Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/264

254 that the room was left in darkness, but for the faint remote light that filtered in through the window from the starlit sky. Outside the winds were still, and the moon, not yet risen, made dove-colour in the east. To the south an amber-coloured light showed where lay the hollow in which Brixham nestled, and just above it, though low on the horizon, was a layer of thunder-cloud, from which every now and then there winked a flash of very distant lightning. But the storm was far away, no faintest rumble of thunder was audible. Here, too, from the house itself, no sound disturbed her vigil; the lights in the drawing-room below, which, when she came into her room had thrown their oblong of illumination far out over the terrace, had been put out, though it was still nearly an hour before midnight. And, parenthetically, she wondered why everybody else had gone so early to bed; probably the men had not. Very likely they had moved to the smoking-room. Charlie, at least, always sat up late.

Yes, insupportable. Knowing now what love meant, it seemed to her that she had been acting some dreadful parody all these years, acting it like a child, without knowledge of what it was that was being travestied and degraded. Base enough, from all standards of loyalty and friendship, as had been her acceptance, her wooing of the love of her friend's husband, it did not seem so base as the acceptance of the love that was legitimately hers. And at that moment had Charlie come in, and simply told her to come away with him, it is probable that she would have cast all considerations aside with scarcely more effort than it had cost her to cast the thought of Maud aside, and would have gone. For the sake of this love, base and treacherous though it was, she would have done a desperate thing, which, though Heaven knows it would not have made it one whit more justifiable, would at least have had some of the spirit of sacrifice in it.

But morning brought cooler counsel, infinitely more sensible, infinitely less fine, for it was only for a little while in the first wonder of love that she was capable even of such fineness as is necessary to run away with a friend's husband. For a little while last night she had forgotten that she lived in the world, a charming place, but in which it was not possible to live, if you chose to do these splendid and romantic things. That which appeared insupportable the night before would have still to be tolerated; it was still just as necessary as ever to make her husband believe that the love he lavished on her was returned. He must never