“No—only that we have met before. I don’t know what she may suspect. And your son?”
“Oh, I suppose he knows. Somebody must have told him.”
“He doesn’t know who I am, though,” said Mrs. Bowring, with conviction. “He seems to be more like his mother than like you. He couldn’t conceal anything long.”
“I wasn’t particularly good at that either, as it turned out,” said Sir Adam, gravely.
“No, thank God!”
“Do you think it’s something to be thankful for? I don’t. Things might have gone better afterwards—”
“Afterwards!” The suffering of the woman’s life was in the tone and in her eyes.
“Yes, afterwards. I’m an old man, Lucy, and I’ve seen a great many things since you and I parted, and a great many people. I was bad enough, but I’ve seen worse men since, who have had another chance and have turned out well.”
“Their wives did not love them. I am almost old, too. I loved you, Adam. It was a bad hurt you gave me, and the wound never healed. I married—I had to marry. He was an honest gentleman. Then he was killed. That hurt too, for I was very fond of him—but it did not hurt as the other did. Nothing could.”
Her voice shook, and she turned away her face. At least, he should not see that her lip trembled.
“I didn’t think you cared,” said Sir Adam, and his own voice was not very steady.
She turned upon him almost fiercely, and there was a blue light in her faded eyes.
“I! You thought I didn’t care? You’ve no right to say that—it’s wicked of you, and it’s cruel. Did you think I married you for your money, Adam? And if I had—should I have given it up to be divorced because you gave jewels to an actress? I loved you, and I wanted your love, or nothing. You couldn’t be faithful—commonly, decently faithful, for one year—and I got myself free from you, because I would not be your wife, nor eat your bread, nor touch your hand, if you couldn’t love me. Don’t say that you ever loved me, except my face. We hadn’t been divorced a year when you married again. Don’t say that you loved me! You loved your wife—your second wife—perhaps. I hope so. I hope you love her now—and I dare say you do, for she looks happy—but don’t say that you ever loved me—just long enough to marry me and betray me!”
“You’re hard, Lucy. You’re as hard as ever you were twenty years ago,” said Adam Johnstone.
As he leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee, he passed his brown hand across his eyes, and then stared vaguely at the white walls of the old hotel beyond the platform.
“But you know that I’m right,” answeredMrs. Bowring. “Perhaps I’m hard, too. I’m sorry. You said that you had been mad, I remember—I don’t like to think of all you said, but you said that. And I remember thinking that I had been much more mad than you, to have married you, but that I should soon be really mad—raving mad—if I remained your wife. I couldn’t. I should have died. Afterwards I thought it would have been better if I had died then. But I lived through it. Then, after the death of my old aunt, I was alone. What was I to do? I was poor and lonely, and a divorced woman, though the right had been on my side. Richard Bowring knew all about it, and I married him. I did not love you any more, then, but I told him the truth when I told him that I could never love any one again. He was satisfied—so we were married.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Sir Adam.
“Blame me! No—it would hardly be for you to blame me, if I could make anything of the shreds of my life which I had saved from yours. For that matter—you were free too. It was soon done, but why should I blame you for that? You were free—by the law—to go where you pleased, to love again, and to marry at once. You did. Oh no! I don’t blame you for that!”
Both were silent for some time. But Mrs.Bowring’s eyes still had an indignant light in them, and her fingers twitched nervously from time to time. Sir Adam stared stolidly at the white wall, without looking at his former wife.
“I’ve been talking about myself,” she said at last. “I didn’t mean to, for I need no justification. When you said that you wanted to say something, I brought you here so that we could be alone. What was it? I should have let you speak first.”
“It was this.” He paused, as though choosing his words. “Well, I don’t know,” he continued presently. “You’ve been saying a good many things about me that I would have said myself. I’ve not denied them, have I? Well, it’s this. I wanted to see you for years, and now we’ve met. We may not meet again, Lucy, though I dare say we may live a long time. I wish we could, though. But of course you don’t care to see me. I was your husband once, and I behaved like a brute to you. You wouldn’t want me for a friend now that I am old.”
He waited, but she said nothing.
“Of course you wouldn’t,” he continued. “I shouldn’t, in your place. Oh, I know! If I were dying or starving, or very unhappy, you would be capable of doing anything for me, out of sheer goodness. You’re only just to people who aren’t suffering. You were always like that in the old days. It’s so much the worse for us. I have nothing about me to excite your pity. I’m strong, I’m well, I’m very rich, I’m relatively happy. I don’t know how much I cared for my wife when I married her, but she has been a good wife, and I’m very fond of her now, in my own way. It wasn’t a good action, I admit, to marry her at all. She was the beauty of her year and the best match of the season, and I was just divorced, and every one’s hand was against me. I thought I would show them what I could do, winged as I was, and I got her. No; it wasn’t a thing to be proud of. But somehow we hit it off, and she stuck to me, and I grew fond of her because she did, and here we are as you see us, and Brook is a fine fellow, and likes me. I like him too. He’s honest and faithful, like his mother. There’s no justice and no logic in this world, Lucy. I was a good-for-nothing in the old days. Circumstances have made me decently good, and a pretty happy man besides, as men go. I couldn’t ask for any pity if I tried.”
“No; you’re not to be pitied. I’m glad you’re happy. I don’t wish you any harm.”
“You might, and I shouldn’t blame you. But all that isn’t what I wished to say. I’m getting old, and we may not meet any moreafter this. If you wish me to go away, I’ll go. We’ll leave the place tomorrow.”
“No. Why should you? It’s a strange situation, as we were to-day at table. You with your wife beside, and your divorced wife opposite you, and only you and I knowing it. I suppose you think, somehow—I don’t know—that I might be jealous of your wife. But twenty-seven years make a difference, Adam. It’s half a lifetime. It’s so utterly past that I sha’n’t realise it. If you like to stay, then stay. No harm can come of it, and that was so very long ago. Is that what you want to say?”
“No.” He hesitated. “I want you to say that you forgive me,” he said, in a quick, hoarse voice.
His keen dark eyes turned quickly to her face, and he saw how very pale she was, and how the shadows had deepened under her eyes, and her fingers twitched nervously as they clasped one another in her lap.
“I suppose you think I’m sentimental,” he said, looking at her. “Perhaps I am; but it would mean a good deal to me if you would just say it.”
There was something pathetic in the appeal, and something young too, in spite of his grey beard and furrowed face. Still Mrs. Bowring said nothing. It meant almost too much toher, even after twenty-seven years. This old man had taken her, an innocent young girl, had married her, had betrayed her while she dearly loved him, and had blasted her life at the beginning. Even now it was hard to forgive. The suffering was not old, and the sight of his face had touched the quick again. Barely ten minutes had passed since the pain had almost wrung the tears from her.
“You can’t,” said the old man, suddenly. “I see it. It’s too much to ask, I suppose, and I’ve never done anything to deserve it.”
The pale face grew paler, but the hands were still, and grasped each other, firm and cold. The lips moved, but no sound came. Then a moment, and they moved again.
“You’re mistaken, Adam. I do forgive you.”
He caught the two hands in his, and his face shivered.
“God bless you, dear,” he tried to say, and he kissed the hands twice.
When Mrs. Bowring looked up he was sitting beside her, just as before; but his face was terribly drawn, and strange, and a great tear had trickled down the furrowed brown cheek into the grey beard.
Lady Johnstone was one of those perfectly frank and honest persons who take no trouble to conceal their anxieties. From the fact that when she had met him on the way up to the hotel Brook had been walking alone with Clare Bowring, she had at once argued that a considerable intimacy existed between the two. Her meeting with Clare’s mother, and her sudden fancy for the elder woman, had momentarily allayed her fears, but they revived when it became clear to her that Brook sought every possible opportunity of being alone with the young girl. She was an eminently practical woman, as has been said, which perhaps accounted for her having made a good husband out of such a man as Adam Johnstone had been in his youth. She had never seen Brook devote himself to a young girl before now. She saw that Clare was good to look at, and she promptly concluded that Brook must be in love. The conclusion was perfectly correct, and Lady Johnstone soon grew very nervous. Brook was too young to marry, and even if he had been old enough his motherthought that he might have made a better choice. At all events he should not entangle himself in an engagement with the girl; and she began systematically to interfere with his attempts to be alone with her. Brook was as frank as herself. He charged her with trying to keep him from Clare, and she did not deny that he was right. This led to a discussion on the third day after the Johnstones’ arrival.
“You mustn’t make a fool of yourself, Brook, dear,” said Lady Johnstone. “You are not old enough to marry. Oh, I know, you are five-and-twenty, and ought to have come to years of discretion. But you haven’t, dear boy. Don’t forget that you are Adam Johnstone’s son, and that you may be expected to do all the things that he did before I married him. And he did a good many things, you know. I’m devoted to your father, and if he were in the room I should tell you just what I am telling you now. Before I married him he had about a thousand flirtations, and he had been married too, and had gone off with an actress—a shocking affair altogether! And his wife had divorced him. She must have been one of those horrible women who can’t forgive, you know. Now, my dear boy, you aren’t a bit better than your father, and that pretty Clare Bowring looks as though she would never forgive anybody who did anythingshe didn’t like. Have you asked her to marry you?”
“Good heavens, no!” cried Brook. “She wouldn’t look at me!”
“Wouldn’t look at you? That’s simply ridiculous, you know! She’d marry you out of hand—unless she’s perfectly idiotic. And she doesn’t look that. Leave her alone, Brook. Talk to the mother. She’s one of the most delightful women I ever met. She has a dear, quiet way with her—like a very thoroughbred white cat that’s been ill and wants to be petted.”
“What extraordinary ideas you have, mother!” laughed Brook. “But on general principles I don’t see why I shouldn’t marry Miss Bowring, if she’ll have me. Why not? Her father was a gentleman, you like her mother, and as for herself—”
“Oh, I’ve nothing against her. It’s all against you, Brook dear. You are such a dreadful flirt, you know! You’ll get tired of the poor girl and make her miserable. I’m sure she isn’t practical, as I am. The very first time you look at some one else she’ll get on a tragic horse and charge the crockery—and there will be a most awful smash! It’s not easy to manage you Johnstones when you think you are in love. I ought to know!”
“I say, mother,” said Brook, “has anybody been telling you stories about me lately?”
“Lately? Let me see. The last I heard was that Mrs. Crosby—the one you all call Lady Fan—was going to get a divorce so as to marry you.”
“Oh—you heard that, did you?”
“Yes—everybody was talking about it and asking me whether it was true. It seems that she was with that party that brought you here. She left them at Naples, and came home at once by land, and they said she was giving out that she meant to marry you. I laughed, of course. But people wouldn’t talk about you so much, dear boy, if there were not so much to talk about. I know that you would never do anything so idiotic as that, and if Mrs. Crosby chooses to flirt with you, that’s her affair. She’s older than you, and knows more about it. But this is quite another thing. This is serious. You sha’n’t make love to that nice girl, Brook. You sha’n’t! I’ll do something dreadful, if you do. I’ll tell her all about Mrs. Leo Cairngorm or somebody like that. But you sha’n’t marry her and ruin her life.”
“You’re going in for philanthropy, mother,” said Brook, growing red. “It’s something new. You never made a fuss before.”
“No, of course not. You never were so foolishbefore, my dear boy. I’m not bad myself, I believe. But you are, every one of you, and I love you all, and the only way to do anything with you is to let you run wild a little first. It’s the only practical, sensible way. And you’ve only just begun—how in the world do you dare to think of marrying? Upon my word, it’s too bad. I won’t wait. I’ll frighten the girl to death with stories about you, until she refuses to speak to you! But I’ve taken a fancy to her mother, and you sha’n’t make the child miserable. You sha’n’t, Brook. Oh, I’ve made up my mind! You sha’n’t. I’ll tell the mother too. I’ll frighten them all, till they can’t bear the sight of you.”
Lady Johnstone was energetic, as well as original, in spite of her abnormal size, and Brook knew that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat, and more also.
“I may be like my father in some ways,” he answered. “But I’m a good deal like you too, mother. I’m rather apt to stick to what I like, you know. Besides, I don’t believe you would do anything of the kind. And she isn’t inclined to like me, as it is. I believe she must have heard some story or other. Don’t make things any worse than they are.”
“Then don’t lose your head and ask her to marry you after a fortnight’s acquaintance,Brook, because she’ll accept you, and you will make her perfectly wretched.”
He saw that it was not always possible to argue with his mother, and he said nothing more. But he reflected upon her point of view, and he saw that it was not altogether unjust, as she knew him. She could not possibly understand that what he felt for Clare Bowring bore not the slightest resemblance to what he had felt for Lady Fan, if, indeed, he had felt anything at all, which he considered doubtful now that it was over, though he would have been angry enough at the suggestion a month earlier. To tell the truth, he felt quite sure of himself at the present time, though all his sensations were more or less new to him. And his mother’s sudden and rather eccentric opposition unexpectedly strengthened his determination. He might laugh at what he called her originality, but he could not afford to jest at the prospect of her giving Clare an account of his life. She was quite capable of it, and would probably do it.
These preoccupations, however, were as nothing compared with the main point—the certainty that Clare would refuse him, if he offered himself to her, and when he left his mother he was in a very undetermined state of mind. If he should ask Clare to marry him now, shewould refuse him. But if his mother interfered, it would be much worse a week hence.
At last, as ill-luck would have it, he came upon her unexpectedly in the corridor, as he came out, and they almost ran against each other.
“Won’t you come out for a bit?” he asked quickly and in a low voice.
“Thanks—I have some letters to write,” answered the young girl. “Besides, it’s much too hot. There isn’t a breath of air.”
“Oh, it’s not really hot, you know,” said Brook, persuasively.
“Then it’s making a very good pretence!” laughed Clare.
“It’s ever so much cooler out of doors. If you’ll only come out for one minute, you’ll see. Really—I’m in earnest.”
“But why should I go out if I don’t want to?” asked the young girl.
“Because I asked you to—”
“Oh, that isn’t a reason, you know,” she laughed again.
“Well, then, because you really would, if I hadn’t asked you, and you only refuse out of a spirit of opposition,” suggested Brook.
“Oh—do you think so? Do you think I generally do just the contrary of what I’m asked to do?”
“Of course, everybody knows that, who knows you.” Brook seemed amused at the idea.
“If you think that—well, I’ll come, just for a minute, if it’s only to show you that you are quite wrong.”
“Thanks, awfully. Sha’n’t we go for the little walk that was interrupted when my people came the other day?”
“No—it’s too hot, really. I’ll walk as far as the end of the terrace and back—once. Do you mind telling me why you are so tremendously anxious to have me come out this very minute?”
“I’ll tell you—at least, I don’t know that I can—wait till we are outside. I should like to be out with you all the time, you know—and I thought you might come, so I asked you.”
“You seem rather confused,” said Clare gravely.
“Well, you know,” Brook answered as they walked along towards the dazzling green light that filled the door, “to tell the truth, between one thing and another—” He did not complete the sentence.
“Yes?” said Clare, sweetly. “Between one thing and another—what were you going to say?”
Brook did not answer as they went out into the hot, blossom-scented air, under the spreading vines.
“Do you mean to say it’s cooler here than indoors?” asked the young girl in a tone of resignation.
“Oh, it’s much cooler! There’s a breeze at the end of the walk.”
“The sea is like oil,” observed Clare. “There isn’t the least breath.”
“Well,” said Brook, “it can’t be really hot, because it’s only the first week in June after all.”
“This isn’t Scotland. It’s positively boiling, and I wish I hadn’t come out. Beware of first impulses—they are always right!”
But she glanced sideways at his face, for she knew that something was in the air. She was not sure what to expect of him just then, but she knew that there was something to expect. Her instinct told her that he meant to speak and to say more than he had yet said. It told her that he was going to ask her to marry him, then and there, in the blazing noon, under the vines, but her modesty scouted the thought as savouring of vanity. At all events she would prevent him from doing it if she could.
“Lady Johnstone seems to like this place,” she said, with a sudden effort at conversation. “She says that she means to make all sorts of expeditions.”
“Of course she will,” answered Brook, in ahalf-impatient tone. “But, please—I don’t want to talk about my mother or the landscape. I really did want to speak to you, because I can’t stand this sort of thing any longer, you know.”
“What sort of thing?” asked Clare innocently, raising her eyes to his, as they reached the end of the walk.
It was very hot and still. Not a breath stirred the young vine-leaves overhead, and the scent of the last orange-blossoms hung in the motionless air. The heat rose quivering from the sea to southward, and the water lay flat as a mirror under the glory of the first summer’s day.
They stood still. Clare felt nervous, and tried to think of something to say which might keep him from speaking, and destroy the effect of her last question. But it was too late now. He was pale, for him, and his eyes were very bright.
“I can’t live without you—it comes to that. Can’t you see?”
The short plain words shook oddly as they fell from his lips. The two stood quite still, each looking into the other’s face. Brook grew paler still, but the colour rose in Clare’s cheeks. She tried to meet his eyes steadily, without feeling that he could control her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m very sorry.”
“You sha’n’t say that,” he answered, cuttingher words with his, and sharply. “I’m tired of hearing it. I’m glad I love you, whatever you do to me; and you must get to like me. You must. I tell you I can’t live without you.”
“But if I can’t—” Clare tried to say.
“You can—you must—you shall!” broke in Brook, hoarsely, his eyes growing brighter and fiercer. “I didn’t know what it was to love anybody, and now that I know, I can’t live without it, and I won’t.”
“But if—”
“There is no ‘if,’” he cried, in his low strong voice, fixing her eyes with his. “There’s no question of my going mad, or dying, or anything half so weak, because I won’t take no. Oh, you may say it a hundred times, but it won’t help you. I tell you I love you. Do you understand what that means? I’m in God’s own earnest. I’ll give you my life, but I won’t give you up. I’ll take you somehow, whether you will or not, and I’ll hide you somewhere, but you sha’n’t get away from me as long as you live.”
“You must be mad!” exclaimed the young girl, scarcely above her breath, half-frightened, and unable to loose her eyes from the fascination of his.
“No, I’m not mad; only you’ve never seen any one in earnest before, and you’ve been condemning me without evidence all along. But itmust stop now. You must tell me what it is, for I have a right to know. Tell me what it all is. I will know—I will. Look at me; you can’t look away till you tell me.”
Clare felt his power, and felt that his eyes were dazzling her, and that if she did not escape from them she must yield and tell him. She tried, and her eyelids quivered. Then she raised her hand to cover her own eyes, in a desperate attempt to keep her secret. He caught it and held it, and still looked. She turned pale suddenly. Then her words came mechanically.
“I was out there when you said ‘good-bye’ to Lady Fan. I heard everything, from first to last.”
He started in surprise, and the colour rose suddenly to his face. He did not look away yet, but Clare saw the blush of shame in his face, and felt that his power diminished, while hers grew all at once, to overmaster him in turn.
“It’s scarcely a fortnight since you betrayed her,” she said, slowly and distinctly, “and you expect me to like you and to believe that you are in earnest.”
His shame turned quickly to anger.
“So you listened!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, I listened,” she answered, and her words came easily, then, in self-defence—for she had thought of it all very often. “I didn’t knowwho you were. My mother and I had been sitting beside the cross in the shadow of the cave, and she went in to finish a letter, leaving me there. Then you two came out talking. Before I knew what was happening you had said too much. I felt that if I had been in Lady Fan’s place I would far rather never know that a stranger was listening. So I sat still, and I could not help hearing. How was I to know that you meant to stay here until I heard you say so to her? And I heard everything. You are ashamed now that you know that I know. Do you wonder that I disliked you from the first?”
“I don’t see why you should,” answered Brook stubbornly. “If you do—you do. That doesn’t change matters—”
“You betrayed her!” cried Clare indignantly. “You forgot that I heard all you said—how you promised to marry her if she could get a divorce. It was horrible, and I never dreamt of such things, but I heard it. And then you were tired of her, I suppose, and you changed your mind, and calmly told her that it was all a mistake. Do you expect any woman, who has seen another treated in that way, to forget? Oh, I saw her face, and I heard her sob. You broke her heart for your amusement. And it was only a fortnight ago!”
She had the upper hand now, and she turned from him with a last scornful glance, and looked over the low wall at the sea, wondering how he could have held her with his eyes a moment earlier. Brook stood motionless beside her, and there was silence. He might have found much in self-defence, but there was not one word of it which he could tell her. Perhaps she might find out some day what sort of person Lady Fan was, but his own lips were closed. That was his view of what honour meant.
Clare felt that her breath came quickly, and that the colour was deep in her cheeks as she gazed at the flat, hot sea. For a moment she felt a woman’s enormous satisfaction in being absolutely unanswerable. Then, all at once, she had a strong sensation of sickness, and a quick pain shot sharply through her just below the heart. She steadied herself by the wall with her hands, and shut her lips tightly.
She had refused him as well as accused him. He would go away in a few moments, and never try to be alone with her again. Perhaps he would leave Amalfi that very day. It was impossible that she should really care for him, and yet, if she did not care, she would not ask the next question. Then he spoke to her. His voice was changed and very quiet now.
“I’m sorry you heard all that,” he said. “Idon’t wonder that you’ve got a bad opinion of me, and I suppose I can’t say anything just now to make you change it. You heard, and you think you have a right to judge. Perhaps I shouldn’t even say this—you heard me then, and you have heard me now. There’s a difference, you’ll admit. But all that you heard then, and all that you have told me now, can’t change the truth, and you can’t make me love you less, whatever you do. I don’t believe I’m that sort of man.”
“I should have thought you were,” said Clare bitterly, and regretting the words as soon as they were spoken.
“It’s natural that you should think so. At the same time, it doesn’t follow that because a man doesn’t love one woman he can’t possibly love another.”
“That’s simply brutal!” exclaimed the young girl, angry with him unreasonably because the argument was good.
“It’s true, at all events. I didn’t love Mrs. Crosby, and I told her so. You may think me a brute if you like, but you heard me say it, if you heard anything, so I suppose I may quote myself. I do love you, and I have told you so—the fact that I can’t say it in choice language doesn’t make it a lie. I’m not a man in a book, and I’m in earnest.”
“Please stop,” said Clare, as she heard the hoarse strength coming back in his voice.
“Yes—I know. I’ve said it before, and you don’t care to hear it again. You can’t kill it by making me hold my tongue, you know. It only makes it worse. You’ll see that I’m in earnest in time—then you’ll change your mind. But I can’t change mine. I can’t live without you, whatever you may think of me now.”
It was a strange wooing, very unlike anything she had ever dreamt of, if she had allowed herself to dream of such things. She asked herself whether this could be the same man who had calmly and cynically told Lady Fan that he did not love her and could not think of marrying her. He had been cool and quiet enough then. That gave strength to the argument he used now. She had seen him with another woman, and now she saw him with herself and heard him. She was surprised and almost taken from her feet by his rough vehemence. He surely did not speak as a man choosing his words, certainly not as one trying to produce an effect. But then, on that evening at the Acropolis—the thought of that scene pursued her—he had doubtless spoken just as roughly and vehemently to Lady Fan, and had seemed just as much in earnest. And suddenly Lady Fan was hateful to her, and she almostceased to pity her at all. But for Lady Fan—well, it might have been different. She should not have blamed herself for liking him, for loving him perhaps, and his words would have had another ring.
He still stood beside her, watching her, and she was afraid to turn to him lest he should see something in her face which she meant to hide. But she could speak quietly enough, resting her hands on the wall and looking out to sea. It would be best to be a little formal, she thought. The sound of his own name spoken distinctly and coldly would perhaps warn him not to go too far.
“Mr. Johnstone,” she said, steadying her voice, “this can’t go on. I never meant to tell you what I knew, but you have forced me to it. I don’t love you—I don’t like a man who can do such things, and I never could. And I can’t let you talk to me in this way any more. If we must meet, you must behave just as usual. If you can’t, I shall persuade my mother to go away at once.”
“I shall follow you,” said Brook. “I told you so the other day. You can’t possibly go to any place where I can’t go too.”
“Do you mean to persecute me, Mr. Johnstone?” she asked.
“I love you.”
“I hate you!”
“Yes, but you won’t always. Even if you do, I shall always love you just as much.”
Her eyes fell before his.
“Do you mean to say that you can really love a woman who hates you?” she asked, looking at one of her hands as it rested on the wall.
“Of course. Why not? What has that to do with it?”
The question was asked so simply and with such honest surprise that Clare looked up again. He was smiling a little sadly.
“But—I don’t understand—” she hesitated.
“Do you think it’s like a bargain?” he asked quietly. “Do you think it’s a matter of exchange—‘I will love you if you’ll love me’? Oh no! It’s not that. I can’t help it. I’m not my own master. I’ve got to love you, whether I like it or not. But since I do—well, I’ve said the rest, and I won’t repeat it. I’ve told you that I’m in earnest, and you haven’t believed me. I’ve told you that I love you, and you won’t even believe that—”
“No—I can believe that, well enough, now. You do to-day, perhaps. At least you think you do.”
“Well—you don’t believe it, then. What’s the use of repeating it? If I could talk well, it would be different, but I’m not much of atalker, at best, and just now I can’t put two words together. But I—I mean lots of things that I can’t say, and perhaps wouldn’t say, you know. At least, not just now.”
He turned from her and began to walk up and down across the narrow terrace, towards her and away from her, his hands in his pockets, and his head a little bent. She watched him in silence for some time. Perhaps if she had hated him as much as she said that she did, she would have left him then and gone into the house. Something, good or evil, tempted her to speak.
“What do you mean, that you wouldn’t say now?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered gruffly, still walking up and down, ten steps each way. “Don’t ask me—I told you one thing. I shall follow you wherever you go.”
“And then?” asked Clare, still prompted by some genius, good or bad.
“And then?” Brook stopped and stared at her rather wildly. “And then? If I can’t get you in any other way—well, I’ll take you, that’s all! It’s not a very pretty thing to say, is it?”
“It doesn’t sound a very probable thing to do, either,” answered Clare. “I’m afraid you are out of your mind, Mr. Johnstone.”
“You’ve driven most things out of it since I loved you,” answered Brook, beginning to walkagain. “You’ve made me say things that I shouldn’t have dreamed of saying to any woman, much less to you. And you’ve made me think of doing things that looked perfectly mad a week ago.” He stopped before her. “Can’t you see? Can’t you understand? Can’t you feel how I love you?”
“Don’t—please don’t!” she said, beginning to be frightened at his manner again.
“Don’t what? Don’t love you? Don’t live, then—don’t exist—don’t anything! What would it all matter, if I didn’t love you? Meanwhile, I do, and by the—no! What’s the use of talking? You might laugh. You’d make a fool of me, if you hadn’t killed the fool out of me with too much earnest—and what’s left can’t talk, though it can do something better worth while than a lot of talking.”
Clare began to think that the heat had hurt his head. And all the time, in a secret, shame-faced way, she was listening to his incoherent sentences and rough exclamations, and remembering them one by one, and every one. And she looked at his pale face, and saw the queer light in his blue eyes, and the squaring of his jaw—and then and long afterwards the whole picture, with its memory of words, hot, broken, and confused, meant earnest love in her thoughts. No man in his senses, wishing to play a part andproduce an impression upon a woman, would have acted as he did, and she knew it. It was the rough, real thing—the raw strength of an honest man’s uncontrolled passion that she saw—and it told her more of love in a few minutes than all she had heard or read in her whole life. But while it was before her, alive and throbbing and incoherent of speech, it frightened her.
“Come,” she said nervously, “we mustn’t stay out here any longer, talking in this way.”
He stopped again, close before her, and his eyes looked dangerous for an instant. Then he straightened himself, and seemed to swallow something with an effort.
“All right,” he answered. “I don’t want to keep you out here in the heat.”
He faced about, and they walked slowly towards the house. When they reached the door he stood aside. She saw that he did not mean to go in, and she paused an instant on the threshold, looked at him gravely, and nodded before she entered. Again he bent his head, and said nothing. She left him standing there, and went straight to her room.
Then she sat down before a little table on which she wrote her letters, near the window, and she tried to think. But it was not easy, and everything was terribly confused. She rested her elbows upon the small desk and pressedher fingers to her eyes, as though to drive away the sight that would come back. Then she dropped her hands suddenly and opened her eyes wide, and stared at the wall-paper before her. And it came back very vividly between her and the white plaster, and she heard his voice again—but she was smiling now.
She started violently, for she felt two hands laid unexpectedly upon her shoulders, and some one kissed her hair. She had not heard her mother’s footstep, nor the opening and shutting of the door, nor anything but Brook Johnstone’s voice.
“What is it, my darling?” asked the elder woman, bending down over her daughter’s shoulder. “Has anything happened?”
Clare hesitated a moment, and then spoke, for the habit of her confidence was strong. “He has asked me to marry him, mother—”
In her turn Mrs. Bowring started, and then rested one hand on the table.
“You? You?” she repeated, in a low and troubled voice. “You marry Adam Johnstone’s son?”
“No, mother—never,” answered the young girl.
“Thank God!”
And Mrs. Bowring sank into a chair, shivering as though she were cold.
Brook felt in his pocket mechanically for his pipe, as a man who smokes generally takes to something of the sort at great moments in his life, from sheer habit. He went through the operation of filling and lighting with great precision, almost unconscious of what he was doing, and presently he found himself smoking and sitting on the wall just where Clare had leaned against it during their interview. In three minutes his pipe had gone out, but he was not aware of the fact, and sat quite still in his place, staring into the shrubbery which grew at the back of the terrace.
He was conscious that he had talked and acted wildly, and quite unlike the self with which he had been long acquainted; and the consciousness was anything but pleasant. He wondered where Clare was, and what she might be thinking of him at that moment. But as he thought of her his former mood returned, and he felt that he was not ashamed of what he had done and said. Then he realised, all at once, for the second time, that Clare had been on the platform on that first night, and he tried torecall everything that Lady Fan and he had said to each other.
No such thing had ever happened to him before, and he had a sensation of shame and distress and anger, as he went over the scene, and thought of the innocent young girl who had sat in the shadow and heard it all. She had accidentally crossed the broad, clear line of demarcation which he drew between her kind and all the tribe of Lady Fans and Mrs. Cairngorms whom he had known. He felt somehow as though it were his fault, and as though he were responsible to Clare for what she had heard and seen. The sensation of shame deepened, and he swore bitterly under his breath. It was one of those things which could not be undone, and for which there was no reparation possible. Yet it was like an insult to Clare. For a man who had lately been rough to the girl, almost to brutality, he was singularly sensitive perhaps. But that did not strike him. When he had told her that he loved her, he had been too much in earnest to pick and choose his expressions. But when he had spoken to Lady Fan, he might have chosen and selected and polished his phrases so that Clare should have understood nothing—if he had only known that she had been sitting up there by the cross in the dark. And again he cursed himself bitterly.
It was not because her knowing the facts had spoilt everything and given her a bad impression of him from the first: that might be set right in time, even now, and he did not wish her to marry him believing him to be an angel of light. It was that she should have seen something which she should not have seen, for her innocence’s sake—something which, in a sense, must have offended and wounded her maidenliness. He would have struck any man who could have laughed at his sensitiveness about that. The worst of it—and he went back to the idea again and again—was that nothing could be done to mend matters, since it was all so completely in the past.
He sat on the wall and pulled at his briar-root pipe, which had gone out and was quite cold by this time, though he hardly knew it. He had plenty to think of, and things were not going straight at all. He had pretended indifference when his mother had told him how Lady Fan meant to get a divorce and how she was telling her intimate friends under the usual vain promises of secrecy that she meant to marry Adam Johnstone’s son as soon as she should be free. Brook had told her plainly enough that he would not marry her in any case, but he asked himself whether the world might not say that he should, and whether in that case it mightnot turn out to be a question of honour. He had secretly thought of that before now, and in the sudden depression of spirits which came upon him as a reaction he cursed himself a third time for having told Clare Bowring that he loved her, while such a matter as Lady Fan’s divorce was still hanging over him as a possibility.
Sitting on the wall, he swung his legs angrily, striking his heels against the stones in his perplexed discontent with the ordering of the universe. Things looked very black. He wished that he could see Clare again, and that, somehow, he could talk it all over with her. Then he almost laughed at the idea. She would tell him that she disliked him—he was sick of the sound of the word—and that it was his duty to marry Lady Fan. What could she know of Lady Fan? He could not tell her that the little lady in the white serge, being rather desperate, had got herself asked to go with the party for the express purpose of throwing herself at his head, as the current phrase gracefully expresses it, and with the distinct intention of divorcing her husband in order to marry Brook Johnstone. He could not tell Clare that he had made love to Lady Fan to get rid of her, as another common expression put it, with a delicacy worthy of modern society. He could not tell her thatLady Fan, who was clever but indiscreet, had unfolded her scheme to her bosom friend Mrs. Leo Cairngorm, or that Mrs. Cairngorm, unknown to Lady Fan, had been a very devoted friend of Brook’s, and was still fond of him, and secretly hated Lady Fan, and had therefore unfolded the whole plan to Brook before the party had started; or that on that afternoon at sunset on the Acropolis he had not at all assented to Lady Fan’s mad proposal, as she had represented that he had when they had parted on the platform at Amalfi; he could not tell Clare any of these things, for he felt that they were not fit for her to hear. And if she knew none of them she must judge him out of her ignorance. Brook wished that some supernatural being with a gift for solving hard problems would suddenly appear and set things straight.
Instead, he saw the man who brought the letters just entering the hotel, and he rose by force of habit and went to the office to see if there were anything for him.
There was one, and it was from Lady Fan, by no means the first she had written since she had gone to England. And there were several for Sir Adam and two for Lady Johnstone. Brook took them all, and opened his own at once. He did not belong to that class of people who put off reading disagreeable correspondence.While he read he walked slowly along the corridor.
Lady Fan was actually consulting a firm of solicitors with a view to getting a divorce. She said that she of course understood his conduct on that last night at Amalfi—the whole plan must have seemed unrealisable to him then—she would forgive him. She refused to believe that he would ruin her in cold blood, as she must be ruined if she got a divorce from Crosby, and if Brook would not marry her; and much more.
Why should she be ruined? Brook asked himself. If Crosby divorced her on Brook’s account, it would be another matter altogether. But she was going to divorce Crosby, who was undoubtedly a beast, and her reputation would be none the worse for it. People would only wonder why she had not done it before, and so would Crosby, unless he took it into his head to examine the question from a financial point of view. For Crosby was, or had been, rich, and Lady Fan had no money of her own, and Crosby was quite willing to let her spend a good deal, provided she left him in peace. How in the world could Clare ever know all the truth about such people? It would be an insult to her to think that she could understand half of it, and she would not think the better of him unless she could understand it all. The situationdid not seem to admit of any solution in that way. All he could hope for was that Clare might change her mind. When she should be older she would understand that she had made a mistake, and that the world was not merely a high-class boarding-school for young ladies, in which all the men were employed as white-chokered professors of social righteousness. That seemed to be her impression, he thought, with a resentment which was not against her in particular, but against all young girls in general, and which did not prevent him from feeling that he would not have had it otherwise for anything in the world.
He stuffed the letter into his pocket, and went in search of his father. He was strongly inclined to lay the whole matter before him, and to ask the old gentleman’s advice. He had reason to believe that Sir Adam had been in worse scrapes than this when he had been a young man, and somehow or other nobody had ever thought the worse of him. He was sure to be in his room at that hour, writing letters. Brook knocked and went in. It was about eleven o’clock.
Sir Adam, gaunt and grey, and clad in a cashmere dressing-jacket, was extended upon all the chairs which the little cell-like room contained, close by the open window. He had a very thickcigarette between his lips, and a half-emptied glass of brandy and soda stood on the corner of a table at his elbow. He had not failed to drink one brandy and soda every morning at eleven o’clock for at least a quarter of a century.
His keen old eyes turned sharply to Brook as the latter entered, and a smile lighted up his furrowed face, but instantly disappeared again; for the young man’s features betrayed something of what he had gone through during the last hour.
“Anything wrong, boy?” asked Sir Adam quickly. “Have a brandy and soda and a pipe with me. Oh, letters! It’s devilish hard that the post should find a man out in this place! Leave them there on the table.”
Brook relighted his pipe. His father took one leg from one of the chairs, which he pushed towards his son with his foot by way of an invitation to sit down.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, renewing his question. “You’ve got into another scrape, have you? Mrs. Crosby—of all women in the world. Your mother told me that ridiculous story. Wants to divorce Crosby and marry you, does she? I say, boy, it’s time this sort of nonsense stopped, you know. One of these days you’ll be caught. There are cleverer women in the world than Mrs. Crosby.”
“Oh! she’s not clever,” answered Brook thoughtfully.
“Well, what’s the foundation of the story? What the dickens did you go with those people for, when you found out that she was coming? You knew the sort of woman she was, I suppose? What happened? You made love to her, of course. That was what she wanted. Then she talked of eternal bliss together, and that sort of rot, didn’t she? And you couldn’t exactly say that you only went in for bliss by the month, could you? And she said, ‘By Jove, as you don’t refuse, you shall have it for the rest of your life,’ and she said to herself that you were richer than Crosby, and a good deal younger, and better-looking, and better socially, and that if you were going to make a fool of yourself she might as well get the benefit of it as well as any other woman. Then she wrote to a solicitor—and now you are in the devil of a scrape. I fancy that’s the history of the case, isn’t it?”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about women in that sort of way, Governor!” exclaimed Brook, by way of answer.
“Don’t be an ass!” answered Sir Adam. “There are women one can talk about in that way, and women one can’t. Mrs. Crosby is one of the first kind. I distinguish between‘women’ and ‘woman.’ Don’t you? Woman means something to most of us—something a good deal better than we are, which we treat properly and would cut one another’s throats for. We sinners aren’t called upon to respect women who won’t respect themselves. We are only expected to be civil to them because they are things in petticoats with complexions. Don’t be an ass, Brook. I don’t want to know what you said to Mrs. Crosby, nor what she said to you, and you wouldn’t be a gentleman if you told me. That’s your affair. But she’s a woman with a consumptive reputation that’s very near giving up the ghost, and that would have departed this life some time ago if Crosby didn’t happen to be a little worse than she is. She wants to get a divorce and marry my son—and that’s my affair. Do you remember the Arab and his slave? ‘You’ve stolen my money,’ said the sheikh. ‘That’s my business,’ answered the slave. ‘And I’m going to beat you,’ said the sheikh. ‘That’s your business,’ said the slave. It’s a similar case, you know, only it’s a good deal worse. I don’t want to know anything that happened before you two parted. But I’ve a right to know what Mrs. Crosby has done since, haven’t I? You don’t care to marry her, do you, boy?”
“Marry her! I’d rather cut my throat.”
“You needn’t do that. Just tell me whether all this is mere talk, or whether she has really been to the solicitor’s. If she has, you know, she will get her divorce without opposition. Everybody knows about Crosby.”
“It’s true,” said Brook. “I’ve just had a letter from her again. I wish I knew what to do!”
“You can’t do anything.”
“I can refuse to marry her, can’t I?”
“Oh—you could. But plenty of people would say that you had induced her to get the divorce, and then had changed your mind. She’ll count on that, and make the most of it, you may be sure. She won’t have a penny when she’s divorced, and she’ll go about telling everybody that you have ruined her. That won’t be pleasant, will it?”
“No—hardly. I had thought of it.”
“You see—you can’t do anything without injuring yourself. I can settle the whole affair in half an hour. By return of post you’ll get a letter from her telling you that she has abandoned all idea of proceedings against Crosby.”
“I’ll bet you she doesn’t,” said Brook.
“Anything you like. It’s perfectly simple. I’ll just make a will, leaving you nothing at all, if you marry her, and I’ll send her a copy to-day. You’ll get the answer fast enough.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Brook, in surprise. Then he thoughtfully relighted his pipe and threw the match out of the window. “I say, Governor,” he added after a pause, “do you think that’s quite—well, quite fair and square, you know?”
“What on earth do you mean?” cried Sir Adam. “Do you mean to tell me that I haven’t a perfect right to leave my money as I please? And that the first adventuress who takes a fancy to it has a right to force you into a disgraceful marriage, and that it would be dishonourable of me to prevent it if I could? You’re mad, boy! Don’t talk such nonsense to me!”
“I suppose I’m an idiot,” said Brook. “Things about money so easily get a queer look, you know. It’s not like other things, is it?”
“Look here, Brook,” answered the old man, taking his feet from the chair on which they rested, and sitting up straight in the low easy chair. “People have said a lot of things about me in my life, and I’ll do the world the credit to add that it might have said twice as much with a good show of truth. But nobody ever said that I was mean, nor that I ever disappointed anybody in money matters who had a right to expect something of me. And that’s pretty conclusive evidence, because I’m a Scotch-man,and we are generally supposed to be a close-fisted tribe. They’ve said everything about me that the world can say, except that I’ve told you about my first marriage. She—she got her divorce, you know. She had a perfect right to it.”
The old man lit another cigarette, and sipped his brandy and soda thoughtfully.
“I don’t like to talk about money,” he said in a lower tone. “But I don’t want you to think me mean, Brook. I allowed her a thousand a year after she had got rid of me. She never touched it. She isn’t that kind. She would rather starve ten times over. But the money has been paid to her account in London for twenty-seven years. Perhaps she doesn’t know it. All the better for her daughter, who will find it after her mother’s death, and get it all. I only don’t want you to think I’m mean, Brook.”
“Then she married again—your first wife?” asked the young man, with natural curiosity. “And she’s alive still?”
“Yes,” answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. “She married again six years after I did—rather late—and she had one daughter.”
“What an odd idea!” exclaimed Brook. “To think that those two people are somewhere about the world. A sort of stray half-sister ofmine, the girl would be—I mean—what would be the relationship, Governor, since we are talking about it?”
“None whatever,” answered the old man, in a tone so extraordinarily sharp that Brook looked up in surprise. “Of course not! What relation could she be? Another mother and another father—no relation at all.”
“Do you mean to say that I could marry her?” asked Brook idly.
Sir Adam started a little.
“Why—yes—of course you could, as she wouldn’t be related to you.”
He suddenly rose, took up his glass, and gulped down what was left in it. Then he went and stood before the open window.
“I say, Brook,” he began, his back turned to his son.
“What?” asked Brook, poking his knife into his pipe to clean it. “Anything wrong?”
“I can’t stand this any longer. I’ve got to speak to somebody—and I can’t speak to your mother. You won’t talk, boy, will you? You and I have always been good friends.”
“Of course! What’s the matter with you, Governor? You can tell me.”
“Oh—nothing—that is—Brook, I say, don’t be startled. This Mrs. Bowring is my divorced wife, you know.”
“Good God!”
Sir Adam turned on his heels and met his son’s look of horror and astonishment. He had expected an exclamation of surprise, but Brook’s voice had fear in it, and he had started from his chair.
“Why do you say ‘Good God’—like that?” asked the old man. “You’re not in love with the girl, are you?”
“I’ve just asked her to marry me.”
The young man was ghastly pale, as he stood stock-still, staring at his father. Sir Adam was the first to recover something of equanimity, but the furrows in his face had suddenly grown deeper.
“Of course she has accepted you?” he asked.
“No—she knew about Mrs. Crosby.” That seemed sufficient explanation of Clare’s refusal. “How awful!” exclaimed Brook hoarsely, his mind going back to what seemed the main question just then. “How awful for you, Governor!”
“Well—it’s not pleasant,” said Sir Adam, turning to the window again. “So the girl refused you,” he said, musing, as he looked out. “Just like her mother, I suppose. Brook”—he paused.
“Yes?”
“So far as I’m concerned, it’s not so bad asyou think. You needn’t pity me, you know. It’s just as well that we should have met—after twenty-seven years.”
“She knew you at once, of course?”
“She knew I was your father before I came. And, I say, Brook—she’s forgiven me at last.”
His voice was low and unsteady, and he resolutely kept his back turned.
“She’s one of the best women that ever lived,” he said. “Your mother’s the other.”
There was a long silence, and neither changed his position. Brook watched the back of his father’s head.
“You don’t mind my saying so to you, Brook?” asked the old man, hitching his shoulders.
“Mind? Why?”
“Oh—well—there’s no reason, I suppose. Gad! I wish—I suppose I’m crazy, but I wish to God you could marry the girl, Brook! She’s as good as her mother.”
Brook said nothing, being very much astonished, as well as disturbed.
“Only—I’ll tell you one thing, Brook,” said the voice at the window, speaking into space. “If you do marry her—and if you treat her as I treated her mother—” he turned sharply on both heels and waited a minute—“I’ll be damned if I don’t believe I’d shoot you!”
“I’d spare you the trouble, and do it myself,” said Brook, roughly.
They were men, at all events, whatever their faults had been and might be, and they looked at the main things of life in very much the same way, like father like son. Another silence followed Brook’s last speech.
“It’s settled now, at all events,” he said in a decided way, after a long time. “What’s the use of talking about it? I don’t know whether you mean to stay here. I shall go away this afternoon.”
Sir Adam sat down again in his low easy chair, and leaned forward, looking at the pattern of the tiles in the floor, his wrists resting on his knees, and his hands hanging down.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Let us try and look at it quietly, boy. Don’t do anything in a hurry. You’re in love with the girl, are you? It isn’t a mere flirtation? How the deuce do you know the difference, at your age?”
“Gad!” exclaimed Brook, half angrily. “I know it! that’s all. I can’t live without her. That is—it’s all bosh to talk in that way, you know. One goes on living, I suppose—one doesn’t die. You know what I mean. I’d rather lose an arm than lose her—that sort of thing. How am I to explain it to you? I’m in earnest about it. I never asked any girl to marry metill now. I should think that ought to prove it. You can’t say that I don’t know what married life means.”
“Other people’s married life,” observed Sir Adam, grimly. “You know something about that, I’m afraid.”
“What difference does it make?” asked Brook. “I can’t marry the daughter of my father’s divorced wife.”
“I never heard of a case, simply because such cases don’t arise often. But there’s no earthly reason why you shouldn’t. There is no relationship whatever between you. There’s no mention of it in the table of kindred and affinity, I know, simply because it isn’t kindred or affinity in any way. The world may make its observations. But you may do much more surprising things than marry the daughter of your father’s divorced wife when you are to have forty thousand pounds a year, Brook. I’ve found it out in my time. You’ll find it out in yours. And it isn’t as though there were the least thing about it that wasn’t all fair and square and straight and honourable and legal—and everything else, including the clergy. I supposed that the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn’t have married me the second time, because the Church isn’t supposed to approve of divorces. But I was married in church all right, by a very goodman. And Church disapproval can’t possibly extend to the second generation, you know. Oh no! So far as its being possible goes, there’s nothing to prevent your marrying her.”
“Except Mrs. Crosby,” said Brook. “You’ll prove that she doesn’t exist either, if you go on. But all that doesn’t put things straight. It’s a horrible situation, no matter how you look at it. What would my mother say if she knew? You haven’t told her about the Bowrings, have you?”
“No,” answered Sir Adam, thoughtfully. “I haven’t told her anything. Of course she knows the story, but—I’m not sure. Do you think I’m bound to tell her that—who Mrs. Bowring is? Do you think it’s anything like not fair to her, just to leave her in ignorance of it? If you think so, I’ll tell her at once. That is, I should have to ask Mrs. Bowring first, of course.”
“Of course,” assented Brook. “You can’t do that, unless we go away. Besides, as things are now, what’s the use?”
“She’ll have to know, if you are engaged to the daughter.”
“I’m not engaged to Miss Bowring,” said Brook, disconsolately. “She won’t look at me. What an infernal mess I’ve made of my life!”
“Don’t be an ass, Brook!” exclaimed Sir Adam, for the third time that morning.
“It’s all very well to tell me not to be an ass,” answered the young man gravely. “I can’t mend matters now, and I don’t blame her for refusing me. It isn’t much more than two weeks since that night. I can’t tell her the truth—I wouldn’t tell it to you, though I can’t prevent your telling it to me, since you’ve guessed it. She thinks I betrayed Mrs. Crosby, and left her—like the merest cad, you know. What am I to do? I won’t say anything against Mrs. Crosby for anything—and if I were low enough to do that I couldn’t say it to Miss Bowring. I told her that I’d marry her in spite of herself—carry her off—anything! But of course I couldn’t. I lost my head, and talked like a fool.”
“She won’t think the worse of you for that,” observed the old man. “But you can’t tell her—the rest. Of course not! I’ll see what I can do, Brook. I don’t believe it’s hopeless at all. I’ve watched Miss Bowring, ever since we first met you two, coming up the hill. I’ll try something—”
“Don’t speak to her about Mrs. Crosby, at all events!”
“I don’t think I should do anything you wouldn’t do yourself, boy,” said Sir Adam, with a shade of reproval in his tone. “All I say is that the case isn’t so hopeless as you seem tothink. Of course you are heavily handicapped, and you are a dog with a bad name, and all the rest of it. The young lady won’t change her mind to-day, nor to-morrow either, perhaps. But she wouldn’t be a human woman if she never changed it at all.”
“You don’t know her!” Brook shook his head and began to refill his refractory pipe. “And I don’t believe you know her mother either, though you were married to her once. If she is at all what I think she is, she won’t let her daughter marry your son. It’s not as though anything could happen now to change the situation. It’s an old one—it’s old, and set, and hard, like a cast. You can’t run it into a new mould and make anything else of it. Not even you, Governor—and you are as clever as anybody I know. It’s a sheer question of humanity, without any possible outside incident. I’ve got two things against me which are about as serious as anything can be—the mother’s prejudice against you, and the daughter’s prejudice against me—both deuced well founded, it seems to me.”
“You forget one thing, Brook,” said Sir Adam, thoughtfully.
“What’s that?”
“Women forgive.”
Neither spoke for some time.
“You ought to know,” said Brook in a low tone, at last. “They forgive when they love—or have loved. That’s the right way to put it, I think.”
“Well—put it in that way, if you like. It will just cover the ground. Whatever that young lady may say, she likes you very much. I’ve seen her watch you, and I’m sure of it.”
“How can a woman love a man and hate him at the same time?”
“Why do jealous women sometimes kill their husbands? If they didn’t love them they wouldn’t care; and if they didn’t hate them, they wouldn’t kill them. You can’t explain it, perhaps, but you can’t deny it either. She’ll never forgive Mrs. Crosby—perhaps—but she’ll forgive you, when she finds out that she can’t be happy without you. Stay here quietly, and let me see what I can do.”
“You can’t do anything, Governor. But I’m grateful to you all the same. And—you know—if there’s anything I can do on my side to help you, just now, I’ll do it!”
“Thank you, Brook,” said the old man, leaning back, and putting up his feet again.
Brook rose and left the room, slowly shutting the door behind him. Then he got his hat and went off for a solitary walk to think matters over. They were grave enough, and all thathis father had said could not persuade him that there was any chance of happiness in his future. There was a sort of horror in the situation, too, and he could not remember ever to have heard of anything like it. He walked slowly, and with bent head.