The note contained only two lines, requesting Mr. Broxton to come and see her in the morning. Jack read it and tore it up. He felt undecided how to act. Edith was buried in her score, and gave no sign. Miss Grantham had resumed her place, and was gazing languidly, at the box opposite. He picked up his hat, and turned to leave. Edith looked up from her score.
"I think I ought to tell you," she said, "that Mrs. Vivian and I talked about you, and that note is the result. I don't care a pin what you think."
Jack opened his eyes in astonishment. Edith had always struck him as being rather queer; and this statement seemed to him very queer indeed. Her manner was not conciliatory.
He bowed.
"I feel complimented by being the subject of your conversation," he replied with well-bred insolence, and closed the door behind him.
Miss Grantham laughed. A scene like this pleased her; it struck her as pure comedy.
"Really, Edith, you are very jumpy; I don't understand you a bit. You are unnecessarily rude. Why did you say you did not care a pin what he thought?"
"You won't understand, Grantie," said Edith. "Don't you see how dangerous it is all becoming? I don't care the least whether I am thought meddlesome. Jack Broxton is awfully in love with Dodo, anyone can see that, and Dodo evidently cares for him; and that poor, dear, honest fool Chesterford is completely blind to it all. It was bad enough before, but the baby's death makes it twice as bad. Dodo will want to be amused; she will hate this retirement, and she will expect Mr. Broxton to amuse her. Don't you see she is awfully bored with her husband, and she will decline to be entirely confined to his company. While she could let off steam by dancing and riding and so on, it was safe; she only met Mr. Broxton among fifty other people. But decency, even Dodo's, will forbid her to meet those fifty other people now. And each time she sees him, she will return to her husband more wearied than before. It is all too horrible. I don't suppose she is in love with Jack Broxton, but she finds him attractive, and he knows it, and he is acting disgracefully in letting himself see her so much. Everyone knows he went abroad to avoid her—everyone except Dodo, that is, and she must guess. I respected him for that, but now he is playing the traitor to Chesterford. And Mrs. Vivian quite agrees with me."
"Oh, it's awfully interesting if you're right," said Miss Grantham reflectively; "but I think you exaggerate. Jack is not a cad. He doesn't mean any harm. Besides, he is a great friend of Chesterford's."
"Well, he's got no business to play with fire," said Edith. "His sense of security only increases the real danger. If Chesterford knew exactly how matters stood it would be different, but he is so simple-hearted that he is only charmed to see Jack Broxton, and pleased that Dodo likes him."
"Oh, it's awfully interesting," murmured Miss Grantham.
"I could cry when I think of Chesterford," said Edith. "The whole thing is such a fearful tragedy. If only they can get over this time safely, it may all blow over. I wish Dodo could go out again to her balls and concerts. She finds such frantic interest in everything about her, that she doesn't think much of any particular person. But it is this period, when she is thrown entirely on two or three people, that is so dangerous. She really is a frightful problem. Chesterford was a bold or a blind man to marry her. Oh, I can't attend to this opera to-night. I shall go home. It's nearly over. Faust is singing hopelessly out of tune."
She shut her book, and picked up her fan and gloves.
"Dear Edith," said Miss Grantham languidly, "I think you mean very well, but you are rather over-drawing things. Are you really going? I think I shall come too."
Jack meantime was finding his way home in a rebellious and unchristian frame of mind. In the first place, he had just lost his temper, which always seemed to him to be a most misdirected effort of energy; in the second place, he resented Edith's interference with all his heart and soul; and in the third, he did not feel so certain that she was wrong. Of course he guessed what Mrs. Vivian's wish to see him meant, for it had occurred to him very vividly what consequences the death of the baby would have on him and Dodo: and he anticipated another period like that which had followed the birth. Jack could hardly dare to trust himself to think of that time. He knew it had been very pleasant to him, and that he had enjoyed Dodo's undisturbed company during many days in succession, but it was with a certain tingling of the ears that he thought of the events of the morning, and his mad confession to her. "I have a genius for spoiling things," thought Jack to himself. "Everything was going right; I was seeing Dodo enough to keep me happy, and free from that hateful feeling of last autumn, and then I spoilt it all by a stupid remark that could do no good, nor help me in any conceivable way. How will Dodo have taken it?"
But he was quite sure of one thing—he would not go and see Mrs. Vivian. He was, he felt, possessed of all the facts of the case, and he was competent to form a judgment on them—at any rate Mrs. Vivian was not competent to do it for him. No, he would give it another chance. He would again reason out the pros and cons of the case, he would be quite honest, and he would act accordingly.
That he should arrive at the same conclusion was inevitable. The one thing in the world that no man can account for, or allow for, is change in himself. If Jack had been able to foresee, when he went abroad, that he would be acting thus with regard to Dodo, he would have thought himself mad, and it would have been as impossible for him to act thus then, as it was inevitable for him to act thus now. If we judge by our own standards, and our own standards alter, we cannot expect our verdicts to remain invariable. Under a strong attachment a man drifts, and he cannot at any one moment allow for, or feel the force of the current, for he is moving in it, though he thinks himself at rest. The horrible necessities of cause and effect work in us, as well as around us. As Edith had said, his sense of security was his danger, for his standard of security was not the same as it had been.
He sat down and wrote a note to Mrs. Vivian, saying that he regretted being unable to call on her to-morrow, and purposely forebore to give any reason. He had considerable faith in her power of reading between the lines, and the fact, baldly stated, was an unnecessary affront to her intellect.
Mrs. Vivian read the note with very little surprise, but with a good deal of regret. She was genuinely sorry for him, but she had other means at her disposal, though they were not so pleasant to use. They involved a certain raking up of old dust-heaps, and a certain awakening of disagreeable memories. But it never occurred to her to draw back. Naturally enough she went to see Dodo next morning, and found her alone. Mrs. Vivian had her lesson by heart, and she was only waiting for Dodo to tell her to begin, so to speak. Dodo hailed her with warmth; she had evidently found matters a little tedious.
"Dear Vivy," she said, "I'm so glad you've come; and Chesterford told me to ask you to see him, before you went away, in case you called. So you will, won't you? But I must have you for a long time first."
"How is he?" asked Mrs. Vivian.
"Oh, he's quite well," said Dodo, "but he feels it frightfully. But he is fortunate, he has spiritual consolation as his aid. I haven't, not one atom. It's a great nuisance, I know, but I don't see how to help it. Can the Ethiopian change his skin?"
"Ah, Dodo," said she, with earnestness in her tone, "you have a great opportunity—I don't think you realise how great."
"Why, what do you mean?" said Dodo.
"Of course I know what you feel," said Mrs. Vivian, "and it is necessary that with your grief there must be mixed up a great deal of vexation and annoyance. Isn't it so?"
"Yes, yes," said Dodo. "You don't despise me for feeling that?"
"Despise you!" said Mrs. Vivian. "You know me better than that. But you must not dwell on it. There is something more important than the cancelling of your smaller engagements. You have a big engagement, you know, which must not be cancelled."
Dodo rose from her chair with wide eyes.
"Ah, Vivy," she said, "you have guessed it, have you? It is quite true. Let me tell you all about it. It is just that which bothers me. These days when I only see Chesterford bore me more than I can say. I don't know why I tell you this; it isn't want of loyalty to him, but I want help. I don't know how to deal with him.. Yes, he bores me. I always foresaw this, but I hoped I shouldn't mind. I was wrong and Jack was right. He warned me of it, but he must never know he was right. Of course you see why. I think I did not expect that Chesterford's love for me would last. I thought he would cease being my lover, and I am terribly wrong. It gets stronger and stronger. He told me so last night, and I felt a brute. But I comforted him and deceived him again. Ah, what could I do? I don't love him. I would give anything to do so. I think I felt once what love was, but only once, and not for him."
Mrs. Vivian looked up inquiringly.
"No, I shan't tell you about that," said Dodo, speaking rapidly and excitedly; "it would be a sort of desecration. There is something divine about Chesterford's feeling for me. I know it, but it doesn't really touch me. I am not capable of it, and what happens is that I continue to amuse myself on my own lines, and all that goes over my head. But I make him believe I understand. It makes him happy. And I know, I know, that when I am out of this, I shall go on just as usual, except that I shall feel like a prisoner escaped, and revel in my liberty. I know I shall. Sometimes I almost determine to make some sacrifice for him in a blind sort of way, like a heathen sacrificing to what he fears, yes, fears, but then that mood passes and I go on as usual. I long to get away from him. Sometimes I am afraid of hating him, if I see him too much or too exclusively."
"Yes, Dodo, I know, I know," said Mrs. Vivian. "I don't see how you are to learn it, unless it comes to you; but what you can do, is to act as if you felt it, not only in little tiny ways, like calling him an 'old darling,' but in living for him more."
"Ah, those are only words," said Dodo impatiently. "I realise it all, but I can't do it."
There was a long silence. Then Mrs. Vivian said,—
"Dodo, I am going to tell you what I have never told anyone before, and that is the story of my marriage. I know the current version very well, that I married a brute who neglected me. That he neglected me is true, but that is not all. Like you, I married without love, without even liking. There were reasons for it, which I need not trouble you with. I used to see a good deal of a man with whom I was in love, when I married Mr. Vivian. He interested me and made my life more bearable. My husband grew jealous of him, almost directly after my marriage. I saw it, and, God forgive me, it amused me, and I let it go on—in fact, I encouraged it. That was my mistake, and I paid dearly for it. I believe he loved me at first; it was my fault that he did not continue to do so. Then my baby was born, and, a month afterwards, somehow or other we quarrelled, and he said things to me which no woman ever forgets. He said it was not his child. I never forgot it, and it is a very short time ago that I forgave it. For two years after his death, as you know, I travelled abroad, and I fought against it, and I believe, before God, that I have forgiven him. Then I came back to London. But after that day when he said those things to me, we grew further and further apart. I interested myself in other things, in the poor, and so on, and he took to drinking. That killed him. He was run over in the street, as he came back from somewhere where he had been dining. But he was run over because he was dead drunk at the time. When I was abroad I came under the influence of a certain Roman Catholic priest. He did not convert me, nor did he try to, but he helped me very much; and one day, I remember the day very well, I was almost in despair, because I could not forgive the wrong my dead husband had done me, somehow a change began in me. I can tell you no more than that a change comes, and it is there. It is the grace of God. There, Dodo, that is my history, and there is this you may learn from it, that you must be on your guard against making a mistake. You must never let Chesterford know how wide the gulf is between you. It will be a constant effort, I know, but it is all you can do. Set a watch on yourself; let your indifference be your safeguard, your warning."
Mrs. Vivian stood up. Her eyes were full of tears, and she laid her hands on Dodo's shoulders. Dodo felt comfort in the presence of this strong woman, who had wrestled and conquered.
Dodo looked affectionately at her, and, with one of those pretty motions that came so naturally to her, she pressed her back into her chair, and knelt beside her.
"Dear Vivy," she said, "my little troubles have made you cry. I am so sorry, dear. You are very good to me. But I want to ask you one thing. About that man your husband was jealous of—"
"No, no," said Mrs. Vivian quickly; "that was only one of the incidents which I had to tell you to make the story intelligible."
Dodo hesitated.
"You are sure you aren't thinking of anyone in my case—of Jack, for instance?" she suddenly said.
Mrs. Vivian did not answer for a moment. Then she said,—
"Dodo, I am going to be very frank with you. He is an instance—in a way. I don't mean to suppose for a moment that Chesterford is jealous of him, in fact, I know he can't be—it isn't in him; but he is a good instance of the sort of thing that makes you tend to neglect your husband."
"But you don't think he is an instance in particular?" demanded Dodo. "I don't mean to bind myself in any way, but I simply want to know."
Mrs. Vivian went straight to the point:
"That is a question which you can only decide for yourself," she said. "I cannot pretend to judge."
Dodo smiled.
"Then I will decide for myself," she said. "You see, Jack is never dull. I daresay you may think him so, but I don't. He always manages to amuse me, and, on the whole, the more I am amused the less bored I get in the intervals. He tides me over the difficult places. I allow they are difficult."
"Ah, that is exactly what you mustn't allow," said Mrs. Vivian. "You don't seem to realise any possible deficiency in yourself."
"Oh, yes, I do," said Dodo, as if she was announcing the most commonplace fact in the world. "I know I am deficient. I don't appreciate devotion, I don't appreciate the quality that makes one gaze and gaze, as it says in the hymn. It is rather frog-like that gazing; what do you call it—batrachian. Now, Maud is batrachian. I daresay it is a very high quality, but I don't quite live up to it. There are, of course, heaps of excellent things one doesn't live up to, like the accounts of the Stock Exchange in theTimes. I fully understand that the steadiness of stockings makes a difference to somebody, only it doesn't make any difference to me."
"Dodo, you are incorrigible," said Mrs. Vivian, laughing in spite of herself. "I give you up—only, do the best you can. I believe, in the main, you agree with me. And now I must be off. You said Lord Chesterford wished to see me. I suppose he is downstairs."
"I think I shall come too," said Dodo.
So they went down together. Lord Chesterford was in his study.
"Do you know what Mrs. Vivian has been saying to me?" remarked Dodo placidly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder. "She has been telling me I do not love you enough—isn't she ridiculous?"
Mrs. Vivian for the moment was nonplussed, but she recovered herself quickly.
"Dodo is very naughty to-day," she said. "She misconstrues everything I say."
"I don't think it's likely you said that," said he, capturing Dodo's hand, "because it isn't true."
"I am certainlyde trop," murmured Mrs. Vivian, turning to go.
Dodo's hand lay unresistingly in his.
"She has been so good and brave," said Lord Chesterford to Mrs. Vivian, "she makes me feel ashamed."
Mrs. Vivian felt an immense admiration for him.
"I said you deserved a very great deal," she said, putting out her hand to him. "I must go, my carriage has been waiting an hour."
He retained Dodo's hand, and they saw her to the door.
The footman met them in the hall.
"Mr. Broxton wants to know whether you can see him, my lady," he said to Dodo.
"Would you like to see Jack?" she asked Chesterford.
"I would rather you told him you can't," he said.
"Of course I will," she answered. She turned to the footman. "Say I am engaged, but he may come again to-morrow and I will see him. You don't mind my seeing him, do you, Chesterford?"
"No, no, dear," he said.
Dodo and Chesterford turned back to the drawing-room. Jack was on the steps.
"I thought you were engaged at this hour," Mrs. Vivian said to him.
"So I was," he answered. "Dodo asked me to come and see her."
And far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, I saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. And my guide said to me, 'Some call the sea "Falsehood," and that boat "Truth," and others call the sea "Truth," and the boat "Falsehood;" and, for my part, I think that one is right as the other.'—The Professor of Ignorance.
And far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, I saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. And my guide said to me, 'Some call the sea "Falsehood," and that boat "Truth," and others call the sea "Truth," and the boat "Falsehood;" and, for my part, I think that one is right as the other.'—The Professor of Ignorance.
It was just three weeks after the baby's death, and Dodo was sitting in her room about eleven o'clock in the morning, yawning dismally over a novel, but she was conscious of a certain relief, a sense of effort suspended. Late the evening before, Lord Chesterford had consulted her about some business down at Harchester, and Dodo, in a moment of inspiration, had said that it must be done by someone on the spot, that an agent was not to be trusted, and that if Chesterford liked she would go. This, of course, led to his offering to go himself, and would Dodo come with him? Dodo had replied that she was quite willing to go, but that there was no need of both of them making a tiresome journey on an infernally hot day. Chesterford had felt, rather wistfully, that he would not mind the journey if Dodo was with him, but he had learned lately not to say such things. Dodo was apt to treat them as nonsense. "My coming with you wouldn't make it any cooler, or less insufferably dusty," she would have said. The result was that Chesterford went, and Dodo was left alone' in London, with a distinct sense of relief and relaxation.
Dodo's next move was to send a note to Jack, saying that he was going to come and lunch with her. She was not conscious of any sense of deception in this, but she had seen that Chesterford had not cared to see anybody since the baby's death, except Mrs. Vivian, whereas she longed to be in the midst of people again. So, whenever opportunities occurred, she had been in the habit of seeing what she could of her friends, but was very careful not to bore her husband with them. She was quite alive to the truth of Mrs. Vivian's remarks.
But though Dodo felt a great relief in her husband's absence, she was more than ever conscious of the unutterable stupidity of spending, day after day doing nothing. It was something even to keep it up with Chesterford, but now there was nothing to do—nothing. Still, Jack, was coming to lunch, and perhaps she might get through a few hours that way. Chesterford had said Be would be back that night late or next morning.
The footman came in bearing a card. "Jack already," thought Dodo, with wonder. But it was not Jack. Dodo looked at it and pondered a moment. "Tell Lady Bretton I will see her," she said.
A few moments afterwards Lady Bretton rustled into the room. Dodo had always thought her rather like a barmaid, and she was sure that she would attract many customers at any public-house. She was charmingly pretty, and always said the right thing. Dodo felt she ought to know why she had come, but couldn't quite remember. But she was not left in doubt long.
"Dearest Dodo," said Lady Bretton, "I have wanted to come and see you dreadfully, only I haven't been able. You know Lucas has been at home all this week."
Then it flashed upon Dodo.
"He comes of age to-day, you know, and we are giving a ball. I was so dreadfully shocked to hear your bad news, and am delighted to see you looking so well considering. Is Lord Chesterford at home?"
"No," said Dodo, as if weighing something in her mind. "He may come to-night, but I don't really expect him till to-morrow morning."
"Has he gone on some visit?" asked she. "I didn't suppose—"
"No, he's only gone on business to Harchester. He hasn't, of course, been out at all. But—"
Dodo paused.
Then she got quickly up from her chair, and clapped her hands.
"Yes, I will come. I am dying to go out again. Who leads the cotillion with me? Tommy Ledgers, isn't it? Oh, I shall enjoy it. I'm nearly dead for want of something to do. And he can dance, too. Yes, I'll come, but I must be back by half-past two. Chesterford will perhaps come by the night train getting here at two. I daresay it will be late. Are you going to have the mirror figure? Do have it. There's no one like Ledgers for leading that. He led it here with me. It will be like escaping from penal servitude for life. Talk of treadmills! I'm at the point of death for want of a dance. Let it begin punctually. I'll be there by ten sharp if you like. Tell Prince Waldenech I'm coming. He wrote to say he wouldn't go unless I did. He's badly in love with me. That doesn't matter, but he can dance. All those Austrians can. I'm going to have a regular debauch."
"I'm delighted," said Lady Bretton. "I came here to ask you whether you couldn't possibly come, but I hardly dated. Dear Dodo, it's charming of you. It will make all the difference. I was in despair this morning. I had asked Milly Cornish to lead with Ledgers, but she refused, unless I asked you again first. We'll have a triumphant arch, if you like, with 'Welcome to Dodo' on it."
"Anything you like," said Dodo; "the madder the merrier. Let's see, how does the hoop figure go?"
Dodo snatched up an old cotillion hoop from where it stood in the corner with fifty other relics, and began practising it.
"We must have this right," she said; "it's quite new to most people. You must tell Tommy to come here for an hour this afternoon, and we'll rehearse. You start with it in the left hand, don't you? and then cross it over, and hold your partner's hoop in the right. Damn—I beg your pardon—but it doesn't go right. No, you must send Ledgers. Shall I want castanets? I think I'd better. We must have the new Spanish figure. Ah, that is right."
Dodo went through a series of mysterious revolutions with the hoop.
"I feel like a vampire who's got hold of blood again," said Dodo, pausing to get her breath. "I feel like a fish put back into the water, like a convict back in his own warm nest. No charge for mixed metaphors. Supplied free, gratis,andfor nothing," she said, with emphasis.
Lady Bretton put her head a little on one side, and gushed at her. Her manners were always perfect.
"Now, I'm going to send you off," said Dodo. "Jack's coming to lunch, and I've got a lot to do. Jack who?' Jack Broxton, of course. Will he be with, you to-night? No?—I shall tell him I'm coming. You see if he doesn't come too. You sent him a card, of course. After lunch I shall want Tommy. Mind he comes. Good-bye."
Dodo felt herself again. There was the double relief of Chesterford's absence, and there was something to do. She hummed a little French song, snapped her castanets, and pitched her novel into the grate.
"Oh, this great big world," she said, "you've been dead, and I've been dead for a month. Won't we have a resurrection this evening! Come in, Jack," she went on, as the door opened. "Here's your hoop. Catch it! Do you know the hoop figure? That's right; no, in your left hand. That's all with the hoop. Now we waltz."
Jack had a very vague idea as to why he happened to be waltzing with Dodo. It seemed to him rather like "Alice in Wonderland." However, he supposed it was all right, and on they went. A collision with the table, and a slow Stygian stream of ink dropping in a fatal, relentless manner on to the carpet, caused a stoppage, and Dodo condescended to explain, which she did all in one sentence.
"Chesterford's gone to Harchester after some stuffy business, and I'm going to the Brettons' ball, you must come, Jack, I'm going to lead the cotillion with Tommy, I simply must go, I'm dying to go out again; and, oh, Jack, I'm awfully glad to see you, and why haven't you been here for the last twenty years, and I'm out of breath, never mind the ink."
Dodo stopped from sheer exhaustion, and dropped a blotting-pad on to the pool of ink, which had now assumed the importance of an inland lake.
"Blanche has been here this morning," she continued, "and I told her I'd come, and would bring you. You must come, Jack. You're an awfully early bird, and I haven't got any worms for you, because they've all turned, owing to the hot weather, I suppose, and I feel so happy I can't talk sense. Tommy's coming this afternoon to practise. What time is it? Let's go and have lunch. That will do instead of worms. If Chesterford goes to attend to bailiff's business, why shouldn't I go and dance? It really is a kindness to Blanche. Nothing ought to stand in the way of a kindness. She was in despair; she told me so: herself. She might have committed suicide. It would have been pleasant to have a countess's corpse's blood on your head, wouldn't it?"
"I thought Chesterford was here," said Jack.
"Oh, I'm not good enough for you," remarked Dodo. "That's very kind of you. I suppose you, wouldn't have come, if you had known I should have had no one to meet you. Well, there isn't a soul, so you can go away if you like, or join the footmen in the servants' hall. Oh, I am so glad to be doing something again."
"I'm awfully glad you're coming to-night," said Jack; "it'll do you good."
"Ain't it a lark?" remarked Dodo, in pure Lancashire dialect, helping herself largely to beefsteak. "Jack, what'll you drink? Do you want beer? I'll treat you to what you like. You may dissolve my pearls in vinegar, if it will give you any satisfaction. Fetch Mr. Broxton my pearls, I mean some beer," said Dodo, upsetting the salt. "Really, Jack, I believe I've gone clean cracked. I've upset a lot of salt over your coat. Pour some claret upon it. Oh, no, that's the other way round, but I don't see why it shouldn't do. Have some more steak, Jack. Where's the gravy spoon? Jack, have you been trying to steal the silver? Oh, there it is. Have some chopped carrots with it. Who's that ringing at our door-bell? I'm a little—Who is it, Walter? Just go out and see. Miss Staines? Tell her there's lunch going on and Jack's here. There's an inducement. Jack, do you like Edith? She's rather loud. Yes, I agree, but we all make a noise at times. Can't she stop? Oh, very well, she may go away again. I believe she wouldn't come because you were here, Jack. I don't think she likes you, but you're a very good sort in your way. Jack, will you say grace? Chesterford always says grace. Well, for a Christian gentleman not to know a grace! Bring some cigarettes, Walter, or would you rather have a cigar, Jack? And some black coffee. Well, I'm very grateful formygood dinner, and I don't mind saying so."
Dodo went on talking at the top of her voice, quite continuously. She asked Jack a dozen questions without waiting for the answer.
"Where shall we go now, Jack?" she continued, when they had finished coffee—Dodo took three cups and a cigarette with each. "We must go somewhere. I can leave word for Ledgers to wait. Let's go to the Zoo and see all the animals in cages. Ah, I sympathise with them. I have only just got out of my cage myself."
Dodo dragged Jack off to the Zoo, on the top of a bus, and bought buns for the animals and fruit for the birds, and poked a fierce lion with the end of her parasol, which the brute bit off, and nearly fell over into the polar bear's tank, and had all her money stolen by a pickpocket.
Then she went back home, and found Lord Ledgers, whom she put through his paces, and then she had tea, and dressed for the ball. She had ordered a very remarkable ball-dress from Worth's, just before the baby's death, which had never yet seen the light. It was a soft grey texture, which Dodo said looked like a sunlit mist, and it was strictly half mourning. She felt it was a badge of her freedom, and put it on with a fresh burst of exultation. She had a large bouquet of orchids, which Lord Bretton had caused to be sent her, and a fan painted by Watteau, and a French hair-dresser came and "did" her hair. By this time dinner was ready; and after dinner she sat in her room smoking and singing French songs to Lord Ledgers, who had come to fetch her, and at half-past nine the carriage was announced. About the same moment another carriage drove up to the door, and as Dodo ran downstairs she found her husband in the hall.
She looked at him a moment with undisguised astonishment, and a frown gathered on her forehead.
"You here?" she said. "I thought you weren't coming till late."
"I caught the earlier train," he said; "and where are you off to?"
"I'm going to the Brettons' ball," said Dodo frankly; "I can't wait."
He turned round and faced her.
"Oh, Dodo, so soon?" he said.
"Yes, yes, I must," said Dodo. "You know this kills me, this, sticking here with nothing to do from day to day, and nothing to see, and nobody to talk to. It's death; I can't bear it."
"Very well," he said gently, "you are quite right to go if you want to. But I am not coming, Dodo."
Dodo's face brightened.
"No, dear, they don't expect you. I thought you wouldn't be back."
"I shouldn't go in any case," said he.
Lord Ledgers was here heard to remark "By Gad!"
Dodo laid her hand on his shoulder, conscious of restraining her impatience.
"No, that's just the difference between us," she said. "Go on, Tommy, get into the carriage. You don't want me not to go, dear, do you?"
"No, you are right to go, if you wish to," he said again.
Dodo grew impatient.
"Really, you might be more cordial about it," she said. "I needn't have consulted you at all."
Lord Chesterford was not as meek as Moses. He was capable of a sense of injustice.
"I don't know that you did consult me much," he said, "you mean to go in any case."
"Very well," said Dodo, "I do mean to go. Good-night, old boy. I sha'n't be very late. But I don't mean to quarrel with you."
Lord Chesterford turned into his room. But he would not keep Dodo, as she wished to go, even if he could have done so.
Ledgers was waiting in the carriage.
"Oh, the devil," said Dodo, as she stepped in.
Lady Bretton's ball is still talked about, I believe, in certain circles, though it ought to have been consigned, with all other events of last year, to oblivion. It was very brilliant, and several princes shed the light of their presence on it. But, as Lord Ledgers was heard to remark afterwards, "There are many princes, but there is only one Dodo." He felt as if he was adapting a quotation from the Koran, which was somehow suitable to the positive solemnity of the occasion. Dodo can only be described as having been indescribable. Lucas, Lady Bretton's eldest son, in honour of whose coming of age the ball was given, can hardly allude to it even now. His emotions expressed themselves feebly in his dressing with even more care than usual, in hanging round Eaton Square, and in leaving cards on the Chesterfords as often as was decent.
Dodo was conscious of a frenzied desire to make the most of it, and to drown remembrance, for in the background of her mind was another picture, that she did not care to look at. There was a man she knew, leaning over a small dead child. The door of the room was half open, and a woman, brilliantly dressed, was turning to go out, looking back over her shoulder with a smile, half of impatience, half of pity, at the kneeling figure in the room. Through the half-open door came sounds of music and rhythmical steps, and a blaze of light. This picture had started unbidden into Dodo's mind, as she and Ledgers drove up to Lady Bretton's door, with such sudden clearness that she half wondered whether she had ever actually seen it. It reminded her of one of Orchardson's silent, well-appointed tragedies. In any case it gave her a rather unpleasant twinge, and she determined to shut it out for the rest of the evening, and, to do her justice, no one would have guessed that Dodo's brilliance was due to anything but pure spontaneity, or that, even in the deepest shades of her inmost mind, there was any remembrance that it needed an effort to stifle.
Many women, though few men, were surprised to see her there, and there was no one who was not glad; but the question arose more than once in the minds of two or three people, "Would society stand it if she didn't happen to be herself?" Dodo had treated a select party of her friends to a private exhibition of skirt-dancing during supper-time. The music from the band was quite loud enough to be heard distinctly in a small, rather unfrequented sitting-out room, and there Dodo had displayed her incomparable grace of movement and limb to the highest advantage. Dodo danced that night with unusual perfection, and who has not felt the exquisite beauty of such motion? Her figure, clad in its long, clinging folds of diaphanous, almost luminous texture, stood out like a radiant statue of dawn against the dark panelling of the room; her graceful figure bending this way and that, her wonderful white arms now holding aside her long skirt, or clasped above her head; above all, the supreme distinction and conscious modesty of every posture seemed, to the little circle who saw her, to be almost a new revelation of the perfection of form, colour and grace.
Jack knew Dodo pretty well, but he stood and wondered. Was she a devil? was she a tiger? or was she, after all, a woman? Dodo had told him what had happened that evening, and yet he did not condemn her utterly. He knew how prison-like her life must have been to her during the last month. It was a thousand pities that Dodo's meat was Chesterford's poison, but he no more blamed Dodo for eating her meat than he blamed Chesterford for avoiding his poison; and to advance the conventional argument against Dodo, that her behaviour was not usual, was, equivalent to saying, "Why do you behave like yourself?" rather than, "Why don't you behave like other people?" Dodo's estimate of herself, as purely normal, was only another instance of her very abnormalness. No, on the whole, she was not a devil. The other question was harder to settle. Jack remembered a tigress he had seen that day with her at the Zoo. The brute had a small and perfectly fascinating tiger cub, in which she took a certain maternal pride; but when feeding-time came near, and the cub continued to be importunate, she gave it a cuff with her big velvety paw, and sent it staggering to the corner. Dodo's tiger cub was a mixture between Chesterford and the dead child, and Dodo's feeding-time had come round. Here she was feeding with an enviable appetite, and where was the cub? The tigress element was not wholly absent.
And yet, withal, she was a woman. Is it that certain attributes of pure womanliness run through the female of animals, or that every woman has a touch of the tigress about her? Jack felt incompetent to decide.
Dodo's dance came to an end. She accepted Prince Waldenech's arm, and went down to supper. As he advanced to her, Dodo dropped a curtsey, and he stooped and kissed her hand. "The brute," thought Jack, as he strolled out into the ballroom, where people were beginning to collect again. Many turned and looked at Dodo as, she passed out with her handsome partner. The glow of exercise and excitement and success burned brightly in her cheeks, and no one accused Dodo of using rouge. The supper was spread on a number of small tables, laid for four or six each. The Prince led her to an empty one, and sat down by her side.
"I have seen many beautiful things," he said, in French, which permits a man to say more than he may I in English, "but none so beautiful as what I have seen to-night."
Dodo was far too accomplished a coquette to pretend not to know what he meant. She made him a charming little obeisance.
"Politeness required that of your Highness," she said. "That is only my due, you know."
"I can never give you your due," said he.
"My due in this case is the knowledge I have pleased you."
Dodo felt suddenly a little uncomfortable. The forgotten picture flashed for a moment across her inward eye. She spoke of other things: praised the prettiness of the ballroom, the excellence of the band.
"Lady Bretton has given a fine setting to the diamond," said the Prince, "but the diamond is not hers."
Dodo laughed. He was a little ponderous, and he deserved to be told so.
"You Austrians have beautiful manners," she said, "but you are too serious. English are always accused of sharing that fault, but anyhow, when they pay compliments, they have at least the air of not meaning what they say."
"That is the fault of the English, or of the compliment."
"No one means what they say when they pay compliments," said Dodo. "They are only a kind of formula to avoid the unpleasantness of saying nothing."
"Austrians seldom pay compliments," said he; "but when they do, they mean them."
"Ouf," said Dodo; "that sounds homelike to you, doesn't it? All Austrians say 'ouf' in books—do they really say 'ouf,' by the way?—What a bald way of saying that I needn't expect any more to-night. Really, Prince, that's rather unflattering to you. No, don't excuse yourself; I understand perfectly. I'm not fishing for any more. Come, there's thepas de quatrebeginning. That's the 'Old Kent Road' tune. It's much the best. What do you suppose 'Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road' means? No foreigner has ever been able to translate it to me yet. This is your dance, isn't it? O dear me, half the night's gone, and I feel as if I hadn't begun yet. Some people are in bed now; what a waste of time, you know."
The ball went on and on, and Dodo seemed to gather fresh strength and brilliance with each hour. Extra dances were added and still added, and many who were tired with dancing stayed and watched her. The princes went away, and nobody noticed their departure. If Cleopatra herself had suddenly entered the ballroom, she would have found herself at a discount. It was the culmination of Dodo's successes. She seemed different in kind, as well as in degree, from the crowd around her. Pretty women seemed suddenly plain and middle-aged; well-dressed women looked dowdy beside her, and when at length, as the electric light began to pale perceptibly before the breaking day, Dodo asked her partner to take her to Lady Bretton, the dancers stopped, and followed Dodo and Prince Waldenech, for she was dancing with him, to where Lady Bretton was standing.
"It has been heavenly," said Dodo. "It's a dreadful bore to have people come and say how much they have enjoyed themselves, but I've done it now. Tell Lucas I wish he would come of age every year; he really is a public benefactor."
She took Prince Waldenech's arm, and stood waiting with him, while her carriage detached itself from the others which lined the square, and drove up to the door. And, as they stood there, the crowd followed her slowly out of the ballroom, still silent, and still watching her, and lined the stairs, as she passed down to the front door.
Then, when she had got into her carriage, and had driven off, they looked at each other as if they had all been walking in their sleep, and no one knew exactly why they were there. And a quarter of an hour later the rooms were completely empty.
Meanwhile, as Dodo drove back through the still, cool, morning air, she threw down the windows of her carriage, and drew in deep satisfied breaths of its freshness. She thought of the crowds who had followed her down to the door, and laughed for pleasure. "It's life, it's life," she thought. "They followed me like sheep. Ah, how I love it!"
It was nearly six when she reached home; "Decidedly it would be too absurd to go to bed," she thought. "I shall go for a glorious gallop, and come back to breakfast with Chesterford. Tell them to saddle Starlight at once," she said to the footman: "I sha'n't want a groom. And tell Lord Chesterford, when he wakes, that I shall be back to breakfast."
Chesterford did not let Dodo see how strongly he had felt on the subject of the ball. He argued to himself that it would do no good. Dodo would not understand, or, understanding, would misunderstand the strength of his feeling, and he did not care that she should know that he thought her heartless. He was quite conscious that matters were a little strained between them, though Dodo apparently was sublimely unaware, of it. She had a momentary nervousness when they met at breakfast, on the morning after the ball, that Chesterford was going to make a fuss, and she could not quite see what it would end in, if the subject was broached. But he came in looking as usual. He told her how matters had gone with him on the previous day, and had recounted, with a certain humour, a few sharp words which an old lady in his railway carriage had addressed to him, because he didn't help her to hand out two large cages of canaries which she was taking home.
Dodo welcomed all this as a sign of grace, and was only too happy to meet her husband half-way. He had been a trifle melodramatic on the previous evening, but we are all liable to make mountains out of molehills at times, she thought. Personally her inclination was to make molehills out of mountains, but that was only a difference in temperament; both implied a judgment at fault, and she was quite willing to forgive and forget. In a word, she was particularly nice to him, and when breakfast was over she took his arm, and led him away to her room.
"Sit down in that very big chair, old boy," she said, "and twiddle your thumbs while I write some notes. I'm going to see Mrs. Vivian this morning, and your lordship may come in my ladyship's carriage if it likes. Is lordship masculine, feminine, or neuter, Chesterford? Anyhow, it's wrong to say your lordship may come in your carriage, because lordship is the nominative to the sentence, and is in the third person—what was I saying? Oh, yes, you may come if it likes, and drop me there, and then go away for about half an hour, and then come back, and then we'll have lunch together at home."
"I've got to go to some stupid committee at the club," said Chesterford, "but that's not till twelve. I'll send your carriage back for you, but I sha'n't be able to be in at lunch."
"Oh, very good," remarked Dodo. "I'm sorry I married you. I might be a lone lorn widdy for all you care. He prefers lunching at his club," she went on, dramatically, addressing the black virgin, "to having his chop at home with the wife of his bosom. How sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless Chesterford!".
Dodo proceeded to write her notes, and threw them one by one at her husband as he sat contentedly by the window, in the very big chair that Dodo had indicated.
Dodo's correspondence was as varied as the collection of photographs on her mantelpiece. The first note was to her groom at Winston, telling him to have another riding-horse sent up at once, as her own particular mare had gone lame. It missed Chesterford's head, and fell with an ominous clatter among somebric-à-bracand china.
"That'll be a bill for you to pay, darling," said Dodo sweetly. "Why didn't you put your silly old head in the light?"
The next was a slightly better shot, and fell right side upwards on to Chesterford's knee, but with the address upside down to him. He looked at it vaguely.
"His Serene Highness who?" he asked, spelling it out.
"That's not grammar," said Dodo. "It's only to Prince Waldenech. He is Serene, isn't he? He looks it, anyhow. He was at the Brettons' last night. Austrian but amiable."
Chesterford was fingering the envelope.
"He's an unmitigated blackguard," he said, after a little consideration. "I wish you'd let me tear it up, Dodo. What on earth have you got to say to him?"
"I shall have to write it again, dear, if you do," said she, conscious of bridling a rising irritation.
"He really is an awful brute," he repeated.
"Oh, my dear Chesterford, what does that matter?" asked Dodo, impatiently tapping the floor with the toe of her shoe. "It isn't my business to go raking up the character of people I'm introduced to."
"You mean you don't mind what a man's character is as long as he's agreeable."
"It isn't my business to be court inquisitor," she said. "Half of what one hears about people isn't true, and the other half—well, all you can say is, that it isn't exactly false."
Dodo could lose her temper very quickly on occasions, especially when she was in a hurry, as she was now.
"My dear Dodo, do you happen to know the story of—"
"No, I don't," she said vehemently. "Shall I seem rude if I say I don't want to? I really think you might find something better to do than tell scandalous stories about people you don't know."
"I know all I want to know about Prince Waldenech," said Chesterford, rising.
"You'll know more about him soon," remarked Dodo, "because I've asked him to stay at Winston. I suppose you think I wanted to make a secret about it. I have no such intention, I assure you."
"Is this note to ask him to come?" he inquired.
"Certainly it is," said Dodo defiantly.
"I may as well tear it up," said he. "I don't mean him to be asked, Dodo. I don't wish to have him in the house."
Dodo had lost her temper thoroughly.
"His being asked to Winston is immaterial," she said, with scorn in her voice. "You certainly have the power to prevent his coming to your house. Your power I must regard, your wishes I shall not. I can see him in London with perfect ease."
"You mean you attach no weight to my wishes in this matter?" said Chesterford.
"None."
"Will no knowledge of what the man is really like, stop you holding further intercourse with him?" he asked.
"None whatever, now!"
"I don't wish it to be known that my wife associates with such people," he said.
"Your wife does not regard it in that light," replied Dodo. "I have no intention of proclaiming the fact from the housetops."
To do Chesterford justice he was getting angry too.
"It's perfectly intolerable that there should be this sort of dispute between you and me, Dodo," he said.
"That is the first point on which we have not differed."
"You entirely decline to listen to reason?"
"To your reason, you mean," said Dodo.
"To mine or any honest man's."
Dodo burst out into a harsh, mirthless laugh.
"Ah, you're beginning to be jealous," she said. "It is very bourgeois to be jealous."
Chesterford coloured, angrily.
"That is an insult, Dodo," he said. "Remember that there is a courtesy due even from a wife to her husband. Besides that, you know the contrary."
"Really, I know nothing of the sort," she remarked. "Your whole conduct, both last night and this morning, has been so melodramatic, that I begin to suspect all sorts of latent virtues in you."
"We are wandering from the point," said he. "Do you mean that nothing will deter you from seeing this Austrian?"
"He is received in society," said Dodo; "he is presentable, he is even amusing. Am I to tell him that my husband is afraid he'll corrupt my morals? If people in general cut him, I don't say that I should continue to cultivate his acquaintance. It is absurd to run amuck of such conventions. If you had approached me in a proper manner, I don't say that I mightn't have seen my way to meeting your wishes."
"I don't feel I am to blame in that respect," said he.
"That shows you don't know how far we are apart," she replied.
He was suddenly frightened. He came closer to her.
"Far apart, Dodo? We?"
"It seems to me that this interview has revealed some astonishing differences of opinion between us," she said. "I don't wish to multiply words. You have told me what you think on the subject, and I have told you what I think. You have claimed the power a husband certainly possesses, and I claim the liberty that my husband cannot deprive me of. Or perhaps you wish to lock me up. We quite understand one another. Let us agree to differ. Give me that note, please. I suppose you can trust me not to send it. I should like to keep it. It is interesting to count the milestones."
Dodo spoke with the recklessness of a woman's anger, which is always much more unwanton than that of a man. A man does not say cruel things when he is angry, because they are cruel, but because he is angry. Dodo was cruel because she wished to be cruel. He gave her the note, and turned to leave the room. Dodo's last speech made it impossible for him to say more. The only thing he would not sacrifice to his love was his honour or hers. But Dodo suddenly saw the horrible impossibility of the situation. She had not the smallest intention of living on bad terms with her husband. They had quarrelled, it was a pity, but it was over. A storm may only clear the air; it is not always the precursor of bad weather. The air wanted clearing, and Dodo determined that it should not be the prelude of rain and wind. To her, of course, the knowledge that she did not love her husband had long been a commonplace, but to him the truth was coming in fierce, blinding flashes, and by their light he could see that a great flood had come down into his happy valley, carrying desolation before it, and between him and Dodo stretched a tawny waste of water. But Dodo had no intention of quarrelling with him, or maintaining a dignified reserve in their daily intercourse. That would be quite unbearable, and she wished there to be no misunderstanding on that point.
"Chesterford," she said, "we've quarrelled, and that's a pity. I hardly ever quarrel, and it was stupid of me. I am sorry. But I have no intention of standing on my dignity, and I sha'n't allow you to stand on yours. I shall pull you down, and you'll go flop. You object to something which I propose to do, you exert your rights, as far as having him in the house goes, and I exert mine by going to see him. I shall go this afternoon. Your veto on his coming to Winston seems quite as objectionable to me, as my going to see him does to you. That's our position; accept it. Let us understand each other completely.C'est aimer." As she spoke she recovered her equanimity, and she smiled serenely on him. Scenes like this left no impression on her. The tragedy passed over her head; and, though it was written in the lines of her husband's face, she did not trouble to read it. She got up from her chair and went to him. He was standing with his hands clasped behind him near the door. She laid her hands on his shoulder, and gave him a little shake.
"Now, Chesterford, I'm going to make it up," she said. "Twenty minutes is heaps of time for the most quarrelsome people to say sufficient nasty things in, and time's up. I'm going to behave exactly as usual. I hate quarrelling, and you don't look as if it agreed with you. Kiss me this moment. No, not on the top of my head. That's better. My carriage ought to be ready by this time, and you are coming with me as far as Prince's Gate."
Lord and Lady Chesterford were sitting at breakfast at Winston towards the end of September. He had an open letter in front of him propped up against his cup, and between mouthfuls of fried fish he glanced at it.
"Dodo."
No answer.
"Dodo," rather louder.
Dodo was also reading a letter, which covered two sheets and was closely written. It seemed to be interesting, for she had paused with a piece of fish on the end of her fork, and had then laid it down again. This time, however; she heard.
"Oh, what?" she said abstractedly. "Jack's coming to-day; I've just heard from him. He's going to bring his hunter. You can get some cub-hunting, I suppose, Chesterford? The hunt itself doesn't begin till the 15th, does it?"
"Ah, I'm glad he can come," said Chesterford. "Little Spencer would be rather hard to amuse alone. But that isn't what I was going to say."
"What is it?" said Dodo, relapsing into her letter.
"The bailiff writes to tell me that they have discovered a rich coal shaft under the Far Oaks." A pause. "But, Dodo, you are not listening."
"I'm sorry," she said. "Do you know, Jack nearly shot himself the other day at a grouse drive?"
"I don't care," said Chesterford brutally. "Listen, Dodo. Tompkinson says they've discovered a rich coal shaft under the Far Oaks. Confound the man, I wish he hadn't."
"Oh, Chesterford, how splendid!" said Dodo, dropping her letter in earnest. "Dig it up and spend it on your party, and they'll make you a duke for certain. I want to be a duchess very much. Good morning, your grace," said Dodo reflectively.
"Oh, that's impossible," said he. "I never thought of touching it, but the ass tells me that he's seen the news of it in theStaffordshire Herald. So I suppose everybody knows, and I shall be pestered."
"But do you mean to say you're going to let the coal stop there?" asked Dodo.
"Yes, dear, I can't possibly touch it. It goes right under all those oaks, and under the Memorial Chapel, close to the surface."
"But what does that matter?" asked Dodo, in real surprise.
"I can't possibly touch it," said he; "you must see that. Why, the chapel would have to come down, and the oaks, and we don't want a dirty coal shaft in the Park."
"Chesterford, how ridiculous!" exclaimed Dodo. "Do you mean you're going to leave thousands of pounds lying there in the earth?"
"I can't discuss it, dear, even with you," said he. "The only question is whether we can stop the report of it going about."
Dodo felt intensely irritated.
"Really you are most unreasonable," she said. "I did flatter myself that I had a reasonable husband. You were unreasonable about the Brettons' ball, and you were unreasonable about Prince Waldenech's coming here, and you are unreasonable about this."
Chesterford lost his patience a little.
"About the Brettons' ball," he said, "there was only one opinion, and that was mine. About the Prince's coming here, which we agreed not to talk about, you know the further reason. I don't like saying such things. You are aware what that officious ass Clayton told me was said at the club. Of course it was an insult to you, and a confounded lie, but I don't care for such things to be said about my wife. And about this—"
"About this," said Dodo, "you are as obstinate as you were about those other things. Excuse me if I find you rather annoying."
Chesterford felt sick at heart.
"Ah, Dodo," he said, "cannot you believe in me at all?" He rose and stood by her. "My darling, you must know how I would do anything for love of you. But these are cases in which that clashes with duty. I only want to be loved a little. Can't you see there are some things I cannot help doing, and some I must do?"
"The things that you like doing," said Dodo, in a cool voice pouring out some more tea. "I don't wish to discuss this either. You know my opinion. It is absurd to quarrel; I dislike quarrelling with anybody, and more especially a person whom I live with. Please take your hand away, I can't reach the sugar."
Dodo returned to her letter. Chesterford stood by her for a moment, and then left the room.
"It gets more and more intolerable every day. I can't bear quarrelling; it makes me ill," thought Dodo, with a fine sense of irresponsibility. "And I know he'll come and say he was sorry he said what he did. Thank goodness, Jack comes to-day."
Chesterford, meanwhile, was standing in the hall, feeling helpless and bewildered. This sort of thing was always happening now, do what he could; and the intervals were not much better. Dodo treated him with a passive tolerance that was very hard to bear. Even her frank determination to keep on good terms with her husband had undergone considerable modification. She was silent and indifferent. Now and then when he came into her room he heard, as he passed down the passage, the sound of her piano or her voice, but when he entered Dodo would break off and ask him what he wanted. He half wished that he did not love her, but he found himself sickening and longing for Dodo to behave to him as she used. It would have been something to know that his presence was not positively distasteful to her. Dodo no longer "kept it up," as Jack said. She did not pat his hand, or call him a silly old dear, or pull his moustache, as once she did. He had once taken those little things as a sign of her love. He had found in them the pleasure that Dodo's smallest action always had for him; but now even they, the husk and shell of what had never existed, had gone from him, and he was left with that which was at once his greatest sorrow and his greatest joy, his own love for Dodo. And Dodo—God help him! he had learned it well enough now—Dodo did not love him, and never had loved him. He wondered what the end would be—whether his love, too, would die. In that case he foresaw that they would very likely go on living together as fifty other people lived—being polite to each other, and gracefully tolerant of each other's presence; that nobody would know, and the world would say, "What a model and excellent couple."
So he stood there, biting the ends of his long moustache. Then he said to himself, "I was beastly to her. What the devil made me say all those things."
He went back to the dining-room, and found Dodo as he had left her.
"Dodo, dear," he said, "forgive me for being so cross. I said a lot of abominable things."
Dodo was rather amused. She knew this would happen.
"Oh, yes," she said; "it doesn't signify. But are you determined about the coal mine?"
Chesterford was disappointed and chilled. He turned on his heel and went out again. Dodo raised her eyebrows, shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly, and returned to her letter.
If you had asked Dodo when this state of things began she could probably not have told you. She would have said, "Oh, it came on by degrees. It began by my being bored with him, and culminated when I no longer concealed it." But Chesterford, to whom daily intercourse had become an awful struggle between his passionate love for Dodo and his bitter disappointment at what he would certainly have partly attributed to his own stupidity and inadequacy, could have named the day and hour when he first realised how far he was apart from his wife. It was when he returned by the earlier train and met Dodo in the hall going to her dance; that moment had thrown a dangerous clear light over the previous month. He argued to himself, with fatal correctness, that Dodo could not have stopped caring for him in a moment, and he was driven to the inevitable conclusion that she had been drifting away from him for a long time before that; indeed, had she ever been near him? But he was deeply grateful to those months when he had deceived himself, or she had deceived him, into believing that she cared for him. He knew well that they had been the happiest in his life, and though the subsequent disappointment was bitter, it had not embittered him. His love for Dodo had a sacredness for him that nothing could remove; it was something separate from the rest of his life, that had stooped from heaven and entered into it, and lo! it was glorified. That memory was his for ever, nothing could rob him of that.
In August Dodo had left him. They had settled a series of visits in Scotland, after a fortnight at their own house, but after that Dodo had made arrangements apart from him. She had to go and see her mother, she had to go here and there, and half way through September, when Chesterford had returned to Harchester expecting her the same night, he found a postcard from her, saying she had to spend three days with someone else, and the three days lengthened into a week, and it was only yesterday that Dodo had come and people were arriving that very evening. There was only one conclusion to be drawn from all this, and not even he could help drawing it.
Jack and Mr. Spencer and Maud, now Mrs. Spencer, arrived that evening. Maud had started a sort of small store of work, and the worsted and crochet went on with feverish rapidity. It had become a habit with her before her marriage, and the undeveloped possibilities, that no doubt lurked within it, had blossomed under her husband's care. For there was a demand beyond the limits of supply for her woollen shawls and comforters. Mr. Spencer's parish was already speckled with testimonies to his wife's handiwork, and Maud's dream of being some day useful to somebody was finding a glorious fulfilment.
Dodo, I am sorry to say, found her sister more unsatisfactory than ever. Maud had a sort of confused idea that it helped the poor if she dressed untidily, and this was a ministry that came without effort. Dodo took her in hand as soon as she arrived, and made her presentable. "Because you are a clergy-man's wife, there is no reason that you shouldn't wear a tucker or something round your neck," said she. "Your sister is a marchioness, and when you stay with her you must behave as if you were an honourable. There will be time to sit in the gutter when you get back to Gloucester."
Dodo also did her duty by Mr. Spencer. She called him Algernon in the friendliest way, and gave him several lessons at billiards. This done, she turned to Jack.
The three had been there several days, and Dodo was getting impatient. Jack and Chesterford went out shooting, and she was left to entertain the other two. Mr. Spencer's reluctance to shoot was attributable not so much to his aversion to killing live animals, as his inability to slay. But when Dodo urged on him that he would soon learn, he claimed the higher motive. She was rather silent, for she was thinking about something important.
Dodo was surprised at the eagerness with which she looked forward to Jack's coming. Somehow, in a dim kind of way, she regarded him as the solution of her difficulties. She felt pretty certain Jack would do as he was asked, and she had made up her mind that when Jack went away she would go with him to see friends at other houses to which he was going. And Chesterford? Dodo's scheme did not seem to take in Chesterford. She had painted a charming little picture in her own mind as to where she should go, and whom she would see, but she certainly was aware that Chesterford did not seem to come in. It would spoil the composition, she thought, to introduce another figure. That would be a respite, anyhow. But after that, what then? Dodo had found it bad enough coming back this September, and she could not contemplate renewing thistête-à-têtethat went on for months. And by degrees another picture took its place—a dim one, for the details were not worked out—but in that picture there were only two figures. The days went on and Dodo could bear it no longer.
One evening she went into the smoking-room after tea. Chesterford was writing letters, and Maud and her husband were sitting in the drawing-room. It may be presumed that Maud was doing crochet. Jack looked up with a smile as Dodo entered.
"Hurrah," he said, "I haven't had a word with you since we came. Come and talk, Dodo."
But Dodo did not smile.
"How have you been getting on?" continued Jack, looking at the fire. "You see I haven't lost my interest in you."
"Jack," said Dodo solemnly, "you are right, and I was wrong. And I can't bear it any longer."
Jack did not need explanations.
"Ah!"—then after a moment, "poor Chesterford!"
"I don't see why 'poor Chesterford,'" said Dodo, "any more than 'poor me.' He was quite satisfied, anyhow, for some months, for a year in fact, more or less, and I was never satisfied at all. I haven't got a particle of pride left in me, or else I shouldn't be telling you. I can't bear it. If you only knew what I have been through you would pity me as well. It has been a continual effort with me; surely that is something to pity. And one day I broke down; I forget when, it is immaterial. Oh, why couldn't I love him! I thought I was going to, and it was all a wretched mistake."
Dodo sat with her hands clasped before her, with something like tears in her eyes.
"I am not all selfish," she went on; "I am sorry for him, too, but I am so annoyed with him that I lose my sorrow whenever I see him. Why couldn't he have accepted the position sooner? We might have been excellent friends then, but now that is impossible. I have got past that. I cannot even be good friends with him. Oh, it isn't my fault; you know I tried to behave well."
Jack felt intensely uncomfortable.
"I can't help you, Dodo," he said. "It is useless for me to say I am sincerely sorry. That is no word between you and me."
Dodo, for once in her life, seemed to have something to say, and not be able to say it.
At last it came out with an effort.
"Jack, do you still love me?"
Dodo did not look at him, but kept her eyes on the fire.
Jack did not pause to think.
"Before God, Dodo,", he said, "I believe I love you more than anything in the world."
"Will you do what I ask you?"
This time he did pause. He got up and stood before the fire. Still Dodo did not look at him.
"Ah, Dodo," he said, "what are you going to ask? There are some things I cannot do."
"It seems to me this love you talk of is a very weak thing," said Dodo. "It always fails, or is in danger of failing, at the critical point. I believe I could do anything for the man I loved. I did not think so once. But I was wrong, as I have been in my marriage."
Dodo paused; but Jack said nothing; it seemed to him as if Dodo had not quite finished.
"Yes," she said; then paused again. "Yes, you are he."
There was a dead silence. For one moment time seemed to Jack to have stopped, and he could have believed that that moment lasted for years—for ever.
"Oh, my God," he murmured, "at last."
He was conscious of Dodo sitting there, with her eyes raised to his, and a smile on her lips. He felt himself bending forward towards her, and he thought she half rose in her chair to receive his embrace.
But the next moment she put out her hand as if to stop him.
"Stay," she said. "Not yet, not yet. There is something first. I will tell you what I have done. I counted on this. I have ordered the carriage after dinner at half-past ten. You and I go in that, and leave by the train. Jack, I am yours—will you come?"
Dodo had taken the plunge. She had been wavering on the brink of this for days. It had struck her suddenly that afternoon that Jack was going away next day, and she was aware she could not contemplate the indefinite to-morrow and to-morrow without him. Like all Dodo's actions it came suddenly. The forces in her which had been drawing her on to this had gathered strength and sureness imperceptibly, and this evening they had suddenly burst through the very flimsy dam that Dodo had erected between the things she might do, and the things she might not, and their possession was complete. In a way it was inevitable. Dodo felt that her life was impossible. Chesterford, with infinite yearning and hunger at his heart, perhaps felt it too.
Jack felt as if he was waking out of some blissful dream to a return of his ordinary everyday life, which, unfortunately, had certain moral obligations attached to it. If Dodo's speech had been shorter, the result might have been different. He steadied himself for a moment, for the room seemed to reel and swim, and then he answered her.