played so great a part in her brother Gillie's life, seemed not to exist--so far as Oliver Tropenell was concerned. So she, Laura, had allowed herself to slip into a close, intimate relationship which, all unknowingly to her, had proved most dangerous to him....

Still crying bitterly, she told herself that she had been too happy all this summer. Godfrey had been kinder, less, less--she shrank from putting it into words--but yes, less ill-tempered, mean, and tiresome than usual. Oliver had had such a good effect on Godfrey, and she had honestly believed that the two were friends.

But how could they be friends if--if it was true that Oliver loved her? Laura Pavely knew nothing of the well-worn byways of our poor human nature.

Suddenly she threw her head back and saw the starlit sky above her. Somehow that wonderful ever-recurring miracle of impersonal, unearthly beauty calmed and comforted her. Drying her eyes, she told herself that something after all had survived out of yesterday's wreck. Her friend might be a man--a man as other men were; but he was noble, and singularly selfless, for all that. On the evening of the very day on which she had grievously offended and wounded him, he had written her a kindly letter, offering to be her trustee.

There had been moments to-day when she had thought of writing Mrs. Tropenell a note to say she did not feel well--and that she would not dine at Freshley that night. But oh, how glad she was now that a mixture of pride and feminine delicacy had prompted her to behave just as if nothing had happened, as if words which could never be forgotten had not been uttered between herself and Oliver! She had thought he would punish her this evening by being sulky and disagreeable--that was her husband's invariable method of showing displeasure. But with the exception of a word or two uttered very quietly, and more as if she, rather than he, had something to forgive, he had behaved as if yesterday had never been. He had heaped coals of fire upon her head, making it plain that even now he was only thinking of her--of her and of Gillie, of how he could pleasure them both by securing her a holiday with her only brother.

Every word of that restrained, not very natural, conversation held just now under the beech trees re-echoed in her ears. She seemed to hear again the slowly uttered, measured words, "I am going to be your friend, Laura"....

And then there came over Laura Pavely an extraordinary sensation of moral and mental disturbance. Once 

 Prev. P 31/232 next