Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/72

 a cloud of smoke out of his thin-drawn lips. "It's difficult to explain what I mean. . . . I mean that Sabine might encourage that feeling . . . quite without meaning to, that Sabine might give her the impression that she was an ally. There's something disturbing about Sabine."

"Anson thinks so, too," said Olivia softly. "He's been talking to me about it."

"She ought never to have come back here. It's difficult . . . what I am trying to say. Only I feel that she's up to some mischief. I think she hates us all."

"Not all of us. . . ."

"Not perhaps you. You never belonged here. It's only those of us who have always been here."

"But she's fond of you. . . ."

"Her father and I were good friends. He was very like her . . . disagreeable and given to speaking unpleasant truths. . . . He wasn't a popular man. Perhaps that's why she's friendly toward me . . . on account of him."

"No, it's more than that. . . ."

Slowly Olivia felt herself slipping back into that state of confused enchantment which had overwhelmed her more and more often of late. It seemed that life grew more and more tenuous and complicated, more blurred and indistinct, until at times it became simply a morass of minute problems in which she found herself mired and unable to act. No one spoke directly any more. It was like living in a world of shadows. And this old man, her father-in-law, was the greatest puzzle of all, because it was impossible ever to know how much he understood of what went on about him, how much he chose to ignore in the belief that by denying its existence it would cease to exist.

Sitting there, puzzled, she began to pull a leaf from the cluster of lilacs into tiny bits.

"Sometimes," she said, "I think Sabine is unhappy. . . ."