CHAPTER XXIXAll through that day Lauraine keeps in her own room. Sir Francis does not approach her. He is quite confident that his threat has taken effect—that she will never proceed to extremities. He has not seen Lady Jean to tell her of his wife's discovery, and he dares not send her another message. When he goes down to dinner he finds his wife in the drawing-room. She looks very pale, and is dressed in black velvet. Lady Etwynde is beside her, and Colonel Carlisle is standing near.Sir Francis has scarcely entered the room when Lady Jean follows. She and Lauraine have not met that day. She walks up to her hostess, extending her hand.Lauraine draws her slender figure up to its full height, and, with a cold bow, turns aside to speak to Colonel Carlisle. For an instant Lady Jean looks at her as if stunned. Then the blood rushes in a torrent to her face and neck. She knows the meaning of such an action only too well. Dinner is announced now, and Sir Francis, who has also observed this act of his wife's, offers his arm to Lady Jean. Colonel Carlisle does the same to Lauraine, and Lady Etwynde follows.The dinner is a dreary affair. Each of them feels a scene is impending, and Colonel Carlisle, who has some inkling of how matters stand, is very uncomfortable. He resolves that on the morrow Etwynde and himself must quit Falcon's Chase, sorry as he is for, and much as he admires, Lauraine. The ladies rise to leave the table, and pass out of the room. Before entering the drawing-room Lady Jean bends down to Lauraine."Will you be good enough to explain the meaning of your strange behaviour?" she says.Lauraine turns and faces her unflinchingly. "You must excuse me from entering upon any discussion with you," she says haughtily. "You will find a note in your own apartment that will fully explain everything—not that I fancy such explanation is needed."Lady Jean's handsome, sparkling face changes to a dull, ashy grey. She to be insulted thus, to her face, and by a woman whom she despises and hates as a rival! Her teeth clench like a vice. She is too wise to bandy words; she only turns and walks straight to her own suite of rooms, and there sees the letter spoken of. Tearing it open like a fury, she reads the few curt lines in which Lauraine states that circumstances render it advisable her visit should come to an end, and refers her, for any explanation she may deem necessary, to Sir Francis.To say that Lady Jean is furious would but ill convey an idea of the tempest of rage, hatred, and spite aroused in her heart by the knowledge that she is discovered."How could she have found out, and so suddenly?" she mutters to herself. "He had no letters of mine to leave about. I was never such a fool as to write to him, and to-day she has been shut up in her rooms, and I have not met Frank. Ah, the library—I forgot that. Good heavens! could she have overheard?"She trembles with mingled rage and shame. If Lauraine had stood before her now she could have killed her without a regret, crushed out her youth and beauty with ruthless hands and rejoicing heart; but Lauraine is not there, and Lauraine has all the triumph, and she all the shame and defeat. Like a wounded tigress she paces to and fro her room, a thousand schemes and projects flashing through her brain, and all the fierceness and savagery of her nature roused into an insensate, furious longing to revenge this insult, as she terms it, upon the woman who has dealt it to her.And at this moment, and while she is in this mood, Sir Francis enters.Lady Jean turns upon him like a beautiful fury. "So—you have been fool enough to let her find out," she says, in a low, choked voice. "Read that."He glances over his wife's letter. He is enraged also. He had not thought she would have courage to act like this. "By Heaven! she shall suffer for it!" he mutters savagely. "She has dared to defy me, after all!""Defy you?" echoes Lady Jean. "Did you know then?""Certainly; I knew since the morning," he answers. "She was in the library—she heard us.""Did I not tell you, you were an imbecile," screams Lady Jean, "to send me a message—to ask me to come to that room; and now—now— Great Heaven! what am I to do? I am ruined, and all through your idiocy?"A woman always turns round on a man when there is a question of inconvenience to herself. Sir Francis stands there sullen and raging, but he is equally at a loss what to counsel. "I am master here," he says presently. "You shall not go."Lady Jean laughs in his face. "Master here?—oh, no doubt! You should have exercised your mastership in time, then; now it is too late. Your wife and I cannot remain under the same roof. Why, do you suppose that for a single moment I should stay to put up with her insults? Are you really such a fool? No; it is good-bye to you both from to-night, only don't let herdareto breathe a word of this to the world, or it will be the very worst day of her life—that I swear!""Good-bye!—what do you mean?" says sir Francis stupidly. "Do you think I am going to give you up for that puling, white-faced piece of virtue who calls herself my wife? By Heaven, no!""You seem to forget that you were mad to have that same puling, white-faced nonentity for your wife once upon a time!" sneers Lady Jean. "You bought your toy, and now must keep it. I leave your roof to-morrow, and never again do we two meet, unless——"She pauses meaningly. He seizes her by the arm."Don't drive me desperate. You know I cannot give you up. You shall not—must not go. I have a hold on Lauraine. She is afraid. There is all that about—Keith."Lady Jean shakes off his hand and laughs mockingly. "About Keith! Pshaw! They were too wise for us,mon ami. Don't fancy you can do anything there. Of course they were in love—every one knows that; but I doubt if you have a handle for a 'case,' if that is what you mean. And if Lauraine were afraid of you, would she have written—this?"She stands before him—that letter in her hand, and all that is worst in her whole nature roused and stung by the justice that she deems an insult. Sir Francis is quite at a loss. That Lauraine has so coolly disregarded his threats seems to augur her own fearlessness and her own innocence. He feels an involuntary respect for her despite his anger and the fury of baffled schemes. It had never occurred to him that she would be brave enough to act thus. She has openly defied him, and that defiance rouses in him a longing for vengeance—a hatred of the purity of principle that has been tempted and yet stood firm—that in the weakness of a woman's nature had been strong as never was his manhood; that confronts him now unshamed and undaunted, and ready to bear the cost of the most terrible vengeance that could present itself to a woman of Lauraine's nature."Would she?" persists Lady Jean, enraged at his silence. "Afraid!—she is fearless enough, trust her. She has been too clever for us both, and there remains nothing for it but to make the best of it. I will have no scene, no scandal. I leave your house to-morrow, and never again do I set foot in it, or receive you.""And you think I will suffer this?" cries Sir Francis. "That I am going to part from a woman I love for the sake of one I hate?""I think you cannot help yourself," answers Lady Jean coolly. "I mean what I have said. Now—go. I don't want to create further scandal, and your presence here at this time is somewhat singular, to say the least.""Jean, do not drive me mad!" cried Sir Francis desperately. "You are clever, keen of wit. Surely you can devise some plan by which we can defeat her? It is humiliating, unbearable to be baffled like this.""She has seen through our scheme; she is prepared," scoffs Lady Jean. "Don't praise me for keen wits or cleverness,mon ami; you can admire them more safely as exemplified by your wife! Now—will you go?""Not unless you tell me when I am to see you again.""Never, never, never!" almost screams Lady Jean. "Is that enough?Never again, I swear, unless your wife is—to all intents and appearances—what she has deemed me! As that will never be, I think you must resign yourself as philosophically as possible to an eternal parting.""How heartless you are!" cries Sir Francis. "You cannot mean it. We might meet sometimes. There is no kind of——""Oh, fool—dolt!" cries Lady Jean, in a fury. "Have I not said enough? It is to you I owe this insult. You can pay the penalty of it. You have nothing to do now but put up with your bargain, or—wait for freedom!""Freedom," he mutters, vaguely and stupidly. "Do you mean that I should try for a divorce?"She opens the door and pushes him aside. "I have said all that is necessary. It is for you to act!""Act," he says. For a moment he hesitates, then goes forward and firmly closes the door. "I willnotgo till I have said my say. I warned Lauraine that if she did this I would proceed to extremities. I shall do so. She has defied me for the first time in her life. Well, she shall suffer for it. If you leave my roof she leaves it too. She has chosen to insult you; let her have her share of the disgrace."Lady Jean looks at him as if bewildered."I think you know very well what I mean," he says gloomily. "You were the first to counsel it.""But the scandal, the disgrace," cries Lady Jean hurriedly. "And then all this will leak out, and it will look like a trumped-up case, done to shield yourself. And my name—— No, no, I cannot have it. She is right. Let her have her triumph; it won't last long. There are other ways to punish her besides this. Leave it to me. I must be calm. I must think. No;thatidea is ridiculous. You may drag her name through the dirt, but you drag your own also, and she can always bring up—this. And, though I hate her, I know she is a good woman. She is cold; that is her safeguard, for she never loved you. But all the same she will not forfeit her own self-respect. It is only another sort of pride, but it issafe.""And yet you always said—" begins Sir Francis."Said," and she laughs her old mocking laugh. "Of course Isaid, of course I say it still; but then proofs are different. She loves Keith Athelstone, and he loves her; and you—love me. It is a triangle that you can't make into a square. She has the best of it now. Let her alone, and let her triumph. It may be my turn next."Infatuated as Sir Francis is, something in the cold, measured hatred of this woman's last words strikes upon him with a chill almost of fear. He would rather have seen her furious, violent, tempestuous, than as she looked now. She was not the sort of woman to care for a "waiting race," and he knew some deeper purpose underlaid her words. She turns on him suddenly again, and stamps her foot. "Willyou go? Do you wish to disgrace me publicly? Have I not suffered enough at your hands?""But you will write; you will tell me where you are?" he implores."Yes—yes; I will write. Only go. I must be alone; I must think. And to-morrow I leave. Arrange all that." He leaves her then, and Lady Jean rings her bell and bids her maid pack immediately; she has received news that necessitates her return to Paris.Early next morning she leaves the Chase.Her hostess does not appear, or send any message of farewell. Sir Francis drives his guest away to the station. He has not seen or spoken to his wife."You have triumphed," says Lady Etwynde, standing by Lauraine's side, and watching the carriage as it disappears down the great oak avenue."Triumphed?" Lauraine sighs heavily as she turns her aching eyes away from the dark forest glades that stretch for miles around. "It is a poor triumph, Etwynde, and laden with bitter memories, and weighted with many fears. Something tells me that I shall suffer for this before long." And Lady Etwynde echoes that fear in her own heart, though now she speaks all brave and cheering words that her tender love can frame."How will it end?" she thinks despairingly. "How will it end?" Perhaps it was well that she could not tell at that hour, in that time.
All through that day Lauraine keeps in her own room. Sir Francis does not approach her. He is quite confident that his threat has taken effect—that she will never proceed to extremities. He has not seen Lady Jean to tell her of his wife's discovery, and he dares not send her another message. When he goes down to dinner he finds his wife in the drawing-room. She looks very pale, and is dressed in black velvet. Lady Etwynde is beside her, and Colonel Carlisle is standing near.
Sir Francis has scarcely entered the room when Lady Jean follows. She and Lauraine have not met that day. She walks up to her hostess, extending her hand.
Lauraine draws her slender figure up to its full height, and, with a cold bow, turns aside to speak to Colonel Carlisle. For an instant Lady Jean looks at her as if stunned. Then the blood rushes in a torrent to her face and neck. She knows the meaning of such an action only too well. Dinner is announced now, and Sir Francis, who has also observed this act of his wife's, offers his arm to Lady Jean. Colonel Carlisle does the same to Lauraine, and Lady Etwynde follows.
The dinner is a dreary affair. Each of them feels a scene is impending, and Colonel Carlisle, who has some inkling of how matters stand, is very uncomfortable. He resolves that on the morrow Etwynde and himself must quit Falcon's Chase, sorry as he is for, and much as he admires, Lauraine. The ladies rise to leave the table, and pass out of the room. Before entering the drawing-room Lady Jean bends down to Lauraine.
"Will you be good enough to explain the meaning of your strange behaviour?" she says.
Lauraine turns and faces her unflinchingly. "You must excuse me from entering upon any discussion with you," she says haughtily. "You will find a note in your own apartment that will fully explain everything—not that I fancy such explanation is needed."
Lady Jean's handsome, sparkling face changes to a dull, ashy grey. She to be insulted thus, to her face, and by a woman whom she despises and hates as a rival! Her teeth clench like a vice. She is too wise to bandy words; she only turns and walks straight to her own suite of rooms, and there sees the letter spoken of. Tearing it open like a fury, she reads the few curt lines in which Lauraine states that circumstances render it advisable her visit should come to an end, and refers her, for any explanation she may deem necessary, to Sir Francis.
To say that Lady Jean is furious would but ill convey an idea of the tempest of rage, hatred, and spite aroused in her heart by the knowledge that she is discovered.
"How could she have found out, and so suddenly?" she mutters to herself. "He had no letters of mine to leave about. I was never such a fool as to write to him, and to-day she has been shut up in her rooms, and I have not met Frank. Ah, the library—I forgot that. Good heavens! could she have overheard?"
She trembles with mingled rage and shame. If Lauraine had stood before her now she could have killed her without a regret, crushed out her youth and beauty with ruthless hands and rejoicing heart; but Lauraine is not there, and Lauraine has all the triumph, and she all the shame and defeat. Like a wounded tigress she paces to and fro her room, a thousand schemes and projects flashing through her brain, and all the fierceness and savagery of her nature roused into an insensate, furious longing to revenge this insult, as she terms it, upon the woman who has dealt it to her.
And at this moment, and while she is in this mood, Sir Francis enters.
Lady Jean turns upon him like a beautiful fury. "So—you have been fool enough to let her find out," she says, in a low, choked voice. "Read that."
He glances over his wife's letter. He is enraged also. He had not thought she would have courage to act like this. "By Heaven! she shall suffer for it!" he mutters savagely. "She has dared to defy me, after all!"
"Defy you?" echoes Lady Jean. "Did you know then?"
"Certainly; I knew since the morning," he answers. "She was in the library—she heard us."
"Did I not tell you, you were an imbecile," screams Lady Jean, "to send me a message—to ask me to come to that room; and now—now— Great Heaven! what am I to do? I am ruined, and all through your idiocy?"
A woman always turns round on a man when there is a question of inconvenience to herself. Sir Francis stands there sullen and raging, but he is equally at a loss what to counsel. "I am master here," he says presently. "You shall not go."
Lady Jean laughs in his face. "Master here?—oh, no doubt! You should have exercised your mastership in time, then; now it is too late. Your wife and I cannot remain under the same roof. Why, do you suppose that for a single moment I should stay to put up with her insults? Are you really such a fool? No; it is good-bye to you both from to-night, only don't let herdareto breathe a word of this to the world, or it will be the very worst day of her life—that I swear!"
"Good-bye!—what do you mean?" says sir Francis stupidly. "Do you think I am going to give you up for that puling, white-faced piece of virtue who calls herself my wife? By Heaven, no!"
"You seem to forget that you were mad to have that same puling, white-faced nonentity for your wife once upon a time!" sneers Lady Jean. "You bought your toy, and now must keep it. I leave your roof to-morrow, and never again do we two meet, unless——"
She pauses meaningly. He seizes her by the arm.
"Don't drive me desperate. You know I cannot give you up. You shall not—must not go. I have a hold on Lauraine. She is afraid. There is all that about—Keith."
Lady Jean shakes off his hand and laughs mockingly. "About Keith! Pshaw! They were too wise for us,mon ami. Don't fancy you can do anything there. Of course they were in love—every one knows that; but I doubt if you have a handle for a 'case,' if that is what you mean. And if Lauraine were afraid of you, would she have written—this?"
She stands before him—that letter in her hand, and all that is worst in her whole nature roused and stung by the justice that she deems an insult. Sir Francis is quite at a loss. That Lauraine has so coolly disregarded his threats seems to augur her own fearlessness and her own innocence. He feels an involuntary respect for her despite his anger and the fury of baffled schemes. It had never occurred to him that she would be brave enough to act thus. She has openly defied him, and that defiance rouses in him a longing for vengeance—a hatred of the purity of principle that has been tempted and yet stood firm—that in the weakness of a woman's nature had been strong as never was his manhood; that confronts him now unshamed and undaunted, and ready to bear the cost of the most terrible vengeance that could present itself to a woman of Lauraine's nature.
"Would she?" persists Lady Jean, enraged at his silence. "Afraid!—she is fearless enough, trust her. She has been too clever for us both, and there remains nothing for it but to make the best of it. I will have no scene, no scandal. I leave your house to-morrow, and never again do I set foot in it, or receive you."
"And you think I will suffer this?" cries Sir Francis. "That I am going to part from a woman I love for the sake of one I hate?"
"I think you cannot help yourself," answers Lady Jean coolly. "I mean what I have said. Now—go. I don't want to create further scandal, and your presence here at this time is somewhat singular, to say the least."
"Jean, do not drive me mad!" cried Sir Francis desperately. "You are clever, keen of wit. Surely you can devise some plan by which we can defeat her? It is humiliating, unbearable to be baffled like this."
"She has seen through our scheme; she is prepared," scoffs Lady Jean. "Don't praise me for keen wits or cleverness,mon ami; you can admire them more safely as exemplified by your wife! Now—will you go?"
"Not unless you tell me when I am to see you again."
"Never, never, never!" almost screams Lady Jean. "Is that enough?Never again, I swear, unless your wife is—to all intents and appearances—what she has deemed me! As that will never be, I think you must resign yourself as philosophically as possible to an eternal parting."
"How heartless you are!" cries Sir Francis. "You cannot mean it. We might meet sometimes. There is no kind of——"
"Oh, fool—dolt!" cries Lady Jean, in a fury. "Have I not said enough? It is to you I owe this insult. You can pay the penalty of it. You have nothing to do now but put up with your bargain, or—wait for freedom!"
"Freedom," he mutters, vaguely and stupidly. "Do you mean that I should try for a divorce?"
She opens the door and pushes him aside. "I have said all that is necessary. It is for you to act!"
"Act," he says. For a moment he hesitates, then goes forward and firmly closes the door. "I willnotgo till I have said my say. I warned Lauraine that if she did this I would proceed to extremities. I shall do so. She has defied me for the first time in her life. Well, she shall suffer for it. If you leave my roof she leaves it too. She has chosen to insult you; let her have her share of the disgrace."
Lady Jean looks at him as if bewildered.
"I think you know very well what I mean," he says gloomily. "You were the first to counsel it."
"But the scandal, the disgrace," cries Lady Jean hurriedly. "And then all this will leak out, and it will look like a trumped-up case, done to shield yourself. And my name—— No, no, I cannot have it. She is right. Let her have her triumph; it won't last long. There are other ways to punish her besides this. Leave it to me. I must be calm. I must think. No;thatidea is ridiculous. You may drag her name through the dirt, but you drag your own also, and she can always bring up—this. And, though I hate her, I know she is a good woman. She is cold; that is her safeguard, for she never loved you. But all the same she will not forfeit her own self-respect. It is only another sort of pride, but it issafe."
"And yet you always said—" begins Sir Francis.
"Said," and she laughs her old mocking laugh. "Of course Isaid, of course I say it still; but then proofs are different. She loves Keith Athelstone, and he loves her; and you—love me. It is a triangle that you can't make into a square. She has the best of it now. Let her alone, and let her triumph. It may be my turn next."
Infatuated as Sir Francis is, something in the cold, measured hatred of this woman's last words strikes upon him with a chill almost of fear. He would rather have seen her furious, violent, tempestuous, than as she looked now. She was not the sort of woman to care for a "waiting race," and he knew some deeper purpose underlaid her words. She turns on him suddenly again, and stamps her foot. "Willyou go? Do you wish to disgrace me publicly? Have I not suffered enough at your hands?"
"But you will write; you will tell me where you are?" he implores.
"Yes—yes; I will write. Only go. I must be alone; I must think. And to-morrow I leave. Arrange all that." He leaves her then, and Lady Jean rings her bell and bids her maid pack immediately; she has received news that necessitates her return to Paris.
Early next morning she leaves the Chase.
Her hostess does not appear, or send any message of farewell. Sir Francis drives his guest away to the station. He has not seen or spoken to his wife.
"You have triumphed," says Lady Etwynde, standing by Lauraine's side, and watching the carriage as it disappears down the great oak avenue.
"Triumphed?" Lauraine sighs heavily as she turns her aching eyes away from the dark forest glades that stretch for miles around. "It is a poor triumph, Etwynde, and laden with bitter memories, and weighted with many fears. Something tells me that I shall suffer for this before long." And Lady Etwynde echoes that fear in her own heart, though now she speaks all brave and cheering words that her tender love can frame.
"How will it end?" she thinks despairingly. "How will it end?" Perhaps it was well that she could not tell at that hour, in that time.