XIV
“WHO is this Mowbray?” Gregory asked Ora abruptly on the following evening. He was in Ora’s living-room, his long legs stretched out to the fire.
Ora, who was working on a small piece of embroidery in a frame, superlatively feminine, enveloped in a tea gown imponderable and white, looked up in surprise. They had been sitting together for an hour or more and their conversation had been wholly of his plans to entertain his party of geologists, and the attention this sensational flank attack had attracted throughout the country.
“Is Lord John here?”
“Yes. Came into the box last night. Handsome chap.”
“Mowbray is a dear. We saw a great deal of him, and he bought our tickets and helped us off generally, when we were so upset over your cable.”
“Ah! Tame cat? General utility man?”
“Hardly! He’s full of life and a charming companion.”
“Hm.”
There was another silence and then he asked abruptly: “Is he in love with Ida?”
This time Ora dropped her work and sat up rigidly; her hands turned cold. There was a peculiar alteration of pitch in Gregory’s voice that might register jealousy in a hypersensitive ear. And when his face looked most like a bronze reproduction of itself, his friends deduced that he was masking emotion.
Ora’s brain always worked swiftly. Was it possible that by subtle manipulation she could reunite this man and her friend? That he loved herself she no longer doubted, but it was equally doubtful if he would ever confess it; on the cards that if he did he never would see her again. If she left the country after adroitly re-awakening his interest in Ida and playing on his vanity and jealousy, would not reaction, the desire for consolation and companionship, carry him straight to the wifewhose beauty and magnetism had once, and not so long ago, aroused all the ardours of his manhood? Ida was far more beautiful now, and quite capable of holding any man. Ora did not for a moment believe that Ida loved her husband, or never would she herself have returned to Butte; but she had divined her mortification, her wounded pride; and as a young and beautiful woman Ida needed and was entitled to the protection of her husband.
Was this her moment? Her great opportunity? Her bosom heaved, her breath came short. Almost she experienced the subtle delights of renunciation, of sacrifice, of the martyrdom of woman. It would be a great rôle to play, a great memory. And after all she had Valdobia. It was this last irresistible reflection that gave her soaring spirit a sharp tumble and she laughed aloud.
Gregory turned his head and smiled as he met the cynical amusement in her eyes. “What is it?”
“I was merely commiserating poor Mowbray. Of course he is more or lessépris; but Ida—she hasn’t it in her to love any man.”
“That is the conclusion I arrived at long ago. But it looked as if he had followed her here, and I don’t care for that sort of talk.”
“He had planned to visit his brother in Wyoming before we met him in Genoa. Don’t worry. Ida never will let any man compromise her. She’ll parade her son of a duke for the benefit of Butte, but if he shows signs of getting out of hand she’ll pack him off.”
“Yes, Ida is too ambitious to compromise herself.”
And then another little arrow flew into Ora’s brain. Her hands trembled, but she clenched them in her lap. “Gregory,” she said steadily, “as you and Ida no longer love each other, why don’t you suggest a divorce? She could marry Mowbray and have a big position in London—his brother is almost sure not to marry—is a wreck—Ida would be quite in her element as a duchess—and you—you would be free—if you ever wanted to marry again.”
When nature has given a man a dark skin and he has permitted it to accumulate yearly coats of tan, it is difficult for him to turn white under the stress of emotion; but Gregory achieved this phenomenon as he realised abruptly what freedom might mean to him. He stood up and leaned his back against the high chimneypiece, thrustinghis hands into his pockets; he had long nervous fingers which sometimes betrayed him when his face was set.
“Ida would never consent to a divorce,” he said heavily. “She’s got all sorts of old-fashioned American ideals. The West has the reputation for being lawless, and it’s got more Puritans to the square inch than are left in New England. Ida’s one of them.”
“She may have acquired more liberal ideas in Europe.”
“She told me that she didn’t care if she never saw Europe again. Last night I had quite a long talk with her before the others came in for dinner. She said she thought it the duty of Western women—particularly the women of the newer Northwest—to live in their native state and only go away occasionally in order to bring something back to it. She intimated that you put that idea into her head when you two first met.”
“Oh, yes, I believe that to be right, whatever I may do, myself.”
“What is your idea in going to Europe to live? You are just the sort of woman the West needs.” He bit out his words in the effort to be calm and casual.
“I don’t feel that I have any place here.”
Gregory started on a restless walk up and down the room.
“Look at here,” he shot out finally, “are you—I haven’t said anything about it—but—of course I’ve wanted to—are you determined to leave Mark? He’s one of the best fellows in the world. I hate to see him thrown down. You—you—I think you should reconsider.”
“I had done all my considering before I spoke to Mark. I am doing him the greatest possible kindness. He needs another sort of woman altogether to make him happy. And I? Have I not my right to happiness? Do you think I could find it with Mark?”
“No!” The word exploded. “And you—shall you marry again?”
“I don’t know.” Ora spoke in a strangled voice. New possibilities were shaking her to her foundations. For a moment the perverse imp in the purely feminine section of her brain counselled her to run away as ever from the serious mood in man, to play with great issues and then dodge them. But she brushed the prompting aside with frantic haste and summoned her courage. If this was happiness coming to her grasp she would seize it.
Gregory came swiftly back from the farther end of the room and stood before her. He had set the muscles of the lower part of his face so tightly that he could hardly open his mouth, but his narrow eyes were blazing. “If Ida would give me my freedom,” he said, “I should want to marry you. Do you understand?”
Ora stood up. Her white face was so radiant that Gregory fell back. “You love me?” he asked.
“Yes.—Oh, yes——”
“You would marry me?”
“Yes!”
Gregory stared at her, wondering if she really were suffused with white fire. Her hands fluttered toward him, and his own face was suddenly relaxed, unmasked. Ora’s lips parted and she bent forward. She knew then why men and women sacrificed the world when they found their predestined mates. Here was the one man who could give her primal joy, suffocate her intellect. And the knowledge that she was capable of such passion and of the sacrifices it might involve gave her far more satisfaction than her former brief mood of renunciation.
She made another step forward, but Gregory was at the door. “Talk to Ida!” he said harshly. “I leave it to you. Go to see her tomorrow. You can do anything with her. You must!”
And he was out of the house. He left the door open and Ora could hear his light running footsteps.