you can see how serious it is for a woman. It means that people shun her. She hasn’t realized it yet, but I can see our friends are revolted by the sight of these fits of hers, which they naturally account for in the obvious way. And Bella hasn’t any pleasure in life without society—especially men’s. But it’s come to this, that George, who has always been devoted to her, only talks to her now with an effort. Randolph Stone is just the same; and two days before you arrived the Illingworths and Captain Burrows both went earlier than they had intended—I’m certain, because this change in Isabel was spoiling their visit for them.’
‘She seems to get on remarkably well with Scheffer,’ remarked Trent.
‘I know—it’s extraordinary, but he seems more struck with her than ever.’
‘Well, he is, but in a lizard-hearted way of his own. He and I were talking just now after you left the dining-room. I had said something about the art of primitive peoples, and he took me aside soon afterwards and gave me more ideas on the subject in ten minutes than I’d ever heard in all my life. Then he began suddenly to speak of Lady Bosworth in a queer, semi-scientific sort of way, saying she was the nearest approach to a perfect female physiology he had ever seen among civilized and educated woman; and he went on to ask if I had noticed her strangeness during dinner. I said: “Yes,” of course; and he said it was very interesting to a medical man like himself. You didn’t tell me he was one.’
‘I didn’t know. George calls him an anthropologist, and disagrees with him about the races of Farther India. George says it’s the one thing he does know something about, having lived there twelve years governing the poor things. They took to each other at once when they met last year, and when I asked him to stay here he was quite delighted. He only begged to be allowed to bring his cockatoo, as it could not live without him.’
‘Strange pet for a man,’ Trent observed. ‘He was showing off its paces to me this afternoon. It’s a mischievous fowl, and as clever as a monkey. Well, it seems he’s greatly interested in these attacks of hers. He has seen nothing quite like them. But he is convinced the thing is due to what he calls a toxic agent of some sort. As to what, or how, or why, he is absolutely at a loss.’
‘Then you must find out what, and how, and why, Philip. I’m glad Scheffer isn’t so easily upset as the other men; it’s so much better for Isabel. She finds him very interesting, of course; not only because he’s the only man here who pays her a lot of attention but because he really is a wonderful person. He’s lived for years among the most appalling savages in Dutch New Guinea, doing scientific work for his government, and according to George they treat him like a sort of god; he’s somehow got the reputation among them that he can kill a man by pointing his finger at him, and he can manage the natives as nobody else can. He’s most attractive and quite kind really, I think, but there’s something about him that makes me afraid of him.’
‘What is it?’
‘I think it is the frosty look in his eyes,’ replied Mrs Lancey, drawing her shoulders together in a shiver.
‘You share the public opinion of Dutch New Guinea, in fact,’ said Trent. ‘Did you tell me, Edith, that your sister began to be like this the very first evening she came here?’
‘Yes. And it had never happened before, she declares.’
‘She came out from England with the Stones, didn’t she?’
‘Only the last part of the journey. They got on the train at Lucerne.’
Trent looked back into the drawing-room at the wistful face of Mrs Stone, who was playing piquet with her host. She was slight and pretty, with large, appealing eyes that never lost their melancholy, though she was always smiling.
‘You say she loathes Lady Bosworth,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I suppose it’s mainly Bella’s own fault,’ confessed Mrs Lancey, with a grimace. ‘You may as well know, Philip—you’ll soon find out, anyhow—the truth is she will flirt with any man that she doesn’t actively dislike. She’s so brimful of life she can’t hold herself in—or she won’t, rather; she says there’s no harm in it, and she doesn’t care if there is. Before her marriage she didn’t go on in that way, but since it turned out badly she has been simply uncivilized on that point. And her being perfectly clear-headed about it makes it seem so much worse. Several times she has practised on Randolph, and, although he’s a perfectly safe old donkey if there ever was one, Agatha can’t bear the sight of her.’
‘She seems quite friendly with her,’ Trent observed.
Mrs Lancey produced through her delicate nostrils a sound that expressed a scorn for which there were no words. There was a short silence.
‘Well, what do you make of it, Philip?’ his hostess asked at length. ‘Myself, I simply don’t know what to think. These queer fits of hers frighten me horribly. There’s one dreadful idea, you see, that keeps occurring to me. Could it, perhaps, be’—Mrs Lancey lowered her already low tone—‘the beginning of insanity?’
He spoke reassuringly. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t cherish that fancy. There are other things much more likely and much less terrible. And there are some things we can do, too, and do at once. Look here, Edith, you know I hate explaining my own ideas until I’m sure there’s something in them. Will you try to arrange certain things for tomorrow, without asking me why? And don’t let anybody know I asked you to do it—not even George. Until later on, at least. Will you?’
‘How exciting!’ Mrs Lancey breathed. ‘Yes, of course, mystery-man. What do you want me to do?’
‘Do you think you could manage things tomorrow so that you and I and Lady Bosworth could go out in the motorboat on the lake for an hour or two in the evening, getting back in time to change for dinner—just the three of us and the engineer? Could that be worked quite naturally?’
She pondered. ‘It might be. George and Randolph are playing golf at Cadenabbia tomorrow. I might arrange an expedition in the afternoon for Agatha and Mr Scheffer, and let Bella know I wanted her to stay with me. You could lose yourself after breakfast with your sketching things, I dare say, and return for tea. Then the three of us could run down in the boat to San Marmette—it’s a lovely little place—and be back before seven. In this weather it’s really the best time of day for the lake.’
‘That would do admirably, if you could work it. And one thing more—if we do go as you suggest, I want you privately to tell your engineer to do just what I ask him to do—no matter what it is. He’s an Italian, isn’t he? Yes, then he’ll be deeply interested.’
Mrs Lancey worked it without difficulty. At five o’clock the two ladies and Trent, with a powerful young man of superb manners at the steering-wheel, were gliding swiftly southward, mile after mile, down the long lake. They landed at the most picturesque, and perhaps the most dilapidated and dirtiest, of all the lakeside villages, where in the tiny square above the landing-place a score of dusky infants were treading the measures and chanting the words of one of the immemorial games of childhood. While Mrs Lancey and her sister watched them in delight Trent spoke rapidly to the young engineer, whose gleaming eyes and teeth flashed understanding.
Soon afterward they strolled through San Marmette, and up the mountain road to a little church, half a mile away, where a curious fresco could be seen.
It was close on half past six when they returned, to be met by Giuseppe, voluble in excitement and apology. It appeared that while he had been fraternizing with the keeper of the inn by the landing-place a certain triste individue had, unseen by anyone, been tampering maliciously with the engine of the boat, and had poured handfuls of dust into the delicate mechanism. Mrs Lancey, who had received a private nod from Trent, reproved him bitterly for leaving the boat, and asked how long it would take to get the engine working again.
Giuseppe, overwhelmed with contrition, feared that it might be a matter of hours. Questioned, he said that the public steamer had arrived and departed twenty minutes since; the next one, the last of the day, was not due until after nine. Their excellencies could at least count