Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/71

my glance at the couple in the bow . . . I caught her look for an instant . . . it seemed to say something, hope something . . . then her fingers swept over the strings, and once more she studied the Cockney dialect. . . .

"Anything is better than talking to the rest of us," said Mrs. Silverdale, crossly; to such good purpose was the girl's martyrdom! for martyrdom, I was sure of it, her eyes had but now implied. My heart swelled, my cheek burned, as usual. . . .

Of the rest of the day it needs not to tell you; an epitome of it is there, in the banjo, the cushions, Willie Ruthven, the riddles, and the increasing crossness of the others. For, to add a hopelessness the more, one could more than guess that Mamie desired Willie for herself. . . . Bella, more fortunate, chattered intermittently with the other familiar vagueness; and in our ears the strings incessantly tinkled, the Cockney dialect futilely twanged, Willie's growling tendernesses reverberated. . . .

To Lucille I never once spoke.

But alone, all the way home, through the dusky gleaming of the water, I seemed to catch again that shy elusive glance, that appealing proud humility . . . that half-divined, wholly-lost answer. . . .

Well, that is all! I wonder if I thought right? I wonder if, in these halting half-apprehensions of mine, these unilluminative side-lights, this one meaningless—or significant?—instance, I have succeeded in gaining, at least, your interest, your sympathy, for my Sphinx of South Kensington? I wonder if I have helped you to an idea of her, at all corresponding to what she is? And, more than all, I wonder can you divine (for I cannot) where it is that her weakness lies, what it is that makes her so spoil, so desecrate herself?

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