Minna had rushed to London, which she loathed, from Nice, which she
adored, and was occupying a suite of apartments in the Hotel Métropole.
And the cause of her journey was Hugh; wherefore she regarded him with
feelings of more than usual vindictiveness. His letter announcing his
marriage with Irene had thrown her into a violent rage. She had stormed
at her French maid, cast herself on her bed and wept, and then gone off
to Monte Carlo, where she did her best to compromise herself with an
Austrian banker who had been, for the past fortnight, most assiduous
in his attentions. The necessitous gentlewoman whom, for shrewd social
reasons, Minna employed as her chaperon and companion had chosen to be
shocked. There had been a scene.
“My conscience won’t allow me to pass such things by without
remonstrance,” the lady had said.
“I don’t pay you to have a conscience,” Minna had replied rudely. “I
possess one too many of my own.”
“It is an outrage on common decency,” said the lady, who had a spirit as
yet unbroken by servitude.
Whereupon Minna had dismissed her on the spot, and that evening found
herself unchaperoned. Now, she had taken a little villa on the Cimiez
Road, with a cool white loggia and tesselated floors. To live there in
maiden seclusion was out of the question. To provide herself with the
excitement that she craved, without some nominal protectress of her
youth and beauty, would be to rank herself as unclassed. But she had
not the faintest desire to set society’s skirts tightly drawn when she
passed by, as did many fair and solitary owners of pretty villas between
Cannes and St. Remo. Her dearly won fortune could buy her much more
satisfactory delights. In a word, a chaperon was essential. For a
whole month she sought far and wide. She offered lavish terms. Hundreds
applied. But the ladies without conscience lacked influence.
The influential chaperons seemed to be steeped in the crassest
respectability. At last a paragon came within her horizon, a Mrs.
Delamere, the widow of a colonel of artillery, a woman of the world.
“In the course of an incidented life,” she wrote, “I have found that
discretion is the better part of virtue.”
The distorted epigram had brought Minna post-haste to London. She came,
saw, conquered. Mrs. Delamere agreed to deposit her conscience with her
bankers, and to accompany Minna southward, with the briefest possible
delay.
It was five o’clock in the afternoon. Minna threw herself down on a
couch and turned over the pages of a novel. She had just returned from
a solitary drive in the Park, where she had not seen one familiar face.
She hated London. It recalled a past life of miseries. The novel fell to
the ground as she went over the tale of them, counted for the fiftieth
time since her arrival, two days before. She had seen no one but Mrs.
Delamere. In a moment of utter boredom, a vestige of gratitude had
suggested a visit to the Bebros. But she could not face the ghosts of
the horrors of that house. The sight of the dull, coarse, kindly faces
would put back the hand of time, and set her again among the devils.
A faint back-wash of the old hysteria met her at the thought. So
she remained in solitary state in the gorgeous hotel, chafing at its
dulness.
Presently she rose and walked with aimless unrest about the room. She
rang for her maid.
“Go downstairs and get me a couple of stalls for the Haymarket this
evening.”
The neat French girl retired with the order. Minna went to the window
and drummed against the pane, gazing abstractedly at the busy embankment
crossing just below, the train creeping over Hungerford Bridge, the
flaring posters against the Avenue Theatre.
“How hateful everything is,” she said to herself. But she remained by
the window for occupation’s sake. Then Justine, the maid, entered.
There were no stalls. They had telephoned. If Mademoiselle would like a
box----
“Oh, yes,” said her mistress, irritably. “That will do.”
She had invited Mrs. Delamere to dinner and theatre. An irrational
impulse of politeness had caused her to leave to her guest the choice
of entertainment. Mrs. Delamere had expressed a desire to see a much
talked-of piece at the Haymarket before her expatriation. Minna had a
foreboding of depression. The Empire or the Gaiety would have better
suited her mood; also a bottle of champagne afterwards in the company of
some amusing men. As the prospect interested her but slightly, she had
characteristically delayed to get tickets till the last moment. She
looked at her watch. Half-past five. She waited by the window until
Justine returned with the box-tickets.
“I’ll come and dress,” said Minna; “it will be something to do.”
“It is true that one does not amuse oneself in London,” said Justine,
answering the implication.
“It is the most odious place on the earth; I sigh for Nice.”
“I also, Mademoiselle. But Nice will be dull when we return.”.
“We’ll shut up the villa and go to Aix-les-Bains for the Russian
season.”
“I adore the Russians,” cried Justine with conviction.
“Have you known many?” asked Minna sarcastically.
“When one knows one thoroughly, one knows them all,” said Justine.
The soothing charm of a long and protracted toilette enlivened by
Justine’s somewhat intimate account of the one Russian whom she knew
thoroughly, beguiled the time and restored Minna to good humour. When
she left Justine’s hands, adorned in the most fascinating of Paris
dresses, with her diamond star in her dark hair, and looked at herself
in the pier-glass, she was almost happy. She was young, and to most
eyes, especially her own, captivatingly beautiful. The ravages that the
past ordeal had made in her beauty had been repaired by time. Her lips
were as ripely pouting, her dark eyes as slumberous, her lazy lids as
sensuous, as when she had first deliberately woven their glamour
around Hugh, long, long ago. Furthermore, she had ripened into maturer
womanhood.
“Mademoiselle is ravishing,” said Justine.
Minna sighed. “And to think that it’s all going to be wasted
to-night--positively wasted.”
“Mademoiselle will command the admiration of the whole house.”
Minna laughed contemptuously. What would be the gratification of that?
“It would please me enormously if I were in the place of Mademoiselle,”
said Justine.
A little later Minna descended with her guest to the great dining-room.
Mrs. Delamere was a faded, aristocratic looking woman, with an aquiline
nose and a perfect taste in dress. She looked at her charge critically,
noticed her unabashed and somewhat inviting acceptance of admiring
glances, and imperceptibly shrugged her shoulders. Rather than linger
in the Bloomsbury boarding-house, where for the past year she had been
hiding her fallen fortunes, she would have undertaken to chaperon the
Unmentionable Person of Babylon herself. Meanwhile she intended to enjoy
her dinner.
The crowded room, the buzz of conversation, and the expensive wines
completed Minna’s sense of content.
“I am glad that you prefer champagne _extra sec_,” said Mrs. Delamere,
after the first appreciative sip. “So many women go for Veuve Cliquot,
when they can.”
“Yes, and make men afraid to dine with them,” said Minna. “I felt sure
that your taste and mine would coincide. Yet I had to educate myself up
to it.”
“The education will not be thrown away,” said Mrs. Delamere.
“Men are beasts,” said Minna. “There is scarcely one who can stand
against an appeal to his own little pet sensuality. But there is no
amusement or excitement in life without men--and so it is worth while
studying their sensualities.”
Mrs. Delamere assented with a polite gesture.
“Do you think I am too cynical for my age?” asked Minna in her
languorous voice.
“Age is a matter of experience rather than of years.”
“Well--too cynical for my experience?”
Mrs. Delamere pursed her thin lips in a smile.
“Some experience brings cynicism; some again brings truth. It all
depends how you are affected.”
“But what is truth--to quote Pilate?” asked Minna. “I haven’t found it,
either in myself or in any one else. To weave the most gratifying tissue
out of lies--that’s the end of life. If I shock you, you had better tell
me at once, Mrs. Delamere.”
“You look far too charming for any one to be shocked at you,” replied
the chaperon indulgently.
“Thank you,” said Minna in high good humour. Mrs. Delamere turned the
conversation to the cosmopolitan society of foreign watering-places.
She had a wide experience of men and things, and talked amusingly. Minna
compared her approvingly with her prudish predecessor, and congratulated
herself on her choice. The talk was so edifying that they lingered over
their coffee, and when they reached their box at the theatre the first
act had begun.
Except on the stage, all was dimness. The stalls, the dress-circle
glimmered vaguely with the pale spots of faces and the broader splashes
of light dresses. Minna sat on the stage side of the box and Mrs.
Delamere opposite. The act failed to interest the girl, whose
champagne-filled head craved amusement. Her nature, too, instinctively
rebelled at earnestness of purpose and the suggestion of ideals. The
foreshadowing of tragedy in the play depressed her. Her own soul was too
dark to bear additional gloom with ease. She yawned, rested her elbow on
the edge of the box, and looked fixedly at the stage, while she saw her
own life, and pitied herself greatly. She was alone. Anna Cassaba had
died suddenly three months ago. Now she was friendless, save for this
paid woman next her, whom in her heart she despised. She brooded over
her wrongs--over the last great insult her husband had heaped upon
her. How she hated him! How dared he marry? Considering her passionate
repudiation of all claims upon him, this was unreasonable. But if men
and women were always guided by reason, life would be as emotional as
the Binomial Theorem.
At last the curtain descended. The theatre sprang into light. Mrs.
Delamere broke into well-modulated enthusiasm. She praised the acting.
“It all seems wooden compared with the French stage,” replied Minna,
pausing in the act of raising an opera-glass. She turned, scanned the
movements in the stalls. Suddenly she dropped the glass on her lap and
remained staring, and grew very white.
“Take my salts,” said Mrs. Delamere, quickly rising.
“Look there,” cried Minna, unheeding. “There he is, standing up.”
“Who?”
“Hugh Colman.”
“The man who----?” said Mrs. Delamere with tactful aposiopesis.
Minna recovered, flushed, bit her lip angrily. She had almost betrayed
herself.
“It gave a shock to see him,” she explained, forcing a smile. “The last
time was in such painful circumstances--the trial--my poor father.”
Mrs. Delamere nodded sympathy, and looked with curious interest at
Hugh’s handsome face and haughty bearing.
“And there is the heroine of his romance with him, Mrs. Merriam. I know
her by sight.”
“They were married a month ago,” said Minna, steadying her voice.
“They were both friends of yours, I believe.”
“He was,” said Minna.
At that moment, she saw his eyes, which had been idly wandering round
the house, fix themselves with awful suddenness upon hers. Instinct
warned her of the danger of putting Mrs. Delamere on the scent of
a mystery. She made Hugh an unmistakably cordial bow, to which he
responded with grave courtesy. Then he sat down beside Irene. The
conjuncture of the parties in so celebrated a trial did not pass
unnoticed. A whispering here, followed by a glance, an opera-glass
levelled there, indicated to Minna the fact of their recognition.
Exaggerating the danger, she summoned the box-attendant and, borrowing a
pencil, scribbled in German upon a bit of her programme: “Come and speak
to me, to save appearances.” The note despatched, she awaited events.
Hugh sat down by Irene, and hated to meet the love and trust in her
clear eyes. It was the first time they had appeared together in public
since their marriage, the first time either had been to a theatre since
his arrest for Israel Hart’s murder. It had been a small event in their
lives, enjoyed in anticipation, and up to now enjoyed in realisation.
They had held hands lover-wise during the act, under cover of the
darkness, signalling emotions by little finger-pressures. He rode on the
full tide of the past month’s wondrous happiness. Now and then his mind
wandered to the sheltered haven on the sweet Cornish coast where the
all-fulfilling days of their honeymoon had been passed; where the woman,
shyly revealing her inner tendernesses, seemed thereby to regain day
by day the colour of her cheeks and the serenity of her brow. And his
thoughts flew forward to the journey home, to the strange new fact of
not parting at the door, and walking back to his lonely rooms with his
heart aching for wild impossibilities. He had risen with a laughing
speech:
“I am going to delight myself by seeing how inferior all other women are
to you.”
And then his eyes had met those of Minna fixed upon him like a fate.
“Strange we should see her on our first appearance,” said Irene.
“She is looking remarkably well,” he returned, realising and hating the
banality of the remark. Then he was silent. Irene noticed a constraint.
“Never mind if it calls up cruel associations, dear. The past troubles
have brought the present happiness. You must always remember that.”
“Could I ever forget?” he said.
“She has improved in looks,” said Irene, with a glance at the box. “The
last time I saw her, poor thing, she was terribly pulled down. I don’t
think I ever told you. It was on the awful evening of the first day of
the trial. She suddenly appeared at our house, and, before she could
speak, was stricken dumb with hysteria. We had to send her back to her
friends. Strange, wasn’t it?”
“Very strange,” said Hugh, in a low voice.
What could have been the intention of her visit?
To confess? He dared not show the agitation that the story caused him.
He rose brusquely, with a desire to escape for a moment from the torture
of his present position. Its falseness stung his impatience. A little
bald-headed man two rows of stalls off, who was looking with curiosity
at the hero of the _cause célèbre_, suddenly met Hugh’s glance and
curled up like a shrivelled leaf into his stall. But Hugh had been quite
unconscious of the bald-headed man’s interest.
“Why don’t you go and smoke a cigarette?” said Irene.
As he turned towards her, he saw the tender truthful love in her face,
and he called himself a villain for deceiving her. But it was for her
happiness. Indubitatively.
Still the presence there of the other woman shed a ghastly light upon
his honour rooted in dishonour. And Irene’s simple statement of Minna’s
mysterious visit, whose baffled intention he could not but surmise,
added a grimmer irony to the situation. Before he could reply to Irene,
however, the attendant had edged her way to him with Minna’s note. His
brow darkened as he read the words. He could not refuse. Besides, Irene
had heard the attendant’s enquiry and explanation.
“I will go and speak to her if you don’t mind,” he said.
“Of course you must,” said Irene. “She will be glad to see you.”
Hugh looked at his watch. There were still ten minutes before the
curtain rose. There would be time for a brief interview. The briefer the
better.
He made his way along the line of stalls and ran up the stairs to
Minna’s box. She met him outside, in the carpeted and quiet passage, and
walked a step or two past the door of her box, so as to be beyond the
earshot of Mrs. Delamere. She held out her hand to him with an air of
contemptuous defiance.
“So you have committed bigamy?” she remarked.
“To put it bluntly, I have,” replied Hugh. “You scarcely summoned me to
give yourself the pleasure of telling me that.”
“Who knows?” said Minna, with an insolent upsweep of her lazy lashes.
“Have you anything to say against it?”
“Oh, dear, no. You got my letter, didn’t you? You can have as many wives
as the late Brigham Young, if you like.”
Hugh bowed ironically. It was like her to meet tragic issues with
vulgarity.
“Tell me,” he said, with a quick change of manner, “why did you go to
Mrs. Merriam’s on that evening during the trial?”
The question was so abrupt and the incident for the moment so far from
her thoughts that she gave a little gasp of surprise and the blood came
into her cheeks. She drooped her eyes, stole a surreptitious glance
at him, and seeing his face very stern, hardened her heart and laughed
contemptuously.
“The thing got on my nerves, I suppose--you don’t fancy I contemplated
murdering you in cold blood? I thought your dear, true friend Mr.
Merriam might help me. Wasn’t I a silly little fool?”
“I am glad you had one moment of compunction,” said Hugh.
“I have sincerely repented of it since, I assure you. But we need not
talk of unpleasant things. All is for the best in this best of all
possible worlds. I see you are amply consoled, while I----”
“And you?”.
“I console myself, too,” she answered insolently. He regarded her
pityingly; was silent for a moment. Then he said in a kinder tone:
“Why speak like this? I should be happy to feel that you had made an
effort to save me. For I have judged you harshly. If you tried to act
loyally towards me, as I tried to act towards you, the fact will save us
from hating one another.”
“Will it?” she echoed. “My dear man, you can’t possibly conceive how I
hate you.”
“Very well, then. We’ll remain the best of enemies. Are you staying long
in London?”
“Till the day after to-morrow. I am afraid I shall not have the pleasure
of asking you to call on me.”
“I regret it extremely,” replied Hugh. “And now that I believe the
curtain is up, I will say good-bye.”
“Won’t you sit through the act in our box?” asked Minna. “It will be
difficult to get back to your--other wife.”
He turned on his heel and walked away. She looked back at him until the
curve of the passage hid him from her view, and then entered her box.
With muttered apologies to disturbed stall occupants Hugh regained his
place by Irene. She slipped her hand, as before, into his, and whispered
a welcome. His grasp grew tight as his heart swelled within him. Oh,
God, it was good to have her safe and secure! But the spell of the
play had lost its power. When the curtain fell again, he was scarcely
conscious of what had passed. It had fallen on a highly dramatic
situation. Irene gave the little sigh of relieved tension, and turned to
him, her face lit with the afterglow of kindled emotion.
“You are enjoying it, dearest?” he said.
“Oh, yes. And you?”
“I am beside you, Renie. That is all I want in this world.”
The answer contented her. She whispered a foolish word, her head near
his. Instinctively he raised his eyes to Minna’s box, and saw her
staring down at him with the hard, ugly look upon her face that he had
known so well in days past.
“I am afraid that poor girl is not happy,” said Irene, following his
glance. “Isn’t it strange, Hugh dear, that from the very first, I always
wanted to lighten her lot? What a meddlesome creature she would think me
if she knew!”
She drove knives into the man. In what estimation would she hold him, if
he told her his and that girl’s story? He was no hero in his own eyes;
in hers he day by day perceived, with an indescribable mingling of pain
and pride, that he was. It was her nature to exalt any one she loved on
a pinnacle of greatness. He had married her, allowing her to remain
in ignorance, honestly, according to his lights; for the sake of her
welfare alone. Now, for the first time, he trembled for himself.
“Don’t be sad, dear,” she said after awhile. “I can look back on it all
so calmly--as if it had happened in a prior state of existence. And so
must you.”
“Love is the god that works all healing,” he replied. And the sincerity
of his faith comforted him.
The object of Irene’s pity soon withdrew into the shadow of the box,
and plunged into flippant and bitter dialogue with Mrs. Delamere.
The newspaper account of the scandal gave her scope for much mordant
criticism of Hugh and Irene. It was a savage pleasure to tear their
reputation to shreds, heap on invective and opprobrium, invent past
meannesses and dishonours and treacheries.
“You seem to dislike him very much,” remarked Mrs. Delamere, smiling.
“Who wouldn’t, considering his record of infamy?” replied Minna, her
rich, deep voice turning, as it always did when she was angered, to
harshness.
The smile flickered inscrutably around Mrs. Delamere’s thin lips.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can forgive the woman. I should think
most women with whom he has come in contact have been ready to throw
themselves away upon him. He is a splendid looking animal.”
“Do you think women are beasts like men?”
“There’s not much to choose between them,” replied Mrs. Delamere.
The last act began; Mrs. Delamere gave herself up to the stage. Minna
leant on the edge of the box and brooded over the two figures side by
side, just distinguishable in the chequered dimness of the stalls. When
the piece was over, she hurried her companion out of the theatre, and
parted from her at the door. A cab quickly took her to the Métropole.
She went straight into her bedroom and ordered a small bottle of
champagne and some biscuits, which she consumed while Justine aided her
to undress.
“Has Mademoiselle well amused herself?” asked Justine.
“Don’t chatter in that irritating way,” said Minna snappishly. So
Justine concluded her operations in silence, and retired at the earliest
opportunity.
Minna wrapped her dressing-gown around her and lay back in a chair,
with the last half glass of champagne beside hen And gradually the
sensuousness faded from her face, and her eyes grew haunted by trouble
and her lips worked nervously. Thus she remained rigid, save for
her lips and swelling bosom, for a long time. At last, in a vehement
whisper:
“Yes, I hate him,” she said.