Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/170

158 together in the soft light of the drawing-room, he just a step behind me.

I at once saw Rayne and some other woman, a young woman, seated close together under the pink-shaded candles, but my look was for Rayne's face, not for her companion's. How beautiful it was! How steadfast, and how sweet! And I thought that where I had before seen, as it were, the light of her face's form was in the sad wistful face of a child whose body had been sold to an evil task-master—Claire! And, at the thought, something of tearfulness rose in my heart and gathered to my eyes; for that sad wistful child's face had grown so bright for me and mine so bright for her, and then we had been parted by the task-master, who was jealous of the soul of the body that he had bought, and I had never seen her again.

'Rayne,' I thought, 'would to God or Fate or Chance or what it may be, that I had not found that light on your face too!… Your hand is soft.' We had been speaking to one another with low tones and movements, and now I was turned from Rayne, bowing to this young woman her companion, whose name, his courteous voice had said, was Cholmeley too. And as I looked at her seated there before and below me, I smiled.

'It is strange,' said I, sinking with the smile into a chair by her, between her and Rayne, but nearer to her, 'It is strange how much men and women have in common.—I mean,' I said, leaning on the elbow next her, and looking at her, 'how much we have in common with one another.'

'Yes?' she said, elevating her brows a little, being a little surprised, I supposed, and wondering what sort of strange masculinity she had come across.

'I mean,' I said, with narrowing eyes, 'that—perhaps no one can live a life of his own. Suppose a man or a woman give themselves up to (say) love of money, as common a ruling-passion as any other, then that man or that woman will notice, if they only know how to, that their love of money generates, as it were, a subtle odour in their souls, and they will recognise that subtle odour in the souls of others who have