Rest Harrow | Page 9

in a
cloak. He disappeared for weeks at a time in impenetrable forests,
sharing the fires of charcoal-burners, mapping, planning, giving orders
to a secretary from the Botanical Department, as wild as a disciple
should be. There was nothing for her, poor lady, but to sit about in
hotel saloons--as the widow of an English gentleman, occasionally
visited by an eccentric friend. So she put it for the benefit of society;
but this had not been her idea of things when she had tumbled into
Senhouse's arms--nor had it been his.
Her ruling idea in these days of disenchantment and discomfort--and it
was her ruling idea still--was to preserve appearances. The great,
invincible, fundamental instinct of the class from which she had
sprung--to keep oneself unspotted by the world. The variation upon the
text is Senhouse's own, done in a moment of exasperation over her
untiring effort to appear what she was not and did not want to be. She
loved the man sincerely; if she had been married to him she would have
kept faithfully to his side. But she had no lines; her wedding ring was
not of his giving. Without these assurances she simply could not love
him. It came to that.
He had, when they had approached the matter of alliance, put aside
marriage, literal marriage, as out of the question. He took it airily for
granted that she agreed with him. The servitude of the woman which it
implied was to him unspeakably wicked. He could not have treated the

vilest woman in such a manner. But he had reckoned without the
woman in her case. To her, freedom to love, without sanction or
obligation, destroyed love. When he found that out, which he did after
a year of her German vexations, he offered himself and his convictions
to her. He humbled himself before her--but by that time she would not.
By that time she had recovered her widow's portion (which had been
dependent upon her remaining sole), and was entitled to some
thousands a year and a good dower-house in Berks. She declined to
marry him, and acted as such. She had been his wife in fact for a
quarter of a year; she was his friend--as he was hers--for the rest of
their time abroad. He had respected her wish, but had kept himself at
her free disposal, until now of late, when this disturbing Sanchia
Percival arose out of the nothingless and was shown to her as a goddess
newly from the shades. And so now here sat Mrs. Germain, with her
eccentric friend pale and gaunt before her, unlike himself as she had
always known him, about to take her at her word, and to behave as a
friend might. What should she say?
He would come back if she chose; he had said so--and he was incapable
of lies. If he came back, and if she chose, he would marry her, and be
the imperturbable, delightful, incalculable, impossible companion she
had always known him. He would marry her--and decline to come
under her roof. He would, perhaps, pitch his tent in her paddock; he
would sit at her table in sweater and flannels, sandals on his feet, while
she and her guests were in the ordinary garb of--gentlefolks.
Gentlefolks! Yes. But the maddening and baffling thought was a
conviction that he would be the greatest gentleman there. She knew that.
Lord of his mind, lord of his acts, easy in his will, and refusing to bow
to any necessity but that, he would be the superior of them all. Could
this be borne? Or could she bear to surrender so rare a friend to a Miss
Percival?
Who could Miss Percival be? It was a good name--better than
Middleham, which had been her own, as good as Germain, which had
been her husband's. Sanchia, an extraordinary name, an unusual name.
It sounded Spanish and aristocratic. The Honourable Hertha de Speyne:
she had known the daughter of a noble house so styled in her governess
days, her days of drudgery, and even now it had a glamour for her, who
had since hobnobbed with many honourables, flirted with many young

lords, and been kissed by a duchess. Miss Sanchia Percival: the
Honourable Sanchia Percival. No doubt this was a high lady. And she
must be beautiful, or Jack wouldn't speak of her as he had. He hushed
his voice down, he spoke as if she were a goddess, as if to disobey her
call was out of the question. A dull heat stirred deeply within her, and
she found herself setting her teeth together. No! Jack had brought her to
this pass--and she would not be left there.
These were the thoughts of Mrs. Germain as she sat very still, with
heavy- lidded