I had enough to occupy my thoughts now without thinking of Bennet.
Passionately as I loved Roger, I perceived that night, in a dim sort of
way and with a burning remembrance of his brutality to me, that I was
fast becoming the infatuated victim of one who was utterly unworthy.
He had not hesitated to denounce and accuse me of things of which I
was certainly incapable of being guilty. Though he had said I was his
cherished and precious girl, and he knew I was a good girl (in the
sense the world calls good), yet he did not consider me worthy of being
his wife. It irritated him, that poor aspiration of mine. Yet other
men, better men than he, men who, I do not doubt, though not possessing
his great wealth, were his social equals,--Bennet and my editor,--had
not thought me beneath them. I puzzled and tortured myself over it, but
I could find no answer.
No one could deny that I was a clever girl. I was not the genius
O'Brien and perhaps Roger believed, but I certainly was above the
average girl in intelligence. Not many girls of eighteen are writing
stories and having them accepted by the magazines. And yet, queerly
enough, beyond my one precocious talent, I was in many ways peculiarly
gullible and stupid. Why, the girls at the Y. W. C. A. teased me in all
sorts of ways because of this, and Estelle used to say a blind beggar
could sell me a gold brick at any street corner, and I would believe
every word he said. This peculiar streak of credulousness in me was, I
suppose, the reason I never found out anything about Mr. Hamilton.
He never talked to me about his business or home affairs. I knew he
was president of half a dozen big firms, because I saw his name on
stationery. Sometimes he talked to me about his horses and dogs,--he
had many of these,--but he always said my little dog Verley, which
he had never given back to me, and which was not, after all, a
thoroughbred, was his inseparable companion. Even Mrs. Kingston and
Mama Owens and Lolly knew more about this man than I did.
Love, it seems, is not only blind, but deaf, dumb, and paralyzed. I
heard nothing, I knew nothing, and, what is more, I would have believed
nothing that was not good of him. Surely a faith like that is deserving
of some reward!
There is an adage of my mother's land something like this, "Our actions
are followed by their consequences as surely as a body by its shadow."
That proverb recurred to me in the days that followed.
The morning after Roger went, our bell rang before I was up. Our
servant "slept out," and had not yet arrived. So Margaret went down,
grumbling about the girl, supposing she had lost her key. As I didn't
have to be at my office till ten, and as I had been up late, I turned
over to go to sleep again, when I heard Margaret at my door. She came
in in her bath-robe. She said Mr. Butler was down-stairs, and wanted to
see me at once.
I don't know what I thought. I know I felt panic-stricken and afraid.
Roger had sent my note to Bob by messenger the previous evening, so he
had had it over night. I slipped on a dressing-gown quickly and went
down-stairs.
Butler was sitting stiffly in the middle of the reception-hall, and as
I came down he stood up, though he did not touch the hand I held out to
him. He said abruptly:
"What did you do to Bennet?"
I felt like an overtaken criminal. I could not say a word. I could not
look at the face of Bennet's friend. He said:
"Bob had a dinner engagement with me at a friend's house last night.
He didn't turn up. I feared something was wrong. In fact, I've feared
for Bob ever since he became infatuated with you." Butler did not mince
his words; he just stabbed me with them. "He has been walking about the
city like a madman all night long. What did you do to him?"
"Oh, George," I said falteringly, "I had to break it off."
As if distinctly to cut me for calling him "George" (I had always
called him that), he addressed me as "Miss Ascough."
"Miss Ascough, were you ever really engaged to Bennet?"
He asked that as if the thought of it was something not at all to his
liking. I nodded.
"And you broke it off, you say?"
Again I nodded.
"Why?"
"Because I didn't love him," I said truthfully.
I was so nervous and conscience-smitten and unhappy, and the room was
so cold, that I was seized with a shivering fit, and could hardly keep
my teeth from chattering; but Butler did not seem at all moved by my
condition.
"May I ask if you were 'in love,' as you call it, with him when you
accepted him?"