If reticence were required of them, Freda felt that her poor little
face could never rival the inimitable reserves, the secure
distinction of Miss Nethersole's. There was nothing, so to speak, to
take hold of in Julia's dark, attenuated elegance; nothing that
betrayed itself anywhere, from the slender brilliance of her
deep-lidded, silent eyes, to her small flat chin, falling sheer from
the immobile lower lip. Miss Nethersole's features and her figure
were worn away to the last expression of a purely social intention.
Quite useless to look for any signs of Wilton Caldecott's
occupation. Freda was convinced that, if the lady possessed any
knowledge of him, she would keep it concealed about her to the end
of time. She was aware of Miss Nethersole's significance as a woman
of the larger world. It was wonderful to think that she held the
clue to the social labyrinth, in which, to Freda's vision, their
friend's life was lost. She knew what ways he went. She could follow
all his turnings and windings there; perhaps she could track him to
the heart of the maze; perhaps she herself was the heart of it, the
very secret heart. She sat alone for him there, in the dear silent
place where all the paths led. The very thickness and elaboration of
the maze would make their peace. Freda's heart failed her before the
intricacy of Miss Nethersole's knowledge of him, the security of her
possession. Miss Nethersole was valuable to him for her own sake, it
being evident that she had no "gift."
It was her personal sufficiency, unsustained as she was by anything
irrelevant, that made Julia so formidable.
She had never seemed more so to Freda than on this afternoon when
they sat together among the adornments of her perfect drawing-room.
Everything about Miss Nethersole was as delicate and finished as her
own perfection. She was finely unconscious of all that Freda
recognized in her. It seemed as if what she chiefly recognized in
Freda was her gift. She had been superbly impersonal in her praise
of it. It was the divine thing given to Freda, hers and yet not
hers, so wonderful, compared with the small pale creature who
manipulated it, that it could be discussed with perfect propriety
apart from her.
And to-day Wilton Caldecott's name had risen again in the
discussion, when Julia had the air of insisting more than ever on
the gift. It was almost as if she narrowed Freda down to that,
suggesting that it was the only thing that counted in her intimacy
with their friend.
"Yes," said Freda, "but the extraordinary thing is that I hadn't it
when first he knew me."
"He saw what was in you."
"He said the other day he saw nothing. I was too bad for words."
"Oh, I know all about that. He told me."
"What did he tell you?"
"That you were like a funny little unfledged bird, trying to fly
before its wing feathers were grown."
"I hadn't any. I hadn't anything of my own. Everything I have I owe
to him."
"Don't say that. Why should you pluck off all your beautiful
feathers to make a nest for his conceit?"
"Is he conceited?"
Freda said to herself, "After all, she doesn't count. She doesn't
know him."
Miss Nethersole smiled. "He's a male man, my dear. If you want him
to have an even higher idea of your genius than he has already, tell
him--tell him you owe it all to him."
"Ah," said Freda, "you don't know him."
"I have known him," said Miss Nethersole, "for fifteen years. I knew
him before he married."
She had proved incontestably the superiority of her knowledge. Freda
felt as if Miss Nethersole were looking at her to see how she would
take it. There was an appreciable moment in which she adjusted her
mind to the suddenness of the revelation. Then she told herself that
there was nothing in it that she had not reckoned with many times
before. It left her relations with Wilton Caldecott where they were.
There was nothing in it that could change for her the unique and
immaterial tie. She was even relieved by the certainty that it was
not Julia Nethersole, then, after all. She had an idea that she
would have grudged him to Julia Nethersole.
Julia was much too well-bred to show that she had the advantage. She
took it for granted that Miss Farrar was also acquainted with the
circumstances of Wilton Caldecott's marriage.
"That," said she, "is what makes him so extraordinarily
interesting."
"His marriage"--Freda hesitated. She wondered if Miss Nethersole
would really go into it.
"Some people's marriages are quite unilluminating. Wilton's, I
always think, is the key to his character, sometimes to his
conduct."
Freda held her breath. She saw that Miss Nethersole was about to go
in deep.
"He has suffered"--Miss Nethersole went on--"all his life, from an
over-developed sense of honor. He could see honor in situations
where you wouldn't have said there was the ghost of an obligation.
His marriage was not an affair of the heart. It was an affair of
honor. The woman--she's dead now--was in love with him."
"Did you know her?"
"No. She was not the sort of person you do know. She was simply a
pretty, underbred little governess. He met her--on the staircase, I
imagine--in some house he was staying in, and, as I say, she was in
love with him. She was a scheming little wretch, and she and her
people made him believe that he had compromised her in some shadowy
way. I suppose he _had_ paid her a little ordinary attention--I
don't know the details. Anyhow, he was so fantastically honorable
that he married her."
"Poor thing. It must have been awful for her, to be married in that
way--for honor!"
"She didn't consider it awful in the least. She didn't mind what she
was married _for_, so long as she _was_ married. She was that sort.
Do I bore you?"
"No. You interest me immensely."
"Of course they were miserable. He couldn't make her happy. Wilton
is, in his way, a rather spiritual person, and his wife was anything
but. Marriage can be an awful revelation to a nice woman. Sometimes
it's a shock to a nice man. Wilton never got over _his_ shock. It
left him with a morbid horror of the thing. That's what has
prevented him from marrying again."
Miss Nethersole drew a perceptible breath before going in deeper.
"I've heard people praising his faithfulness to his wife's memory.
They little know. He was loyal enough to the poor woman while she
lived, but he's giving her away now with a vengeance. Several very
nice women would have been more than willing to marry him; but as
soon as he knew it----"
"Knew it? How could he know it?"
"Well, the ladies were very transparent, some of them. And when they
weren't there was always some kind person there to make them so. And
when he saw through them--he was off. You could see the horror of it
coming over him, and his poor terrified eyes protesting--'I'd do
anything for you--anything, my dear girl, but that.'"
Julia paused, as if on the brink of something still profounder.
Evidently she abhorred the plunge, while Freda shrank from the
horrible exposure of the shallower waters.
"And those women," said Julia, after meditation, "wondered why they
lost their friend. They might have kept him if they'd only kept
their heads."
It was at this point that Freda felt that Julia was trying to drag
her in with her.
"How awful," said she, "to feel that you'd driven a man away!"
"It might be more awful," said Julia, "for him to feel he had to
go."
"That's it," said Freda. "_Had_ he?"
"Well, if he was honorable, what else was there for him to do?"
"To stay by those women, and see them through--if he was honorable."
"Oh--if they'd have been content with that. But you see, my dear,
they all wanted to marry him."
"If they did," said Freda, "that shows that they didn't really
care."
"They cared too much, I'm afraid."
"Oh, no. Not enough. If they'd cared enough they'd have got beyond
that. However much they wanted it, they'd have given it up, rather
than let him go."
As she said it she felt a blessed sense of relief. The deeper they
went the more the waters covered her.
"You'll never get a man," said Julia, "to understand that. If _he_
cares for a woman he won't be put off with anything short of
marrying her. So he naturally supposes----"
Julia had now gone as deep as she could go.
"Yes," said Freda. "It's in the things he naturally supposes that a
man goes so wrong."
"Is it?" Julia paused again. "I don't know whether you realize it,
but you and I are the only women Mr. Caldecott ever goes to see. I
dare say you were surprised when he told you about me. I was amazed
when he told me about you. I've no doubt he made each of us think we
were the one exception. You see, we are rather exceptional women,
from his unhappy point of view. He knows that I understand him, and
I'm sure he thinks that he understands you----"
"So he feels safe with me?"
"Gloriously safe. _You_ are a genius, above all the little feminine
stupidities that terrify him so. From you he expects nothing but the
unexpected. You're outside all his rules. I'm so much inside them
that he knows exactly what to expect. So he's safe with both of us.
It's the betwixt-and-between people that he dreads."
Julia rose up from the depths rosy and refreshed. Freda panted with
a horrible exhaustion.
"I see," she said. And presently she found that it was time for her
to go.