"Where's his Missis?"
"They've chucked the domestic. Didn't you know?"
"Divorced?"
"No. But they don't get on. What man could with that girl? So poor old
Clive is dawdling around the world all alone, and his wife's
entertainments are the talk of London, and his mother has become pious
and is building a chapel for herself to repose in some day when the
cards go against her in the jolly game."
* * * * *
The cards went against her in the game that autumn.
Athalie had been writing to her sister Catharine, and had risen from
her desk to find a stick of sealing-wax, when, as she turned to go
toward her bedroom, she saw Clive's mother coming toward her.
Never but once before had she seen Mrs. Bailey--that night at the
Regina--and, for the first time in her life, she recoiled before such
a visitor. A hot, proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew
quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass.
But Clive's mother gazed at her gently, wistfully, lingering as she
passed the girl in the passage-way. And Athalie, turning her head
slowly to look after her, saw a quiet smile on her lips as she went
her silent way; and presently was no longer there. Then the girl
continued on her own way in search of the sealing-wax; but she was
moving uncertainly now, one arm outstretched, feeling along the
familiar walls and furniture, half-blinded with her tears.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting
there."] So the chapel fulfilled its functions.
It was a very ornamental private chapel. Mrs. Bailey, Sr., had had it
pretty well peppered with family crests and quarterings, authentic and
imaginary.
Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there, the English
sunlight filtered through stained glass; the glass also was thoroughly
peppered with insignia of the House of Bailey. Rich carving, rich
colouring, rich people!--what more could sticklers demand for any
exclusive sanctuary where only the best people received the Body of
Christ, and where God would meet nobody socially unknown.
Clive arrived from Italy after the funeral. The meeting between him
and his wife was faultless. He hung about the splendid country place
for a while, and spent much time inside the chapel, and also outside,
where he directed the planting of some American evergreens, hemlock,
spruce, and white pine.
But the aromatic perfume of familiar trees was subtly tearing him to
tatters; and there came a day when he could no longer endure it.
His young wife was playing billiards with Lord Innisbrae, known
intimately as Cinders, such a languid and burnt out young man was he,
with his hair already white, and every lineament seared with the fires
of revels long since sunken into ashes.