the summer-house.
Margaret pouted. Mrs. Saumarez and Mr. Kennaston were seated not
twenty feet from the summer-house, on the bench which Miss Hugonin had
just left. And when that unprincipled young woman finally rose to her
feet, it must be confessed that it was with a toss of the head and
with the reflection that while to listen wasn't honourable, it would
at least be very amusing. I grieve to admit it, but with Billy's
scruples she hadn't the slightest sympathy.
Then Kennaston cried, suddenly: "Why, you're mad, Kathleen! Woods
wants to marry
you
! Why, he's heels over head in love with Miss
Hugonin!"
Miss Hugonin turned to Mr. Woods with a little intake of the breath.
No, I shall not attempt to tell you what Billy saw in her countenance.
Timanthes-like, I drape before it the vines of the summer-house. For
a brief space I think we had best betake ourselves outside,
leaving Margaret in a very pitiable state of anger, and shame, and
humiliation, and heartbreak--leaving poor Billy with a heart that
ached, seeing the horror of him in her face.
XXIII
Mrs. Saumarez laughed bitterly.
"No," she said, "Billy cared for me, you know, a long time ago. And
this morning he told me he still cared. Billy doesn't pretend to be
a clever man, you see, and so he can afford to practice some of the
brute virtues, such as constancy and fidelity."
There was a challenging flame in her eyes, but Kennaston let the stab
pass unnoticed. To do him justice, he was thinking less of himself,
just now, than of how this news would affect Margaret; and his face
was very grave and strangely tender, for in his own fashion he loved
Margaret.
"It's nasty, very nasty," he said, at length, in a voice that was
puzzled. "Yet I could have sworn yesterday----" Kennaston paused and
laughed lightly. "She was an heiress yesterday, and to-day she is
nobody. And Mr. Woods, being wealthy, can afford to gratify the
virtues you commend so highly and, with a fidelity that is most
edifying, return again to his old love. And she welcomes him--and the
Woods millions--with open arms. It is quite affecting, is it not,
Kathleen?"
"You needn't be disagreeable," she observed.
"My dear Kathleen, I assure you I am not angry. I am merely a little
sorry for human nature. I could have sworn Woods was honest. But
rogues all, rogues all, Kathleen! Money rules us in the end; and now
the parable is fulfilled, and Love the prodigal returns to make merry
over the calf of gold. Confess," Mr. Kennaston queried, with a smile,
"is it not strange an all-wise Creator should have been at pains to
fashion this brave world about us for little men and women such as
we to lie and pilfer in? Was it worth while, think you, to arch the
firmament above our rogueries, and light the ageless stars as candles
to display our antics? Let us be frank, Kathleen, and confess that
life is but a trivial farce ignobly played in a very stately temple."
And Mr. Kennaston laughed again.
"Let us be frank!" Kathleen cried, with a little catch in her voice.
"Why, it isn't in you to be frank, Felix Kennaston! Your life is
nothing but a succession of poses--shallow, foolish poses meant
to hoodwink the world and at times yourself. For you do hoodwink
yourself, don't you, Felix?" she asked, eagerly, and gave him no time
to answer. She feared, you see, lest his answer might dilapidate the
one fortress she had been able to build about his honour.
"And now," she went on, quickly, "you're trying to make me think you a
devil of a fellow, aren't you? And you're hinting that I've accepted
Billy because of his money, aren't you? Well, it is true that I
wouldn't marry him if he were poor. But he's very far from being poor.
And he cares for me. And I am fond of him. And so I shall marry him
and make him as good a wife as I can. So there!"
Mrs. Saumarez faced him with an uneasy defiance. He was smiling oddly.
"I have heard it rumoured in many foolish tales and jingling verses,"
said Kennaston, after a little, "that a thing called love exists in
the world. And I have also heard, Kathleen, that it sometimes enters
into the question of marriage. It appears that I was misinformed."
"No," she answered, slowly, "there is a thing called love. I think
women are none the better for knowing it. To a woman, it means to take
some man--some utterly commonplace man, perhaps--perhaps, only an idle
poseur
such as you are, Felix--and to set him up on a pedestal, and
to bow down and worship him; and to protest loudly, both to the world
and to herself, that in spite of all appearances her idol really
hasn't feet of clay, or that, at any rate, it is the very nicest clay
in the world. For a time she deceives herself, Felix. Then the idol
topples from the pedestal and is broken, and she sees that it is all
clay, Felix--clay through and through--and her heart breaks with it."
Kennaston bowed his head. "It is true," said he; "that is the love of
women."
"To a man," she went on, dully, "it means to take some woman--the
nearest woman who isn't actually deformed--and to make pretty speeches
to her and to make her love him. And after a while--" Kathleen
shrugged her shoulders drearily. "Why, after a while," said she, "he
grows tired and looks for some other woman."
"It is true," said Kennaston--"yes, very true that some men love in
that fashion."
There ensued a silence. It was a long silence, and under the tension
of it Kathleen's composure snapped like a cord that has been stretched
to the breaking point.
"Yes, yes, yes!" she cried, suddenly; "that is how I have loved you
and that is how you've loved me, Felix Kennaston! Ah, Billy told me
what happened last night! And that--that was why I--" Mrs. Saumarez
paused and regarded him curiously. "You don't make a very noble
figure, just now, do you?" she asked, with careful deliberation. "You
were ready to sell yourself for Miss Hugonin's money, weren't you? And
now you must take her without the money. Poor Felix! Ah, you poor,
petty liar, who've over-reached yourself so utterly!" And again
Kathleen began to laugh, but somewhat shrilly, somewhat hysterically.
"You are wrong," he said, with a flush. "It is true that I asked Miss
Hugonin to marry me. But she--very wisely, I dare say--declined."
"Ah!" Kathleen said, slowly. Then--and it will not do to inquire too
closely into her logic--she spoke with considerable sharpness: "She's
a conceited little cat! I never in all my life knew a girl to be quite
so conceited as she is. Positively, I don't believe she thinks there's
a man breathing who's good enough for her!"
Kennaston grinned. "Oh, Kathleen, Kathleen!" he said; "you are simply
delicious."
And Mrs. Saumarez coloured prettily and tried to look severe and
could not, for the simple reason that, while she knew Kennaston to be
flippant and weak and unstable as water and generally worthless, yet
for some occult cause she loved him as tenderly as though he had been
a paragon of all the manly virtues. And I dare say that for many of us
it is by a very kindly provision of Nature that all women are created
capable of doing this illogical thing and that most of them do it
daily.
"It is true," the poet said, at length, "that I have played no heroic
part. And I don't question, Kathleen, that I am all you think me. Yet,
such as I am, I love you. And such as I am, you love me, and it is I
that you are going to marry, and not that Woods person."
"He's worth ten of you!" she cried, scornfully.
"Twenty of me, perhaps," Mr. Kennaston assented, "but that isn't the
question. You don't love him, Kathleen. You are about to marry him for
his money. You are about to do what I thought to do yesterday. But you
won't, Kathleen. You know that I need you, my dear, and--unreasonably
enough, God knows--you love me."
Mrs. Saumarez regarded him intently for a considerable space, and
during that space the Eagle warred in her heart with the one foe
he can never conquer. Love had a worthless ally; but Love fought
staunchly.
By and bye, "Yes," she said, and her voice was almost sullen; "I love
you. I ought to love Billy, but I don't. I shall ask him to release me
from my engagement. And yes, I will marry you if you like."
He raised her hand to his lips. "You are an angel," Mr. Kennaston was
pleased to say.
"No," Mrs. Saumarez dissented, rather forlornly; "I'm simply a fool.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be about to marry you, knowing you as I do for
what you are--knowing that I haven't one chance in a hundred of any
happiness."
"My dear," he said, and his voice was earnest, "you know at least that
what there is of good in me is at its best with you."
"Yes, yes!" Kathleen cried, quickly. "That is so, isn't it, Felix?
And you do care for me, don't you? Felix, are you sure you care for
me--quite sure? And are you quite certain, Felix, that you never cared
so much for any one else?"
Mr. Kennaston was quite certain. He proceeded to explain his feelings
toward her at some length.
Kathleen listened with downcast eyes and almost cheated herself into
the belief that the man she loved was all that he should be. But at
the bottom of her heart she knew he wasn't.
I think we may fairly pity her.
Kennaston and Mrs. Saumarez chatted very amicably for some ten
minutes. At the end of that period, the twelve forty-five express
bellowing faintly in the distance recalled the fact that the morning
mail was in, and thereupon, in the very best of humours, they set
out for the house. I grieve to admit it, but Kathleen had utterly
forgotten Billy by this, and was no more thinking of him than she was
of the Man in the Iron Mask.
She was with Kennaston, you see; and her thoughts, and glances, and
lips, and adoration were all given to his pleasuring, just as her life
would have been if its loss could have saved him from a toothache. He
strutted a little, and was a little grateful to her, and--to do
him justice--received the tribute she accorded him with perfect
satisfaction and equanimity.
XXIV
Margaret came out of the summer-house, Billy Woods followed her, in a
very moist state of perturbation.
"Peggy----" said Mr. Woods.
But Miss Hugonin was laughing. Clear as a bird-call, she poured forth
her rippling mimicry of mirth. They train women well in these matters.
To Margaret, just now, her heart seemed dead within her. Her lover was
proved unworthy. Her pride was shattered. She had loved this clumsy
liar yonder, had given up a fortune for him, dared all for him, had
(as the phrase runs) flung herself at his head. The shame of it was a
physical sickness, a nausea. But now, in this jumble of miseries, in
this breaking-up of the earth and the void heavens that surged about
her and would not be mastered, the girl laughed; and her laughter was
care-free and half-languid like that of a child who is thinking of
something else. Ah, yes, they train women well in these matters.
At length Margaret said, in high, crisp accents: "Pardon me, but I
can't help being amused, Mr. Woods, by the way in which hard luck
dogs your footsteps. I think Fate must have some grudge against you,
Mr. Woods."
"Peggy----" said Mr. Woods.
"Pardon me," she interrupted him, her masculine little chin high in
the air, "but I wish you wouldn't call me that. It was well enough
when we were boy and girl together, Mr. Woods. But you've developed
since--ah, yes, you've developed into such a splendid actor, such a
consummate liar, such a clever scoundrel, Mr. Woods, that I scarcely
recognise you now."
And there was not a spark of anger in the very darkest corner of
Billy's big, brave heart, but only pity--pity all through and through,
that sent little icy ticklings up and down his spine and turned his
breathing to great sobs. For she had turned full face to him and he
could see the look in her eyes.
I think he has never forgotten it. Years after the memory of it would
come upon him suddenly and set hot drenching waves of shame and
remorse surging about his body--remorse unutterable that he ever hurt
his Peggy so deeply. For they were tragic eyes. Beneath them her
twitching mouth smiled bravely, but the mirth of her eyes was
monstrous. It was the mirth of a beaten woman, of a woman who has
known the last extreme of shame and misery and has learned to laugh at
it. Even now Billy Woods cannot quite forget.
"Peggy," said he, brokenly, "ah, dear, dear Peggy, listen to me!"
"Why, have you thought of a plausible lie so soon?" she queried,
sweetly. "Dear me, Mr. Woods, what is the use of explaining things? It
is very simple. You wanted to marry me last night because I was rich.
And when I declined the honour, you went back to your old love. Oh,
it's very simple, Mr. Woods! It's a pity, though--isn't it?--that all
your promptness went for nothing. Why, dear me, you actually managed
to propose before breakfast, didn't you? I should have thought that
such eagerness would have made an impression on Kathleen--oh, a most
favourable impression. Too bad it hasn't!"
"Listen!" said Billy. "Ah, you're forcing me to talk like a cad,
Peggy, but I can't see you suffer--I can't! Kathleen misunderstood
what I said to her. I--I didn't mean to propose to her, Peggy. It was
a mistake, I tell you. It's you I love--just you. And when I asked you
to marry me last night--why, I thought the money was mine, Peggy.
I'd never have asked you if I hadn't thought that. I--ah, you don't
believe me, you don't believe me, Peggy, and before God, I'm telling
you the simple truth! Why, I hadn't ever seen that last will, Peggy!