The Twelfth Hour Part 32

"Yes, I'm almost sure I was there," said Wilton thoughtfully. "I think I must have gone if I expected to see you. But I don't remember anything about it. I must look in the _Morning Post_ and see if I'm in the list of guests. I'm afraid you think I'm not the sort of friend to tell anything serious to, but really, Lady Chetwode, you're wrong there. If there was anything on earth that I could do----"

"It's something so annoying, so horrid," she said. Her voice was trembling.

"Tell me."

He looked so genuinely unhappy for her sake that, not being of the disposition that conceals its sorrows from the sympathetic, Felicity of course told him all about it.

He waited a minute, pale with interest, and then said--

"I appreciate your telling me this. But, of course, the whole trouble is entirely imaginary. Oh, I know that doesn't make it any better for the moment; but it's more evanescent."

"Imaginary? Why do you think that?"

"Well, the one thing that I pride myself on just the _least_ little bit is an instinct--an instinct for temperament. I would undertake to swear that Chetwode is one of those exceptional people who only love one woman in their lives. He would never think of looking at any one except you.

Of course, I know there are many men who don't really appreciate the most perfect woman if she happens to belong to them. But Chetwode isn't like that. He hasn't a fickle nature; he doesn't seek for variety and novelty. What you suppose is impossible to him. Not only now, but it always will be."

"You may be quite right about his temperament, Bertie. I dare say you are. But how do you account for the picture?"

"I don't. But there is an explanation. I don't pretend to be one of those wonderful thought-readers who, in some public calamity, see in the crystal everything they've read in the papers. You'll soon find out about it. It's some mistake."

She held out the picture to him.

"But she's very pretty, Bertie."

Wilton examined the picture.

"A very dull, harmless, insipid style of prettiness," he said consolingly. "The kind of face that once seen is never remembered, as has been so well said of the characteristic British face. This woman is devoted to her husband; goes to church every Sunday, takes great interest in parish work, adores her children----"

"How many has she?"

He looked at the picture again.

"From her expression, I should say two--two boys; and I'm quite sure she's very much more interested in their reports and their colds, their sins and their talents, than in--for instance--Chetwode, or in anything of the kind you seem to suggest."

"She never comes to London," said Felicity. "They live nearly all the year round at their country place."

"Of course she doesn't come to London. Why should she? She has a domestic face. Her home is her world. If she ever does come to town, she wears a short serge skirt and a blouse with tight sleeves--because she doesn't know they're coming in again--and takes one of the boys to the dentist."

"And you can see all that in the porcelain picture?" said Felicity, laughing.

"More. Far more. And all in your favour."

"But I think you're rather prejudiced, Bertie. You're such a convinced Londoner yourself that you think every one who lives in the country must be a paragon of virtue, just as people who live in the country suppose their London friends to be given up to wickedness and frivolity. Lots of people have a very good time in the country."

"No one knows that better than I do. I a.s.sure you I'm not a bit prejudiced. I quite believe and realise that people can have a good time anywhere. Why, even in provincial towns--what was that case at Bradford, that astonished everybody so much? However, my point is, that Mrs.

Tregelly doesn't."

"Why? I think she looks very happy," said Felicity.

"Yes. Exactly. Happy, but perfectly calm. A woman placed as she is could not possibly look as calm as that if she had a secret purple romance with Chetwode, or with any other man. It just shows--if I may say so--how blind Love is. If this had happened to anybody else, you would be the first to see, on the face of it, that anything like a flirtation between the Lady of the Velvet Case and your husband is one of those hopeless impossibilities that only the wildly imaginative and charming people who have no relation to real life, like yourself, could possibly conceive."

Felicity seemed comforted.

"You think it utterly impossible?"

"Oh, I go further than that. I think it highly improbable. Can you see,"

continued Wilton, "this gentle, harmless creature, a woman capable of having her portrait painted on porcelain, from a photograph, and framed in crimson velvet, who never in her life had a secret except when she concealed from her husband her real reason for sending the housemaid away in order to give the girl another chance by giving her a good character--can you see _her_, I say, privately slipping this enormous case into Chetwode's small and reluctant white hand just as she was going to church, and saying, 'Keep it for my sake'?"

"You make the whole thing so ridiculous, Bertie, I begin to think you're right, but still it's very extraordinary that he did have it."

"Our not knowing the reason is not nearly so extraordinary as your explanation."

"But I can't wait for the real explanation. Suspense is torture," she said.

"But delightful--or there'd be no gambling in the world. Still, if you dislike it, why not telegraph?" Wilton suggested.

"Because, you see, if there's nothing in it, I should appear so utterly absurd. And if there was, _is_ it likely that Chetwode would wire and say so?"

"Scarcely. You have sparks of real genius, Lady Chetwode, I must say! I never thought of that! The best way would be to make him come back as quickly as possible. Of course, he'd return if you were ill?"

"Rather. Besides, I am. Very."

"So you are. Then write to that effect."

"I think I will, but not yet." She remembered Savile's advice to wait till after dinner.

"May I ask," inquired Wilton, "if you're delaying in order to confide in women? This, I know, seems very impertinent of me, but I can't help advising you not. You'd be so sorry afterwards! When you go and tell Vera that it is all right after all, however pleased she is, there'll always be an uncomfortable feeling on your side that perhaps she doesn't quite believe you--that she thinks you're making the best of it. And Miss Sylvia will be so gloriously indignant and jealous for you that she won't do you any good."

"I know, Bertie. You are absolutely right. But I never do confide in women--only in men whom I can trust. Like you--and Savile."

"Thank you. And how right you are! Then if you're going to delay any action in the matter and put the picture aside, what are you going to do to-day?"

"I half promised Vera to meet her marvellous new palmist, Madame Zero, at her house this afternoon."

She took Vera's note out of a long grey envelope sealed with an Egyptian seal.

"It seems she's _too_ wonderful. Only one or two people are going."

"Mrs. Ogilvie kindly asked me," said Bertie modestly. "Of course you'll go and hear what the soothsayer has to say about the velvet case?"

"Perhaps, but I'm not sure.... I feel restless.... I must say, it does seem unlikely there could be much harm in a woman who has her portrait painted in porcelain from a photograph--by the young lady at the photographer's, I dare say, who makes the appointments and touches up the negatives. And yet--perhaps that very innocence--that sweet, blank expression--even the tight sleeves and the two boys may make her all the more attractive!"

Wilton got up.

"Good-bye," he said. "You're perverse. It's no use, I see, telling you not to worry; but please try to realise there's no occasion."

"Wouldn't you say just the same if you thought there had been occasion?"

she persisted.