"Quand le coeur reste fidèle, les vilenies du corps sont peu de
chose. Quand le coeur a trahi, le reste n'est plus rien."
Athena, sitting alone in the boudoir, heard the return of the two men;
but she waited in vain for Lingard to come to her, as he always did come
to her, with that blind longing for her presence which he was only now,
with dawning consciousness, beginning to resist.
To-night instinct, the wise instinct which always stood her in good
stead in all her dealings with men, warned her against seeking him out.
Mrs. Maule had no wish to make Lingard either an unwilling or even a
willing accomplice in the scheme which was to result in their ultimate
happiness. She had gone quite as far as she dared to go with him the
night before. Treachery is one of the few burdens which a human being
can bear better alone than in company.
Athena realised that Lingard now regarded his violent, unreasoning
attraction to herself as a thing of which to be mortally ashamed. But
she was convinced that, once his engagement to Jane Oglander was at an
end, he would "let himself go," especially if he was convinced that she,
Athena, had been blameless.
And her instinct served her truly. Lingard, in spite of, or perhaps
because of, the long day spent away from Rede Place, was in no mood for
a renewal of the sentimental dalliance to which Athena had accustomed
him.
What had happened--the quick exchange of words, his echo of Mrs. Maule's
longing for freedom from a tie which she had led him to believe had ever
lacked reality, had brought him, and roughly, to his bearings.
The evening which had followed, spent in company with the two women--the
woman to whom he owed allegiance, and whom he had held but a few hours
before in his arms, and that other woman who had provoked the unreal
words of which he was now ashamed, had contained some of the most odious
moments of his life.
He had hailed with intense relief the engagement which took him away for
a whole day; and on his return he had gone straight to the sitting-room
set apart for his use, his supposed work, and where, after the first two
days of his stay under Richard Maule's roof, he had spent so little of
his time.
The rather elaborate apparatus connected with the book he was engaged in
writing, filled him with contempt for himself. There were the maps, the
books, the reports of his staff, his own rough notes, and--in a locked
despatch-box--the long diary-letters he had written to Jane Oglander
during the course of the Expedition.
The man who is all man, whose nature lacks, that is, any admixture of
femininity, is almost always without the dangerous gift of
self-analysis. Such a man was Hew Lingard.
All through his life he had always known exactly what he wanted, and
when denied he had suffered as suffers a child, with a dumb and hopeless
anger. It was this want of knowledge of himself that had ever made him
ready to embark blindly in those perilous adventures of the soul in
which the body plays so great a sub-conscious part.
Now, for the first time in his life, Lingard did not know what he
wanted, and the state in which he found himself induced a terrible and
humiliating disquietude.
His was the miserable state of mind of a man who finds himself on the
point of becoming unfaithful to a wife who is still loved. Jane
Oglander, even now, seemed in a most intimate sense part of himself.
When he had seen her the first time--it had been in summer, in a
garden--he had experienced the strange sensation that he had at last
found the woman for whom he had been always seeking, and whom he had
always known to be somewhere waiting, could he but find her.
Almost at once he had told Jane that he loved her, and almost, even
then, had he convinced her that it was true. He had not tried to bind
her by any formal engagement, and he had kept to the spirit as well as
to the letter of the law. The long diary-letters which he had written to
her day by day, and which had reached her at such irregular intervals,
were not in any obvious sense love-letters.
He had felt that wherever he was she was there too, and sometimes, when
he was in danger, and he was often in danger during those two years, the
sense of Jane Oglander's spiritual nearness became curiously
intensified. Now that they were together, under the same roof, she often
seemed infinitely remote.
Could he now have analysed his own emotions--which, perhaps fortunately
for himself, he was incapable of doing--he would have known that his
chance of being faithful to Jane would have been increased rather than
decreased had they not spent together that week in London.
He had come to Rede Place in a state of spiritual and physical
exaltation which had made him peculiarly susceptible to any and every
emotion, and for a time he had believed the feeling he was lavishing on
Athena Maule to be pity--a passion of pity for one who had been most
piteously used by fate.
The physical exercise of the day's shooting, spent in a place entirely
lacking the emotional atmosphere induced by Athena, had restored
Lingard's sense of perspective. With a rather angry discomfiture he
realised that he had become afraid of Mrs. Maule and of her power over
him. For the first time since he had known her he had been free of
Athena, and then, as he and Dick Wantele got nearer and nearer to Rede
Place, it had almost seemed as if she were beckoning to him, and he had
longed to respond to her call....
It had required a strong effort of will on his part to go straight
upstairs instead of to the room where he knew her to be.
For the first time in his life Lingard did not know what he wanted, or,
rather, he was grievously aware that one side of his nature was
imperiously demanding of him something he was determined not to grant.
Last night he had thrown a sop to the ravening, hungry beast, but that,
so he now swore to himself, should not happen again.
It was seven o'clock when Athena heard a key being turned in the lock of
the Garden Room, and her eyes quickly sought the place where her own key
was always kept. It was in its place; Lingard always returned it with
scrupulous care immediately after having used it.
Then it must be Dick Wantele who was coming into the house. She wondered
where he had been--perhaps to the Small Farm to fetch Jane Oglander.
What a fool Dick was! And yet--and yet not such a fool after all. Dick,
if he were patient--Athena smiled a little to herself--and he certainly
would be patient, might yet be granted the wish of his heart. Jane
Oglander's marriage to Dick Wantele, so Mrs. Maule now admitted to
herself, would be a most excellent thing for them all.
Yes--the two she would fain see become lovers had come in together; she
could hear their voices in the corridor. And then, to her surprise, the
door opened, and Wantele came in alone.
Athena felt suddenly afraid--afraid and uncomfortable. She told herself
angrily that her nerves were playing her odious tricks, for as Dick came
towards her she had the sensation, almost the knowledge, that he longed
to strike her, and it was a very odd, a very unpleasant, sensation.
He came up close to her. "You know that Jane Oglander intends to break
her engagement?" he said abruptly, and there was an angry, a menacing
expression on his face.
Athena regained complete possession of herself. She felt quite cool,
ready to parry any attack.
"Yes," she said quietly; "Jane told me this morning. I was surprised,
but--not sorry, Dick."
He made no answer, dealt her none of those quick, sarcastic retorts of
which he was master. She looked at him fixedly. He had no business to
come in and speak to her like that!
"No one who knows and--and likes them both can think them suited to one
another. You know that as well as I do, Dick."
"I deny it absolutely," he cried, "and even if it were true I shouldn't
care! Our business in this matter--yours and mine--is to stand by Jane.
I take it that you won't deny that Jane loves Lingard?" And then he went
on, without waiting for her assent: "Do you remember the letter she
wrote to you--the letter you showed me? That showed how Jane felt--how
she now feels."
Her lips framed a sentence in answer, but she changed her mind and did
not utter it. There was no object in making Dick angry, angrier than he
already was; for Athena was well aware that Wantele was very, very angry
with her.
"And what do you think we can do?" she said slowly.
"Look here, Athena." He tried to make his voice pleasant,
conciliating--and he actually succeeded. Then he wasn't angry, she
thought, after all. "This matter is much too serious for you and me to
fence about it. I asked you a few days ago to go away--I ask it of you
again. After all, what you are doing now can lead to nothing. Lingard
must give you but very poor sport, and what is sport to you--eh, what,
Athena?"
She remained silent, listening to him with an odd look on her face.
He ventured further: "I feel sure that you had no idea that the matter
would become serious, and I agree that if Jane were a different sort of
woman she would understand----"
"Understand what?" she said haughtily. "Are you accusing me of breaking
off Jane's engagement? I did not think, Dick, that even your dislike of
me could go so far. Till she told me this morning, I had no idea she
thought of doing such a thing."
Wantele shrugged his shoulders, but he was determined not to lose his
temper.
"I don't accuse you," he said slowly, "and I don't wish to be unfair.
We'll put it in another way, Athena. Lingard came--saw--was conquered!
It's no use our discussing it at this time of day. Still less is it any
use for you to try to deny it; you and I both know what happened. I
think--nay, I'm quite sure--that if you were to go away, everything
would come right between these two people."
"And do you really wish everything to come right between Hew Lingard and
Jane Oglander?"
Athena looked at the man standing before her in a very singular manner.
Her voice was charged with significance.
He met her challenging look quite coolly. "Yes, I do wish it to come
right," he said, "because I believe that it would be for Jane's ultimate
happiness. Come, Athena, make an effort!"
He spoke good-humouredly, as a grown-up person speaks to a spoilt child,
and a cruel little devil entered into Mrs. Maule's mind.
"Isn't it funny," she said lightly, "how Jane the Good, and I, Athena
the Bad, always attract the same man? They don't always like us at the
same time, but----"
She stopped speaking, for Dick Wantele had turned and left the room,
leaving the door open behind him, a thing he very seldom did.