"I don't think we know very much about it," she said, and her voice was
rather louder than usual.
"But Lord Holme is going to--" began the lady who had been speaking.
"He may be, and he may succeed. But my sympathies are not with him. He
left his wife when she needed him."
"But what could he have done for her?"
"He could have loved her," said Lady Cardington.
The flush glowed hotter in the face that was generally as white as ivory.
There was a moment of silence in the room. Then Lady Cardington, getting
up to go, added:
"Whatever happens, I shall admire Mr. Carey as long as I live, and I wish
there were many more men like him in the world."
She went out, leaving a tense astonishment behind her.
Her romantic heart, still young and ardent, though often aching with
sorrow, and always yearning for the ideal love that it had never found,
had divined the truth these chattering women had not imagination enough
to conceive of, soul enough to appreciate if they had conceived of it.
In that Italian winter, far away from London, a very beautiful drama of
human life was being enacted, not the less but the more beautiful because
the man and woman who took part in it had been scourged by fate, had
suffered cruel losses, were in the eyes of many who had known them well
pariahs--Rupert Carey through his fault, Lady Holme through her
misfortune.
Long ago, at the Arkell House ball, Lady Holme had said to Robin Pierce
that if Rupert Carey had the chance she could imagine him doing something
great.
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