Jack heard the door of the card-room shut behind Silly Billy, and went
slowly down-stairs and out into the hot, crowded thoroughfare. He was
still almost powerless to believe in his own impotency, which had been
so trenchantly put before him by that gentleman. Half a dozen times he
wished himself back in the card-room, or in the other room where their
interview had taken place, in order to have the opportunity again of
knocking him down or throwing the cards in his face. Yet, so he told
himself, that which seemed reasonable to him before would seem
reasonable to him again. There was no flaw, so far as he could see, in
the deductions which had been put before him, and he was utterly at a
loss as to what he should do. The story, he knew well, would be all over
London by to-morrow, for when a thing is talked about at a club, as
quite assuredly this would be, there is no more stopping it than there
is stopping the flight of Time by holding back the hands of a clock. It
would assume protean and monstrous forms; but whatever form it assumed,
his imagination could not picture one in which his own part could be
construed as creditable. What account would Silly Billy give of the
interview? A true one, probably, because, from his point of view, it
could not be bettered. "Oh, he was violent at first; but I put before
him the exact consequences of further violence, and he saw it at once."
That would be quite sufficient, and he could almost hear Silly Billy
saying it. But paramount in his mind was anger against Marie, for to
that class of mind to which Jack's belonged a wife cannot conceivably do
anything more awful than get herself talked about. He would have been
perfectly indulgent, so he very kindly told himself, to anything she
might do but that. That Mildred had been, and probably now was, talked
about in connection with him did not concern him, for he was not her
husband. To Jack's way of thinking, a flawless reputation was the
monopoly of one person, namely, his wife.
He walked slowly westward through a blur of unrecognised faces, his mind
turning aimlessly through what had happened, like a squirrel in a cage,
without getting anywhere. He ought to have said nothing at all, he told
himself, or, having said something, he should at least have had the
temporary satisfaction of insulting Silly Billy. Yet that would not have
done; he still saw the force of that reasoning. In fact, nothing would
have done. The blame of the whole terribly irritating affair was to be
laid on Marie. She had behaved in some foolish manner, and had got
talked about. He remembered now that weeks ago he had warned her of
this. That made it the more annoying.
At the corner of Devonshire House his step, more than half
automatically, turned northwards. The season and the summer were both at
their midmost, and from this side of the street to that the tide of
carriages flowed full. Full, too, were the pavements, human life jostled
in a race from wall to wall of the gray houses, and just outside the
curbstones, like the scum and flotsam in some cross-movement of tides,
moved rows of sandwichmen bearing a various burden of advertisement,
from strictly private massage establishments to ballets, the more public
the better. But Berkeley Street and the Square following were a
back-water of the flooded river-way, and he went with his own volition,
not with the dictation of the tides, through into Grosvenor Square.
Still without purpose other than that born of habit, he rang the bell of
that house he frequented on so many days, and at so many and different
hours, and was admitted.
Mildred was not in the room when he entered, and he walked up and down
with a step of caged violence. It was a room, one would have said, which
was lived in by a woman of some individuality. The usual signed
photographs, bearing royal and distinguished names, were there; but
these, instead of being prominently displayed, were obscurely penned,
thick as sheep, on a Louis Seize table in a very dark corner, while on
the writing-table which was set in the window were only two--those of
Jack and his wife--a highly daring and successful arrangement. Otherwise
the room was ordered, one felt, in a certain manner, not that it might
be like a hundred other rooms, but because the owner wished it so, and
no other way. A huge engagement book lay open on the table, with some
names written fully out, but here and there an initial only; half a
dozen good prints hung on the walls, but there was no attempt to drape
anything, nor were there any books, the literature being limited to a
heap of periodicals and a hardly lesser heap of letters. Two Dresden
ormolu-mounted birds stood on the chimney-piece, two Tanagra figures in
daring contrast, an Empire clock, and a programme of a forthcoming
race-meeting.
He had not long been in the room when the door of her bedroom, which
communicated with it, was opened, and she entered. At a glance she took
in his mood, and guessed, too, with absolute certainty of its cause. The
things that would make Jack look like that, she knew, could be numbered
on the fingers, and of these none but one could have happened. Thus
there was one only left, and for the moment she was afraid of what she
had done. Outwardly she showed no sign.
"What is it?" she asked.
Jack did not at once answer, but paused in front of the writing-table
where the two photographs stood. Then he took up that of Marie, threw it
into the fireplace, and beat it to pieces with the poker.
"Four pounds for the frame," remarked Mildred. "Those Dresden parrots
are at least a hundred. It is only right you should know. Be violent,
by all means, if it gives you any satisfaction. I want some new things.
But would it not be better to explain first and smash afterwards?"
She had never seen Jack like this--she had never even dreamed he was
capable of it--but she found it, though alarming, rather attractive.
"It is always said of women that they like brutality," she thought to
herself; "and perhaps it is true."
Jack rose from the fireplace a little flushed.
"They are talking about Marie at the clubs," he said. "The Snowflake has
melted, apparently. Jim Spencer is the melter."
"Do you mean you heard that said?" asked Mildred.
"Yes, by Silly Billy."
"Which hospital is he at?" asked she.
Jack sat down.
"Give me a whisky-and-soda," he said; "I'm as dry as dust. May I ring?
Thanks. You mean I should have stamped on him? I did not. I talked about
it quite quietly with him. He pointed out that I, as a defendant in an
action for assault, would not be amused at cross-examination. He adduced
reasons."
Mildred looked at him for a moment with a sort of quiet wonder.
"Do you mean he adduced me as a reason?" she asked.
"Not by name."
"How very forbearing of him! You let that pass, too?"
"Yes."
She reflected.
"You did right," she said at length. "I was at first so much surprised
at your having behaved like that, that I could hardly believe it. But
you did right. It was, however, quite unnecessary to smash Marie's
photograph--or is that a dramatic climax to show your inalienable
fidelity to me?"
She laughed.
"There, drink your whisky," she said. "How extraordinary men are!
Whenever they have had some powerful and exhausting emotion, a little
alcohol always puts them square again. One ought to measure everything
by that. A wife talked about--large whisky-and-soda; a friend talked
about--small whisky-and-soda; one's self talked about--well, that is a
stimulus in itself: say a Lithia Varalette, something lowering, by way
of adjustment."
Jack, angry as he was, answered to her voice, as a fretful horse answers
to a hand it knows, perhaps from habit, perhaps from the sense of a
master astride it.
"You take it like this?" he said. "You can have no idea what it means to
me."
Mildred stood silent a moment, then laughed.
"Surely the English must have made a corner in hypocrisy," she said.
"For sheer, genuine hypocrisy give me the frank English gentleman
like--well, like you, Jack. You are annoyed that Marie has been, as you
say, talked about; you are convinced that it is the chief, if not the
only, duty of a wife not to be talked about. Now, what is the reason of
that, may I ask you? Is it because you demand virtue of her, fidelity to
you? Not a bit of it, and you know it. You do not care in the least what
she does, provided only nothing is said about her. But, seriously, is it
worth while keeping that sort of thing up with me? Cæsar's wife must be
beyond suspicion! Oh, me, what ranting twaddle! But, oh, my poor Cæsar!"
Jack had not been very comfortable when he came in; he was not more
comfortable now. The bogieman, who was capable of popping out as on a
nervous old lady on a dark night, and frightening Cabinet Ministers with
his horrible turnip-ghost of accurate figures and reliable statistics,
was more terrified than terrifying here.
"You are getting quite like Marie," he observed.
"Am I? It would be a singularly awkward position for you if I was, do
you not think?"
Jack had no pertinent reply for a moment; then, "I do not know that the
censorious attitude suits you very well," he said.
"Ah, the whole question turns on what one is censorious of. I am
censorious of your hypocrisy, reasonably I think, because I have no
weakness that way. But you as censor of Marie's morals! Oh, does it not
make you laugh, simply for fear you should cry? Have more whisky, Jack;
you really are not yourself yet. Tell me this, now--what did you come
here for? You have said nothing yet which would not have been better
left unsaid."
Jack got up.
"You appear to wish to quarrel with me," he said. "I think you had
better do it alone."
Mildred made up her mind in a moment; the thing she had long been
debating solved itself at this.
"If you go like a sulky child," she said, "it will be you who quarrel
with me. Now, can you afford to quarrel with both me and Marie? Just
consider that, and reckon up to yourself exactly what will be left of
you if you do. You may do so if you choose, and you can say you have
grounds, for it was I who put into Silly Billy's head the idea that made
him say what he did about Marie. Dresden birds, a hundred pounds, and
please don't touch the Tanagras," she added.
The caution was apparently unnecessary, for Jack did not show the
slightest inclination to smash anything. He sat down as good as gold.
"You are a remarkably interesting woman," he said; "and as I never
thought you a fool, I should really like to know why you did that."
"The immediate cause was a bad one," she said, "for it was that I was
angry with Marie, and wanted to hurt her."
"Then, can you afford to quarrel with Marie--and me?" he asked.
Lady Brereton began to think that she was almost wasting her time. She
was aware, however, that her answer was critical, and gave it intense,
though rapid, consideration.
"Easily," she said. "Why not?"
Jack raised his eyes to her face; she saw their frightened appeal, and
knew that she had won.
"Ah, you are tired of it all," he said.
"You can make me wish I had never seen you if you behave obtusely," she
said.
"What have I done?"
"You have been on the point of quarrelling with me as well as Marie.
Surely that is obtuse enough. Quarrel with us one at a time, if you
wish. To continue, she interfered unwarrantably in a thing that concerns
me alone--I mean Maud's marriage."
Jack smiled faintly.
"I see what you mean," he said apologetically.
"It is sufficiently clear. She interfered, and has seriously embarrassed
me. The marriage will not take place as soon as I wished; in anger, I
struck at her blindly."
"Without considering me," said he.
"Of course, without considering you. You did not occur to me, and even
if you had I should not have considered you, for we settled just now
that your attitude on that point was not--well, considerable. But I am
glad now--I speak quite calmly--that I have done it. I do not like
humbug; we have had a good deal of it. I shall before very long let
Marie know what I have heard."
"Said," interrupted Jack.
"Heard. That will make a coolness between us, for she will be silently
scornful of me. Oh, the truth is this, Jack--I am glad, yes, glad, that
I am not going to pretend to be friends with Marie much longer. There
are many good women who apparently do not mind hypocrisy, but there are
many women who have no pretension whatever to be good who do not like
being hypocrites. I am one. I shall not go to heaven when I die in any
case, but I assure you that if I could by promising to talk about
Sunday-schools to the saints I would refuse it. Now go away and have
your row with Marie."
"You advise that?"
"I insist on it, else I should have wasted all my anger. Dear me, we are
a sweet couple, you and I!"
There was a ring of sudden bitter sincerity in her tone, and he looked
up surprised.
"What is the matter, Mildred?" he asked.
"Anything, everything, nothing. Perhaps your absurd conduct, Jack;
perhaps the thunderstorm which is certainly coming; perhaps reaction
from my anger. Perhaps that I have got my way: I have started a scandal
about Marie--got it successfully launched. I have the sickness of
success. Oh, decidedly the only way to be happy is to want things, not
to get them."
"Want, then; it is easy enough."
"I am beginning to wonder whether it is," said she. "I rather think that
the faculty of wanting is a faculty which belongs to youth. Dear me! I
am getting philosophical, and I beg your pardon. Tell me the news. When
is the dissolution?"
"Who knows? Not even the family, I believe, and I have not the honour of
belonging to them. But, I imagine, not later than the end of July."
"Then the election will interfere with the grouse-shooting, will it
not?"
Jack laughed.
"Yes, but apparently it is decided that Imperial affairs are to rank
above grouse-shooting for once in a way!"
Mildred looked at the clock.
"I must go," she said. "I've got a hair-dresser and a dressmaker and a
manicurist all waiting, and, for aught I know, a palmist and a dentist,
and I'm dining at the Hungarian Embassy, an affair which demands, if not
prayer, at any rate fasting. I never get used to that sort of _corvée_."
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Because it is only by doing that sort of thing with religious
regularity that you get to the stage when you need no longer do it
unless you choose. Besides, I purpose to say a word for you in an august
ear. He is taking an interest, I am told, in the army. He also takes an
interest in me. I amuse him. Come to lunch to-morrow, and tell me what
has happened."
The thunderstorm predicted by Lady Brereton was already beginning to
grumble in the west as Jack left the house, and before he got to Park
Lane a few large, warm drops were splashing on the pavements. He asked
the man who opened the door whether his wife was at home, and, learning
that she was in, went up to her sitting-room. Marie was there, sitting
in the balcony overlooking the park, her back turned to the room, so
that she did not see Jack as he entered. By her was sitting another
figure, whom he recognised. Jack strolled out to join them, lighting a
cigarette.
"Good-evening, Spencer," he said. "Pray don't move. There's a storm
coming up."
But Jim Spencer rose.
"I was just going," he said. "I shall just get home before it begins."
He shook hands with them both, and went through the sitting-room and
down-stairs. On the sound of the front-door banging behind him Jack
spoke.
"Do you remember my warning you that people would talk if you were
intimate with that man?" he said.
"Perfectly."
"You have chosen to disregard my warning. The consequence is that people
have begun to talk."
Marie got up.
"Who, and where?" she said, facing him.
"It does not matter who. Where? In the clubs. 'So the Snowflake has
melted. I saw her driving with the melter.' I heard that said this
afternoon."
The rain began to fall heavily, and a blue scribble of light rent the
sky. Marie did not reply, but went inside, followed by her husband. The
room was very dark, and each could see no more than the form of the
other. In the gloom her answer came--very cool and crisp, an
extraordinary contrast to the hot, thick darkness.
"And you tell this to me," she asked--"to me?"
"It concerns you, does it not?"
"As much as that which the gutter press says of the King concerns the
King. And you knew it, Jack."
Jack sat down in a chair, his back to what light there was. To her he
was almost invisible except for the glowing spark of his cigarette,
which, as he drew breath, faintly illuminated his mouth.
"For a woman of the world," he said, "you are more ignorant than I
should have thought possible. Who are the women who are talked about at
the clubs? Half a dozen names occur to you, as they do to me. Do you
like being the seventh?"
Again there was silence, broken first by a sullen roar of thunder, then
by Marie's voice.
"I want to ask you one question, Jack," she said. "Do you not know--you
yourself--that to couple my name with that of any man except you, is to
utter a foul and baseless calumny?"
"That is not the point," said he. "The point is that your name has so
been coupled."
"Do you not know it?" she repeated.
Again there was silence. The devil, probably, would have betted on
Jack's saying "No." If so, he would have lost his money.
"Yes, I know it," he replied; and his tattered flag of honour waved
again.
"Then, how dare you repeat such a thing to me?" said Marie, still in the
same unnaturally even voice. "For you seem to forget one thing, Jack,
and that is that I am your wife!"
"It is exactly that which I remember," he said.
"Then you are beyond me, and I cannot understand you at all. You seem to
think--God knows what you think! Anyhow, the standard of honour which is
yours is utterly incomprehensible to me. You approach me with a sort of
calm gusto to tell me a canard you have picked out of the clubs or out
of the gutter, and you seem to think I shall care! What I care about is
something quite different, and that is that you should have told me. I
suppose your object was to wound me, to punish me--so you put it to
yourself, for my having disregarded your warning. It is true that you
have wounded me, but not in the way you think. Not long ago you thought
good to cast doubts on the way in which I told you I had spent my
evening. This is one step worse. And I warn you that another step may
take you too far! That is all I have to say."
She turned round and, with a quick movement of her finger, turned on the
electric light and stood in all her splendid beauty before him. Her
bosom heaved with her intense suppressed emotion, her eye was kindled,
and her mouth, slightly parted with her quickened breath, just showed
the white line of her teeth. And sudden amazement at her loveliness
seized the man. He looked long, then got up and advanced to her.
"Marie, Marie!" he said with entreaty, and laid his hand on her arm.
"Ah, don't touch me!" she cried.