“My dear, my very dear Madeline,—The last note I had from you—now nearly a month ago—came to me like a gift of silver roses. I did not answer it, but during the dark days in which I have not seen you, I have been learning to know myself. You wondered, perhaps, how I was occupied, why you did not hear from me again—at least I hope you did. (“I didn’t, for I knew only too well,” Madeline murmured to herself.) Now I have learnt tounderstand myself. Sometimes almost inhumanly poetic you have seemed to me, and others; when I remembered your simple refined beauty you suggested the homelike atmosphere that is my dream.”
“My dear, my very dear Madeline,—The last note I had from you—now nearly a month ago—came to me like a gift of silver roses. I did not answer it, but during the dark days in which I have not seen you, I have been learning to know myself. You wondered, perhaps, how I was occupied, why you did not hear from me again—at least I hope you did. (“I didn’t, for I knew only too well,” Madeline murmured to herself.) Now I have learnt tounderstand myself. Sometimes almost inhumanly poetic you have seemed to me, and others; when I remembered your simple refined beauty you suggested the homelike atmosphere that is my dream.”
She started and went on reading.
“Madeline, do you understand, all this time, though perhaps I hardly knew it myself, I loved you. I love you and shall never change. It is my instinct to adore the admirable, and I know now that you are the most adorable of creatures. No words can describe your wonderfulness, so I send you my heart instead.“I think, dear, our life together will be a very beautiful one. It will be a great joy to me to lead you into beautiful paths. How glad I shall be to see the bright look of your eyes, when you greet me after this letter! What a perfect companion you will be! Write at once. I have much more to say when we meet. When shall this be? Your ever devoted and idolising“Rupert.“P.S.—I propose not to make our engagement public quite yet, but to keep our happiness to ourselves for a few weeks, and be married towards the end of the summer. What do you say, my precious Madeline?”
“Madeline, do you understand, all this time, though perhaps I hardly knew it myself, I loved you. I love you and shall never change. It is my instinct to adore the admirable, and I know now that you are the most adorable of creatures. No words can describe your wonderfulness, so I send you my heart instead.
“I think, dear, our life together will be a very beautiful one. It will be a great joy to me to lead you into beautiful paths. How glad I shall be to see the bright look of your eyes, when you greet me after this letter! What a perfect companion you will be! Write at once. I have much more to say when we meet. When shall this be? Your ever devoted and idolising
“Rupert.
“P.S.—I propose not to make our engagement public quite yet, but to keep our happiness to ourselves for a few weeks, and be married towards the end of the summer. What do you say, my precious Madeline?”
Madeline was at once delighted and horrified. How characteristic the letter was! Why had she not waited? There was no doubt about it, she had made a mistake. Rupert was the man she loved—notwithstanding his taking everything so for granted. Charlie must be sacrificed. But she must tell Rupert what had happened, of course.
After sending a telegram to Rupert asking him to meet her at a picture gallery, for she could not bear asking him to call until everything was settled up, the bewildered girl rushed off to see Bertha.
Bertha took in the situation at once. Madeline had only accepted Charlie in despair, thinking and believing that Rupert cared for another girl. It was madness, equally unfair to herself and to Charlie, to go on with the marriage now. Bertha quite agreed, though she grieved for the boy, and regretted how things had turned. … But, after all, Madeline cared for Rupert and she could not be expected to throw away her happiness now it was offered to her.
Bertha advised complete frankness all round. The only thing at which she hesitated a little was Madeline’s intention of telling of her engagement to Rupert. She feared a little the effect on the complicated subtlety of thatconscientious young man. … However, it was to be.
Fortunately no one as yet knew of the engagement except the very nearest relatives. Madeline’s mother would only regret bitterly that Madeline could not accept them both, it being very rare nowadays for two agreeable and eligible young men to propose to one girl in two days.
Nigel was furious and had no patience with these choppings and changings, as he called them.
Charlie took it bravely and wrote Madeline a very generous and noble letter, which touched her, but it did not alter her intention. She had just received it when she went to meet Rupert.
The day which had dragged on with extraordinary excitement and with what seemed curious length had just declined in that hour between six and seven when the vitality seems to become somewhat lowered; when it is neither day nor evening, the stimulation of tea is over and one has not begun to dress for dinner.
At this strange moment Madeline burst in again on Bertha and said:
“Bertha, isn’t it terrible! I’ve told him everything and he refuses me. He’s sent meback. He says if I’m engaged to Charlie it’s my duty to marry him. He’s fearfully hurt with me and shocked at my conduct to Charlie. Oh, it’s too dreadful; I’m heartbroken!”
“Oh, what an irritating creature!” cried Bertha. “It’s just the sort of thing he would do. I’d better see him at once, Madeline.”
“You can’t; he’s going to Venice to-night,” said Madeline, and burst into tears.
RUPERT had gone through a great many changes during the last few weeks. He had begun to grow rather captivated by Miss Chivvey and in his efforts to polish, refine and educate her had become rather carried away himself. But towards the end she began to show signs of rebellion; she was bored, though impressed. He took her to a serious play and explained it all the time, during which she openly yawned. Finally, when she insisted on his seeing a statuette made of her by her artistic friend, an ignorant, pretentious little creature, known as Mimsie, they positively had a quarrel.
“Well, I don’t care what you say; I think it’s very pretty,” when Rupert pointed out faults that a child could easily have seen.
“So it may be, my dear child—not that I think it is. But it’s absolutely without merit; it’s very very bad. It could hardly be worse. If she went all over London I doubt if shecould find a more ridiculous thing calling itself a work of art. Can’t you see it’s like those little figures they used to have on old-fashioned Twelfth Cakes, made of sugar.”
“No, I can’t. Shut up! I mayn’t know quite so much as you, but ever since I was a child everybody’s always said I was very artistic.”
They were sitting in her mother’s drawing-room in Camden Hill. Rupert glanced round it: it was a deplorable example of misdirected aims and mistaken ambitions; a few yards of beaded curtains which separated it from another room gratified Moona with the satisfactory sensation that her surroundings were Oriental. As a matter of fact, the decoration was so commonplace and vulgar that to attempt to describe it would be painful to the writer whilst having no sort of effect on the reader, since it was almost indescribable. From the decorative point of view, the room was the most unmeaning of failures, the most complete of disasters.
Rupert had hoped, nevertheless, to cultivate her taste, and educate her generally. He was most anxious of all to explain to her that, so far from being artistic, she was the most pretentious of little Philistines. Why, indeed, should she be anything else? It was the mostirritating absurdity that she should think she was, or wish to be.
Rupert was growing weary of this, and beginning to think his object was hopeless.
A certain amount of excitement that she had created in him by her brusque rudeness, her high spirits, even the jarring of her loud laugh, was beginning to lose its effect; or rather the effect was changed. Instead of attracting, it irritated him.
About another small subject they had a quarrel—she was beginning to order him about, to regard him as her young man, her property—and was getting accustomed to what had surprised her at first—that he didn’t make love to her. She had ordered him to take her somewhere and he had refused on the ground that he wanted to stop at home and think!
She let herself go, and when Moona Chivvey lost her temper it was not easily forgotten. She insulted him, called him a blighter, a silly ass, a mass of affectation.
He accepted it with gallant irony, bowing with a chivalrous humility that drove her nearly mad, but he never spoke to her again.
Perhaps nothing less than this violent scene would have shaken Rupert into examining hisown feelings, and with a tremendous rebound he saw that he was in love with Madeline, and decided to marry her at once. How delighted the dear child would be!
He had seen very little of her lately, and he appreciated her all the more.
In her was genuine desire for culture; longing to learn; real refinement and intelligence, charm and grace, if not exactly beauty. Ah, those sweet, sincere brown eyes! Rupert would live to see her all she should be, and there was not the slightest doubt about her happiness with him. It never occurred to him for a single moment that anyone else could have been trying to take his place. Far less still that she should have thought of listening to any other man on earth but himself. When she came and told him all that had happened, the shock was great. He had never cared for her so much. But he declined to allow her to break her engagement; she could not play fast and loose with this unfortunate young man, Charlie Hillier, and although she declared, with tears, that she should break it off in any case, and never see him again, Rupert kept to his resolution, and started for Paris that night.
In answer to one more passionate and pathetic letter from her, he consented to write to her as a friend in a fortnight, but he saidshe must have known her own mind when she accepted Charlie.
Rupert clearly felt that he had been very badly treated; he said he never would have thought it of her; it was practically treachery.
When he went away he felt very tired, and had had enough, for the present, at any rate, of all girls and their instruction. Girls were fools.
He looked forward to the soothing consolations of the gaieties of Paris. He was not the first to believe that he could leave all his troubles and tribulations this side of the Channel.
Open quote
I ADMIRE Madeline’s conduct very much. I think it was splendid how she stood up to all the reproaches, and even ridicule; she told me that she had once, and only once, in her life been untrue to herself (she meant in accepting Charlie), and since then she has spoken the absolute truth to everybody about it all. She has been very plucky, and very straightforward, and only good can come of it. Honesty and pluck, especially for a girl—it’s made so difficult for girls—they’re the finest things in the world,Ithink.”
Bertha was speaking to Nigel.
He had remained away for what seemed to him an extraordinarily long time. He was afraid that she was slipping out of his life, without even noticing it. Stopping away until she missed him was a complete failure, since shedidn’tmiss him. And the day was approaching for the party Mary had consented to give.He knew that Bertha had accepted but was afraid she didn’t mean to come. That would be too sickening! To have all that worry with Mary, all that silly trouble and fuss for a foolish entertainment that he detested, all for nothing at all! And Mary was secretly enjoying the fact that she felt absolutely certain Percy would never let her come to Nigel’s house. She did not suppose Percy had guessed the writer of the letters; but he must have thought his wife was talked about, and some effect certainly they had had; for in the last few weeks, she happened to know for a fact, Nigel had neither called on or met Mrs. Kellynch. This afternoon she knew nothing of, for her suspicions were beginning to fade, and she was not, at present, having him followed. Nigel had taken his chance and dropped in to tea and found luck was on his side—Bertha had just come in from a drive with Madeline.
“It’s all very well,” he answered, “to say you admire her conduct, her bravery, and all that! Whom had she to fight against? Only her mother, whom she isn’t a bit afraid of, and Charlie, who, poor chap, is more afraid of her. The engagement wasn’t even public before she broke it off.”
“Yes; but, Nigel, it was very frank of her to tell everything so openly to Charlie. And now,poor girl, she’s very unhappy, but very courageous—she’s absolutely resolved never to marry. She says she’s lost her Rupert by her own faults, and it serves her right.”
“And suppose Rupert goes teaching English to an Italian girl at Venice, or gives her history lessons, or anything? Now he’s once thought of marrying, he may marry his third pupil. Wouldn’t Charlie have a chance then?”
“Never, unfortunately,” Bertha replied.
“Do you think she’d wait on the chance that Rupert might have a divorce?”
“Nigel, how horrid you are to sneer like that. You never appreciated Madeline!”
“I think I did, my dear, considering I was especially keen on her marrying my brother, even when I knew she liked somebody else.”
“Oh, that was only for him.”
“Or, perhaps, do you think a little for me? I might have felt if my brother married your greatest friend that we were sort of relations,” he said, with a laugh.
Bertha glanced at the clock.
“You can’t send me away just this minute,” he said. “You like honesty and frankness, and I’ve honestly come to ask you—are you coming to my party?”
Bertha paused a moment.
“Why?” she said. “Do you very particularly want me to?”
“Very. And I’ll tell you the reason. It’s to please Mary.”
“Why should Mary care?”
“Bertha, I give you my word that she’ll be terribly disappointed and offended if you don’t. And”—he waited a moment—“I hardly know how to explain—it’ll do me harm if you don’t come—you and Percy. I can’t exactly explain. Do me this good turn, Bertha. A special favour, won’t you?”
He was artfully trying to suggest what he supposed to be the exact contrary to the fact. He knew Mary would be wild with joy if Bertha did not come, though he had no idea how extremely astonished and furious she would be if she should arrive, considering she had accepted. Of course in reality Mary thought nothing of the acceptance. She was both certain and determined that her “door would not be darkened” by Bertha’s presence.
Bertha had not intended to go since she saw Percy’s pleasure and relief at the cessation of the intimacy. But now? After all, Percy couldn’t mind going in with her for a few minutes if she begged him.
“If you tell me it’ll do you a good turn, Nigel—but I don’t understand!”
“Do you wish me to explain?”
“No, I don’t. I’ll take your word. But all the more I don’t want you to be always calling. I’m afraid Mary doesn’t like me.”
“It isn’t that exactly.”
Bertha thought of her own happiness with Percy. Her warm, kind heart made her say gently:
“Nigel, I hope you’re nice and considerate to Mary? You make her happy?”
“Doesn’t this look like it?” he answered. “She’ll be in a state if you don’t turn up.” He sighed. “I’ve never said a word about it, but she’s rather trying and tiresome if you want to know.”
“Then I’m very, very sorry for her,” said Bertha, “and you can’t do enough for her. … Why, with those lovely children I’m sure she’d be ideally happy if——”
“Oh, you think, of course, it’s my fault. It never occurs to you whether I’m happy!”
A look from her which she tried to repress reminded him of his deliberate choice. He thought the time had come to make her a little sorry for him, knowing her extreme tenderness of heart. He spoke in a lower voice, and looked away.
“If I’m sometimes a bit miserable, it serves me right.”
“Be good to her,” said Bertha.
“I’ll do anything on earth you’ll tell me.”
“What are the children’s names?”
“Nigel and Marjorie.”
“Darling pets, I suppose?”
“Isn’t it extraordinary, Bertha,” he said. “I’ve no right to say it to you, but that’s my great trouble.”
“What?”
“She doesn’t care much about them.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Bertha, shaking her head. “It’s you who are mistaken.”
“Am I?”
“Nigel, remember, I know you pretty well.”
“And you think I’m trying to make you sorry for me?”
“I won’t say that. But you ought to be happy, and so ought your wife.”
He spoke in a different tone, with his usual cheery smile.
“Well, if you will grace our entertainment, I promise we will be happy. Do come, Bertha!” He was taking all this trouble simply so as not to have a boring evening at his own home!
“Very well, Nigel,” she answered, with a kind, frank smile. “I’ll come. Lately Percy’s had so much work that in the evenings he hasn’t been very keen on going out to parties.”
“And you don’t go without him?” he asked with curiosity.
“No. Aren’t I unfashionable?”
“You’re delightful.”
“Good-bye,” she said, holding out her hand.
He took it, and held it, saying:
“And now I sha’n’t see you again until a few minutes at the party, and heaven knows when after that.”
“I’ll bring Madeline. Shall I?”
“Oh yes, do. It’ll besomeparty, as the Americans say, and Charlie won’t be there.”
“Good-bye again.”
“What are you going to wear?” he asked, in his old, brotherly voice, lingering by the door.
“Salmon-coloured chiffon with a mayonnaise sash,” she answered, fairly pushing him out of the room. “Do go.”
TO anyone who knew Percy Kellynch and his wife, it would have been a matter of some surprise to observe the extreme enthusiasm and devotion that she showed for him. He was an excellent fellow, and had many good qualities, but he was not mentally by any means anything at all extraordinary; she was a very much more highly organised being in every possible way than he was. Percy was exceedingly kind and straight, yet there were, doubtless, many thousands of men exactly like him in England. In his rather simple and commonplace point of view he was, perhaps more like an ordinary English soldier than a barrister. He did not worship false gods, but, not being a soldier, and having perhaps learnt more of life in some respects than they generally do, he was inclined to be rather surprised at his own cleverness. In a quiet way he had a high opinion of himself. He had been disposed to be a superior youngman at twenty, and now, at thirty, he was not without a tinge of self-satisfaction, even pompousness. That his quickly discerning, subtle little wife should like and appreciate his good qualities; that she should, being of an affectionate nature, value him, was not surprising; but that, with her sense of humour and remarkable quickness, even depth of intellect, she should absolutely worship and adore him—for it amounted to that—was rather a matter of astonishment. But it must be remembered that her first love, Nigel Hillier, when she was eighteen, was, obviously, just exactly what one would have expected to dazzle her—quick, lively, fascinating and witty—this early romance had been a terrible disappointment. Bertha had bravely been prepared to wait for years, or to marry him on the moment; she had not the faintest idea that the money difficulties would be used to put an end to it onhisside. When he had broken it off, saying that he feared her father was right, and that it was for her sake, she was terribly pained, seeing at once that his love was not of the same quality as hers. But when, in less than a week after that, he told her of his other engagement, it very nearly broke her heart, as the phrase goes. Yet she cured herself; and considering how young she was, she had an astonishing power of self-control;she was almost cured of her love, if not her grief, in a fortnight! She accepted Percy at the time without romance, though with a great liking, and looking up to him with a certain trust, but very soon the good qualities, in which he differed so remarkably from Nigel, and even the points in which he was deficient and in which Nigel excelled, made her care for him more. As the years went on, Bertha, who could do nothing by halves, began to adore Percy more and more. She thought absolutely nothing of Nigel at all, so very little that she had let him dangle about without a thought of the past, being under the impression that he was contented in his married life. When he began again to find excuses to see her, and to start a sort of friendship, she did not discourage it, for the very reason that she wanted him to see that chapter in her life was absolutely closed and forgotten.
His extreme desire that she should come to their entertainment, his various implications—that Mary should think there was something in it if she didn’t come—then this new suggestion that he was not happy at home, and, on looking back, Percy’s extraordinary behaviour, suddenly made her see things in a different light. She saw that Nigel probably now imagined himselfin love with her, and that it was not entirely Percy’s imagination; that it was even more necessary than she had thought to put an end to the friendship. It made her furious when she thought of it—the selfishness, the treachery—meanly to throw her over because Mary was rich, and afterwards to try and come back and spoil both their homes in amusing himself by a romance with her. Even if Bertha had not cared for her husband, Nigel would have been the very last man in the world she could have looked upon from that point of view. Amusing as he was, she never thought of him without a slightly contemptuous smile. And she loved Percy so very much; he was so entirely without self-interest: he might have a certain amount of harmless vanity, but he was purely unworldly, generous, broadminded and good, and his own advantage was the very last thing that ever entered his head.
Until the trouble about Nigel she had feared he was growing cold, but Percy’s conduct on that subject had thoroughly satisfied her. He had been very jealous but kind to her: he trusted and believed in her when she was frank, and he certainly seemed more in love with her than ever. Percy was so reliable, so true andreal. She took up the dignified, charmingly flattered photograph of him. … What a noble forehead! What a beautiful figure he had! And though he seemed so calm and so cold, he was passionate and could be violent. His intellect was not above the average, but his power of emotion most certainly was. … Dear Percy!
And now she had promised to go to Nigel’s house, she would get Percy to agree that evening.
Bertha told him of Nigel’s visit, and of the request.
He frowned.
“You’ve accepted, and that’s enough. I suppose you had to say you were going. You can easily write Mrs. Hillier an excuse the next day. Dozens of people will do it.”
“Percy, I want to go.”
He looked up angrily and in surprise.
“You want to go? You certainly can’t. I don’t wish it. Why, remember what you promised. Is this infernal intimacy beginning again?”
“Percy, to-day is only the third time I’ve seen him since we talked about it! And I hadn’t the faintest idea he was coming to-day. I was surprised and annoyed to see him. Since Madeline broke it off with Charlie, we’ve heard nothing about them. Don’t you believe me?”
“Naturally, I do. But it’s a very odd thing a man should call here, and beg you to promise to come to his wife’s party! Isn’t it?”
“Perhaps it is. We stopped seeing him so suddenly, you see.”
“What’s that got to do with it?” said Percy, with angry impatience. The typewritten letters were torturing him. He had long been ashamed of not having shown them to Bertha, and made a clean breast of it. It was another reason why he hated Nigel and wanted the whole subject absolutely put aside and forgotten.
“In my opinion it suggests a very curious relation his coming here to-day like this. Not on your side, dear,” he continued gently, putting his hand on hers. “But, if you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t know very much of the world, dear little Bertha, and in your innocence you are liable to be imprudent.”
This was Percy’s mistaken view of Bertha, but she did not dislike it. She was so determined now to be completely open that she did not try to put him off, and said candidly:
“It may be perfectly true that he’s rather more anxious for me to be at the party than he need be. But, after all, there’s not much harm in that, Percy. All I want is to go in with you for twenty minutes or half-an-hour, and then go away quite quickly. After that, if you like,I’ll give you my word of honour not to see him again.”
“What’s the object of it? No, I’m hanged if I go to that man’s house.”
“I promised as a special favour that I’d go.”
“But what’s the reason? Why is he so desperate you should be seen there?”
Percy frowned and thought a moment.
“Has his wife—do you think it’s been noticed he doesn’t come here so often?”
“It may have been. He didn’t say so.”
“Then it’s damned impertinence of him to dare to come and ask you. Why should I take you there to make things comfortable with him and his wife?”
“Oh, Percy!”
“I don’t want to have anything to do with them,” Percy repeated, frowning angrily at her.
She paused and said sweetly:
“Don’t look worried, darling. Won’t you anyhow think it over for a day or two?”
Percy thought. He was a lawyer and it struck him that if the letters were to be really ignored it might be better for them to go in and be seen at the party, and if Bertha promised never to see him again, he knew she was telling the truth. But it was hard; it jarred on him.
“We’ll leave the subject for a few days, Bertha,” he said. “I’ll think it over. But what I decide then must be final.”
“Very well, Percy. … I’ve gotsucha lovely new dress! Pale primrose colour.”
“The dress I saw you trying on? The canary dress?”
“Yes.”
“No. I’m hanged if you’ll wear that there!” he exclaimed.
Bertha went into fits of laughter.
“Oh, Percy,howsweet of you to say that! You’re becoming a regular jealous husband, do you know? Darling! How delightful!”
AFTER the first reaction, Rupert felt, of course, to a certain extent, relieved and grateful to think that he was not engaged to Madeline. Undoubtedly, had he cared for her as she did for him, he would not have declined to marry her because of her accepting Charlie, more or less out of pique, or in despair. Yet, after having once really proposed he felt his emotions stirred, and almost as soon as he had sent her back (so to speak) to Charlie, he began to regret it—he began to be unhappy.Au fondhe knew she would break it off with Charlie now, and would wait vaguely in hope for him. At first to recover from the intense annoyance of the whole thing, he thought he would, before Venice, go in a little for the gaieties of Paris. Rupert was still young enough to believe that the things presented to him as gaiety must necessarily be gay. A certain delicacy prevented his telling Madeline this now; though formerlywhen he had been to Paris, especially when he had had no intention of accepting any Parisian opportunities of amusement, he had often rubbed it in to her about the dazzling and dangerous charms of the gay city’s dissipations, at which she was suitably impressed. But a nicer feeling made him now wish her to think of him as gliding down the lagoons of Venice, and dreaming of what might have been.
Madeline herself was really entirely without hope. She was certain she had lost all the prestige that she had had in his eyes; and she thought that she thoroughly deserved what had happened. She resolved to remain unmarried, and try to do good. Though she was hurt, and thought it showed how much less was Rupert’s love than hers, still she respected him and admired him all the more for refusing to take her after accepting Charlie. She did not see that Rupert was a little too serious to be taken quite seriously.
Her mother added immensely to her depression. Mrs. Irwin was a woman who detested facts, so much so that she thought statistics positively indecent (though she would never have used the expression). When she was told there were more women than men in England,she would bite her lips and change the subject. She had had all the Victorian intense desire to see her daughter married young, and all the Victorian almost absurd delicacy in pretending she didn’t. When, in one week, her only daughter—a girl who was not remarkably pretty, and had only a little money—should have proposals from no less than two attractive and eligible young men and should have muddled it up so badly that, though she had been prepared to accept both of them, she was now unable to marry either, her mother was, naturally, pained and disgusted.
Madeline, who was usually gentle and amiable to her, in this case spoke with a violence and determination that left no possible hope of her returning to Charlie Hillier. She left Mrs. Irwin nothing to do but to put on an air of refined resignation, of having neuralgia, which she now called neuritis, because Madeline had annoyed her so much, and of behaving, when Madeline sat with her, as much as possible like a person who was somewhere else.
Bertha was Madeline’s only consolation and resource. Bertha took life with such delightful coolness.
“How would you advise me to behave to him, if ithadcome off—I mean if Ihadmarried Rupert?” Madeline asked Bertha.
She was fond of these problematical speculations.
“I should say be an angel, if he deserved it, or a devil if he appreciated it. Then—now and then—be non-existent, charming and indifferent, when you wanted to hedge—when there was no particular response. You’ll go with me to the Hilliers’ party, won’t you, as Charlie will be away?”
“Of course I will—if you like. But will Percy go—and let you go?”
“He says he won’t, but I think he will,” she replied.
NO more had been said between them about the Hilliers’ party; and Percy began to hope that it would be dropped. But on the morning Bertha asked him if he would like to take her out to dinner first with Madeline; assuming that, as he had said no more about it, he intended to go.
With those letters upstairs in the box, how could he?
“I simply can’t,” he answered. “I don’t wish to go to that man’s house.”
“Then must I take Madeline alone?” said Bertha. “In all these years, Percy, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a party without you.”
“And I don’t see why you should begin now,” he answered.
“But, Percy, I want to go. Only for a few minutes.”
“I’d much rather you didn’t.”
Bertha thought this tyrannical. She had promised Nigel, because he had implied to her that it would get him out of the domestic difficulty.
“Oh, do, Percy dear. It’s treating me as if you didn’t trust me. After all … if you like I’ll swear to arrange never to see Nigel again.”
“I wish you would.”
“It’s only because I think it would look marked.”
Percy thought there was something in that, and he didn’t dislike the idea of proving to the person, whoever it was, that had written the letters, how little effect they had had. Yet, they had left a tinge of jealousy that would easily be roused again, especially at her insistence. He noticed that she didn’t make the fact that she was chaperoning Madeline an excuse, as most women would have done. She was frank about it. Still, he tried once more.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“But I want to.”
She was not particularly fond of opposition, and began to look annoyed. She thought Percy was beginning to sit on her a little too much.
“Well,” he said, “I shall not dine out with you and Madeline first: I don’t care to. But I’ll hire an electric motor for you at eleven, and it shall fetch you at twelve-thirty. IfMadeline doesn’t want to come then, she can easily go back alone. It isn’t far for her.”
“Oh, she won’t want to stop any longer than that.”
“Oh, very well, we’ll leave it like that. I shall dine at the club.”
“It’s unkind of you. I believe you don’t want to see me start.”
“You’re quite right. I hate the idea of your appearing there in your lovely new dress. I suppose you want to wear it?”
“Oh, I don’t care in the least,” she answered, “if you’d rather not.”
“Oh, hang it! Wear what you like,” he answered rather crossly.
She did not see him again before she started, and, naturally, being a woman, she put on the new dress.
It was pale yellow, and she knew Percy would have liked it and would have called her a canary.
She went out, not in the best of tempers, and Madeline also, though looking very charming, did not look forward to the entertainment, and was thinking, with rather an aching heart, of Rupert in the lagoons of Venice.
The Hilliers’ house was arranged with the utmost gorgeousness. Nigel felt a little returnof his pride in it to-night. It was covered all over with rambler roses, and looked magnificent. There was such a crowd that Nigel hoped to get a little talk alone with Bertha, but feared she would not come. He was agreeably surprised to see her arrive alone with Madeline.
It so happened that Mary was not in the room when they were announced, and very soon Nigel managed to take her down, first into the refreshment-room, and then into the boudoir, which had been arranged with draperies and shaded lights.
“I just want to have a few words with you,” he said, and got her into a little corner.
There was a heavy scent of roses; the music sounded faintly.
“Bertha!” he said. “It was too sweet of you to come. I shall never forget it. You don’t know how miserable I am.”
“Oh, rubbish!” she answered. “You’ve no earthly reason to be. I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense.”
“I’ve never seen you look so lovely.”
“I shall go away if you talk like that. Can’t you see I don’t like it?”
“I wonder Percy allowed you to come alone, looking like that.”
“I came because I promised,” she said. “You made me think, in some mysterious way, it would be a good thing for you. But after what you said about Mary, I want this to be distinctly understood: you are not to come and see me any more. Nothing in the world I should loathe so much as to be the cause of any trouble.”
“Oh, my dear, but that you never could,” he answered quickly.
“I hope not, and I’m not going to risk it. You chose your life, Nigel, and you have every reason to be happy.”
“Have I? You don’t know.”
“Think of your children. I haven’t got that pleasure, and yet I’m happy.”
“Are you madly in love with Percy?” he asked, with a smile.
“Yes, I am,” she answered.
At this moment a small crowd of people came in at the door. Mary, who was with them, looked hurriedly round the room, and seeing Bertha and Nigel in the corner, called him, taking no notice of her.
Bertha half rose, intending to go and shake hands with her, and Nigel quickly went to meet her, but Bertha paused, thinking Mary looked strange. She was very pale, and the white dress she wore made her look paler against her dull red hair. She wore a tiara,which seemed a little crooked, and her hair was disarranged. She was pale and trembling, but spoke in a loud voice that Bertha could hear. Within two yards of her, she said to Nigel, gesticulating with a feather fan:
“If you don’t make that woman go away at once, I shall make a public scene!”
Bertha started up and looked at her in astonishment.
Mary, glaring at her, and still talking loudly, allowed Nigel to lead her out of the room.
He then came back.
“I think my wife’s gone mad! Forgive her. She’s ill, or something.”
“I’m going now at once,” said Bertha calmly. “Have a cab called for me, and let Madeline know that the motor will be here for her at half-past twelve. Leave me now—I don’t want anything.”
“For God’s sake forgive me. She’s off her head,” said Nigel incoherently.
At her wish he ran upstairs.
Bertha got her cloak, and telling a friend she met that she was going on to a dance, she got into a taxi and went home.
BERTHA drove back, furiously angry, principally with Nigel, whom she also pitied a little. It could be no joke to live with a woman like his wife. But he should not have deceived Bertha; he should have let her know; he should not have induced her to come against Percy’s wish, at the risk of being insulted.
She was not anxious about Madeline, knowing that that sensible young lady would go to her own home when the carriage came, and that she could explain matters to her the next morning. Madeline was notune faiseuse d’embarras.
Bertha had brought her key as Percy had promised to wait up for her; the servants were to be allowed to go to bed. It was not long after twelve; she saw a light in the library and went in, fully intending to tell Percy everything.
She found him sitting by the fire, with a book. He had fallen asleep. She watched him for some moments, and she thought he looked pale and a little worried. … How wilful, how foolish it had been of her to go to the party without him! What did it matter? How trivial to insist on her own way! How ungrateful! For lately Percy had been devoted. And how lucky she was that he should care for her so much, after all these years.
As Bertha watched, she felt that strange suffering which is always the other side of intense love—the reverse of the medal of the ecstasy of passion—and she thought she would tell him nothing about it. Why should he be hurt, annoyed, and humiliated? It would spoil all the pleasure of her coming back so early—the unexpected delightful time they might have. … In this Bertha committed an error of judgment, for she forgot that he would probably hear of the scene some time or other, and would attach more importance to it than if she told him now.
“Percy,” she whispered.
He woke up.
“You already! Why, it’s only twelve o’clock! Oh, dear, how good of you to come so early.”
“I didn’t enjoy myself a bit,” she murmured. “I’ll never go out without you again. Do forgive me for going!”
“How is it you didn’t enjoy it?”
“Because you hadn’t seen me in my new dress. Do I look like a canary?”
“No,” he said. “Let me look at you. No, you’re not a canary—you’re a Bird of Paradise.”
NEXT morning, as Bertha expected, Madeline came round to see her early. She brought with her a note. She said that Nigel had implored her to give it to her friend from him. He had put Madeline in the carriage, and had seemed greatly distressed. He told the girl that his wife had been ill lately and was not quite herself, and he feared she had offended Bertha.
“She certainly behaved like a lunatic,” Bertha said, as she took the letter.
“Did you tell Percy?”
“As a matter of fact, no.”
“Didn’t he wonder at your coming home so early?”
“I’m afraid I pretended I rushed back to please him. Was it wrong of me? I’m afraid it was.”
“I believe in frankness with people you can trust. And remember, quite a little while ago, Bertha, you were worried and depressedbecause you thought Percy was becoming a little casual and like an ordinary husband, and now, you naughty child, that he’s been soempresséand affectionate, and jealous and attentive and everything that you like—now you first insist on going to a party when he doesn’t wish it, and then you come home and tell him stories about it.”
“I’m afraid I was wrong; but it was to spare him annoyance. Besides, I daresay I was weak. It was so delightful giving him a pleasant surprise.”
She read the letter.