and I only opened them on the Sark steamer." Then he
congratulated them both. I spoke to Mr. Drake the same evening on the
terrace here, foolishly hinting the feminine consolation that he was well
free from a girl of Clarice's fickleness. He was in arms on the instant.
One gets at truth only by experiment, and through repeated mistakes. Why
except women's hearts from the same law? I give his opinion, not his
words. He doesn't talk of "women's hearts." You know his trick of
suggesting when it comes to talk of the feelings. I slid into a worse
blunder and sympathised with him. He replied that it didn't make the
difference to him which I might think. I felt as if a stream of ice-water
had been turned down my back on Christmas Day. However, he went on in a
sort of shame-faced style, like a schoolboy caught talking sentiment.
"One owes her a debt for having cared for her, and the debt remains." He
stayed out his visit and left this morning. He goes to Switzerland, and
asked for your address. His is _The Bear, Grindelwald_. Write to him
there; better, join him. He talks of going out to Matanga later in the
year for a few months. So there's the end of the business, or rather one
hopes so. I used to hope that Clarice would wake up some morning into a
real woman and find herself--isn't that the phrase? I hope the reverse
now; that she and her husband will philander along to the close of the
chapter. But I prefer your word,--to the close of the "comedy," say. It
implies something artificial. Mallinson and Clarice give me that
impression,--as of Watteau figures mincing a gavotte, and made more
unreal by the juxtaposition of a man. Let's hope they will never perceive
the flimsiness of their pretty bows and ribbons! But I think of your one
o'clock in the morning of the masquerade ball, and frankly I am afraid. I
look at the three without--well, with as little prejudice as weak woman
may. Mallinson, you know him--always on the artist's see-saw between
exaltation and despair. Doesn't that make for shiftiness generally?
Clarice I don't understand; but I incline to your idea of her as at the
mercy of every momentary emotion, and the more for what has happened this
week. Since her engagement she seems to have lost her fear of Stephen
Drake. She has been all unexpressed sympathy. And Drake? There's the
danger, I am sure--a danger not of the usual kind. Had he been
unscrupulous he might have ridden roughshod over Clarice long before now.
Bu