"Oh, Lilian," said Helen, following her into her mother's room, "how
dared he kiss your hand? How dared he look at you so while he sang? I
hate him!"
"Hush, child," said Lilian gently, almost solemnly. And Helen,
remembering who Lilian was, and the deep friendship between her
brother and the other, felt as if she had committed an unpardonable
sin, and crept away to bed, and did not see the man again during the
short remainder of her stay.
But Lilian saw him often. Perhaps she never went out without seeing
him, perhaps she never remained at home that he did not come in: going
by the parlor-door half a dozen times a day, nothing was easier. In
fact, few men have friends who think it worth their while to pay such
attentions to another's chosen wife as this friend of John's did.
To-day he gave flowers and helped her heap them in the vases; on the
morrow he brought in for inspection a borrowed portfolio of the
wonderful water--colors that some mad artist had dashed off among the
painted canons, or brought perhaps the artist himself; when he was
absent he wrote her letters, sent to John's care indeed, and conveying
messages to John--letters full of what John called Reyburn's
transcendental twaddle, but which were meat and drink to Lilian,
living half alone in her world of fancy; when he was in town again he
took her through galleries of pictures and statues where John had not
an entree; he placed his opera-box at her disposal; and when John, who
insisted on her acceptance of Reyburn's courtesies, heard them talk
together about the mysteries of the music or the ballet there, he
could have found it possible to question the justice of Fate that had
mated such spirit with such clod in giving Lilian to himself--for he
felt that she was already given, and they were mated by their long
affection beyond all divorce but death's--could have found it possible
to question the justice of Fate if he had not remembered, with a sort
of pain, that, charming and brilliant as Reyburn was, having a sweet
and reckless gayety and generosity, winning friends who loved him
almost as men love women, he was nevertheless as inconstant as the
breeze that rifles a rose.
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