The Edward Morgans left the dance early, at whose suggestion Prudence
never remembered. She was quite willing to go home. The misery of
meeting again Philip Steele after the lapse of years, of discovering
that she loved him--that he loved her, had remained true to her memory
always, was more than she could bear. The image of Steele filled her
mind and so dominated her thoughts that she could not fix her attention
on anything else.
She did not see him again. He left quietly soon after Edward Morgan led
his wife away--disappearing as he had come, unobtrusively, without
meeting his hostess, feeling unequal to facing her, and fearful of
risking a further encounter with the girl whose memory he had cherished
faithfully since the night he had stood under her window and caught a
rose which she dropped down to him for a token at parting. The rose was
in his possession still, and it was no more faded with the years, he
reflected with bitterness, than his memory was in her fickle affections.
He felt angry with her, and in his anger he judged her harshly. He had
thought of her so much, had imagined her pleasure at their meeting, had
taken for granted that she would wait for him, confident of his return
and of his love. And he came back to find her married--gone from her
old place at the window, the setting in which he had pictured her during
those five lonely years of work. He had sworn to take her back with
him, sworn to have her in defiance of every law. He recalled the boast
with a smile of grim irony. There was a suggestion of melodrama about
it which struck him now as absurd. What, he wondered, had she thought
of the boast--of him? She had remained so still and silent, with her
half-averted face and an air of drooping sadness in her quiet pose. She
loved him. In spite of his bitter resentment at her marriage, at her
want of faith, deep down in his inner consciousness there remained the
calm assurance that her heart was his, would remain his, no matter what
the years brought forth.
The Morgans exchanged scarcely a word during the drive home. But when
they reached the house Mr Morgan followed his wife into the
drawing-room with the air of a man who intends having things out. It
was not the time for explanations. He would have displayed greater
wisdom had he deferred the discussion to a more fitting occasion.
Prudence's nerves were all jarred. She had reached a stage of misery
which rendered her desperate, and her husband's manner, conveying his
sense of outraged pride and conscious authority, provoked her to a show
of bitterness, which in calmer moments she deplored.
"That's the finish of all this dancing and merrymaking," he said rudely,
and poured himself out a glass of water, which old Mrs Morgan's thought
for their comfort had provided in chill readiness on a side table. "I
have always felt that this frivolity was out of keeping with the
seriousness of the times. Perhaps you will give me some explanation of
your extraordinary behaviour. What is Steele to you? I saw there was
something between you when you met. It was not difficult to see. Your
manner attracted general attention. I won't have my wife make herself
conspicuous with any man. Steele!"
He voiced the name with an oath, and banged down his glass so that the
water spilled over on the polished table. Prudence watched him stonily,
but without surprise, while he sopped up the water with his
handkerchief. It was so characteristic of him to be careful in small
matters even in a moment of great emotional strain.
"I am tired," she said, making the only appeal that presented itself to
her mind whereby to avoid the discussion. "I would rather not talk
about these things now."
"Tired!" he ejaculated angrily. "You won't have to complain of that in
future. I will see that you take more rest. And you _must_ talk of
these things. I have every right to insist upon an explanation."
"Very well," she said, in quiet tones that should have warned him to
desist. "But I think you are unwise. Mr Steele, when he met me
to-night, had no idea that I was married; and, in the surprise of seeing
him again, I suppose I betrayed my gladness. I did not mean to do that.
It was all so unexpected."
"But what is he to you?" Edward Morgan demanded. "Good God! can't you
answer a plain question? What has there been between you and Steele in
the past?"
Prudence turned away from him to conceal the quivering of her lips, but
her voice was steady when she answered despite the wild beating of her
heart.
"I loved him," she said simply, "and he loved me. There was that
between us. But he went away, and I thought--he had forgotten."
A long silence fell between them, a heavy silence. In all his life
Edward Morgan had never received such a blow to his pride as this. She
had dealt him a blow before when she sought to break their engagement;
but that was trifling as compared with this--this brazen confession of
love for another man. She had never loved him--her husband. She had
been in love with another man all these years.
"And yet you married me!" he said in a hard voice, snapping the silence
abruptly.
Had she not been goaded past endurance, Prudence, would not have said
what she did say; she was ashamed of it later. But his manner and his
clumsy insistence irritated her into retorting.
"At least I tried to evade doing you that injury," she said.
His face became purple with anger. Nothing she could have planned to
say could have enraged him more than that cutting reminder at such a
time of her reluctance to become his wife.
"You did," he shouted, and smote the table beside which he stood so
violently that the glasses on it jingled and the water was spilled
again. This time he allowed it to remain; he appeared not to see it in
his outburst of noisy passion. "But you weren't honest with me even
then. You concealed this thing from me deliberately. You deceived me.
I believed you were a simple-hearted girl whose love I could win with
kindness. And I was kind to you. I have tried to be kind always--
though God knows! I received small return. Do you suppose I would have
married you had you told me that you loved another man? I could feel
some respect for you had you persisted in your refusal; I feel none for
you now. It was an evil day for me when you married me."
"It was the one big mistake of my life," she answered, and turned and
faced him fully, with blue eyes aflame with anger, her head lifted
proudly, almost aggressively, her face expressing cold dislike. She had
never loved Edward Morgan, but she had not until then actively disliked
him. His blustering anger, and his ill-considered taunts repelled her.
"If you care to have a separation I am quite agreeable. I think we
shall be happier apart."
"I don't doubt you would like that," he said brutally. "To be free to
gallivant in your frivolous way at my expense, and under the protection
of my name! I prefer to exercise full control over my wife. You are my
wife, remember. Nothing's going to alter that. And since you bear my
name I will see that you respect it. There's going to be no scandal in
this family. Separation! So that's what you are after! Good God! I
would sooner see you lying dead in your coffin than that you should
disgrace the name of Morgan by dragging it into the courts."
She smiled coldly. His arrogant rhetoric recalled annoyingly William's
pride in the Graynor Honour. They both seemed to fear these things were
in jeopardy through her. The tissue-paper wrappings in which they
preserved these qualities appeared to her as consistent as they were
inadequate. There was a hollow ring in all this noisy talk. Respect
was to her a personal attribute, which revealed itself daily in the
commonplace round of homely things. She was not in the least concerned
as to its chance of safe keeping in her possession.
"I'll go to bed," she said. "It isn't very profitable to stay here
wrangling at this hour of night. And to-morrow I will go home. I want
to get away. I am weary of everything."
"_This_ is your home," he said sharply. Prudence looked at him
strangely.
"This has never been home to me," she replied. "It is your home. It is
more your mother's home than mine. I have not even authority to order
the meals, or direct the household."
"That's your own fault," he returned curtly. "You evinced no interest
in these matters."
"Largely, it is my own fault," she agreed, with surprising meekness. "I
am responsible for the arrangement of my life, and I have done it very
badly."
She was perilously near to weeping. She felt that if she did not escape
immediately she would break down in front of him, and that was the last
thing she desired to happen. But he would not let her go at once. He
detained her while he put further questions to her relative to Steele.
Had she made any arrangement to meet him again? That was a suspicion
which had jerked itself into his mind and would not be dislodged. He
was jealous of the man. It was jealousy which had lashed him to his
mood of unreasonable anger; it was jealousy which prompted him to ask
this question of her, though in his heart he did not believe her capable
of that.
"What do you take me for?" she demanded fiercely, and shook off his
detaining hand as if it stung her. "I am going away in order to avoid
meeting him. Oh! let me go. I can't stand any more to-night. If you
had been wise you would have kept silent and let me bury this thing in
the most secret place of my heart. There are things one ought not to
speak of."
"I have a right to your full confidence," he said.
"Ah!" she cried, and brushed a tear away. "If you only knew how much
you lose in insisting on your rights!"
With which she left him to his reflections, and went quickly from the
room.