CHAPTER XVII
OF course Cecil did the worst thing possible for himself: he appeared just as she had finished elaborating her case and before she had started upon the argument between her higher and her pettier self which she had dimly contemplated. As he ran up the stair she rose nervously to her feet, regretting for the first time that she had not a room of her own in which she could lock herself. They had continued to put up with the trifling inconveniences of the tower because its isolation and historic associations made it a tenacious symbol in their own romance.
She sat down as he entered.
“I just missed you,” he said anxiously, “and some one told me that you had not been in the drawing-room since dinner. Are you ill?”
“No; and I am glad you have come up. I want to ask you something.”
He sat down beside her and took her hand.
“What is it?” he asked. “Something has gone wrong?”
“I want to go back to California for a year.”
“But, my dear, I can’t get away. I should be mad—”
“But you can let me go. Mrs. Montgomery wants to take me back with her.”
If he had given her time she would doubtless have approached the subject with tact and many delicate subterfuges; but her mind was wearied and possessed.
He stared at her incredulously.
“I really mean it. The only reasons I can put into shape are that I am desperately tired of this everlasting round of English life, and homesick for California.”
“Are you tired of me?”
“No; but I believe that a short separation would be better for us both. I can’t make you understand, for you have never cared to understand me. I adapted myself, and you took me for granted—”
“Have you been playing a part?”
“Heaven knows I have been serious enough. It is that as much as anything else—I want to cease being serious for a while.”
Cecil continued to stare at her. His tan had worn off, and he paled slightly. When a man after several years of married life is suddenly informed that he does not understand his wife the shock is trying to his mental faculties and to his patience.
“I do not know you to-night,” he said coldly. “I have seen you in a number of moods, and occasionally in a temper, but I have never before seen you when you were not—sweet.”
“I don’t feel sweet. I wish I did. I hate to hurt you.”
Cecil seized the suggestion. “You have certainly hurt me; and nobody could know better than you how much. Whatisthe matter with you?”
“I want a change, that is all.”
“I’m afraid I’ve really done something quite abominable, although I don’t remember—and it isn’t like you not to speak out.”
“I haven’t a fault in the world to find with you. I wish I had!”
“I don’t understand you,” he said helplessly. “And as I am so dense, perhaps you will be good enough to explain. I really think I have the right to demand it.” He would have liked to shake her, for he had not yet been made to realise that she was in anything but a surprisingly nasty temper.
Lee was quite sure that he had the right to demand a full explanation, and she cast about for the phrases which would point it best. But her reasons put their tails between their legs and scampered to the back of her brain, where they looked petty enough. So she began to cry instead.
Cecil took her in his arms instantly, excoriating himself for his desire to shake her. “You are ill; I know you are ill,” he whispered, “and you are so unused to it that it has quite demoralised you.” Then, his knowledge of women being primitive indeed, he descended to bribery. “I am going to ask father to give you my mother’s jewels; I never knew he had them—that there were any—till the other day. There are some wonderful pieces.”
Lee pricked up her ears, then despised herself and sobbed the harder. Suddenly, she shrank visibly from him, slipped from his embrace and walked over to the fireplace, turning her back to her husband. It had flashed into her mind thatRandolph’s arms had been round her that morning. She had thought no more of it at the time than if they had been Mrs. Montgomery’s or Coralie’s; but of a sudden her quiescence seemed an act of infidelity, if for no other reason than because Cecil would be furious if he knew it. She decided that she certainly must be growing morbid, and she resigned herself to being just as unpleasant as her resources permitted.
Cecil went over to her and wheeled her about sharply. There was no question about his pallor now; his very lips were white. “That was the first time you ever shrank from me,” he said. “What does it mean?”
“I mean that Iwillgo to California.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I simply can’t explain, but I’ll try to in my letters. I promise that if you don’t understand me now you shall before I get back.”
“I have no time to read a woman’s novels about herself. I once read several volumes of women’s ‘letters.’ There never yet was a woman who could write about herself unself-consciously; she is always addressing an imaginary audience. Say what you’ve got to say now, and have done with it. If I’ve failed in anything I love you well enough to do all I can—you know that.”
“You told me when you proposed to me that you would hate understanding a woman’s complexities, that she had no right to have any, that a woman must become a mere adjunct of her husband.”
“I don’t remember ever having said anything ofthe sort. But if I did—I very dimly realised at that time all that you would become to me. Now I would do anything in my power to keep you as you have been these three years.”
Lee almost relented; but her conscience was in a state of abnormal activity. It had reminded her that she had talked her husband over with another man, and that the act was both disloyal and in bad taste. She would have given all she possessed to return her confidences where they belonged, much as she had needed the relief. She hated Randolph Montgomery and she hated herself. So she stamped her foot at Cecil.
“Iwishyou would let me alone,” she exclaimed. “If I feel like it later I’ll explain, but I won’t say another word to-night.”
There was really nothing for Cecil to do but to go out and bang the door, so he went out and banged it.