1There were times now when Aunt Cassie told herself that Olivia’s strange moods had vanished at last, leaving in their place the old docile, pleasant Olivia who had always had a way of smoothing out the troubles at Pentlands. The sudden perilous calm no longer settled over their conversations; Aunt Cassie was no longer fearful of “speaking her mind, frankly, for the good of all of them.” Olivia listened to her quietly, and it is true that she was happier in one sense because life at Pentlands seemed to be working itself out; but inwardly, she went her own silent way, grieving in solitude because she dared not add the burden of her grief to that of old John Pentland. Even Sabine, more subtle in such things than Aunt Cassie, came to feel herself quietly shut out from Olivia’s confidence.

2Sybil, slipping from childhood into womanhood, no longer depended upon her; she even grew withdrawn and secret about Jean, putting her mother off with empty phrases where once she had confided everything. Behind the pleasant, quiet exterior, it seemed to Olivia at times that she had never been so completely, so superbly, alone. She began to see that at Pentlands life came to arrange itself into a series of cubicles, each occupied by a soul shut in from all the others. And she came, for the first time in her life, to spend much time thinking of herself.

3With the beginning of autumn she would be forty years old ... on the verge of middle-age, a woman perhaps with a married daughter. Perhaps at forty-two she would be a grandmother (it seemed likely with such a pair as Sybil and young de Cyon) ... a grandmother at forty-two with her hair still thick and black, her eyes bright, her face unwrinkled ... a woman who at forty-two might pass for a woman ten years younger. A grandmother was a grandmother, no matter how youthful she appeared. As a grandmother she could not afford to make herself ridiculous.

4She could perhaps persuade Sybil to wait a year or two and so put off the evil day, yet such an idea was even more abhorrent to her. The very panic which sometimes seized her at the thought of turning slowly into an old woman lay also at the root of her refusal to delay Sybil’s marriage. What was happening to Sybil had never happened to herself and never could happen now; she was too old, too hard, even too cynical. When one was young like Jean and Sybil, one had an endless store of faith and hope. There was still a glow over all life, and one ought to begin that way. Those first years—no matter what came afterward—would be the most precious in all their existence; and looking about her, she thought, “There are so few who ever have that chance, so few who can build upon a foundation so solid.”

5Sometimes there returned to her a sudden twinge of the ancient, shameful jealousy which she had felt for Sybil’s youth that suffocating night on the terrace overlooking the sea. (In an odd way, all the summer unfolding itself slowly seemed to have grown out of that night.)

6No, in the end she returned always to the same thought ... that she would sacrifice everything to the perfection of this thing which existed between Sybil and the impatient, red-haired young man.

7When she was honest with herself, she knew that she would have had no panic, no terror, save for O’Hara. Save for him she would have had no fear of growing old, of seeing Sybil married and finding herself a grandmother. She had prayed for all these things, even that Fate should send Sybil just such a lover; and now that her prayer was answered there were times when she wished wickedly that he had not come, or at least not so promptly. When she was honest, the answer was always the same ... that O’Hara had come to occupy the larger part of her interest in existence.

8In the most secret part of her soul, she no longer pretended that her feeling for him was only one of friendship. She was in love with him. She rose each morning joyfully to ride with him across the meadows, pleased that Sybil came with them less and less frequently; and on the days when he was kept in Boston a cloud seemed to darken all her thoughts and actions. She talked to him of his future, his plans, the progress of his campaign, as if already she were his wife or his mistress. She played traitor to all her world whose fortunes rested on the success and power of his political enemies. She came to depend upon his quick sympathy. He had a Gaelic way of understanding her moods, her sudden melancholy, that had never existed in the phlegmatic, insensitive world of Pentlands.

9She was honest with herself after the morning when, riding along the damp, secret paths of the birch thicket, he halted his horse abruptly and with a kind of anguish told her that he could no longer go on in the way they were going.

10He said, “What do you want me to do? I am good for nothing. I can think of nothing but you ... all day and all night. I go to Boston and try to work and all the while I’m thinking of you ... thinking what is to be done. You must see what hell it is for me ... to be near you like this and yet to be treated only as a friend.”

11Abruptly, when she turned and saw the suffering in his eyes, she knew there was no longer any doubt. She asked sadly. “What do you want me to do? What can I do? You make me feel that I am being the cheapest, silliest sort of woman.” And in a low voice she added, “I don’t mean to be, Michael.... I love you, Michael.... Now I’ve told you. You are the only man I’ve ever loved ... even the smallest bit.”

12A kind of ecstatic joy took possession of him. He leaned over and kissed her, his own tanned face dampened by her tears.

13“I’m so happy,” she said, “and yet so sad....”

14“If you love me ... then we can go our way ... we need not think of any of the others.”

15“Oh, it’s not so easy as that, my dear.” She had never before been so conscious of his presence, of that strange sense of warmth and charm which he seemed to impose on everything about him.

16“I do have to think of the others,” she said. “Not my husband.... I don’t think he even cares so long as the world knows nothing. But there’s Sybil.... I can’t make a fool of myself on account of Sybil.”

17She saw quickly that she had used the wrong phrase, that she had hurt him; striking without intention at the fear which he sometimes had that she thought him a common, vulgar Irish politician.

18“Do you think that this thing between us ... might be called ‘making a fool of yourself’?” he asked with a faint shade of bitterness.

19“No ... you know me better than that.... You know I was thinking only of myself ... as a middle-aged woman with a daughter ready to be married.”

20“But she will be married ... soon ... surely. Young de Cyon isn’t the sort who waits.”

21“Yes ... that’s true ... but even then.” She turned quickly. “What do you want me to do?... Do you want me to be your mistress?”

22“I want you for my own.... I want you to marry me.”

23“Do you want me as much as that?”

24“I want you as much as that.... I can’t bear the thought of sharing you ... of having you belong to any one else.”

25“Oh ... I’ve belonged to no one for a great many years now ... not since Jack was born.”

26He went on, hurriedly, ardently. “It would change all my life. It would give me some reason to go on.... Save for you.... I’d chuck everything and go away.... I’m sick of it.”

27“And you want me for my own sake ... not just because I’ll help your career and give you an interest in life.”

28“For your own sake ... nothing else, Olivia.”

29“You see, I ask because I’ve thought a great deal about it. I’m older than you, Michael. I seem young now.... But at forty.... I’ll be forty in the autumn ... at forty being older makes a difference. It cuts short our time.... It’s not as if we were in our twenties.... I ask you, too, because you are a clever man and must see these things, too.”

30“None of it makes any difference.” He looked so tragically in earnest, there was such a light in his blue eyes, that her suspicions died. She believed him.

31“But we can’t marry ... ever,” she said, “so long as my husband is alive. He’ll never divorce me nor let me divorce him. It’s one of his passionate beliefs ... that divorce is a wicked thing. Besides, there has never been a divorce in the Pentland family. There have been worse things,” she said bitterly, “but never a divorce and Anson won’t be the first to break any tradition.”

32“Will you talk to him?”

33“Just now, Michael, I think I’d do anything ... even that. But it will do no good.” For a time they were both silent, caught in a profound feeling of hopelessness, and presently she said, “Can you go on like this for a little time ... until Sybil is gone?”

34“We’re not twenty ... either of us. We can’t wait too long.”

35“I can’t desert her yet. You don’t know how it is at Pentlands. I’ve got to save her, even if I lose myself. I fancy they’ll be married before winter ... even before autumn ... before he leaves. And then I shall be free. I couldn’t ... I couldn’t be your mistress now, Michael ... with Sybil still in there at Pentlands with me.... I may be quibbling.... I may sound silly, but it does make a difference ... because perhaps I’ve lived among them for too long.”

36“You promise me that when she’s gone you’ll be free?”

37“I promise you, Michael.... I’ve told you that I love you ... that you’re the only man I’ve ever loved ... even the smallest bit.”

38“Mrs. Callendar will help us.... She wants it.”

39“Oh, Sabine....” She was startled. “You haven’t spoken to her? You haven’t told her anything?”

40“No.... But you don’t need to tell her such things. She has a way of knowing.” After a moment he said, “Why, even Higgins wants it. He keeps saying to me, in an offhand sort of way, as if what he said meant nothing at all, ‘Mrs. Pentland is a fine woman, sir. I’ve known her for years. Why, she’s even helped me out of scrapes. But it’s a pity she’s shut up in that mausoleum with all those dead ones. She ought to have a husband who’s a man. She’s married to a living corpse.’”

41Olivia flushed. “He has no right to talk that way....”

42“If you could hear him speak, you’d know that it’s not disrespect, but because he worships you. He’d kiss the ground you walk over.” And looking down, he added, “He says it’s a pity that a thoroughbred like you is shut up at Pentlands. You mustn’t mind his way of saying it. He’s something of a horse-breeder and so he sees such things in the light of truth.”

43She knew, then, what O’Hara perhaps had failed to understand—that Higgins was touching the tragedy of her son, a son who should have been strong and full of life, like Jean. And a wild idea occurred to her—that she might still have a strong son, with O’Hara as the father, a son who would be a Pentland heir but without the Pentland taint. She might do what Savina Pentland had done. But she saw at once how absurd such an idea was; Anson would know well enough that it was not his son.

44They rode on slowly and in silence while Olivia thought wearily round and round the dark, tangled maze in which she found herself. There seemed no way out of it. She was caught, shut in a prison, at the very moment when her chance of happiness had come.

45They came suddenly out of the thicket into the lane that led from Aunt Cassie’s gazeboed house to Pentlands, and as they passed through the gate they saw Aunt Cassie’s antiquated motor drawn up at the side of the road. The old lady was nowhere to be seen, but at the sound of hoofs the rotund form and silly face of Miss Peavey emerged from the bushes at one side, her bulging arms filled with great bunches of some weed.

46She greeted Olivia and nodded to O’Hara. “I’ve been gathering catnip for my cats,” she called out. “It grows fine and thick there in the damp ground by the spring.”

47Olivia smiled ... a smile that gave her a kind of physical pain ... and they rode on, conscious all the while that Miss Peavey’s china-blue eyes were following them. She knew that Miss Peavey was too silly and innocent to suspect anything, but she would, beyond all doubt, go directly to Aunt Cassie with a detailed description of the encounter. Very little happened in Miss Peavey’s life and such an encounter loomed large. Aunt Cassie would draw from her all the tiny details, such as the fact that Olivia looked as if she had been weeping.

48Olivia turned to O’Hara. “There’s nothing malicious about poor Miss Peavey,” she said, “but she’s a fool, which is far more dangerous.”