Part 23

She was startled by his tone, and said faintly--

“I spoke the truth. What more can I say?”

“Confound it! You might say something human,” he burst out. “It isn’t being truthful; it’s being brazen--if you want to know. Not a word to show you feel your position, and--and mine. Not a single word of acknowledgment, or regret--or remorse . . . or . . . something.”

“Words!” she whispered in a tone that irritated him. He stamped his foot.

“This is awful!” he exclaimed. “Words? Yes, words. Words mean something--yes--they do--for all this infernal affectation. They mean something to me--to everybody--to you. What the devil did you use to express those sentiments--sentiments--pah!--which made you forget me, duty, shame!” . . . He foamed at the mouth while she stared at him, appalled by this sudden fury. “Did you two talk only with your eyes?” he spluttered savagely. She rose.

“I can’t bear this,” she said, trembling from head to foot. “I am going.”

They stood facing one another for a moment.

“Not you,” he said, with conscious roughness, and began to walk up and down the room. She remained very still with an air of listening anxiously to her own heart-beats, then sank down on the chair slowly, and sighed, as if giving up a task beyond her strength.

“You misunderstand everything I say,” he began quietly, “but I prefer to think that--just now--you are not accountable for your actions.” He stopped again before her. “Your mind is unhinged,” he said, with unction. “To go now would be adding crime--yes, crime--to folly. I’ll have no scandal in my life, no matter what’s the cost. And why? You are sure to misunderstand me--but I’ll tell you. As a matter of duty. Yes. But you’re sure to misunderstand me--recklessly. Women always do--they are too--too narrow-minded.”

He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn’t even look at him; he felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a man who suspects he is unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating sensation he recommenced talking very fast. The sound of his words excited his thoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he had glimpses now and then of the inexpugnable rock of his convictions, towering in solitary grandeur above the unprofitable waste of errors and passions.

“For it is self-evident,” he went on with anxious vivacity, “it is self-evident that, on the highest ground we haven’t the right--no, we haven’t the right to intrude our miseries upon those who--who naturally expect better things from us. Every one wishes his own life and the life around him to be beautiful and pure. Now, a scandal amongst people of our position is disastrous for the morality--a fatal influence--don’t you see--upon the general tone of the class--very important--the most important, I verily believe, in--in the community. I feel this--profoundly. This is the broad view. In time you’ll give me . . . when you become again the woman I loved--and trusted. . . .”

He stopped short, as though unexpectedly suffocated, then in a completely changed voice said, “For I did love and trust you”--and again was silent for a moment. She put her handkerchief to her eyes.

“You’ll give me credit for--for--my motives. It’s mainly loyalty to--to the larger conditions of our life--where you--you! of all women--failed. One doesn’t usually talk like this--of course--but in this case you’ll admit . . . And consider--the innocent suffer with the guilty. The world is pitiless in its judgments. Unfortunately there are always those in it who are only too eager to misunderstand. Before you and before my conscience I am guiltless, but any--any disclosure would impair my usefulness in the sphere--in the larger sphere in which I hope soon to . . . I believe you fully shared my views in that matter--I don’t want to say any more . . . on--on that point--but, believe me, true unselfishness is to bear one’s burdens in--in silence. The ideal must--must be preserved--for others, at least. It’s clear as daylight. If I’ve a--a loathsome sore, to gratuitously display it would be abominable--abominable! And often in life--in the highest conception of life--outspokenness in certain circumstances is nothing less than criminal. Temptation, you know, excuses no one. There is no such thing really if one looks steadily to one’s welfare--which is grounded in duty. But there are the weak.” . . . His tone became ferocious for an instant . . . “And there are the fools and the envious--especially for people in our position. I am guiltless of this terrible--terrible . . . estrangement; but if there has been nothing irreparable.” . . . Something gloomy, like a deep shadow passed over his face. . . . “Nothing irreparable--you see even now I am ready to trust you implicitly--then our duty is clear.”

He looked down. A change came over his expression and straightway from the outward impetus of his loquacity he passed into the dull contemplation of all the appeasing truths that, not without some wonder, he had so recently been able to discover within himself. During this profound and soothing communion with his innermost beliefs he remained staring at the carpet, with a portentously solemn face and with a dull vacuity of eyes that seemed to gaze into the blankness of an empty hole. Then, without stirring in the least, he continued:

“Yes. Perfectly clear. I’ve been tried to the utmost, and I can’t pretend that, for a time, the old feelings--the old feelings are not. . . .” He sighed. . . . “But I forgive you. . . .”

She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes. In his profound scrutiny of the carpet he noticed nothing. And there was silence, silence within and silence without, as though his words had stilled the beat and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the house had stood alone--the only dwelling upon a deserted earth.

He lifted his head and repeated solemnly:

“I forgive you . . . from a sense of duty--and in the hope . . .”

He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words but also destroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of a reality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn’t understand whence the sound came. He could see, foreshortened, the tear-stained, dolorous face of the woman stretched out, and with her head thrown over the back of the seat. He thought the piercing noise was a delusion. But another shrill peal followed by a deep sob and succeeded by another shriek of mirth positively seemed to tear him out from where he stood. He bounded to the door. It was closed. He turned the key and thought: that’s no good. . . . “Stop this!” he cried, and perceived with alarm that he could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her screaming. He darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with his hands, but stood still distracted, finding himself as unable to touch her as though she had been on fire. He shouted, “Enough of this!” like men shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes; then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he disappeared in a flash out of three looking-glasses, vanished suddenly from before her. For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminous stillness of the empty room.

He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in his hand. He stammered: “Hysterics--Stop--They will hear--Drink this.” She laughed at the ceiling. “Stop this!” he cried. “Ah!”

He flung the water in her face, putting into the action all the secret brutality of his spite, yet still felt that it would have been perfectly excusable--in any one--to send the tumbler after the water. He restrained himself, but at the same time was so convinced nothing could stop the horror of those mad shrieks that, when the first sensation of relief came, it did not even occur to him to doubt the impression of having become suddenly deaf. When, next moment, he became sure that she was sitting up, and really very quiet, it was as though everything--men, things, sensations, had come to a rest. He was prepared to be grateful. He could not take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit, the possibility of her beginning again; for, the experience, however contemptuously he tried to think of it, had left the bewilderment of a mysterious terror. Her face was streaming with water and tears; there was a wisp of hair on her forehead, another stuck to her cheek; her hat was on one side, undecorously tilted; her soaked veil resembled a sordid rag festooning her forehead. There was an utter unreserve in her aspect, an abandonment of safeguards, that ugliness of truth which can only be kept out of daily life by unremitting care for appearances. He did not know why, looking at her, he thought suddenly of to-morrow, and why the thought called out a deep feeling of unutterable, discouraged weariness--a fear of facing the succession of days. To-morrow! It was as far as yesterday. Ages elapsed between sunrises--sometimes. He scanned her features like one looks at a forgotten country. They were not distorted--he recognized landmarks, so to speak; but it was only a resemblance that he could see, not the woman of yesterday--or was it, perhaps, more than the woman of yesterday? Who could tell? Was it something new? A new expression--or a new shade of expression? or something deep--an old truth unveiled, a fundamental and hidden truth--some unnecessary, accursed certitude? He became aware that he was trembling very much, that he had an empty tumbler in his hand--that time was passing. Still looking at her with lingering mistrust he reached towards the table to put the glass down and was startled to feel it apparently go through the wood. He had missed the edge. The surprise, the slight jingling noise of the accident annoyed him beyond expression. He turned to her irritated.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked, grimly.

She passed her hand over her face and made an attempt to get up.

“You’re not going to be absurd again,” he said. “‘Pon my soul, I did not know you could forget yourself to that extent.” He didn’t try to conceal his physical disgust, because he believed it to be a purely moral reprobation of every unreserve, of anything in the nature of a scene. “I assure you--it was revolting,” he went on. He stared for a moment at her. “Positively degrading,” he added with insistence.

She stood up quickly as if moved by a spring and tottered. He started forward instinctively. She caught hold of the back of the chair and steadied herself. This arrested him, and they faced each other wide-eyed, uncertain, and yet coming back slowly to the reality of things with relief and wonder, as though just awakened after tossing through a long night of fevered dreams.

“Pray, don’t begin again,” he said, hurriedly, seeing her open her lips. “I deserve some little consideration--and such unaccountable behaviour is painful to me. I expect better things. . . . I have the right. . . .”

She pressed both her hands to her temples.

“Oh, nonsense!” he said, sharply. “You are perfectly capable of coming down to dinner. No one should even suspect; not even the servants. No one! No one! . . . I am sure you can.”