Loves Shadow | Page 3

'It's all you live for.'
'Oh, Anne!'
'It's quite true. It's nearly three months since you--had an attack. Blair was the last. Now you're beginning to take the same sort of interest in Cecil Reeve.'
'How mistaken you are, Anne! I don't take at all the same interest in him. It's a totally different thing. I don't really even like him.'
'You wouldn't go out today if you were expecting him.'
'Yes, but I'm not ... and he doesn't care two straws about me. Once he said he never worshipped in a crowded temple!'
'It's a curious coincidence that ever since then you've been out to everyone else,' said Anne.
'I don't really like him--so very much. When he does smile, of course it's rather nice. Why does he hate me?'
'I can't think,' said Anne.
'He doesn't hate me! How can you say so?' cried Hyacinth.
'Doesn't he?'
'Perhaps it's because he thinks I look Spanish. He may disapprove of looking Spanish,' suggested Hyacinth.
'Very likely.'
Hyacinth laughed, kissed her, and went out. Anne followed her graceful figure with disapproving, admiring eyes.

CHAPTER II
The Anxieties of Sir Charles
Like all really uncommon beauties, Hyacinth could only be adequately described by the most hackneyed phrases. Her eyes were authentically sapphire-coloured; brilliant, frank eyes, with a subtle mischief in them, softened by the most conciliating long eyelashes. Then, her mouth was really shaped like a Cupid's bow, and her teeth were dazzling; also she had a wealth of dense, soft, brown hair and a tall, sylphlike, slimly-rounded figure. Her features were delicately regular, and her hands and feet perfection. Her complexion was extremely fair, so she was not a brunette; some remote Spanish ancestor on her mother's side was, however, occasionally mentioned as an apology for a type and a supple grace sometimes complained of by people with white eyelashes as rather un-English. So many artistic young men had told her she was like La Gioconda, that when she first saw the original in the Louvre she was so disappointed that she thought she would never smile again.
About ten minutes after the pretty creature had gone out, Anne, who had kept her eyes steadily on the clock, looked out of the window, from which she could see a small brougham driving up. She called out into the hall--
'If that's Sir Charles Cannon, tell him Miss Verney is out, but I have a message for him.'
A minute later there entered a thin and distinguished-looking, grey-haired man of about forty-five, wearing a smile of such excessive cordiality that one felt it could only have been brought to his well-bred lips by acute disappointment. Anne did not take the smile literally, but began to explain away the blow.
'I'm so sorry,' she said apologetically. 'I'm afraid it's partly my fault. When she suddenly decided to go out with that little Mrs Ottley, she told me vaguely to telephone to you. But how on earth could I know where you were?'
'How indeed? It doesn't matter in the least, my dear Miss Yeo. I mean, it's most unfortunate, as I've just a little free time. Lady Cannon's gone to a matin��e at the St James's. We had tickets for the first night, but of course she wouldn't use them then. She preferred to go alone in the afternoon, because she detests the theatre, anyhow, and afternoon performances give her a headache. And if she does a thing that's disagreeable to her, she likes to do it in the most painful possible way. She has a beautiful nature.'
Anne smiled, and passed him a little gold box.
'Have a cigarette?' she suggested.
'Thanks--I'm not really in a bad temper. But why this relapse of devotion to little Mrs Ottley? And why are you and I suddenly treated with marked neglect?'
'Mrs Ottley,' said Anne, 'is one of those young women, rather bored with their husbands, who are the worst possible companions for Hyacinth. They put her off marrying.'
'Bored, is she? She didn't strike me so. A pleasant, bright girl. I suppose she amuses Hyacinth?'
'Yes; of course, she's not a dull old maid over forty, like me,' said Anne.
'No-one would believe that description of you,' said Sir Charles, with a bow that was courtly but absent. As a matter of fact, he did believe it, but it wasn't true.
'If dear little Mrs Ottley,' he continued, 'married in too great a hurry, far be it from me to reproach her. I married in a hurry myself--when Hyacinth was ten.'
'And when she was eighteen you were very sorry,' said Anne in her colourless voice.
'Don't let us go into that, Miss Yeo. Of course, Hyacinth is a beautiful--responsibility. People seem to think she ought to have gone on living with us when she left school. But how was it possible? Hyacinth said she intended to live for her art, and Lady Cannon couldn't stand the scent of oils.' He glanced round