"And what difference does it make--what you call it?"
"Antonia!" Mrs. Southgate's tone protested. "It makes a great deal of
difference what it is."
Her sister-in-law felt the reproach.
"I mean, no one will believe it, no one will care--the scandal will be
the same."
Doris made gesture with her thin hands as if one couldn't go changing
all one's plans for every shred of gossip that drifted across the
horizon.
"One only cares what one's friends say," she explained, "and I haven't
any friends--except you, Antonia."
"Are you utterly indifferent to the name of an honorable man who was
your husband?"
"While my husband lived I tried to do my duty to him," said Doris
firmly. "I gave my whole life to it, and my reward is that he tries to
reach out of the grave and prevent my having the normal freedom that
any woman of my age ought to have."
Williams had only to look into her set little face to see that it was
hopeless to argue with her, but he had hopes of Hale. He had formed a
favorable opinion of the young man and simply did not believe he was a
party to any such plan.
"I should like to have a talk with Hale," he said.
"He's gone out of town," answered Doris. "He won't be back until a day
or two before we sail."
Antonia gave a sound between a bleat and a whinny.
"You're sailing on the same steamer?"
"Of course--with my secretary."
She left the room.
In the course of the next few minutes Williams was surprised to
discover the words included in the vocabulary of so majestic a woman as
Antonia. There was nothing she did not call her sister-in-law, although
she ended each sentence with an assertion that she wouldn't really do
it.
"I wouldn't count on that," said Williams. "Most people are restrained
by the opinion of their social group; but, as Mrs. Southgate says, she
doesn't seem to have any group."
"Do you forget there is such a thing as a moral sense?" asked Antonia.
"If you had listened attentively," he replied, "you would have gathered
as I did that there is nothing contrary to morals in this plan of your
sister-in-law's--a lack of convention, yes."
"We will not allow it," said Antonia.
It was Williams' duty to point out that persuasion was the only method
open to them. His sympathies were with the lovers, but he felt it his
duty to mention to Miss Southgate his conviction that the best way to
stop the whole thing was to send for Dominic Hale.
"This is not Hale's plan," he said. "I am sure he would not stand for
it. If you send for him and have a talk you will find that he believes
they are going to be married before they sail."
But Miss Southgate was too angry to listen to him. She tossed the
suggestion aside with the utmost contempt.
"How can you be so innocent?" she exclaimed. "The whole plan is his.
Doris would never have the imagination to think of such a thing. She
has simply fallen into the hands of a designing man. She has no will of
her own. You are utterly mistaken."
Well, perhaps he was; but he wanted to find Hale and have a talk with
him; but as he could find no trace of the young man, he was obliged to
content himself with an interview with Doris. He wanted to point out to
her that she was ruining Hale irretrievably. It was the sort of thing a
man could never live down. It would be said that he preferred to live
on the dead husband's money rather than to make the widow his wife. He
put it as badly as he could, but Doris was unshaken. She nodded her
head.
"Yes, I know," she said. "No one will understand. He sacrifices his
reputation too--not any more than I do, Mr. Williams, though perhaps
not any less. We must learn to live without the world, but we can--we
shall have each other."
Williams thumped his hand on his knee.
"I can't believe it of him," he said. "Such a disgusting rôle! So
unmanly!"
Doris smiled at him sadly.
"Does it seem unmanly to you?" she said meditatively. "It seems to me
it wouldn't be manly to say no to a woman who loves him and has been as
unhappy as I have been."
Yes, Williams could see that point of view too. Hale might say to
himself that a girl who had lived those years of self-abnegation had a
right to his love and Southgate's money, if she wanted them both; that
it wasn't his part to take a noble stand for which she must pay. There
was a certain nobility in not caring what the world said of him.