Moth and Rust | Page 5

not a shilling. He knows that."
"He ought to be only too honoured by your being willing to think of him. In my young days a man of his class would not have had a chance."
"Millionaires get their chance nowadays."
"Then why doesn't he take it?"
"Because," said Anne, her lip quivering, "he thinks I like him for his money. He has got that firmly screwed into his head."
"As if a woman like you would do such a thing."
"Women extremely like me are doing such things all the time. How is he to know I am different?"
"He must be a fool."
"He does not look like one."
"No," said Mrs. Trefusis meditatively, "I must own he does not. He has a bullet head. I saw him once at the Duchess of Dundee's last summer. He was pointed out to me as the biggest thing in millionaires since Barnato. But I must confess he was the very last person in the world whom I should have thought you would have looked at--for himself, I mean."
"That is what he thinks."
"He is so very unattractive."
"He is an ugly, forbidding-looking man of forty," said Anne, who had become very pale.
"I should not go as far as that," said Mrs. Trefusis, somewhat disconcerted.
"Oh! I can for you!" said Anne, her quiet eyes flashing. "He is all these things. He is exactly what I would rather not have married. And I think he knows that instinctively, poor man! But in spite of all that, in spite of everything that repels me, I know that we belong to each other. He did not choose to like me, or I to like him. I never had any choice in the matter. When I first saw him I recognised him. I had known him all my life. I had been waiting for him always without knowing it. I never really understood anything till he came. I did not fall in love with him; at least, not in the way I see others do, and as I once did myself years ago. I am not attracted towards him. I am him. And he is me. One can't fall in love with oneself. He is my other self. We are one. We may live painfully apart as we are doing now--he may marry some one else: but the fact remains the same."
Mrs. Trefusis did not answer. Love is so rare that when we meet it we realise that we are on holy ground.
"You and he will marry some day," she said at last.
Her thoughts went back to her own youth, and its romantic love and marriage. There was no romance here as she understood it, nothing but a grim reality. But it almost seemed as if love could go deeper without romance.
"I do not see how a misunderstanding can hold together between you."
"You forget mother," said Anne.
Mrs. Trefusis had momentarily forgotten her closest friend, the Duchess of Quorn, that notorious match-making mother of a quartette of pretty, well-drilled daughters, all of whom were now advantageously married except Anne--the eldest. And if Anne was not at this moment wedded to George Trefusis it was not owing to want of zeal on the part of both mothers. Mrs. Trefusis was irrevocably behind the scenes in Anne's family.
"Mother ought by nature to have been a man and a cricketer," said Anne, "instead of the mother of many daughters. She is 'game' to the last, she is a hard hitter, and she will run till she drops on the chance of any catch. But her bowling is her strong point. Young men have not a chance with her. Her style may not be dignified, but her eye is extraordinary. Harry Lestrange did his silly, panic-stricken best, but--he is married to Cecily now."
"Did he really try to get out of it?"
"He did. He liked Cecily a little; he had certainly flirted with her when she came in his way, but he never made the least effort to meet her, and he did not want to marry her."
"And Cecily?"
"Cecily did not dislike him. She was only nineteen, and she had--so she told me--always hoped for curly hair; and of course Harry's is quite straight, what little there is of it. She shed a few tears about that, but she did as she was told. They are a nice-looking young couple. They write quite happily. I daresay it will do very well. But, you see, unfortunately, Harry was a friend of Mr. Vanbrunt's, and I know Harry consulted him as to how to get out of it. Well, directly mother's attention was off Harry, she found out about Mr. Vanbrunt; how I don't know, but she did. Poor mother! she has a heart somewhere. It is her sporting instincts which are too strong for her. When she found out, she cams into my