Part 59

“I got them for you.”

The parlourmaid appeared below dealing with the maid and the luggage cab.

“Tell me all about America,” said Margaret. “I feel as though you'd been away six year's.”

We went arm in arm into our little sitting-room, and I took off the fur's for her and sat down upon the chintz-covered sofa by the fire. She had ordered tea, and came and sat by me. I don't know what I had expected, but of all things I had certainly not expected this sudden abolition of our distances.

“I want to know all about America,” she repeated, with her eyes scrutinising me. “Why did you come back?”

I repeated the substance of my letters rather lamely, and she sat listening.

“But why did you turn back--without going to Denver?”

“I wanted to come back. I was restless.”

“Restlessness,” she said, and thought. “You were restless in Venice. You said it was restlessness took you to America.”

Again she studied me. She turned a little awkwardly to her tea things, and poured needless water from the silver kettle into the teapot. Then she sat still for some moments looking at the equipage with expressionless eyes. I saw her hand upon the edge of the table tremble slightly. I watched her closely. A vague uneasiness possessed me. What might she not know or guess?

She spoke at last with an effort. “I wish you were in Parliament again,” she said. “Life doesn't give you events enough.”

“If I was in Parliament again, I should be on the Conservative side.”

“I know,” she said, and was still more thoughtful.

“Lately,” she began, and paused. “Lately I've been reading--you.”

I didn't help her out with what she had to say. I waited.

“I didn't understand what you were after. I had misjudged. I didn't know. I think perhaps I was rather stupid.” Her eyes were suddenly shining with tears. “You didn't give me much chance to understand.”

She turned upon me suddenly with a voice full of tears.

“Husband,” she said abruptly, holding her two hands out to me, “I want to begin over again!”

I took her hands, perplexed beyond measure. “My dear!” I said.

“I want to begin over again.”

I bowed my head to hide my face, and found her hand in mine and kissed it.

“Ah!” she said, and slowly withdrew her hand. She leant forward with her arm on the sofa-back, and looked very intently into my face. I felt the most damnable scoundrel in the world as I returned her gaze. The thought of Isabel's darkly shining eyes seemed like a physical presence between us....

“Tell me,” I said presently, to break the intolerable tension, “tell me plainly what you mean by this.”

I sat a little away from her, and then took my teacup in hand, with an odd effect of defending myself. “Have you been reading that old book of mine?” I asked.

“That and the paper. I took a complete set from the beginning down to Durham with me. I have read it over, thought it over. I didn't understand--what you were teaching.”

There was a little pause.

“It all seems so plain to me now,” she said, “and so true.”

I was profoundly disconcerted. I put down my teacup, stood up in the middle of the hearthrug, and began talking. “I'm tremendously glad, Margaret, that you've come to see I'm not altogether perverse,” I began. I launched out into a rather trite and windy exposition of my views, and she sat close to me on the sofa, looking up into my face, hanging on my words, a deliberate and invincible convert.