Page:The Smart Set (Volume 51, Number 4).djvu/13

 splendid boy … Her eyes smarted; an oppression, a stifling, suffocating pressure at her heart, a sense of utter loss, utter futility, broke down the barriers of her courage for a little while.

But not for long.

She performed her usual meticulous preparation for going to bed piecisely as usual, though perhaps the eyes that looked at her from the mirror as she combed her consolingly beautiful hair were a little more thoughtful than the eyes of any girl of twenty-one have any right to be.

Next morning she returned to London and Lady Marjory.

V
IT 1s to be hoped that I have conveyed no misleading impressions with regard to Miss Barker. You must not, for instance, fancy that she was a person with unlimited leisure to devote to her own personal interests. The total number of hours which she had passed in Bertie Wright’s company during the two years of their acquaintanceship was not very great, and that total comprised the greater part of her spare time for that period. But Lady Marjory knew-—generally—about Bertie Wright, and though a rather careless and rather selfish mistress as a rule, had moments of generosity and thoughtfulness, and had graciously granted three whole days for the excursion to Birwich.

While her maid arrayed her for dinner, she questioned her with polite sympathy. Blind! How perfectly dreadful! And an arm gone, too! Right arm? How awful! Shocking bad luck. So she continued for a little while, with insincerity apparent enough.

Abruptly, however, to Miss Barker’s surprise, she threw away a novel with which she had been beguiling the tedium of the toilet and directed a frankly curious stare upon the reflection of her maid’s impassive face.

“What will you do?” she asked sharply. “You won’t marry him, will you—now ?”’

Miss Barker coloured faintly.

‘“He has nothing to marry on,” she answered calmly.

“I think you would be very foolish to marry him, then,” said Lady Marjory. “After all, Barker—you—well, you really ought to do quite well for yourself, you know—if you take a little trouble. You are an unusually pretty girl—smart, good figure, well-educated. You—it would be a great pity to throw away your whole life like that. A great shame. I know that must seem rather a hateful way of putting it—but still—that’s what it comes to in plain English, isn’t it? Pick up that book for me, will you? Thanks. Yes. A shame, I think.”

She stifled a yawn and resumed the novel. She was twenty, pretty, popular, wealthy, and about to marry the most eligible man of her acquaintance.

But to her annoyance the image of this blind, one-armed Bertie Wright persisted in intruding itself upon her complacency.

“No matter how fond you may have been of him,” she said, as she turned from a last searching survey of her image in the long glass, “no girl can really love a man who hasn’t got all his legs and arms and things. It isn’t possible. It isn’t natural. I mean—really love him. You know?”

She smiled a little significant smile and went down to dinner.

Miss Barker’s serenity remained undisturbed. For nearly four years now she had known all that there was to know about Lady Marjory. Nothing that Lady Marjory might choose to say or do aroused in her the least spark of resentment. They were all “like that,” the Langs; they had, she understood, all been “like that” for several centuries—direct, simple; eager livers, eager lovers. Both Lady Marjory’s father and Lady Marjory’s brother had done Lady Marjory’s maid the honor of pro-oftered favor; frankly offered, frankly declinca.

She tidied the room methodically, switched off the lights, and retired to her own bedroom to think things over.