CHAPTER XVIII

THE FIRST LITTLE VANITIES

We are often blamed for not speaking out as soon as a doubt enters our mind, yet oftentimes the reticence which such a doubt begets is a saving grace which redeems and sanctifies our whole character.

It was with quite a cheerful countenance that Regina went through the rest of her day's work. Arriving home at Ye Dene in time for dinner she changed her dress for a cool and light tea-gown, in which, I am bound to confess, she looked more than anything like a gigantic perambulating baby's bassinette. She laved her face with a little scented water, and, for the first time in her life, she dusted her countenance with a little powder. She did not herself possess such things as a powder-box and puff, but in Maudie's deserted bedroom she found on her dressing-table the one which she had used up to the morning of her marriage, for she had naturally taken with her on her wedding-tour the smartly fitted dressing-case which had been among her husband's wedding presents to her. It was with quite unaccustomed hands that Regina sought for the powder-box, and she used the powder too thickly. Maudie had had a pretty taste in powder, and prided herself on never using a common kind. Being so very fair she used that of a pure white tint, and when Mrs. Whittaker had finished her application of it I must confess she looked ghastly.

"How dreadful!" her thoughts ran. "How can women ever use this stuff?"

Then she took a towel from the towel-rail and rubbed her face vigorously, shook the puff out of the window, and started again, succeeding this time in merely making herself of a delicate pallor. As she descended the stairs her husband turned in at the gate and came along the covered way to the porch. He noticed at once that there was something unusual in her appearance.

"Well, Regina, my love," he remarked, "have you been grilling in town this hot day?"

"Yes, I have been to town, Alfred," she replied, trying hard to make her tone quite an ordinary one.

"You must have over-tired yourself, my dear; you are as pale as a sheet," he remarked, looking at her keenly. "Here, come with me." He led the way into the dining-room, that large, cool, pleasant apartment in which Regina had so often sat admiring him, and, going to the sideboard, poured her out a glass of port.

"Here, drink this down at once. I am sure you have been over-doing it. Have you been to any of those beastly meetings?"

"I have not been to a meeting, though I looked in at the offices of the S.R.W."

"I feel very much inclined to say 'Damn the S.R.W.,'" said Alfred Whittaker, warmly. "I can't bear to see you looking so jaded and worn-out as you do now. Here, drink this down; it will pull you together better than anything else."

He was an old-fashioned man, who believed in a glass of port, and Regina, with unwonted meekness and the same happy feeling of being ministered to that she had felt in the pastry-cook's shop, obediently swallowed the pleasant potion.

"I shall be very glad," Alfred Whittaker continued, "when we are off on our holiday, for I never felt the need of one so badly as I do this year. I suppose it is the excitement of Maudie's wedding, but I can't bear to see you looking as you do now."

"I am better--I feel better," said Regina, nervously. It was hard for her to resist the inclination to fling herself upon Alfred's broad bosom and tell him everything that was in her mind. It would have been better if she had done so, but she resisted the inclination from a desire not to give way to unusual weakness.

"Now sit down quietly by the window and rest while I run up and change my coat."

It was his habit to make what might be called a half-toilette for dinner--to take off his frock-coat and substitute for it a sort of smoking-jacket, quite a glorified garment, in which Regina admired him as some women admire their husbands when they get drunk, with that curious admiration for the breaking off of shackles, even merely conventional ones. It was a delight to Regina, strong-minded, commanding, magnetic, almost eccentric nature that she was, to give her husband's behests instant obedience, and she sat down in the huge armchair by the window with a sigh of relief. Well, some hussy might have got hold of him, yes--but his heart was with her.

She owned to herself that there was a little bit of the hypocrite in her, but she forgave herself the infinitesimal sin because Alfred had noticed instantly that she was paler than usual. Ought she to have told him that she had been using powder, and that she was not really more worn-out than usual? Perhaps so, and yet, she told herself, no woman on earth could have forced herself to be so strictly just. Then there was a sound of the gong in the hall, and Alfred came down, Julia coming with him.

"I'm afraid, my bird," he was saying, as they crossed the threshold, "that you miss Maudie more every day that goes by, and soon you'll be marrying yourself, and there'll only be old Darby and Joan to jog along together."

"I've not gone yet, daddy," said Julia. "Maudie had what we may call adequate temptation. I may go on for years before I meet anybody who takes my fancy as completely as Harry took hers."

"Meantime, I think you ought to go out with your mother a little more. She looks worn-out to-day."

"Do you, darling?" looking toward the large white figure at the window. "I declare you do. Why, you told me that you would be busy all day and wouldn't want me."

"Did I?" said Regina. "I do not think quite that, dearest. But it was true, I did not want you with me to-day; I was full of business of one sort or another."

"Well, well, come to dinner," said Alfred, genially, "come to dinner. We needn't live to eat, but we must eat to live, and here is a bit of salmon that would gladden the heart of a king."

He was very full of joke that night, telling wife and daughter of one or two little incidents which had happened to him during the day, and making merry exceedingly.

"You're very mischievous and gay to-night," said Julia. "What have you been doing to-day?"

Regina looked across the table involuntarily.

"Oh, I have been doing the usual thing, my dear--making money for you to spend. By the way, I have had an excellent offer for the house."

"For the house!" cried Julia. "Have you taken it?"

"I've not taken it; I shouldn't think of doing so until I have consulted your mother. It is a good offer, and I have a week to think it over in. The question is, Do we really want to leave the Park?"

"Yes," said Julia.

"What do you say, Queenie?"

"I do not know."

"But, mother, you find it such a fag and such a drag getting to and fro to your committees."

For a moment Regina did not speak; she put her fish knife and fork down upon her plate.

"I don't know that we need consider my committees," she said quietly. "I am thinking of giving them all up."

"Your committees!" cried Julia in a tone that was almost frightened.

"My dear--!" said Alfred.

"I have worked for others during the last ten years, Alfred," said Regina, leaning back in her chair and looking at her husband, "but I am not sure if I've done quite the right thing in giving up so much of my time to outside work."

"My dear, I have never complained."

"No, dear, you have never complained. I do not know that you might not have done."

"My dear girl, what does it matter to me how you amuse yourself while I am at business?"

"No, there's something in that. On the other hand, in a sense it does matter. I have worked long enough; I think I want to be a little more in my own home--I'm not so young as I was."

"You're worn-out, that's about the English of it," said Alfred Whittaker, putting his knife and fork on his plate and sitting back. "As long as it amused you it was all right; it was as good as spending your life in running from one hot, stuffy party to another. Cut it, my dear, cut it. There's one axiom in business that never fails, 'cut your loss'--at least, I have never known it fail yet. By-the-bye," he said, "I have brought you a little present."

Regina almost screamed aloud. So she had been wrong all the time; there was no hussy, his solicitude for her pale looks had been the solicitude of the old affectionate Alfred who had been ever and always her _beau ideal_ of what a husband should be. She gasped a little. "Yes," she said faintly.

"Something nice?" said Julia. "Jewelry?"

"Well," said Alfred Whittaker, and his face wore a curious little smile, "yes--it's jewelry. I came by it in an odd fashion. I had some business up west this morning, a very unexpected bit of business; it took me right out of my regular track. I was going along a little street at the back of Manchester Square and I saw something in a little shop that attracted my attention. It was a quaint little shop, half jeweler's and half curiosity dealer's."

"And you stopped and bought it?"

"Not at all; I stopped and looked at it. It was a tea-service of that scale blue Worcester which fetches such tremendous prices at Christie's, only I don't think that particular set will ever have a show at Christie's, handsome as it is, and while I was looking at it I noticed this. I haven't seen such a thing for ages, and I've never seen anything like it at the price before, so I bought it and paid for it, and here it is." He took a little parcel from his pocket wrapped in tissue paper, and pushed it along the table to Julia. "Give that to your mother. No, I did not buy anything for you."

"Then you did not go to Templeton's for it?" said Regina, as her fingers closed over the little parcel.

"Templeton's? Oh, no, this is not modern; it is an antique. The people haven't the faintest idea of its value; it is worth ten times what I gave for it. It happened to be one of the things in which I am interested and which I understand. No, when I want jewels, I go to Templeton's. I don't understand gems and I can trust them."

"And their discretion?" said Regina.

"Yes, if it were necessary I would trust their discretion too. Now, what do you think of that?"

Regina opened the parcel with fingers which visibly trembled. He had bought her a present; his mind, at the moment of looking into that little shop, half jeweler's, half curiosity shop, on seeing something in which he was personally interested, had instantly flown to her. He might have given a bracelet to a hussy, but his interest had remained with Regina.