t candour which seemed to say to her, 'You
and I have no need of convention--we understand each other.' Perhaps
never in her life, not even in the wonderful felicities of girlhood, had
Leonora been more peacefully content than during those moments of calm
succeeding stress, as she met Arthur's eyes in the intimacy of a
fraternal confidence. The large room was so tranquil, the curtains so
white, and the sunlight so benignant in the caress of its amber
horizontal rays. Rose lay asleep upstairs, Ethel and Millicent were at
Oldcastle, John would not return for two hours; and she and Arthur were
alone together in the middle of the long quiet chamber, talking quietly.
She was happy. She had no fear, neither for herself nor for him. As
innocent as Rose, and more innocent than Ethel, she now regarded the
feverish experience of the dance as accidental, a thing to be forgotten,
an episode of which the repetition was merely to be avoided; Death and
the fear of Death had come suddenly and written over its record in the
page of existence. Her present sanity and calmness and mild bliss and
self-control--these were to last, these were the real symptoms of her
condition, and of Arthur's condition. No! The memory of the ball did not
trouble her; it had not troubled her since she awoke after the sedative.
She had entered the drawing-room without a qualm, and the instant of
their meeting, anticipated on the previous night as much in terror as
in joy, had passed equably and serenely. Relying on his strength, and
exulting in her own, she had given him her hand, and he had taken it,
and that was all. She knew her native force. She knew that she had the
precious and rare gift of common sense, and she was perfectly convinced
that this common sense, which had never long deserted her in the past,
could never permanently desert her in the future. She imagined that
nothing was stronger than common sense; she had small suspicion that in
their noblest hours men and women have invariably despised common sense,
and trampled it underfoot as the most contemptible of human attributes.
Therefore she was content and unalarmed. And she found pleasure even in
trifles, as, for example, that the maid had set two cups-and-saucers and
two only; the duality struck her as delicious. She looked close at
Arthur's sagacious, shrewd, and kindly face, with the heavy, clipped
moustache, and the bluish chin, and those grey hairs at the sides of the
forehead. 'We belong to