The Angel of Pain

There was no reason whatever why the engagement should not be announced at once, and in consequence congratulations descended within the half hour. Mrs. Home was a little tearful, with tears of loving happiness on behalf of her son, which seemed something of a weakness to Lady Ellington; Tom Merivale was delighted in a sort of faraway manner that other people should be happy; Evelyn Dundas alone, in spite of his previous preparation for the news, felt somehow slightly pulled up. For with his complete and instinctive surrender to every mood of the moment, he had permitted himself to take great pleasure in the contemplation – it was really hardly more than that – of Madge’s beauty, and he felt secretly, for no shadow obscured the genuineness of his congratulations, a certain surprise and sense of being ill-used. He was not the least in love with Madge, but even in so short a time they had fallen into ways of comradeship, and her engagement, he felt, curtailed the liberties of that delightful relationship. And again this evening, having cut out of a bridge table, he wandered with her in the perfect dusk. Lady Ellington this time observed their exit, but cheerfully permitted it; no harm could be done now. It received, in fact, her direct and conscious sanction, since Philip had suggested to Madge that Evelyn should paint her portrait. He knew that Evelyn was more than willing to do so, and left the arrangement of sitting to sitter and artist. In point of fact, it was this subject that occupied the two as they went out.

“We shall be in London for the next month, Mr. Dundas,” Madge was saying, “and of course I will try to suit your convenience. It is so good of you to say you will begin it at once.”

Evelyn’s habitual frankness did not desert him.

“Ah, I must confess, then,” he said. “It isn’t at all good of me. You see, I want to paint you, and I believe I can. And I will write to-morrow to a terrible railway director to say that in consequence of a subsequent engagement I cannot begin the – the delineation of his disgusting features for another month.”

Madge laughed; as is the way of country-house parties, the advance in intimacy had been very rapid.

“Oh, that would be foolish,” she said. “Delineate his disgusting features if you have promised. My disgusting features will wait.”

“Ah, but that is just what they won’t do,” said Evelyn.

“Do you mean they will go bad, like meat in hot weather? Thank you so much.”

“My impression will go bad,” said he. “No, I must paint you at once. Besides” – and still he was perfectly frank – “besides Philip is, I suppose, my oldest friend. He has asked me to do it, and friendship comes before cheques.”

They walked in silence a little while.

“I am rather nervous,” said Madge. “I watched you painting this afternoon for a bit.”

“Oh, a silly sketch,” said he, “flowers, terrace, woods behind; it was only a study for a background.”

“Well, it seemed to affect you. You frowned and growled, and stared and bit the ends of your brushes. Am I going to be stuck up on a platform to be growled at and stared at? I don’t think I could stand it; I should laugh.”

Evelyn nodded his head in strong approval.

“That will be what I want,” he said. “I will growl to any extent if it will make you laugh. I shall paint you laughing, laughing at all the ups and downs of the world. I promise you you shall laugh. With sad eyes, too,” he added. “Did you know you had sad eyes?”

Madge slightly entrenched herself at this.

“I really haven’t studied my own expression,” she said. “Women are supposed to use mirrors a good deal, but they use them, I assure you, to see if their hair is tidy.”

“Your’s never is quite,” said he. “And it suits you admirably.”

Again the gravel sounded crisply below their feet, without the overscore of human voices.

Then he spoke again.

“And please accept my portrait of you as my wedding present to you – and Philip,” he said with boyish abruptness.

Madge for the moment was too utterly surprised to speak.

“But, Mr. Dundas,” she said at length, “I can’t – I – how can I?”

He laughed.

“Well, I must send it to Philip, then,” he said, “if you won’t receive it. But – why should you not? You are going to marry my oldest friend. I can’t send him an ivory toothbrush.”

This reassured her.

“It is too kind of you,” said she. “I had forgotten that. So send it to him.”

“Certainly. But help me to make it then as good as I can.”

“Tell me how?” she asked, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

“Why, laugh,” he said. “That is how I see you. You laugh so seldom, and you might laugh so often. Why don’t you laugh oftener?”

Then an impulse of simple honesty came to her.

“Because I am usually bored,” she said.

“Ah, you really mustn’t be bored while I am painting you,” he said. “I could do nothing with it if you were bored. Besides, it would be so uncharacteristic.”

“How is that, when I am bored so often?” she asked.

“Oh, it isn’t the things we do often that are characteristic of us,” said he. “It is the things we do eagerly, with intention.”

She laughed at this.

“Then you are right,” she said. “I am never eagerly bored. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think I shall be bored when I sit to you. Ah, there is Philip. He does not see us; I wonder whether he will?”

Philip’s white-fronted figure had appeared at this moment at the French window leading out of the drawing-room, and his eyes, fresh from the bright light inside, were not yet focussed to the obscurity of the dusk. At that moment Madge found herself suddenly wishing that he would go back again. But as soon as she was conscious she wished that, she resolutely stifled the wish and called to him.

“Evelyn there, too?” he asked. “Evelyn, you’ve got to go in and take my place.”

“And you will take mine,” said he with just a shade of discontent in his voice.

“No, my dear fellow,” said Philip. “I shall take my own.”

He laughed.

“I congratulate you again,” he said, and left them.

Philip stood for a moment in silence by the girl, looking at her with a sort of shy, longing wonder.

“Ah, what luck!” he said at length. “What stupendous and perfect luck.”

“What is luck, Philip?” she asked.

“Why, this. You and me. Think of the chances against my meeting you in this big world, and think of the chances against your saying ‘Yes.’ But now – now that it has happened it couldn’t have been otherwise.”

Some vague, nameless trouble took possession of the girl, and she shivered slightly.

“You are cold, my darling?” he said quickly.

She had been leaning against the stone balustrade of the terrace, but stood upright, close to him.