“Are we not to have the pleasure of Miss Warren’s company?” Robert asked, as they entered the phaeton.
“Ada never goes out with us,” was Mrs. Clarendon’s answer as she took the reins and prepared to drive.
There was no additional guest at dinner; the evening was helped along by Rhoda’s playing and singing. Her voice was good, and she had enjoyed good teaching; this at Mrs. Clarendon’s expense. It was one of many instances in which Isabel had helped her friends the Meres, her aid being given in a manner of which she alone had the secret—irresistible, warm-hearted, delicate beyond risk of offence. Ada sat in the room, but, as usual, had a book in her hands.
“You read much,” said Robert, seating himself beside her and perforce obtaining her attention.
“It is a way of getting through life,” the girl replied, rather less abruptly than she had hitherto spoken.
“That means that life is not quite so attractive to you as it might be?” he returned, under the cover of the music which had just begun.
“I doubt whether life is attractive to any one—who thinks about it.”
She had folded her hands on the pages and was leaning back in her chair. Robert examined her and came to the conclusion that she was not quite so disagreeable in countenance as the irregularity of her features at first led one to think. She had large eyes, and, to meet them, was to be strangely impressed, almost as with the attraction of beauty. Her evening dress was of black satin, a richer and more tasteful garment than he had expected she would wear, judging from her appearance earlier in the day. Her hair, too, was very carefully arranged. The foot, which just showed itself, was not small, but beautifully shaped. Ornaments she had none.
“That is censure clearly directed against myself,” Robert said, with good humour. “And yet I fancy I have thought a good deal of life.” Ada did not seem disposed to pursue the argument.
“What are you reading?” Asquith inquired. It was a volume of Comte. She showed the title without speaking.
“You are a Positivist?”
“No; merely an atheist.”
The confession was uttered in such a matter-of-fact tone that Robert was disposed to think she used the word just for the pleasure of startling him. There was, in fact, a barely perceptible glimmer in her eyes as she sat looking straight before her.
“That’s rather dogmatic, isn’t it?” he remarked, smiling. “The word Agnostic is better, I fancy.”
“I believe it comes to very much the same thing,” said Ada. “The new word has been coined principally to save respectability.”
“A motive with which you have small sympathy?”
“None whatever.”
There was a silence between them.
“You play?” Robert asked, Rhoda Meres having risen from the piano.
“Only for my own amusement.”
“Then certainly you play things which I should like to hear. Will you play me something that has a tune in it? I don’t mean to reflect upon Miss Meres’ playing; but my ear is in a rudimentary state. I should be very grateful if you would play something.”
Ada seemed to harden her face against an intruding smile. She rose, however, and walked over to the piano. Mrs. Clarendon and Rhoda looked at her with undisguised surprise. Asquith noticed that her walk might have been graceful, had she not affected a sort of indifference in gait.
She seated herself at the instrument and played an operatic air; it lasted about three minutes, then she ceased. Robert looked in expectation of her resuming her former seat, but she walked straight to the door and disappeared.
Mrs. Clarendon and Rhoda Meres exchanged glances, and for an instant there was a rather awkward silence. Isabel found a subject, and talked with her wonted vivacity.
Ada did not return. About half-past ten Rhoda began to make preparations for departure; she went to one of the windows, and held the blind aside a little to look out at the night.
“Oh! what a moon!” she exclaimed. “Mrs. Clarendon, do let us just go out for a minute on to the lawn; the country is so wonderful at night.”
Wrappers were at hand for the ladies, and the three went out together. The whole scope of visible heavens was pale with light; the blacker rose the circle of trees about Knights-well. The leaves made their weird whispering, each kind with its separate voice; no other sounds came from the sleeping earth.
“We often hear the nightingale,” Isabel said, lowering her voice. “Perhaps it’s too early yet.”
Then she added:
“This is the hour of our poet’s inspiration.”
“What poet?” asked Robert.
“Our poet in the cottage; don’t you remember?”
“Ah, the morbid young man. Poor fellow!”
Isabel suppressed a low laugh.
“Come, Rhoda dear, it’s cold,” she said to the girl, who had drawn a little apart.
Rhoda followed in silence, her head bent. In the hall she took her candle, and bade the two a hasty good-night.
“Why is she crying?” asked Robert, under his voice, as he entered the drawing-room again with Isabel.
The latter shook her head, but did not speak. She moved about the room for a moment; the shawl had half slipped from her shoulders, and made a graceful draping. Asquith stood watching her.
She approached him.
“I half hinted,” she began, “that I had a selfish object in asking you to come here. We are good friends, are we not?—old and good friends?”
There was a beautiful appeal upon her face, anxiety blending with a slight embarrassment. She had put aside the mask of light-heartedness, and that which it had all day been in her countenance to utter freely exposed itself. It was not so much as distress; rather, impatience of some besieging annoyance. She was more beautiful now than when Robert had read her face seventeen years ago. Still, he regarded her with his wonted smile. There was much kindness in his look; nothing more than kindness.
“The best of friends, Isabel, I hope,” he replied to her.
“I am going to ask you to do something for me,” she continued. “Will you sit down and listen to me? I am not sure that I do right in asking this favour of you, but you are the only one of my relatives whom I feel able to talk freely with, and I think I had rather you than any one else did this thing that I am going to ask. Perhaps you will find it too disagreeable; if so, tell me—you will promise to speak freely?”
“Certainly, I promise.”
They had taken their seats. Asquith rested one of his arms on a small table, and waited, the smile lingering. Isabel gathered the shawl about her, as if she felt cold. She was a trifle pale.
“You understand perfectly,” she resumed, with a certain abruptness, which came of the effort it cost her to broach the subject, “the meaning of Ada Warren’s presence in this house?”
“Perfectly, I think,” her cousin replied, with a slight motion of his eyebrows.
“That is to say,” pursued Isabel, looking at the fringe of her shawl, “you know the details of Mr. Clarendon’s will?”
He paused an instant before replying.
“Precisely,” was his word, as he tapped the table.
Isabel smiled, a smile different from that with which she was wont to charm. It was one almost of self-contempt, and full of bitter memories.
“I had never heard of her,” she continued, “until I was called upon to take her as my own child. Then