The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (5.1895)

The Haseltons

152

Away her thoughts sailed to the tale of the fairy-prince,
stepping to shore in his silver armour, come to deliver and to
love. She would have been his in all humility, waited on him in
fearful Submission ; she would have asked for nought but his
love.

Years ago, once or twice, men had appeared to her like that.
And Hillier, before they were married, when they were first
engaged. A stränge girl she must have been in those days !
And now—now they were like any husband and any wife.

“ It happened by chance,” the old tale began. Chance ! Yes,
it was chance that governed all life ; mocking, ironical chance,
daintily sportive chance, hobbled to the clumsy mechanism of
daily existence.

Twelve o’clock struck. Ten minutes more perhaps, and
Hillier would be home. She could hear his tread ; she could see
him enter, take off" his coat and gloves gracefully, then lift her
face lightly in his two hands, and kiss her on the forehead. He
would ask for an account of her day’s doings ; but he would
never heed her manner of answering, for he would have begun to
talk of himself. And altogether complacently would he take up
the well-worn threads of their common life.

And she would go on waiting, and trifling with hopelessness,
for in real life such things were impossible. Men were dull and
incomplete, and could not understand a woman’s heart. . . .

And so she would wait tili he came in, and when he had
played his part, just as she had imagined he would play it, she
would follow him, in dumb docility, up-stairs to bed.

* * * * *

It was past one o’clock when he appeared. She had fallen
asleep in the big arm-chair : her book lay in a heap on the carpet
beside her. He crossed the room, but she did not awake.

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