"When a man hath once forfeited the reputation of his sincerity he
is set fast, and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth
nor falsehood."
When he is gone Joyce draws a deep breath. For a moment it seems to her
that it is all over--a disagreeable task performed, and then suddenly a
reaction sets in. The scene gone through has tried her more than she
knows, and without warning now she finds she is crying bitterly.
How horrible it all had been. How detestable he had looked--not so much
when offering her his hand (as for his heart--pah!) as when he had given
way to his weak exhibition of feeling and had knelt at her feet,
throwing himself on her mercy. She placed her hands over her eyes when
she thought of that. Oh! she wished he hadn't done it!
She is still crying softly--not now for Beauclerk's behavior, but for
certain past beliefs--when a knock at the door warns her that another
visitor is coming. She has not had time or sufficient presence of mind
to tell a servant that she is not at home, when Miss Maliphant is
ushered in by the parlor maid.
"I thought I'd come down and have a chat with you about last night," she
begins in her usual loud tones, and with an assumption of easiness that
is belied by the keen and searching glance she directs at Joyce.
"I'm so glad," says Joyce, telling her little lie as bravely as she can,
while trying to conceal her red eyelids from Miss Maliphant's astute
gaze by pretending to rearrange a cushion that has fallen from one of
the lounges.
"Are you?" says her visitor, drily. "Seems to me I've come at the wrong
moment. Shall I go away?"
"Go! No," says Joyce, reddening, and frowning a little. "Why should
you?"
"Well, you've been crying," says Miss Maliphant, in her terribly
downright way. "I hate people when I've been crying; but then it makes
me a fright, and it only makes you a little less pretty. I suppose I
mustn't ask what it is all about?"
"If you did I don't believe I could tell you," says Joyce, laughing
rather unsteadily. "I was merely thinking, and it is the simplest thing
in the world to feel silly now and then."
"Thinking? Of Mr. Beauclerk?" asks Miss Maliphant, promptly, and without
the slightest idea of hesitation. "I saw him leaving this as I came by
the upper road! Was it he who made you cry?"
"Certainly not," says Joyce, indignantly.
"It looks like it, however," says the other, her masculine voice growing
even sterner. "What was he saying to you?"
"I really do think----" Joyce is beginning, coldly, when Miss Maliphant
stops her by an imperative gesture.
"Oh, I know. I know all about that," says she, contemptuously. "One
shouldn't ask questions about other people's affairs; I've learned my
manners, though I seldom make any use of my knowledge, I admit. After
all, I see no reason why I shouldn't ask you that question. I want to
know, and there is no one to tell me but you. Was he proposing to you,
eh?"
"Why should you think that?" says Joyce, subdued by the masterful manner
of the other, and by something honest and above board about her that is
her chief characteristic. There is no suspicion, either, about her of
her questions being prompted by mere idle curiosity. She has said she
wanted to know, and there was meaning in her tone.
"Why shouldn't I?" says she now. "He came down here early this
afternoon. He goes away in haste--and I find you in tears. Everything
points one way."
"I don't see why it should point in that direction."
"Come, be open with me," says the heiress, brusquely, in an abrupt
fashion that still fails to offend. "Did he propose to you?"
Joyce hesitates. She raises her head and looks at Miss Maliphant
earnestly. What a good face she has, if plain. Too good to be made
unhappy. After all, why not tell her the truth? It would be a warning.
It was impossible to be blind to the fact that Miss Maliphant had been
glad to receive the dishonest attentions paid to her every now and then
by Beauclerk. Those attentions would probably be increased now, and
would end but one way. He would get Miss Maliphant's money, and
she--that good, kind-hearted girl--what would she get? It seems cruel to
be silent, and yet to speak is difficult. Would it be fair or honorable
to divulge his secret?
Would it be fair or honorable to let her imagine what is not true? He
had been false to her--Joyce (she could not blind herself to the
knowledge that with all his affected desire for her he would never have
made her an offer of his hand but for her having come in for that
money)--he would therefore be false to Miss Maliphant; he would marry
her undoubtedly, but as a husband he would break her heart. Is she, for
the sake of a word or two, to see her fall a prey to a mere passionless
fortune-hunter? A thousand times no! Better inflict a little pain now
rather than let this girl endure endless pain in the future.
With a shrinking at her heart, born of the fear that the word will be
very bitter to her guest, she says, "Yes;" very distinctly.
"Ha!" says Miss Maliphant, and that is all. Joyce, regarding her
anxiously, is as relieved as astonished to see no trace of grief or
chagrin upon her face. There is no change at all, indeed, except she
looks deeply reflective. Her mind seems to be traveling backward,
picking up loose threads of memory, no doubt, and joining them together.
A sense of intense comfort fills Joyce's soul. After all; the wound had
not gone deep; she had been right to speak.
"He is not worth thinking about," says she, tremulously, _apropos_ of
nothing, as it seems.
"No?" says Miss Maliphant; "then what were you crying about?"
"I hardly know. I felt nervous--and once I did like him--not very
much--but still I liked him--and he was a disappointment."
"Tell you what," says Miss Maliphant, "you've hit upon a big truth. He
is not worth thinking about. Once, perhaps, I, too, liked him, and I was
an idiot for my pains; but I shan't like him again in a hurry. I expect
I've got to let him know that, one way or another. And as for you----"
"I tell you I never liked him much," says Joyce, with a touch of
displeasure. "He was handsome, suave, agreeable--but----"
"He was, and is, a hypocrite!" interrupts Miss Maliphant, with truly
beautiful conciseness. She has never learned to mince matters. "And,
when all is told, perhaps nothing better than a fool! You are well out
of it, in my opinion."
"I don't think I had much to do with it," says Joyce, unable to refrain
from a smile. "I fancy my poor uncle was responsible for the honor done
me to-day." Then a sort of vague feeling that she is being ungenerous
distresses her. "Perhaps, after all, I misjudge him too far," she says.
"Could you?" with a bitter little laugh.
"I don't know," doubtfully. "One often forms an opinion of a person,
and, though the groundwork of it may be just, still one is too inclined
to build upon it and to rear stories upon it that get a little beyond
the actual truth when the structure is completed."
"Oh! I think it is he who tells all the stories," said Miss Maliphant,
who is singularly dull in little unnecessary ways, and has failed to
follow Joyce in her upstairs flight. "In my opinion he's a liar; I was
going to say '_pur et simple_,' but he is neither pure nor simple."
"A liar!" says Joyce, as if shocked. Some old thought recurs to her. She
turns quickly to Miss Maliphant. The thought grows into words almost
before she is aware of it. "Have you a cousin in India?" asks she.
"In India?" Miss Maliphant regards her with some surprise. Why this
sudden absurd question in an interesting conversation about that
"Judas"? I regret to say this is what Miss Maliphant has now decided
upon naming Mr. Beauclerk when talking to herself.
"Yes, India."
"Not one. Plenty in Manchester and Birmingham, but not one in India."
Joyce leans back in her chair, and a strange laugh breaks from her. She
gets up suddenly and goes to the other and leans over her, as though the
better to see her.
"Oh, think--think," says she. "Not a cousin you loved? Dearly loved? A
cousin for whom you were breaking your heart, who was not as steady as
he ought to be, but who----"
"You must be going out of your mind," says Miss Maliphant, drawing back
from her. "If you saw my Birmingham cousins, or even the Manchester
ones, you wouldn't ask that question twice. They think of nothing but
money, money, money, from morning till night, and are essentially
shoppy. I don't mind saying it, you know. It is as good to give up, and
acknowledge things--and certainly they----"
"Never mind them. It is the Indian cousin in whom I am interested," says
Joyce, impatiently. "You are sure, sure that you haven't one out there?
One whom Mr. Beauclerk knew about? And who was in love with you, and you
with him. The cousin he told me of----"
"Mr. Beauclerk?"
"Yes--yes. The night of the ball at the Court, last autumn. I saw you
with Mr. Beauclerk in the garden then, and he told me afterward you had
been confiding in him about your cousin. The one in India. That you were
going to be married to him. Oh! there must be truth--some truth in it.
Do try to think!"
"If," says Miss Maliphant, slowly, "I were to think until I was black in
the face, as black as any Indian of 'em all, I couldn't even by so
severe a process conjure up a cousin in Hindostan! And so he told you
that?"
"Yes," says Joyce faintly. She feels almost physically ill.
"He's positively unique," says Miss Maliphant, after a slight pause. "I
told you just now that he was a liar, but I didn't throw sufficient
enthusiasm into the assertion. He is a liar of distinction very far
above his fellows! I suppose it would be superfluous now to ask if that
night you speak of you were engaged to Mr. Dysart?"
"Oh, no," says Joyce quickly, as if struck. "There never has been, there
never will be aught of that sort between me and Mr. Dysart Surely--Mr.
Beauclerk did not----"
"Oh, yes, he did. He assured me--not in so many words (let me be
perfectly just to him)--but he positively gave me to understand that you
were going to marry Felix Dysart. There! Don't mind that," seeing the
girl's pained face. "He was bound to say something, you know. Though it
must be confessed the Indian cousin story was the more ingenious. Why
didn't you tell me of that before?"
"Because he told it to me in the strictest confidence."
"Of course. Bound you on your honor not to speak of it, lest my feelings
should be hurt. Really, do you know, I think he was almost clever enough
to make one sorry he didn't succeed. Well, good-by." She rises abruptly,
and, taking Joyce's hand, looks at her for a moment. "Felix Dysart has a
good heart," says she, suddenly. As suddenly she kisses Joyce, and,
crossing the room with a quick stride, leaves it.