the streets. The rest of the party had gone into the salon beyond, and Mannering felt curiously disinclined to join them. Suddenly there was a touch upon his arm. He turned round. Blanche was standing there looking up at him. Something in her face puzzled him. Her eyes fell before his. She was pale, yet as he looked at her a flood of colour rushed into her cheeks. His momentary impression of her eyes was that they were very soft and very bright. She had thrown off her wrap, and with her left hand was holding up her white skirt. Her right hand was clenched as though holding something, and extended timidly towards him.
"I wanted to say good-night to you—and—there was something else—this!"
Something passed from her hand to his, something cold and hard. He looked at her in amazement, but she was already on her way up the grey stone steps which led from the courtyard into the hotel, and she did not turn back. He opened his hand and stared at what he found there. It was a key—number forty-four, Premier étage .