If Eve could have mended her idol discreetly and permanently, so
that for the outward world it would still present the same
uncompromising surface, so that no inquisitive or bungling touch
could bring to light the grim, disfiguring fracture which it had
sustained, it is probable that she would have chosen this part, and
hidden the grief of her life from the eyes of all save those who
were so inseparably connected with the tragedy of that autumnal
afternoon. But it was so completely shattered, the pieces were so
many; and, worst of all, some of them were lost. To forget! What a
world of bitter irony was in the word! And she could not even bury
her illusions quietly and unobserved of uncharitable eyes; there was
the sordid necessity of explanation to be faced, the lame pretexts
to be fashioned, and the half-truths to be uttered, which bore an
interpretation so far more damning than the full measure which it
seemed so hard to give.
Mrs. Sylvester, whose jealous maternal instincts continued to be on
the alert hardly less keenly after her daughter's marriage than
before, had soon detected something of oppression in the atmosphere;
an explanation had been demanded, and the story, magnified somewhat
in its least attractive features by Eve's natural reticence, had
gone to swell the volume of similar experiences recorded in Mrs.
Sylvester's brain. That she felt a genuine sorrow for Rainham is
certain, for the grain of her nature was kindly enough beneath its
veneer of worldly cleverness; but her grief was more than tempered
by a sense of self-congratulation, of unlimited approval of the
prudence which had enabled her to marry her daughter so
irreproachably before the bubble burst. Indeed, the little glow of
pride which mingled quite harmoniously with her nevertheless
perfectly sincere regret, was an almost visible element in her moral
atmosphere, as she emerged from the door of her daughter's house
after this momentous interview, drawing her furs about her with a
little shiver before she stepped into her well-appointed brougham.
She had the air of saying to herself, "Dear me, dear, dear! it's
very sad, it's very terrible; but I! how clever I have been, and how
beautifully I behaved!" There was nothing particularly novel from
her point of view in the story which she had just extracted from her
reluctant daughter; the situation called for an edifying,
comfortable sorrow, but by no means for surprise. It was what might
have been expected--though this (which was somewhat hard) did not
render the episode any the less reprehensible.
And it was this feeling which had predominated during the lady's
homeward drive, and the half hour's _tête-à-tête_, before dinner,
which she had utilized for an exchange of confidences with her son.
"I didn't know that there had been an--an exposure," he said, as he
stood, a stiff, uncompromising figure, before the fire in the little
drawing-room. "But I had an idea that it was inevitable from--from
certain information which I have received. In fact, I have been
rather puzzled. You must do me the justice to remember that I never
liked the man--though he had his good points," he added a little
awkwardly, as inconvenient memories of the many kindnesses which he
had received at Rainham's hands thrust themselves upon him. "But I'm
afraid he's hardly the sort of person one ought to be intimate with.
Especially you, and Eve. Of course, for her it's out of the
question."
"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Sylvester decisively; "and they haven't
seen him since, I need hardly say. In fact, they haven't even heard
of him. They haven't told a soul except me, and of course I sha'n't
tell anybody," the lady concluded with a sigh, as she remembered how
difficult she had found it to drive straight home without breaking
the vow of secrecy which her daughter had exacted from her.
Whatever Mrs. Sylvester may have thought, it is certain that the
interview, from which she enjoyed the impression of having emerged
so triumphantly, had brought anything but consolation to her
daughter, whose first impulse was to blame herself quite angrily for
having admitted to her secret places, after all so natural a
confidante.
Nor had Eve repented of this feeling. As time went on she found her
mother's somewhat too obviously complacent attitude more and more
exasperating, and she compared her want of reserve very unfavourably
with her husband's demeanour (it must be owned that he had his
reasons for a certain reticence). Against Colonel Lightmark, also,
she cherished something of resentment, for he, too, more especially
in collaboration with her mother, was wont to indulge in elderly,
moral reflections, which, although for the most part no names were
mentioned, were evidently not directed generally and at hazard
against the society of which the Colonel and Mrs. Sylvester formed
ornaments so distinguished.
Upon one afternoon, when Christmas was already a thing of the past,
and the days were growing longer, it was with considerable relief
that Eve heard the outer door close upon her mother, leaving
her alone in the twilight of the smaller portion of the double
drawing-room. She was alone, for Mrs. Sylvester had been the last
to depart of a small crowd of afternoon callers, and Dick was
interviewing somebody--a frame-maker, a model, or a dealer--in
the studio. She sat with a book unopened in her hand, gazing
intently into the fire, which cast responsive flickers over her
face, giving a shadowed emphasis to the faint line which had begun
to display itself, not unattractively, between her eyebrows and the
irregular curve of her brown hair. She was growing very weary of it
all, the distraction which she had sought, the forgetfulness of self
which she had hoped to achieve, by living perpetually in a crowd.
Indeed, to such a point had she carried her endeavours, that Mrs.
Lightmark's beauty was already becoming a matter of almost public
interest. She was a person to be recognised and recorded by
sharp-eyed journalists at the play-houses on "first nights"; her
carriage-horses performed extensive nightly pilgrimages in the
regions of Kensington and Mayfair; and she had made a reputation for
her dressmaker. And already she realized that her efforts to live
outside herself were futile; moments like these must come, and the
knowledge that, in spite of her countless friends and voluminous
visiting list, she was alone.
Her mother? Dick? After all, they were only in the position of
occupying somewhat exceptionally prominent places on the
visiting-list.
As for her husband, after all these long months of married life, she
could not say that she knew him. She regarded him with a kind of
admiration of his personal, social attractions, in which she
recognised him as fully her equal, with a kind of envy of the
genius, which she could not entirely comprehend, but which seemed to
make him so vastly her superior. And yet there was a shadow of doubt
about it all: there had been sinister flashes, illumining, dimly
enough, depths which the marital intimacy still left unfathomed,
making her wonder whether her husband's candour might not mask
something more terrible than forgotten follies, something that might
prove a more real and irremovable barrier between them than even
that indefinable want of a mutual horizon, of common ground upon
which their traditions could unite themselves.
So long as Dick had remained cheerfully masterful, and picturesquely
_flamboyant_, without even an occasional betrayal of the bitterness
which makes the one attribute savour of insolence, and the other of
oppression, his wife had regarded him as exactly fulfilling the part
for which he had obviously been cast--of a good-humoured,
ornamental, domestic tyrant, to be openly obeyed and covertly
coerced. A husband who assisted her acquisition of social laurels;
who gave her more money than she asked for; who designed for her the
most elaborate and enviable dresses--yes, her mother certainly had
reasons for declaring him a paragon! But still Eve was vaguely
conscious of a defect, a shortcoming. It was all very well so far as
it went, but the prospect was by no means unbounded. And, then, had
he not also designed gowns for Mrs. Dollond, and succeeded (there
was a sting in this) where success was somewhat more difficult of
achievement?
Now, moreover, he had begun to carry an aggrieved air--an air which
suggested that he pitied himself, that he considered that he had
been unfairly dealt with, that he was entitled to assume the
attitude of an innocent, injured victim of some blindly-dealt
retribution. What did that mean? The only explanation which his wife
could find for this symptomatic manifestation had its origin in the
unhappy episode of which the memory was always on the threshold of
her solitary thoughts, and, perhaps, of his. She began to feel, with
a certain compunction, that Dick must resent the circumstances which
obliged him practically to sever his acquaintance with a man who had
indisputably figured for so many years as his nearest friend; and
she asked herself sometimes whether the circumstances in question
did not, in effect, centre in herself.
Although the world was as yet far from being an open book for her,
it was conceivable that Philip Rainham (even if one judged by
appearances) had done nothing which need necessarily cast him beyond
the pale of the unregenerate society of bachelordom. It never
occurred to her that, so far as she herself was concerned, a renewal
of the old relation was among possible things: if she had met Philip
in public she would have made it clear to him that he was no longer
on the same plane with her; that, from her point of view, he had
practically ceased to exist.
It was only when she was alone, and pleasant, bitter memories of the
old days recurred, that she owned to herself how hard it was to
think of this intimacy as severed by a rule of moral conduct no less
inexorable, and even more cruel, than death. And yet there were
moments--and this was one of them--when her husband's bearing seemed
more portentous, when the explanation she had found possible seemed
no longer probable, and uncomfortable doubts as to the real meaning
of his uneasiness assailed her mind.
A fragment of burning coal fell with a clatter into the grate: she
welcomed the interruption, and for the moment abandoned her
thoughts, only, however, to enter upon them again by a different
path.
"I wonder why I don't hate him?" she asked herself, almost
wistfully. (She was not now thinking of her husband.) "I ought to
hate him, I suppose, and to pity her. But I pity him, I think, and I
hate--her."
The fire still crackled cheerfully, and she began to feel its heat
oppressive; she let her hands fall with a gesture half of contempt,
half of despair, and then rose abruptly, and walked into the
darkness of the larger room, from the unshuttered windows of which
she could see the dark bulk of her husband's studio looming against
the gray, smoke-coloured sky.
While she stood, leaning with something of a forward tilt of her
gracile figure, upon the ledge of the low, square window, the side
door of the studio opened, letting a flood of light out upon the
lawn, and with absent eyes she saw that her husband's visitor was
taking his leave. Presently the door closed; the broad rays which
had shone coldly from the skylight of the building died out, so
abruptly that the change seemed almost audible; and simultaneously
she heard her husband's careless step in the long glazed passage,
half conservatory, half corridor, which led from her domain to his.
He came in, softly humming an air from a comic opera, and then
paused, peering into the darkness for an instant before he
distinguished his wife's shape in dusky relief against the pale
square of window.
"Don't light the room!" she said quickly, as she saw him stretch his
hand towards the little button which controlled the electric light;
"we can talk in the dark."
He stopped with his hand on the porcelain knob, breaking off his
ditty in the middle of a bar.
"By all means, if you like," he said, "though I should prefer to see
you, you know."
Then he dropped luxuriously into an easy-chair by the side of the
fire, which continued to exhibit a comfortable, glowing redness.
But very soon Lightmark became aware of a certain weight of
apprehension, which took from him the power to enjoy these material
comforts; unattractive possibilities seemed to hover in the silent
darkness, and his more subtile senses were roused, and brought to a
state of quivering tension, which was almost insupportable. His wife
moved, and he felt that she had directed her eyes towards him,
though he could not see her; and he winced instinctively, seeking to
be first to break the silence, but unable to find a timely word to
say. The blow fell, and even while she spoke he felt a quick
admiration for the instinct which had enabled him to anticipate her
thought.
"Dick," she said quietly, without moving from her place by the
window, "have you seen _him_ since----?"
There was no need of names; he did not even notice the omission.
Could she see his face, he wondered, in the firelight?
"No!" he sighed, "no!"
She came nearer to him, so near that he could hear her breathing,
the touch of her fingers upon the back of a chair; and presently she
spoke again:
"You think there was no excuse for him?"
"Ah--for excuse! She was pretty, you know!"
He got up, and stood facing her for a moment in the darkness, and
then, while she appeared to consider, glanced at his watch, and made
a suggestion of movement towards the door.
"Only a minute, Dick," she said, in the same set voice. "You will do
me the justice to admit that I haven't alluded to this before. But I
have been thinking--I can't help it--and I want to know----"
"To know?" he echoed impatiently.
"To know your position--our position; what you had to do with it
all."
"What is the good? What difference can it make?"
"It's the doubt," she said--"the doubt. I thought you might like to
explain."
"To explain? Good Lord! what have I to explain? Is it not all
settled, all clear? My dear child, let us be reasonable, let us
forget; it's the only way."
There was less of anger in his voice, but if Eve could have seen his
eyes in the firelight, she might have noticed that they were very
bright, and their pupils were contracted to hard, iridescent points.
"How can it be settled," she asked wearily, "while there is this
shadow of doubt? And to forget--Heaven knows I have tried!"
Dick shrugged his shoulders tolerantly.
"What do you want me to say?--to explain?"
"Could you not have warned him, Dick? Did you not see it coming?
She, that woman, was she not your model? Did he not meet her at your
studio? Was not that the beginning of it all? Ah, can you say that
you were not to blame?"
She spoke fast, following question with question, as if she
anticipated the answer with mingled feelings of hope and fear, and
there was more of entreaty than of denunciation in her last words.
"It's such an old story," he rejoined, with an air of feeble
protest. "How could I foresee what would happen? And," he added,
hardening himself, "they did not meet for the first time at my
studio; on the contrary, it was he who brought her to me, and I
suspected nothing. What more can I say? Surely it is all plain
enough!"
Eve sighed. It seemed to her husband that she was on the whole
disappointed, and he felt that, while he was about it, he might have
given himself a freer hand, and made himself emerge, not only
without a stain upon his character--the expression occurred to him
with a kind of familiar mockery--but with beaten drums and flying
colours.
He reflected that this was another example of the folly of
attempting to economize. At the same time he was gently thrilled by
what he owned to himself was a not ignoble emotion: that sigh seemed
to speak so naturally and pathetically of disillusionment, it was
such a simple little confession of a damaged ideal. It did not occur
to him to suspect that the character of which his wife had formed
too proudly high an estimate was his own.
"Don't you think you might trust me?" he said presently in a milder,
almost paternal tone, magnanimously prepared for a charming display
of penitence, which it would be his duty rather to encourage than to
deprecate.
"To trust you?" replied Eve quickly. "Haven't I the appearance of
trusting you? Don't I accept your explanations?"
It was Lightmark's turn to sigh. His wife moved away, with an air of
dismissing the subject.
"It is quite dark; it must be time to dress for dinner. Please turn
on the light." Then she added as she left the room, without waiting
for an answer: "And you, do you find it so easy to forget?"
When Lightmark was alone, he stood for a few minutes before the fire
in meditation; then he clenched his fist viciously.
"Confound the girl, and him, too! No, poor devil! he meant well. It
was just the senseless, quixotic sort of thing one would have
expected of him. But I don't know that it has done much good. It has
made me feel a sneak, though I've only been lying to back him up.
Why couldn't he let it alone? There would have been a storm, of
course, but it would soon have blown over, and no one else need have
known."
He stopped in front of a mirror--he had been pacing up and down the
room--and found himself looking rather pale in the soft, brilliant
glow of the incandescent lamps. Moreover, the clock pointed to an
hour very near that for which the carriage had been ordered.
While he was dressing for dinner, it occurred to him--it was not
for the first time--that, after all, it would take very little to
render Rainham's bungling devotion, and his own meritorious
aberrations from the path of truth, worse than nugatory. For what if
Kitty should split?--so he elegantly expressed his fears--what if
the girl, of whom he had heard nothing since the day of that
deplorable scene, should break loose, and throw up the part which
she had undertaken upon such very short notice?
Decidedly, he felt that he was abundantly justified in resenting the
false position into which he had been thrust; the imposture was too
glaring. Would it not even now be well to remodel the situation with
a greater semblance of adherence to facts--to make a clean breast of
it? The crudity of the idea offended him; the process would
necessarily be wanting in art. But possibly it was not yet too late
to substitute a story which, if it caused him temporary discomfort,
would at least leave him more certain of the future, the master of
an easier, a less violently outraged conscience.
At dinner the taciturnity, bordering on moroseness, of a talker
usually so brilliant led his host to surmise that Lightmark had
ruined a picture, his hostess to conclude that he had quarrelled
with his wife. He came home early, and occupied the small hours of
the morning in forming an amended plan of campaign, of which the
first move took the shape of a somewhat voluminous letter, addressed
to Philip Rainham.