His voice was more pathetic still. He had reseated himself, and leaned back with his eyes closed. Mr. Lacour did this not unfrequently when speaking with persons whom he desired to interest.
She did not speak, and he rose, as if with an effort.
“Well, I’ll be off; I bore you. Will you permit me to make use of the window for exit?”
“Why not?” she replied mechanically.
He turned and faced her again.
“Of course fellows sometimes make a fortune out there. I might do that, you know, if only—well, if I only had something to work for.”
“A fortune,” Ada suggested.
“No, I don’t mean that,” he replied, with fine sadness. “That doesn’t appeal to me. If you can only believe it, I have other needs, other aspirations. The fortune would be all very well, but only as an adjunct. A man doesn’t live by bread alone.”
She smiled.
“Of course it’s absurd,” he resumed, making an impatient motion with his hand; “but if only I had a little more impudence I should like to tell you that—well, that it was never so hard for me to bring a talk to an end as this of ours, Miss Warren. You’ve given me what no one else ever did, but you’ve—you’ve taken something in exchange. I dare say I shan’t see you again; will you shake hands with me before I go?”
She stood looking straight into his face, her eyes larger than ever in their desperate effort to read him. Vincent approached to take her hand.
“Ah, there you are!” cried a voice from outside the window. “Vincent, I’ve been looking for you everywhere; you’re keeping us waiting. Miss Warren, I beg your pardon a thousand times; I was so taken up with the thought of that boy that I only saw him at first. I know I shall have your gratitude, however; poor Mr. Lacour is decidedly ennuyeux to-day.”
His face seemed to indicate a rather more positive state, but it was only for an instant. Then he shook hands hastily, without speaking, and vaulted out into the garden.
“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce Page, “that’s a nice way of leaving a lady’s presence. But I suppose he’s practising Texan habits. Good-bye, Miss Warren. Do so wish you’d come over and see us. May I shake hands with you through the window? Indeed, we are bound to be off this instant. Good-bye!”
Rhoda Meres was standing by Mrs. Clarendon in front of the house when Mrs. Bruce Page came round with her captive.
“You’d never believe where I found him!” cried the voluble lady. “Having exhausted the patience of every one else, he’d positively tracked poor Miss Warren—who I’m sure isn’t looking very well—to the library, and was boring her shockingly.”
Lacour did his bowing and hand-shaking with the minimum of speech. When he touched Rhoda’s hand there was something so curious in its effect upon his sense of touch that he involuntarily looked at her face. She was very pale.
CHAPTER VI.
On the following morning Robert Asquith returned to London, to make ready for his grouse-shooting expedition on Wednesday. Rhoda Meres remained at Knightswell one more day. On Tuesday she was not at all well. Between Ada and her very fair relations existed; the girls were not intimate, but they generally discovered a common ground for companionship, which was more than could be said of Ada’s attitude towards any other female acquaintance. When Rhoda kept her room in the morning it was natural that Ada should go to her, and seek to be of comfort. She could be of none, it proved; after a few efforts, Rhoda plainly begged to be left alone with her headache.
At midday Mrs. Clarendon herself entered the room, bringing in her hand a little tray. Rhoda was by this time sitting in a deep chair, and professed herself better. She had not slept during the night, she said, and was feeling the effects; doubtless the unwonted excitement of the party had been too much for her. Isabel talked to her quietly, and saw that she ate something, then sat by her, holding the girl’s hands.
“I have a letter from your father this morning,” she said. “He seems to miss you sadly. But for that, I should keep you longer.”
“I’m afraid he must get used to it,” was Rhoda’s reply, cheerlessly uttered.
“Why, dear?”
“I shall not stay at home.”
“What shall you do?” Isabel asked quietly.
“Go somewhere—go anywhere—go and find work and earn a living!”
“But I think you have work enough at home.”
“I am not indispensable.”
“I believe you are. I don’t think your father can do without you.”
“Why can’t he? Hilda is at home quite enough to look after the servant. What else does he want with me?”
“Much else, dear Rhoda. Your sympathy, your aid in his work, your child’s love. Remember that your father’s life is not a very happy one. You are old enough to understand that. You know, I think, that it never has been very happy. Can’t you find work enough in cheering him?”
For reply the girl burst into tears.
“Cheer him!” she sobbed. “How can I cheer any one? How can I give comfort to others when my own life is bare of it? It’s easy for you to show me my duty, Mrs. Clarendon. Tell me how I am to do it!”
Isabel put her arm about the shaken form, and there was soothing in the warm current of her blood.
“I cannot tell you how to do it, Rhoda,” she said, when the sobs had half stilled themselves. “My own is too much for me. But I can—with such force of love as is in me—implore you to guard against mistakes, beseech you not to heap up trouble for yourself through want of experience, want of knowledge of the world, through refusal to let older ones see and judge for you. My own life has been full of lessons, though I dare say I have not suffered as much as others would have done in my place, for I have a temperament which easily—only too easily—throws aside care. If only I could live it over again with all my experience to guide me!”
“You don’t understand me,” said the girl, with a fretfulness she tried to subdue. “You don’t know what my trials are. No amount of experience could help me.”
“Not against suffering; no. I won’t talk nonsense, however well it may sound. But you speak of taking active steps, Rhoda. There experience can give very real aid.”
“Mrs. Clarendon,” said Rhoda, after a short silence, “I’m afraid I haven’t a very good disposition. I don’t feel to my father as I ought; I don’t care as much for anybody as I ought—for any of my relations, my friends. I’m not happy, and that seems to absorb me.”
“You don’t care for me, Rhoda?—not for me, a little bit of sincere affection?”
The voice melted the girl’s heart, so wonderful was the power it had.
“I love you with all my heart!” she cried, throwing her arms about Isabel. “You make me feel it!”
“Dear, and that is what I cannot live without,” said Isabel. “I must have friends who love me—simple, pure, unselfish love. I have spent my life in trying to make such friends. I haven’t always succeeded, you know, just because I have my faults—oh, heaps of them! and often I’m as selfish as any one could be. But a good many do love me, I think and trust. Love has a different meaning for you, hasn’t it, Rhoda? I don’t think I have ever known that other kind, and now I certainly never shall. It asks too much, I think;