CHAPTER III

A Break in a Circle

MY acquaintance with the Tremaines, in the weeks that followed, grew by imperceptible degrees into an intimacy which was one of the most pleasant of my life. Of Cecily I have already attempted to give some idea, although I realise how cold and inadequate it is. As I began to know her better, I came to wonder more and more at her complexity, her simplicity, her swift change of mood, her utter ignorance of social convention. Another thing I saw, and that was her absolute worship of Tremaine. I question if he fully understood its strength; he had grown, in a way, accustomed to it; but to a stranger, an outsider, it was startlingly apparent. I say startlingly, because one was vaguely conscious of unsounded, threatening depths beneath that sweet exterior, which promised I know not what of passion and tragedy, should they be rudely stirred.

As for Tremaine, I hesitate to say how utterly I fell under his spell. Yet this was not in the least to be wondered at. My life had been, on the whole, so narrow, and his had been so broad; my experience of the world had been cast in the usual grooves, while his had so evidently overleaped them, had struck out a path for itself into all sorts of unexpected places. Why he so exerted himself to charm and conquer me,