"We are good friends, Miss Loment, and nothing more."
"So you persist in setting up this icy barrier? But how can we go on meeting each other, if our heads are to remain full of unsatisfied fancies and suspicions?…I promise you one thing, Mr. Judge-if you decline to be my real friend, you shan't be my friend at all. I shall never want to see you again after this."
"I shall be sorry for that, but if everything is to finish so suddenly, at least I prefer that it shall not be owing to an act of egregious folly on my part. Since I don't possess the advantages of a younger man, I daren't imitate the rashness of one."
"But what are you afraid of? I can scarcely punish you for obeying me. Whatever you tell me, I promise you it shan't bring our friendship to a close. Nothing will be changed, except for the better. Won't you speak now?"
"I cannot."
She paled, and began to tap the asphalt paving with her foot. "You can hardly refuse to answer a direct question. Am I anything to you at all, Mr. Judge?"
"Perhaps you are a very great deal, but the point is, I can be nothing to you."
"You mean exactly that?"
"Yes. I have a higher regard for you, Miss Loment, than for any other living woman."
"But what is implied by a very high regard?" She could scarcely breathe the words out.
"There is a special term for that feeling but I am not permitted to pronounce it."
"Do I understand you correctly?" she asked, nearly inaudibly.
Judge made no reply.
After a long silence, Isbel gave a spasmodic, wavering sigh.
"Shall I take my scarf now? There's no one to see."
He produced a small brown paper packet from his pocket, and passed it over to her. She kept turning it in her hand, with a sort of weary indifference.
"What are we to do about it? You know we must find out how it came to be in your possession. I cannot go there again, but you can."
"If you wish me to. But of what use is it, if I am to remember nothing?"
"Could you not take pencil and paper?"
"That's an idea, and I can't conceive why it has never occurred to me before. Very well, then; I will run over."
"This afternoon. But how shall I communicate the result to you?"
"I don't wish you either to write or call, Mr. Judge. Couldn't you manage to come over to Brighton to-morrow afternoon, and see me somewhere?"
"I must manage it. Where shall it be, and at what time?"
"My aunt always takes her rest in the afternoon, Let's say three o'clock-at the Hove, I think; there are fewer people there to bother one. You know the Baths, facing the sea?"
"Yes."
"Outside there, then. You see the importance of this to both of us, don't you?"
"My only motive in the business is to re-assure your mind. I draw no anticipations from the result."
Isbel gave him a keen glance. "Yet after what you have said, it can't be a matter of indifference to you."
"Candidly, Miss Loment, I don't wish for a result. I want our friendship to continue, and that will be impossible if…I desire nothing more than that we shall settle down again into the old pleasant state. I feel confident that you will find we have foolishly allowed our imaginations to run away with us over this matter."
They had both risen to their feet, but a heavier shower at that moment coming on, they were compelled to seat themselves again. Isbel turned her head away, and started fingering her hair.
"By the way," she announced suddenly, "I haven't mentioned your decision about the house yet to my aunt, so you had better not, either."
"Just as well not to I'm not sure at all, after this, that Runhill will make a suitable residence for you."
"For all that, I may keep you to your word. However, we won't do anything in a hurry…That woman will spoil her furs, if she's not careful."
She referred to an elegantly-garbed lady who wsa bearing down on their shelter from the west. She was obviously flurried by the distressing rain, as only a woman is flurried; but her action remained perfectly graceful and fascinating to watch, while she carried her furs and velvets as though they were a part of herself. Though tall and slender, it was evident even at that distance that she had long since finished with girlhood, but Isbel was unable as yet to distinguish her features. Judge happened to be sitting on her other side, so she failed to notice his embarrassment.
"It's an acquaintance of mine," he brought out somewhat quickly. "That is, she is staying at the same hotel. A Mrs. Richborough-a widow."
"Charming!" responded Isbel vaguely. "I can't see her face. Is she pretty?"
"More distinguished-looking than pretty. A most interesting woman to talk to-which is as far as my acquaintance extends. A keen spiritualist."
"Yes-I can see now. She's got one of those white, peaky faces. Is she well-off?"
"I really can't say. She has fashionable clothes and jewels. I am merely on nodding terms with her."
"She seems t be coming here. I think I'll go."
"No-don't, please, Miss Loment! It will look too marked. I'll just introduce you and you can take your departure immediately."
Isbel bent her mouth into a scornful little smile. "As you please. It's rather bad luck, but, anyway, she won't know me from Eve…Do tell me a train back. I expect you have a time-table."
He had, and produced it for consultation at once. While he was hurriedly turning over the leaves, Mrs. Richborough advanced upon them with a quickened step and a sudden smile of recognition-but, somehow, Isbel had a suspicion that the meeting was not quite so unpremeditated. All her poses were so accurately graceful and studied that the latter wondered if, by any chance, she could be a mannequin on holiday; her heels were perfect stilts. The face, however, when she came close up, was a good thirty-six or seven, and was not even decently pretty for that age. It was long, thin, and pale, with high cheek-bones and a fixed, insolent smile, which expressed nothing at all except pretension. But it was very beautifully made-up-so much so that it almost required another woman to see that it had been touched at all. Her whole toilette, from clothes to perfume, was based on an appeal to sex, and, men being such crude animals, Isbel thought that it was quite possible she might still pick up an occasional victim here or there…She glanced down at her own shabby tweeds, and smiled ironically.
"May I come in out of the weather? What a delightfully unexpected meeting!" Mrs. Richborough, without waiting for permission, stepped under the shelter and shook out her muff.
Judge, still holding the open time-table in his hand, rose with a courteous smile and removed his hat; he continued standing.
"It is indeed a pleasant surprise! But aren't you terribly wet?"
"A little…Am I intruding?" Her voice was quiet, sweet almost to lusciousness, and very leisurely. Each word was produced with a distinctness nearly theatrical, but at the conclusion of all her periods she had the strange trick of dropping to a whisper.
"Not in the least," replied Judge. "We're cast up here by the rain, and very thankful to see a new face. This is a friend of mine…Miss Loment-Mrs. Richborough…I'm just in the act of looking up a train for Miss Loment, if you'll pardon me a minute."
Mrs. Richborough sank lightly down next to Isbel.
"You aren't a Worthing resident, then?"
"Oh, no. Do I look like one?"
"I hardly know how one distinguishes them by appearance. Then you come from…?"
"From Brighton. Why?"
The widow laughed. "I really can't say why I'm asking. Why does one ask these things? So Mr. Judge is in Fortune's good graces this morning. Was yours accidental, too?"
"My what?…I fear the rain won't have done your beautiful furs much good."
"Isn't it perfectly distressing? And I so hoped it was to be fine. You have been sensible, at any rate."
"You mean my get-up? Oh, I put these on specially to come over here."