HOW MAURICE GAINS ANOTHER POINT; AND HOW TITA CONSENTS TO THINK
ABOUT IT; AND HOW MARGARET TELLS A LIE.
For a little while no word is spoken. It seems as if no words are
theirs to speak. Rylton, standing on the hearthrug, has nothing to
look at save her back, that is so determinedly turned towards him.
She is leaning over the plants in one of the windows, pretending to
busy herself with their leaves.
"Won't you speak to me?" says Rylton at last.
He goes to her, and so stands that she is forced to let him see her
face--a face beautiful, but pale and unkind, and with the eyes so
steadfastly lowered. And yet he
"Knows they must be there,
Sweet eyes behind those lashes fair,
That will not raise their rim."
"I _have_ spoken," says Tita.
"When?"
"I said, 'How d'ye do' to you."
"Nonsense" says he; and then, "I don't believe you said even so
much. You gave me your hand, that was all; and that you gave
reluctantly."
"Well, I can't help it," slowly. "Remember what I told you that last
day."
"I don't want to remember anything," says he earnestly. "I want to
start afresh--from this hour. And yet--there _is_ one thing I must
recall. You said--that last day--there was no love between
us--that," slowly, "was not true. There is love on one side, at all
events. Tita"--taking a step towards her--"I----"
She makes a sudden, wild gesture, throwing out her hands as if to
ward off something.
_"Don't!"_ cries she in a stifled voice. "Don't say it!"
"I must! I _will!"_ says Rylton passionately. "I love you!" There is
a dead silence, and in it he says again, "I love you!"
For a moment Tita looks as if she were going to faint; then the
light returns to her eyes, the colour to her face.
"First her, then me," says she.
"Will you never forgive that?" asks he. "And it was _before_ I saw
you. When I did see you--Tita, do try to believe this much, at all
events, that after our marriage I was true to you. I think now, that
from the first moment I saw you I loved you. But I did not know it,
and----"
"That is not all," says Tita in a low tone.
"I know--about Hescott. I beg your pardon about that. I was mad, I
think; but the madness arose out of jealousy. I could not bear to
think you were happy with him, _un_happy with me. If I had loved
another, would I have cared with _whom_ you were happy?"
"I don't know," says Tita.
There is something so forlorn in the sad little answer--something so
forlorn in her whole attitude, indeed--the droop of her head, the
sorrowful clasping of her small hands before her--that Rylton's
heart burns within him.
"Be just--be just to me," cries he; "give me a chance. I confess I
married you for your money. But now that accursed money is all gone
(for which I thank heaven), and our positions are reversed. The
money now is mine, and I come to you, and fling it at your feet, and
implore you from my very soul to forgive me, and take me back."
She still remains silent, and her silence cuts him to the heart.
"What can I say? What can I do to move you?" exclaims he, in a low
tone, but one that trembles. "Is your heart dead to me? Have I
killed any hope that might have been mine? Is it too late in the day
to call myself your lover?"
At this she lifts her hands and covers her face. All at once he
knows that she is crying. He goes to her quickly, and lays his arm
round her shoulder.
"Let me begin again," says he. "Trust me once more. I know well,
Tita, that you do not love me yet, but perhaps in time you will
forgive me, and take me to your heart. I am sorry, darling, for
every angry word I have ever said to you, but in every one of those
angry words there was love for you, and you alone. I thought only of
you, only I did not know it. Tita, say you will begin life again
with me."
"I--I _couldn't_ go to The Place," says Tita. A shudder shakes her
frame. "It was there I first heard---- It was there your mother told
me of----"
"I know--I know; and I don't ask you to go there. I think I told you
I had bought a new place. Come there with me."
"Why do you want me to go with you," asks she, lifting her mournful
eyes to his, "when you know I do not love you?"
"Yes; I know that." He pauses. "I ask you for many reasons, and not
all selfish ones. I ask you for your own sake more than all. The
world is cruel, Tita, to a woman who deliberately lives away from
her husband; and, besides----"
"I don't care about the world."
"We all care about the world sooner or later, and, besides, you who
have been accustomed to money all your life cannot find your present
income sufficient for you, and Margaret may marry."
"Oh yes! Yes; I think so." For the first time she shows some
animation. "I _hope_ so. You saw them talking together to-day?"
"I did." There is a slight pause, and then: "You are glad for
Margaret. You wish everyone"--reproachfully--"to be happy except
me."
She shakes her head.
"Give me a kind word before I go," says Rylton earnestly.
"What can I say?"
"Say that you will think of what I have been urging."
"One _must_ think," says she, in a rather refractory tone.
"You promise, then?"
"Yes; I shall think."
"Until to-morrow, then," says he, holding out his hand.
"To-morrow?"
She looks troubled.
"Yes; to-morrow. Don't forbid me to come to-morrow."
He presses her hand.
The troubled look still rests upon her face as she turns away from
him, having bidden him good-bye. The last memory of her he takes
away with him is of a little slender figure standing at the window,
with her hands clasped behind her back. She does not look back at
him.
* * * * *
"Well?" says Margaret, coming into the room half an hour later.
"Why, what a little snowflake you are! Come up to the fire and warm
those white cheeks. Was it Maurice made you look like that? I shall
scold him. What did he say to you?"
"He wants me to go back to him."
"Yes?" anxiously.
"Well---- That's all."
"But you, dearest?"
"Oh, I can't _bear_ to think of it!" cries Tita, in a miserable
tone.
At this Margaret feels hope dying within her. Beyond question she
has again refused to be reconciled to him. Margaret is so fond of
the girl that it goes to her very heart to see her thus wilfully (as
she believes) throwing away her best chance of happiness in this
world.
"Tita, have you well considered what you are doing? A woman
separated from her husband, no matter how free from blame she may
be, is always regarded with coldness by----"
"Oh, yes! I know," impatiently. _"He_ has been saying all that."
"And, after all, what has Maurice done that you should be so hard
with him? Many a man has loved another woman before his marriage.
That old story----"
"It isn't that," says Tita suddenly. "It is"--she lays her hands on
Margaret's shoulders, and regards her earnestly and with
agitation--"it is that I fear _myself."_
"You fear"--uncertainly--"that you don't love him?"
"Pshaw!" says Tita, letting her go, and rising to her feet, as
though to sit still is impossible to her. "What a speech from you to
me--you, who know all! _Love_ him! I am sure about that, at all
events. I know I don't."
"Are you so sure?"
"Positive--_positive!"_
"What? Not even _one_ doubt?"
"Not one."
"What is your fear, then?" asks Margaret.
"That even if I went back to him, took up my old position, asked his
guests to our house, and so on, that sooner or later I should
quarrel with him a second time, and then this dreadful work would
have to be done all over again."
"That would rest in your own hands. Of course, it is a risk, if,
indeed, you mean what you say, Tita"--watching her closely--"that
you do not care for Maurice. But"--anxiously--"at all events, you do
not care for anyone else?"
"No--no--no" petulantly--"why should I? I think all men more trouble
than they are worth."
"If that is so, and you are heart-whole, I think it your positive
duty to live with your husband," says Margaret, with decision. "How
can you hesitate, Tita? Are the vows you uttered at the altar
nothing to you? Many a woman lives with a bad husband through
conscientious motives, and----"
"I don't believe it," says Tita, who is evidently in one of her most
wayward moods. "They go on living with their horrid husbands because
they are afraid of what people will say about them. You know you
said something about it yourself just now, and so did--_he;_
something about the world being disagreeable to any woman, however
good, who is separated from the man she married."
Margaret gives up the argument.
"Well," says she, smiling, "at all events, Maurice isn't a horrid
husband."
"You say that because he isn't yours," with a shrug.
"Come back here, you bad child," says Margaret, laughing now, "and
listen to me for a little while longer. You know, Tita, darling,
that I have your interest, and yours only, at heart. Promise me you
will at least think of what Maurice proposes."
"Oh, I've promised _him_ that," says Tita, frowning.
"You have?" cries Margaret. "Oh, you _good_ girl! Come! that's
right. And so you parted not altogether at war? How glad I am! And
he--he was glad, too. He"--anxiously--"he said----"
"He said he was coming again to-morrow," with apparent disgust.
"To get your answer?"
"Oh, I suppose so! I don't know, I'm sure," with such a sharp
gesture as proves to Margaret her patience has come to an end. "Let
us forget it--put it from us--while we can." She laughs nervously.
"You see what a temper I have! He will repent his bargain, I
think--if I do consent. Come, let us talk of something else, Meg--of
you."
"Of me?"
"What better subject? Tell me what Colonel Neilson was saying to you
in that window this evening," pointing to the one farthest off.
"Nothing--nothing at all. He is so stupid," says Margaret, blushing
crimson. "He really never sees me without proposing all over again,
as if there was any good in it."
"And what did you say this time?"
Margaret grows confused.
"Really, dearest, I was so taken up thinking of you and Maurice,"
says she, with a first (and most flagrant) attempt at dissimulation,
"that I believe I forgot to--to--say anything."
Tita gives way to a burst of irrepressible laughter.
"I like that," says she. "Well, at all events, by your own showing,
you didn't say _no."_