A STRANGE IDEA.
The next few weeks were a time of restless activity with Alexander
Quisanté. Again he was like an electric current, not travelling now from
constituency to constituency, but between Westminster and his cousin
Mandeville's offices in the City. In both places he was very busy. His
leader had declared for a waiting policy, and an interval in which the
demoralisation of defeat should pass away; the party must feel its feet
again, the great man said. Constantine Blair was full of precedents for
the course, quoting Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham,
and all the gods of the Parliamentarian. Brusquely and almost rudely
Quisanté brushed him, his gods, and his leader on one side, and raised
the standard of fierce and immediate battle. The majority was composite;
his quick eye saw the spot where a wedge might be inserted between the
two component parts and driven home till the gap yawned wide and scission
threatened. The fighting men needed only to be shown where to fight; they
followed enthusiastically the man who led them to the field. Leaders
shook grey heads, and leader-writers disclaimed a responsibility which
_primá facie_ had never rested on them; Quisanté was told that he would
wreck the party for a quarter of a century to come. It would perhaps
have been possible to meet Constantine Blair's precedents with other
precedents, to quote newer gods against his established deities. That
was not "Sandro's way"; here again he was content to be an ancestor,
the originator of his methods, and the sufficient authority for them.
He was justified. The spirit of his fighting men ran high, and his
fighting men's wives grew gracious to him. The majority, if they scowled
at him (as was only to be hoped), began to scowl furtively at one another
also and to say that certain questions, on which they were by no means of
one mind, could not permanently be shirked and kept in the background.
Some of them asked what their constituents had sent them to Westminster
for, a question always indicative of perturbation in the parliamentary
mind; in quiet times it is not raised. The Government papers took to
observing that they did not desire to hurry or embarrass the Government,
but that time was running on and it would be no true friendship to advise
it to ignore the feeling which existed among an important, if numerically
small, section of its followers. Altogether at the opening of the session
the majority was much less happy, the minority in far finer feather, than
anybody had expected. Only officialdom or ignorance could refuse the main
credit to Alexander Quisanté.
"I declare," said Lady Castlefort--and her opinion was not one to
neglect--"May Gaston was right to take the man after all. He'll be Prime
Minister." And she settled her _pince-nez_ and looked round for
contradiction. She loved argument but had made the mistake of growing too
important to be differed from. None the less on this occasion a sweet
little voice spoke up in the circle.
"I wouldn't marry him if he were fifty times Prime Minister," said Lady
Richard Benyon. "He's odious."
"God bless me!" murmured the Countess, genuinely startled. "Well, you'll
see, my dear," she went on, nodding emphatically. "He's the only man
among them." Her eye fell on Weston Marchmont. "Oh, yes, I see you're
there," she said, "and I'm very glad you should be."
"It's always a pleasure to be here," he smiled urbanely.
"Especially, apparently, when you ought to be at the House," she
retorted, glancing at the clock. "However to-day you've heard more truth
here than you're likely to there, so I forgive you."
"More truth here? But Quisanté's making a speech!"
"Oh, you're very neat," she said with an open impatience. "You can score
off a woman at her tea-table; go and score off the other side, Weston,
and then you may do it as much as you like to me. As if anybody cared
whether Mr. Quisanté speaks the truth or not!" He came up to her and held
out his hand, smiling good-naturedly. She gave him hers with a laugh, for
she liked him much and did not like Quisanté at all. "It's your own
fault, that's why you're so exasperating," she half-whispered as she bade
him good-bye.
Here was one side; on the other the men of the City came to know Quisanté
too, but, as befitted persons engaged in the serious pursuit of dealing
with money, gave more hesitating and guarded opinions; no party spirit
led them astray or fired them to desperate ventures. However there was no
denying that the Alethea Printing Press sounded a very good thing, and
moreover no denying that measures had been skilfully taken to prevent
anybody having a share in that good thing without paying handsomely for
the privilege. The Syndicate, speaking through Mr. Mandeville its
mouthpiece, by no means implored support or canvassed new partners; it
was prepared to admit one or two names of weight in return for
substantial aid. Mandeville did nothing of himself; he referred to the
Board, and the Board's answers came after Alexander Quisanté's hansom had
flashed back to Westminster. But a few did gain admittance, and these few
were much struck by the reports on the Alethea, all of which had been
sent back for revision to their respective authors, accompanied by some
new and important facts. These latter did not, as it turned out, alter
the tenor of the reports, but it had been thought as well to afford an
opportunity for reconsideration in the light of them; so Mandeville
explained, seeming always just a little nervous over this matter of the
reports.
"We had hoped," he said to one gentleman who was rather important and
rather hard to satisfy, "to fortify ourselves with Professor Maturin's
opinion. But unfortunately he died before he could complete his
examination, and nothing on the subject was found among his papers."
"That's a pity. Maturin would have carried great weight."
"We were quite alive to that," Mandeville assured him with a somewhat
uneasy smile. His feelings were not unlike those of a quiet steady-going
member of Quisanté's party in Parliament. "We have no doubt of what his
opinion would have been, had he been able to study our additional facts
and been spared to complete his report. As it was, he had only discussed
the matter informally with one or two of us." And when he was left alone,
he murmured softly, "I suppose that's how Alexander meant me to put it."
But he rather wished that Alexander had been there to put it himself.
It is perhaps needless to say that Aunt Maria, sturdily fulfilling her
destiny in life, was deeply concerned in the fortunes of the Alethea
Printing Press. But large as was her stake--and the possibilities of loss
at least were for her very large--she was not disturbed; she said that
heaven alone knew whether there was anything in the thing, but that she
knew that Sandro would make people think there was. Nor did she share in
any serious degree the fears which afflicted her nephew's wife; Sandro
always had a case, and she did not doubt that he would have a very good
one whereby to justify any proceedings he might take in regard to the
Alethea. So she lived frugally, hoped magnificently, and came often to
Grosvenor Road to pick up what crumbs of information she could. Here she
met Lady Castlefort and nodded her rusty bonnet at that great personage
with the remark that she was glad people were waking up to what there was
in Sandro; it was time, goodness knew. Lady Castlefort was for the moment
taken aback.
"Mr. Quisanté has had certain--er--difficulties to overcome," she
murmured rather vaguely, and was not reassured by a dry chuckle and the
heartfelt exclamation, "I should think so!" Altogether it was difficult
to make out exactly what Mr. Quisanté's aunt thought of him.
Here the old lady met also the Dean of St. Neot's, who called every now
and then because he liked May and wished to show that he bore no malice
about the Crusade; but the subject was still a sore one, and he was as
little prepared to be chuckled at over it as Lady Castlefort had been
over her diplomatic indication of the fact that Quisanté's blood was not
blue nor his manners those of a grand old English gentleman.
"Sandro knew all along that there wasn't much in that, but it was
something to begin with," Aunt Maria remarked to the uncomfortable Dean.
She herself had dragged in the Crusade, to which she referred so
contemptuously.
"Miss Quisanté will do anything in the world for my husband," May
interposed, "but nothing'll persuade her to say a good word for him."
"As long as that's understood, she does him no harm. We discount all you
say, Miss Quisanté."
The Dean's affability was thrown away on Aunt Maria.
"I know what I'm talking about," she remarked grimly, "and as far as your
Crusade goes, I should think you'd have seen it yourself by now."
The Dean had seen it himself by now, but he did not wish to say so in the
presence of Quisanté's wife. May's laugh relieved him a little.
"The Dean's very forgiving," she said, "and Alexander's doing well now,
anyhow, isn't he?"
The Dean agreed that he was doing well now--for in spite of his
disclaimers of partisanship there was a spice of the fighting man in the
Dean--and repeated Lady Castlefort's prophecy, reported to him by Lady
Richard. The rusty black bonnet nodded approvingly. "I knew that was a
sensible woman, in spite of her airs," said Miss Quisanté.
Lastly, among those whom Miss Quisanté encountered at her nephew's house
was Lady Mildmay, and this interview took a rather more serious turn. In
after days May used to look back to it as the first faint sign of the new
factor which from now began to make itself felt in her life and to become
a very pressing presence to her. She did not enjoy the friendship which
the Mildmays forced on her, but it was impossible to receive it otherwise
than with outward graciousness; the cordiality was so kind, the interest
so frank, Sir Winterton's gallantry so chivalrous, his wife's gentleness
so appealing. When Lady Mildmay was announced May found time for a hasty
whisper to Aunt Maria: "Take care what you say about Alexander before
her." Doubts must not be stirred in the Mildmay mind; the Mildmays must
be kept in their delusion; to help in this was one of the duties of
Quisanté's wife.
Lady Mildmay smiled gladly on Aunt Maria.
"I'm so pleased you're here," she said, "because I know you'll second me
in what I'm going to venture to say to Lady May. I know I'm taking a
liberty, but I can't help it. Meeting people now and then, you do
sometimes see what people who are always with them don't. Now don't you,
Miss Quisanté?"
"And _vice versâ_," murmured Aunt Maria; but May's eye rested on her
warningly, and she refrained from pointing her observation by any
reference to Sandro.
"I'm quite sure your husband is overdoing himself terribly," Lady Mildmay
went on. "I saw him the other day walking through the Park, and he looked
ghastly. I stopped him and told him so, but he said he'd just been to his
doctor, and that there was really nothing the matter with him."
"I didn't know he'd been to the doctor lately. He seemed pretty well for
him," said May. Aunt Maria said nothing; her keen little eyes were
watching the visitor very closely.
"I've seen a lot of illness," pursued Lady Mildmay in her gentle voice,
"and I know. He's working himself to death; he's killing himself." She
raised her eyes and looked at May. Kind as the glance was, May felt in it
a wonder, almost a reproach. "How comes it that you, his wife, haven't
seen it too?" the eyes seemed to say in plaintive surprise. "Are you sure
there's nothing wrong with him?" she asked.
"Wrong with him? What do you mean?" The question was Aunt Maria's, asked
abruptly, roughly, almost indignantly. Lady Mildmay started. "I--I don't
want to alarm you, I'm sure," she murmured, "but I don't like his looks.
Do, do persuade him to take a rest."
Both of them were silent now; Lady Mildmay's wonder grew; she did not
understand them; she saw them exchange a glance whose expression she
could not analyse.
"He wants absolute rest and care, the care you could give him, my dear,"
she said to May--such a care she meant as her loving heart and hands
would give to handsome Sir Winterton. "Go away with him for a few months
and take care of him, now do. Keep all worries and--and ambitions and so
on away from him."
May's face was grave and strained in a painful attention; but on Miss
Quisanté's lips there came slowly a bitter little smile. What a picture
this good lady drew of Sandro and his loving wife, together, apart from
the world, with ambitions and worries set aside! Must the outlines of
that picture be followed if--well, if Sandro was to live?
"I hope you're not offended? Seeing him only now and then I notice the
change. Winterton and I have both been feeling anxious about it, and we
decided that you wouldn't mind if I spoke to you."
"You're too good, too good," said May. "We don't deserve it." Lady
Mildmay smiled.
"I know what a strain the election was," said she. "Even Winterton felt
it, and Mr. Quisanté never seems to rest, does he?" She rose to go, but,
as she said good-bye, she spoke one more word, half in a whisper and
timidly, "I daresay I'm wrong, but are you sure his heart's quite sound?"
And so she left them, excusing herself to the last for what might seem an
intrusion, or even a slight on the careful watch that an affectionate
wife keeps over her husband's health.
May walked to the hearthrug and stood there; Aunt Maria, sitting very
still, glanced up with a frightened gaze, but her speech came bitter with
aggressive scorn.
"What does the silly creature mean?" she asked. "There's nothing the
matter with Sandro, is there?"
"I don't know that there is," May answered slowly.
"The woman talks as if he was going to die." Still the tone was
contemptuous, still the look frightened. "Such nonsense!"
"I hope it is. He's not strong though, is he?"
Miss Quisanté had often said the same, but now she received the remark
irritably. "Strong! He's not a buffalo like some men, like Jimmy Benyon
or, I suppose, that poor creature's husband she's always talking about.
But there's nothing the matter with him, there's no reason he
shouldn't--no reason he should fall ill at all."
"She thinks he ought to rest, perhaps give up altogether."
"Altogether? Nonsense!" The tone was sharp.
"Well, then, for a long while."
"And go away, and let you coddle him?"
"Yes, and let me coddle him." May looked down on Aunt Maria, and for the
first time smiled faintly.
"The woman's out of her senses," declared Aunt Maria testily. "Don't you
think so? Don't you think so?"
"I don't know," was all May could say in answer either to the irritation
of the voice or to the fear of the eyes. The old lady's hands were
trembling as she raised them and gave a pull to the bow of her
bonnet-strings.
"He'll see me out anyhow, I'll be bound," she said obstinately. She was
fighting against the bare idea of being left with a remnant of life to
live and no Sandro to fill it for her; what a miserable fag-end of empty
waiting that would be! She glanced sharply at his wife; she did not know
what his wife was thinking of.
"I'll ask him," said May, "and I must insist on knowing." She paused and
added, "I ought to have noticed and I ought to have asked before. But
somehow----" The sentence went unfinished, and Aunt Maria's sharp
unsatisfied eyes drew no further answer. May kissed her when they parted;
whatever this idea might mean to her, whatever the strange tumult it
might raise in her, she read well enough the story of the old lady's
rough tones, shaking hands and frightened eyes. To the old woman Sandro
was the sum of life. She might sneer, she might scorn, she might rail,
she might and would suffer at his hands. But he was the one thing, the
sole support, she had to cling to; he kept her alive. Yet the last words
that Miss Quisanté said were, "I expect Sandro wanted to wheedle
something out of that woman, and has been playing one of his tricks to
get a bit of sympathy." Then she climbed slowly and totteringly down the
stairs.
Left alone, May Quisanté sat in apparent idleness, letting her thoughts
play with a freedom which some people consider in itself blameworthy,
though certainly no action and often no desire accompany the picture
which the mind draws. She said to herself, "Supposing this is true, or
that more than this is true, supposing his heart is unsound, what does it
mean to me?" What it excluded was easier to realise than what it meant.
Unless Quisanté were to have not existence only, but also health, such
health at least as enables a man to do work although not, may be, to
glory in the doing of it, unless there were to the engine wheels sound
enough to answer to the spur of the steam that his brain's furnace made,
nothing could come about of what Lady Castlefort's Mightiness prophesied,
nothing of what friends and enemies had begun to look for, nothing of
what May herself had grown to regard as his future and hers, as the
basis, the condition, the circumstances, of her life and of his. An old
thought of her own came to her, back from the dim region of ante-marriage
days, the idea to which the Henstead doctor had given a terse, if
metaphorical, expression. Quisanté was their race-horse, their money was
on him, they wanted a win for the stable. If this or more than this were
true, then there would be no win for the stable; the horse was a grand
horse, but he wouldn't stand training. What was left then? An invalid and
the wife of an invalid, coddlings, cossetings, devotion, ambition far
away, life kept in him by loving heart and loving hands. Hers must be the
heart and the hands. Hers also were the keen eyes that knew every
weakness, every baseness, of the man to whom heart and hands must
minister, but would see no more the battle and the triumph and the
brilliance which set them sparkling and seemed to make the world alight
for them.
For a little while the third thing, the remaining possibility, was
unformulated in her thoughts; perhaps she had a scruple which made her
turn away from it. But her speculations would not be denied their
irresponsible freedom of ranging over all the field of chance. If it were
true, if more than it, more than the kind timid woman had dared to say,
were true, he might die. He might die, not in some dim far-off time when
nature made the thing seem inevitable, when he had lived his life, been
Prime Minister and so forth, and she had lived hers, filling it with work
for him, and with looking on at him and with endurance of him, but
sooner, much sooner, almost now, when he had not lived his life, while
hers was not exhausted, when there would still be left to her another of
her own to live after he was gone. It was strange to think of that, to
see how what had seemed to be irrevocable and for ever, to stretch in
unfaltering perpetuity to the limits of old age, might so easily, by the
occasion of so small a matter as a heart not sound, turn out to be a
passing thing, and there come to her again freedom, choice, a life to be
re-made. If that happened, how would she feel? At the new-learnt chance
of that happening, how did she feel? Very strange, very bewildered, very
upset; that was her answer. Such a thing--Quisanté's death she
meant--would mean so much, change so much, take away so much--and might
give so much. Her thoughts flew off to the new life that she might live
then, to the new freedom from embarrassments, from fears and from
disgusts, to a new love which it might be hers to gain and to enjoy.
People said that it was always impossible to go back--_vestigia nulla_.
But that event would open to her a sort of going back, such a return to
her old life and her surroundings as might some day make the time she
had spent with Quisanté and its experiences seem but an episode, studding
the belt of long days with one strange bizarre ornament.
And on the other side? There was the greatest difficulty, the greatest
puzzle. She had not failed to understand the roughness of Aunt Maria's
tones, her frightened eyes and the shaking of her hands. It would be very
strange to see an end of him, to know that he would never be Prime
Minister and so forth, to look on at a world devoid of him, to live a
life in which he was only a memory. How were the scales to be held, which
way did the balance incline? She could not tell, and at last she smiled
at her inability to answer the riddle. It would amuse people so much, and
shock some people so much and doubtless so properly, if they knew that
she was sitting in her drawing-room in the afternoon, trying to make up
her mind whether she would rather her husband lived or that he died. Even
there the fallacy crept in; she was not desiring either way; she was
simply looking at the two pictures which the two events painted for her
fancy; and she did not know which picture she preferred. So all was still
bewilderment, all still rocking from the sudden gust that had proceeded
out of dear Lady Mildmay's gentle lips. But the undercurrent of wonder
and of reproach that there had been in the warning May Quisanté now
almost missed. By an effort at last she realised its presence, the
naturalness of it, and its rightness. But still it seemed to her a little
conventional, something that might be supposed to be appropriate, but was
not, if the truth were faced. "Alexander and I have never been like that
to one another--at least never for more than a very little while," was
the form her thought about it took.
When he came in that evening, she found herself looking at him with
wonder, and with a sort of scepticism about what her visitor had said. He
seemed so full of life; it was impossible to think of him as being
likely, or even able, to die. But she had made up her mind to open the
subject to him, to force something from him, and to learn about this
visit to the doctor which he had so studiously concealed from her. She
gave him tea, and was so far affected by her mood as to show unusual
kindness towards him, or rather to let her uniform friendliness be tinged
by an affection which was not part of her habitual bearing; with the help
of this she hoped to lead up to a subject which her own strangely mixed
meditations somehow made it hard for her to approach. But Quisanté also
had a scheme; he also was watching and working for an opportunity, and
seeing one now in her great cordiality of manner he seized it with his
rapid decisiveness, cutting in before his wife had time to develop her
attack. He pressed her hand as she gave him his cup, sighed as though in
weariness, took a paper from his pocket, and laid it on the table, giving
it a tentative gentle push in the direction of her chair.
"We've got the Alethea afloat at last," he said. "There's the prospectus,
if you care to look at it." With this he glanced at the clock, sighed
again and added, "I must be at the House early this evening. By Jove, I'm
tired though!" This little odd ineradicable trick of his made May smile;
he was never so tired as when he had a risky card to play; then, indeed,
he affected for his purposes some sort of reconcilability with those
incongruous ideas of collapse and mortality that Lady Mildmay had
suggested. He inspired May, as he did sometimes now, with a malicious
wish to make him show himself at his trickiest. Fingering the prospectus
carelessly, she asked,
"I suppose it sets out all the wonderful merits of the Alethea, doesn't
it? Well, I've heard a good deal about them. I don't think I need read
it."
"It gives a full account of the invention," said Quisanté, wearily
passing his hand across his brow.
"Have you put in Professor Maturin's report?" She was not looking at him,
but smiling over to Mr. Foster on the mantelpiece. There was a moment's
pause.
"The facts about Maturin are fully stated. You'll find it on the third
page." He rose with a sigh and threw himself on the sofa; he groaned a
little and shut his eyes. May glanced at him, smiled, and turned to the
third page.
"In addition to the foregoing very authoritative opinions, steps were
taken to obtain a report from the late Professor Maturin, F.R.S.
Professor Maturin was very favourably impressed with several features of
the invention, and was about to pursue his investigations with the aid of
further information furnished to him, when he was unfortunately attacked
by the illness of which he recently died. The Directors therefore regret
to be unable to present any report of his examination. But they have
every reason to believe that his opinion would have been no less
encouraging than those of the other gentlemen consulted."
May turned back to the list of directors. Three out of the six she did
not know; the other three were Quisanté himself, Jimmy Benyon, and Sir
Winterton Mildmay. The presence of these two last names filled May with a
feeling of helplessness; this was worse than she had expected. Of course
neither Jimmy nor Sir Winterton had heard anything about the Maturin
report; of the other three she knew nothing and took no thought. Jimmy,
not warned, alas, by that affair of old Foster's note, and Sir Winterton,
in the chivalrous confidence of perfect trust, had given their support to
Quisanté. The use he made of their names was to attach them to a
statement which she who knew of the Maturin report could describe only in
one way. She looked round at her husband's pale face and closed eyes.
"I thought you were supposed to tell the--I mean, to state all the facts
in a prospectus?" she said.
Quisanté sat up suddenly, leant forward, and spread his hands out. "My
dear May," he replied with a smile, "the facts are stated, stated very
fully."
"There's nothing about the report the Professor did give. You remember
you told me about it?"
"Oh, no, he gave no report."
"Well, you called it a draft report."
"No, no, did I? That was a careless way of speaking if I did. He
certainly sent me some considerations which had occurred to him at the
beginning of his inquiry, but they were based on insufficient information
and were purely provisional. They did not in any sense constitute a
report. It would have been positively misleading to speak of them in any
such way." He was growing eager, animated, almost excited.
May was not inclined to cross-examine him; she knew that he would develop
his case for himself if she sat and listened.
"The whole thing was so inchoate as to be worth nothing," he went on. "We
simply discarded it from our minds; we didn't let it weigh one way or the
other."
"The directors didn't?" That little question she could not resist asking.
"Oh, it was never laid before them. As I tell you, Mandeville and I
decided that it could not be regarded as a report, or even as an
indication of Maturin's opinion. We only referred to Maturin at all
because--because we wanted to be absolutely candid."
May smiled; absolute candour resulted, as it seemed to her, in giving
rise to an impression that the Professor had been in favour of the merits
of the Alethea.
"And you won't show it to the directors?"
"No," said Quisanté, "certainly not." He paused for a moment and then
added slowly, "In fact it has not been preserved. What is stated there is
based on my own personal discussions with the Professor, and on
Mandeville's; the few lines he wrote added nothing."
It had not been preserved; it had sunk from a report to a draft report,
from a draft report to considerations, from considerations to a few lines
which added nothing; the minimising process, pursued a little further,
had ended in a total disappearance. And nobody knew that it had ever
existed, even as considerations, even as a few lines adding nothing,
except her husband, cousin Mandeville, and herself.
"If the Professor himself," Quisanté resumed, "had considered it of any
moment, he would have kept a copy or some memorandum of it; but there was
not a word about it among his papers."
There was safety, then, so far as the Professor was concerned; and so far
as Quisanté was concerned; of course, also, so far as cousin Mandeville
was concerned. But Quisanté's restless eyes seemed to ask whether there
were perfect safety all round, no possibility of Jimmy or Sir Winterton
or anybody else picking up false ideas from careless talk about the few
lines in which the Professor had added nothing. For an instant May's eyes
met his, and she understood what he asked of her. She was to hold her
tongue; that sounded simple. She had held her tongue before, and thus it
happened that Sir Winterton was her husband's friend and trusted him. Now
she was again to be a party to deceiving him, and this time Jimmy Benyon
was to be hoodwinked too. She was to hold her tongue; if by any chance
need arose, she was to lie. That was the request Quisanté made of her,
part of the price of being Quisanté's wife.
She gave him no pledge in words; a touch of the tact that taught him how
to deal with difficult points prevented him from asking one of her. But
it was quite understood between them; no reference was to be made to the
few lines that the Professor had written. Quisanté's uneasiness passed
away, his headache seemed to become less severe; he was in good spirits
as he made his preparations to go to the House. Apparently he had no
consciousness of having asked anything great of her. He had been far more
nervous and shamefaced about his betrayal of the Crusade, far more upset
by the untoward incident of Mr. Foster's letter. May told herself that
she understood why; he was getting accustomed to her and she to him; he
knew her point of view and allowed for it, expecting a similar toleration
in return. As she put it, they were getting equalised, approaching more
nearly to one another's level. You could not aid in queer doings and reap
the fruits of them without suffering some gradual subtle moral change
which must end in making them seem less queer. As the years passed by,
the longer their companionship lasted, the more their partnership
demanded in its community of interest and effort, the more this process
must go on. As they rose before the world--for rise they would (even the
Alethea would succeed in spite of the Professor's burked report)--they
would fall in their own hearts and in one another's eyes. This was the
prospect that stretched before her, as she sat again alone in the
drawing-room, after Quisanté had set out, much better, greatly rested, in
good spirits, serene and safe, and after she had pledged herself to his
fortunes by the sacrifice of loyalty to friends and to truth.
Yes, that was the prospect unless--she started a little. She had
forgotten what she had meant to ask him; she had not inquired about his
visit to the doctor nor told him that kind Lady Mildmay was anxious about
his health. It had all been driven out of her head, she said to herself
in excuse at first. Then she faced her feelings more boldly. Just then
she could have put no such questions, feigned no such interest, and
assumed no show of affection or solicitude. That evening such things
would have been mere hypocrisy, pretences of a desire to keep him for
herself when her whole nature was in revolt at having to be near him. Her
horror now was not that she might lose him, but of the prospect that lay
before her and the road she must tread with him. Trodden it must be;
unless by any chance there were truth, or less than the truth, in what
good Lady Mildmay said.