A BUSY MORNING
I
THE next morning was a busy one for his Grace, and it also marked a
tide in the affairs of Bridport House. Soon after ten the ball opened
with the inauspicious arrival of Lady Wargrave. The head of the Family
had just unfolded his newspaper and put on his spectacles when her
ladyship was announced.
As the redoubtable Charlotte entered the room, the hard glitter of her
eyes and the forward thrust of a dominant chin were ominous indeed.
Bitter experience made her brother only too keenly alive to these
portents.
Without any beating about the bush she came at once to the point.
“What’s this I hear, Johnnie? Sarah tells me you have revoked that
woman’s notice.”
“Woman!” temporized his Grace. “What woman?” The tone was velvet.
She glowered at him.
“There’s only one woman in this household, my friend.”
The Duke laid down his _Times_ with an air of extremely well assumed
indifference. Were the parish pump and the minor domesticities all she
could find to interest her, while all sorts of Radical infamies played
Old Harry with the British Constitution?
Lady Wargrave, however, was well inured to this familiar gambit.
“Come, Johnnie,” she said tartly, “don’t waste time. The matter’s too
serious. Sarah says you have asked Mrs. Sanderson to stay on.”
“Yes, I have asked her to be good enough to reconsider her decision,”
said his Grace in the slightly forensic manner of the gilded chamber.
“On what grounds, may one ask?”
“I merely put it to her”--he now began to choose each word with a
precision that made his sister writhe--“that she was indispensable to
the general comfort and well-being of a man as old and gout-ridden as
myself.”
“Did you, indeed!”
It was a facer. And yet it might have been foreseen. Perhaps the
ladies had been a little too elated by their _coup de main_; or, had
they assumed too confidently that at last they had made an end of a
shameless intriguer?
Yes, a facer. Charlotte could have slain her brother. He had given away
the whole position. It was the act of a traitor. In a voice shaken with
anger she proceeded in no measured terms to tell him what she thought
of him.
His Grace bore the tirade calmly and with fortitude. He had an instinct
for justice--long a source of inconvenience to its possessor!--which
now insisted that there was something to be said for the enemy point of
view. Still he might not have borne its presentment so patiently had
Charlotte not shown her usual cunning. “She did not speak for herself,”
she was careful to assure him, “but for the sake of the Family as a
whole.” The presence of this woman at Bridport House could no longer be
tolerated.
To this the Duke said little, but he committed himself to the statement
that Mrs. Sanderson was much maligned and that they all owed a great
deal to her devotion.
This was too much for Charlotte. She bubbled over. “You must be mad!”
Her voice was like the croak of a raven.
“Personally,” rejoined his mellifluous Grace, “I am particularly
grateful that she has consented to stay on.”
“You’re mad, my friend.”
“So are we all.” His Grace folded the _Times_ imperturbably.
Lady Wargrave was defeated. She abruptly decided to drop the subject.
However, she did not quit the room until one last bolt had been winged
at her adversary, yet in order to propel it she had to impose an iron
restraint on her feelings.
“Before I go”--she turned as she got to the door--“there’s something
else I should like to say. Jack’s mother is in town and is staying with
me. Like all the Parington’s she has plenty of sense. She will welcome
the Marjorie arrangement--thinks it quite providential--has told her
son so--and she looks to you as the head of the Family to see that it
doesn’t miscarry.”
Her brother’s ugly mouth and explosive eyes were not lost upon
Charlotte, but before he could reply she had made a strategic
retirement. Did these futile women expect him to play the matrimonial
agent? The mere suggestion was infuriating, yet well he knew the
extreme urgency of the matter. The whole situation called for great
delicacy. A combination of subtle finesse and iron will was needed if
the institution to which he pinned his faith was not to be shaken to
its foundations.
II
Lady Wargrave had gone but a few minutes when Jack arrived at Bridport
House. He had to inform his kinsman that Mary Lawrence would appear at
twelve o’clock.
The Duke was in a vile temper. Charlotte had fretted it already;
moreover, the disease from which he suffered had undermined it long
ago; and at the best of times the mere sight of this young Colonial,
with his wild ideas, was about as much as he could bear. However, he
was too astute a man and far too well found in the ways of his world
not to be able to mask his feelings on an occasion of this magnitude.
The fellow was a perpetual source of worry and annoyance, yet so much
was at stake that the Duke, in order to deal with him, summoned all the
bonhomie of a prospective father-in-law. If anything could have bridged
the gulf such tones of honey must surely have done so.
Jack, however, was in no mood to accept soft speeches, no matter how
flattering to the self-esteem of a raw Colonial! He was determined to
put all to the touch. These people must learn the limit of their power.
And as it was the Tenderfoot’s habit to leave nothing to chance he
began with the bold but simple declaration that nothing would induce
him to give up the finest girl in the country. And he hoped when Mary
appeared at twelve o’clock his kinsman would bear in mind that very
important fact.
Months ago his Grace had begun to despair of the rôle of the modern
Chesterfield. Even since the young ass had first reported himself at
Bridport House, very sound advice, based on intimate knowledge and
first-hand experience, had been lavished upon him. The best had been
done to correct the republican ideas he had gathered in the western
hemisphere. He lacked nothing in the way of counsel and precept. But
the seed had fallen on unreceptive soil, nay, on ground singularly
barren. From the first the novice had shown precious little inclination
to heed the fount of wisdom.
The Duke asked the young man to look at the matter in a common sense
way. He would have an extraordinarily difficult place to fill;
therefore, it was his clear duty to trust those who knew the ropes. The
lady of his choice was a case for experts. Special qualities, inherited
aptitudes were needed in the wife he married! Surely he must realize
that?
The Tenderfoot said bluntly that he did and that Mary Lawrence had them.
His Grace managed to hold a growing impatience in check. But the answer
of the novice had revealed such a confusion of ideas that it was hard
to treat it seriously.
“Unless a woman has been born to the thing and bred up in it, how can
she hope to be equal to the task?”
“Plenty of ’em are,” said the Tenderfoot. “Anyhow they seem to make a
pretty good bluff at it.”
His Grace shook a somber head.
“You can’t deny that the Upper Crust is always being recruited from the
people underneath.”
“Immensely to the detriment of the Constitution,” said his Grace
forensically.
“It won’t be so in this case,” said the Tenderfoot. “Any family is
devilish lucky that persuades Mary Lawrence to enter it. She’s a very
exceptional girl. And when you see her, sir, I’m sure you’ll say so.”
“A young woman of ability, no doubt.” The Duke was growing irritated
beyond measure, yet he was determined to give no hint of his frame of
mind. “These--these bohemians always are. But if you’ll allow me to say
so, the mere fact that she is ready to undertake responsibilities of
which she can know nothing proves the nature of her limitations.”
The hit was so palpable that Jack felt bound to counter it as well as
he could. But his eagerness to do so led him into a tragic blunder.
“That’s where you do her an injustice,” he said, not giving himself
time to weigh his words. “She didn’t know that she might have to be a
duchess when she promised to marry me.”
The folly of such a speech was apparent to the young man almost before
it was uttered. A sudden heightening of a concentrated gaze made him
curse his own damnable impetuosity. He saw at once that the admission
would be used against him; moreover, an intense desire that Mary should
have fair play led him into further pitfalls. “The odd thing is,” he
said in his blunderer’s way, “that she happens to see things here at
the angle at which you see them, sir. At least, I always tell her so.”
His kinsman smiled. “That gives us hope at any rate.” And he even
showed a glint of cheerfulness.
The Tenderfoot had a desire to bite off his tongue. He felt himself
floundering deeper and deeper into a morass. A sickening sensation
crept upon him that he had put himself at the mercy of this crafty old
Jesuit.
“Now, sir, don’t go taking an unfair advantage of anything I may
have told you.” The sheer impotence of such a speech served only to
emphasize his tragic folly.
By now there was a sinister light in the eyes of his Grace. The unlucky
Tenderfoot could hardly stifle a groan of vexation. Only a born idiot
would have taken pains to put such a weapon in the hands of the enemy!
Overcome by a sudden hopeless anger the young man rose from his chair
and fled the room. His course was not stayed until he had passed
headlong down the white marble staircase and out of doors into a golden
morning of July. For the next two hours he ranged the Park grass. It
was the only means he had of working off an irritation and self-disgust
that were almost unbearable.
III
Youth and inexperience might have put a weapon into the hand of his
Grace, yet when the clock on the chimneypiece struck twelve he was in
a very evil mood. The task before him was not at all to his taste; and
the more he considered it the less he liked the part he had now to play.
From various sources he had heard enough of the girl to stimulate his
curiosity. Apart from a lover’s hyperbole, of which he took no account
whatever, impartial observers, viewing her from afar, had commented
upon her; moreover, there was the extremely piquant nature of her
antecedents. She was a niece of the faithful Sanderson, she was also
the daughter of a police constable.
The Duke was apt to plume himself that his instinct for diplomacy
amounted to second nature. But, he ruefully reflected, his powers in
this direction were likely to be tested to the full. His task seemed
to bristle with difficulties. Bridport House was no place for a young
woman of this kind, but it was not going to be an easy matter to tell
her that in just so many words. The best he had to hope for was that
she would prove a person of common sense.
When at five minutes past the hour Miss Lawrence was announced, for one
reason or another, the Duke was in a state of inconvenient curiosity.
And as if the mere circumstances of the case did not themselves
suffice, a chain of odd and queer reflections chose to assail his mind
at the very moment of her appearance.
It was terribly inconvenient for his Grace to rise from his chair,
mainly for the reason that one swollen, snowbooted foot reclined
at ease on another. But with an effort that wrung him with pain he
contrived to stand up.
“Please don’t move,” said a voice deep, clear, and musical, while he
was still in the act of rising. “Oh, don’t--please!”
But without making any immediate reply the Duke poised himself as well
as he could on one foot, more or less in the manner of an emu, and
bowed rather grimly. The dignity of the whole proceeding was perhaps
slightly over-emphasized, it was almost as if he intended to overawe
his visitor with the note of the grand seigneur.
Whether this was the case or not the bow was returned; and slight as it
was, it had a dignity that matched his own. Also it was touched ever
so gently with humor. A pair of gravely-searching eyes met the hooded,
serious, half-ironical orbs of his Grace.
“Nice of you to come and see an invalid,” he said slowly, very slowly,
with a good deal of manner.
“A great pleasure,” she smiled from the topmost inch of her remarkable
height.
While these brief, and on his part decidedly painful maneuvers had
been going on, the man of the world had been busily seeking something
of which so far he had not been able to find a trace. In manner and
bearing there was not a flaw.
Already the expert’s eye had been struck by a look of distinction
that was extraordinary. She was undoubtedly handsome, nay, more than
handsome; she had the subtle look of race which gives to beauty a
_cachet_, a quality of permanence. Her height was beyond the common,
but every line of the long, slim frame was a thing of elegance, of
molded delicacy. She was perhaps a shade too thin, but it gave her an
indefinable style which charmed, in spite of himself, this shrewd,
instructed observer. Then her dress and her hat, her neat gloves and
boots, although they were models of reticence, were all touched by a
subtle air of fashion which seemed somehow to reflect their wearer.
The “Chorus Girl” was in the nature of a surprise. The Duke indicated
a chair, on the edge of which she perched, straight as a willow, her
chin held steadily, her amused eyes veiled with a becoming gravity.
As the Duke painfully reseated himself he felt a cool scrutiny upon
him. And that very quality of coolness was a little provocative. In
the circumstances of the case it had hardly a right to be there.
To himself it was most proper, but in this young woman, a police
constable’s daughter, who earned her living in the theater, a little
embarrassment of some kind would have been an added grace. If anything
however she had more composure than he; and in spite of the charm and
the power of a personality that was vivid yet clear-cut, he could not
help resenting the fact just a little.
When at last he had slowly resettled himself on his two chairs he
turned eyes of ironical power full upon her. Yes, she was amazingly
handsome, and she reminded him strangely of a face he had seen. “I
wonder if you know why I have asked you to be so kind as to come here,”
were the first words he spoke. And he seemed to weigh each one very
carefully before he uttered it.
“I think I do, at least I think I may guess.” The note of absolute
frankness was so much more than he had a right to look for that it
pleased him more than it need have done.
“Well?” he said, with a gentleness in his voice of which he was not
aware.
“I’m afraid I’ve been causing a lot of trouble.” The tone of regret
was so perfectly sincere that it threw him off his guard. He had not
expected this, nay, he had looked for something totally different. The
girl was a lady, no matter what her private circumstances might be, and
with a sudden deep annoyance he felt that it was going to be supremely
difficult to say in just so many words what he had to say.
To his relief, however, she seemed with the _flair_ of her sex at once
to divine his difficulty. This splendid-looking old man, every inch
of whom was grand seigneur, poor old snowboot included! was already
asking mutely for her help in a situation that she knew he must
dislike intensely. In his odd silence, in the defensive arrogance of
his manner there was appeal to her own fineness. She could not help
feeling an instinctive sympathy with this old grandee, who at the very
outset was finding himself unequal to the task imposed upon him by the
circumstances of the case.
They entered on a long pause, and it was left to her to break it.
“I didn’t know when I promised to marry Jack that he would be the next
Duke of Bridport,” she said very slowly at last.
The simple speech was intended to help him, a fact of which he was well
aware. And with a sense of acute annoyance he felt a latent chivalry
begin to stir him; it was a chord that she, of all people, had no right
to touch.
“Didn’t you?” he said; and in the grip of this new emotion it would
have been not unpleasant to add “My dear.”
“Of course I’m much to blame,” she went on, encouraged by his tone. “I
realize that one ought to have made inquiries.”
He was clearly puzzled. From under heavily knitted brows his keen eyes
peered at her. “But why?” An instinct for fair play framed the question
on her behalf.
A note of pain entered the charming voice. “Oh, one ought,” she said.
“It was one’s duty to know who and what he was and all about him.”
“Forgive me if I don’t altogether agree.” In spite of himself he was
being conquered by this largeness and magnanimity. So fully was he
prepared for something else that he was now rather at a loss. “In any
case,” he said, “the fault hardly seems to be yours.”
“It is kind of you to say that.” A pair of wide eyes, long-lashed and
luminous, which seemed oddly familiar, raked him with a wonderful
candor. “But I seem to be giving enormous trouble to others--trouble it
would have been easy to spare them.”
Again his Grace dissented. Surprise was growing, along with that other,
that even more inconvenient emotion which was now driving him hard.
“Don’t overlook your own side of the case,” he was constrained to say.
“Oh, yes, there’s that--but one doesn’t like to insist on it.”
“Why not?”
“The other is so much more important.”
She felt his deep eyes searching hers, but except a little veiled
amusement, they had nothing to conceal.
“I am by no means sure that it is.” To his own clear annoyance, the
fatal instinct for justice began to take a hand in his overthrow. “As
the matter has been represented to me there is no doubt, if you took it
to a court of law, that you would get substantial damages.”
“As if one could!” She suddenly crimsoned.
“If I have hurt you in any way, I beg your pardon,” he said at once
with a simple humility for which she honored him. “After all, if you
decide not to marry my relation you give up a position which most
people allow to be exceptional.”
“Yes--but if one has never aspired to it!”
He grew more puzzled.
“Can you afford to be so fastidious?--if you don’t think the question
impertinent?”
“I have my living to earn,” she said very simply, “but of course I
don’t want that to enter into the case.”
“Naturally. Of course. Let me put another question--if it is not
impertinent?” The eyes of the Duke had now a grave amusement, but they
had also something else. “I suppose you care a good deal for this young
man?”
She simply stared at him in a kind of bewilderment.
Such an answer, unexpectedly swift, nobly complete, seemed to
disconcert him a little.
“And--and without a word you give him up for the sake of other people?”
“Yes--if they insist upon it.”
“If they insist upon it!” He shook his head at her in rather uneasy
surprise.
“I have told Jack that I cannot marry him unless he has your full
consent.”
Again the wide gray eyes looked out fearlessly upon the rather
bewildered gentleman. They could hardly refrain from a smile at his
growing perplexity. But there was something other than perplexity
in his tone when at last he said, “You know of course that I cannot
possibly give it.”
“Of course not.”
[Illustration: “You give up your young man--simply because of that?”]
The unhesitating reply seemed to increase his surprise. This girl was
taking him into deeper places than he had ever been in before. He
shook his head at her in a whimsical fashion which she thought quite
charming. “It hardly does, you know, to be too bright and good for
human nature’s daily food,” he said with a softness in his deep voice,
which was enchanting.
“Oh, I’m very far from being that.” She smiled and shook her head. “I
won’t own that I’m as bad as all that--at least I hope I’m not.”
“But if you insist on being so uncommonly self-sacrificing, you’re in
danger, aren’t you?”
“One can’t call it self-sacrifice altogether.”
“Afraid of being bored, eh?”
“I could never be bored with Jack,” she said gravely. “But I don’t see
why one should pat oneself on the back for trying to live up to one’s
principles.”
“Principles! May I ask what principles are involved in a case of this
kind?”
“‘Do unto others as you would be done by.’ It’s rather priggish, I
admit, but it’s a splendid motto, if only one is equal to it. As a rule
it is much too much for me, but in this case I want to do my best to
live up to it.”
“There you go again.” The old man shook an amused finger at her. “Why
it’s altruism, there’s no other word for it.”
“It’s common sense--if one is able to think through to it.”
“And that is why,” he said, with almost the air of a father, “you give
up your young man--simply because of that?”
She nodded. But her smile was rather drawn.
“Tell me, Miss Lawrence”--the curiosity of his Grace was mounting to a
pitch that enabled him to match her frankness with his own--“why are
you so sure that you will be unacceptable here?”
“It stands to reason, I’m afraid. If I lived at Bridport House and the
future head of the Family married the housekeeper’s niece, I should be
bound to look on it as a perfectly hopeless arrangement.”
He honored this candor. Choosing his words with great delicacy, he
could but pay homage to such clear-sighted honesty. “I only hope you
will not blame us too much,” he said finally, with an odd change of
voice.
“I don’t blame you at all. You are as you are. If I lived here I am
sure those would be my feelings.”
The old man was touched by this generosity. Lest he should overrate it,
however, she added quickly with a flash of pride, “Besides, I should
simply hate to go where I was not wanted.”
Patrician to the bone, he admired that, too. Every inch of her rang
true. Somehow it had become terribly difficult to treat her in the
only way the circumstances permitted. But no matter what his private
feelings, he must hold them in check.
“Well, I think, Miss Lawrence,” he said, with a return to the dryness
of the man of the world, “you ought to congratulate yourself that you
don’t live here.” But suddenly his voice trailed off. “You would not
be half so fine as you are”--after all, he couldn’t conceal that a
deeply-stirred old man was speaking--“had you been born and bred in a
hot-house.”
She flushed at the unexpected words. Quite suddenly her eyes brimmed
with tears.
“If I have said anything that wounds I humbly apologize,” he said, with
a gentleness that to her was adorable.
“Oh, no! It is only that I had not expected to have such a compliment
paid me.”
“Well, it’s a sincere one.” As he looked at her strange thoughts came
into his mind; his voice began to shake in a queer way. “And it is
paid you by an old man who is not very wise and not very happy.” As
he continued to look at her his voice underwent further surprising
changes. “I wish we could have had you with us. There is not one of us
here fit to tie your shoe-lace, my dear.”
Such a speech gave pain rather than pleasure. She saw him a feudal
chieftain, the head of a sacred order. Was it quite fit and proper that
he should speak in that way to the humblest of his vassals? She would
never be able to forget his words, but in that room, with the spirit of
place enfolding her like some exquisite garment, she could almost have
wished that they had not been uttered.
Suddenly she rose to go. As he regarded her in all the salient
perfection of mind and mansion, it seemed too bitterly ironical that
he should bar the door against her. Why were they not on their knees
thanking heaven for such a creature!
“You must forgive us, even if Fate is not likely to,” he said, thinking
aloud.
“Please don’t let us look at it in that way,” was the quick rejoinder.
“We all have our places in the world. And, after all, one ought to
remember that it is very much easier to be Mary Lawrence than to be
Duchess of Bridport.”
The old man shook his head dolefully, and then, in spite of her earnest
prayer that he should stay as he was, he rose with a great effort to
say good-by. The deeply-lined face was a complex of many emotions as
he did so.
In the very act of taking leave, her eyes, magnetized by the room
itself, strayed round it almost wistfully. Somehow it meant so much
that they hardly knew how to tear themselves away. Involuntarily the
Duke’s eyes followed hers to a masterpiece among masterpieces on
the farther wall. He could trace all that was in her mind, and the
knowledge seemed to increase his pain and his perplexity.
“There’s something wonderful in this room,” she said, half to herself.
“Something one can’t put into words. It’s like nothing else. I suppose
it’s a kind of harmony.”
The Duke didn’t speak, but slowly brought back his eyes to look at her.
His favorite room held treasures of many kinds, yet as he well knew
he was wantonly casting away a gem rarer than any in his collection.
His eyes were upon a noble profile instinct with the dignity of an old
race. Here was artistry surer, even more exquisite than Corot’s. He
could not repress a sigh of vexation.
Unwilling to part with her, he still detained her even when she had
turned to go. “One moment, Miss Lawrence,” he said. “Do these things
speak to you?” Near his elbow was a wonderful cabinet of Chinese
lacquer which housed a collection of old French snuffboxes. He opened
it for her inspection, and with a little air of connoisseurship she
gazed at the rarities within.
“They _are_ lovely,” she said eagerly.
“Honor me by choosing one as a token of my gratitude.”
She hesitated to take him at his word, but he was so much in earnest
that it would have seemed unkind to refuse.
“May I choose any one of them?”
“Please. And I hope you will do me the honor of choosing the best.”
Put on her mettle she brought instinct rather than knowledge to bear on
a fine collection, and chose a charming Louis Quinze.
“You have a _flair_,” said the Duke, laughing. “That is the one. I am
so glad you found it. I should not like you to have less than the best.
Good-by!” Again he took her hand and his voice had a father’s affection
in it. Then he pressed the bell, opened the door, and ushered her into
the care of a servant with an air of solicitude which she felt to be
quite extraordinary. As he did so he apologized with a humility that
seemed almost excessive for his inability to accompany her downstairs.
IV
As soon as the girl had gone, the Duke returned painfully to his
chair. He was now the prey of very odd sensations, and they began to
crystallize at once into emotion as deep as any he had ever felt.
Something had happened at this interview which left him now with a
feeling of numb surprise. The entrance of this girl into that room had
brought something into his life, her going away had taken something
out of it. Almost in the act of meeting a subtle bond had seemed to
arise between them. It was as if each had a sixth sense in regard to
the other. Their minds had marched so perfectly together that it was
hard to realize that this was the first time they had met. This rare
creature had touched cords which had long been forgotten, even had
they been known to exist, in the slightly dehumanized thing he called
himself.
Shaken as he had never been in his life, his mind was held by the
thought of her long after she had gone. Mystified, disconcerted,
rather forlorn, a harrowing idea was beginning to torment him. At
last he could bear it no longer. Rising from his chair with a stifled
impatience, he made his way out of the room leaning heavily upon his
stick. He went along the corridor as far as the head of the central
staircase. Here he stood a long while in contemplation of a large,
rather florid picture by Lawrence. The subject was a young woman of
distinguished beauty, a portrait of his famous grandmother, the wife
of Bridport’s second duke. Apart from her appearance, which had been
greatly celebrated, she had had a reputation for wit and charm; her
memoirs of the ’Thirties had long taken rank as a classic; and no
annals of the time were complete without the mention of her name.
The prey of some very unhappy thoughts, the Duke stood long immersed in
the picture before him. The resemblance he sought to trace had grown so
plain that it provoked a shiver. The line of the cheek, the shape of
the eyes, the curve of the chin, the poise of the head on the long and
slender throat were identical with the living replica he had just seen.
At last he returned to his room and rang the bell. To the servant who
answered it, he said: “Ask Mrs. Sanderson to come to me.”
The summons was promptly obeyed. But as Harriet came into the room she
bore a small tray containing a wine-glass, a teaspoon, and a bottle of
medicine. At the sight of these the Duke made a grimace like a petulant
child.
“I am sure the new medicine does you a great deal of good.” The tone
was quite maternal in its tenderness.
“You think so?” The words were dubious; all the same her voice and look
seemed to have an odd power of reassurance.
“Oh, yes, I think there can be no doubt of it.” She measured the dose
gravely.
“Well, I take your word, I take your word.” And he drank the bitter
draught.
She put back the glass on the tray, but as she was about to leave the
room she was abruptly detained. “Don’t go,” he said. “Sit and let us
talk a little.”
She sat down.
“Did you know,” he said, and the unexpectedness of the words threw her
off her guard, “that I have just had a visit from--from your niece?”
“Mary!” She clutched her dress. “Mary--here!” A sudden tide of crimson
flowed in the startled face. But the next instant it had grown white.
“No, I didn’t know,” she said. And then, her soul in her eyes, she
waited for his next words.
There was one stifling moment of silence, then he said: “Of course you
know what is in my mind?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
While he searched his memory silence came again, and now it had the
power to hurt them both. “Haven’t you always led me to believe,” he
said in a voice of curious intensity, “that she was a nurse in a
hospital?”
Harriet did not reply at once. But at last she said, “Yes, I have
always wanted you to think so.”
He looked at her white face, and suddenly checked the words that rose
to his tongue. Whatever those may have been, there was an immense
solicitude in his manner when he spoke again. “It is not for me,” he
said, “to question anything you may have said, or anything you may have
done.”
“I did everything I could to carry out your wishes.” Her voice trembled
painfully. “And I--I----”
“And you didn’t like to tell me,” he said gently.
“Yes. I couldn’t bear to tell you that she had insisted on choosing the
life of all others you would have the least desired for her.”
“Don’t think that I complain,” he said. “I know you must have had a
good reason. You have always been very considerate. But it looks as if
the stars in their courses have managed to play a scurvy trick.”
“That they have!” Once more the swift color flowed over a fine face.
Suddenly she pressed her fingers to her eyelids to repress the quick
tears.
“Never mind,” he said. “The gods have been a little too much for us,
but things might have been worse.”
Tearfully she agreed.
“The other day when I talked with that excellent fellow, your
brother-in-law, it didn’t occur to me who this girl really was. I don’t
think I was ever told that she had been adopted by your family.”
“No,” said Harriet, very simply.
“Do your friends know the truth of the matter?”
“I don’t think they have a suspicion--not of the real truth,” she said
slowly.
“Has anyone?”
“Not a soul that I know of.”
“The girl herself, is she also in ignorance?”
“She knows, I believe, that she is only the adopted child of my sister
and her husband, but I don’t think she has gone at all deeply into the
matter.”
“Tell me this”--the mere effort of speech seemed to cost him infinite
pain--“do you think there is a means open to anyone of learning the
truth at this time of day?”
“My brother-in-law knew from the first that the child was mine, but I
feel sure the real truth can never come out now.”
Impassive as he was, a shade of evident relief came into his face.
But the look of strain in his eyes deepened to actual pain as he
said, “No doubt we ought to be glad that it is so. At the same time,
I think you’ll agree, that we have a duty to face which may prove
extraordinarily difficult.”
Harriet did not speak, but suddenly she bent her head in a quivering
assent.
“You see,” he said slowly, “we can no longer burke the fact that
something is due to the girl herself.”
Harriet’s eyes suddenly filled with an intensity of suffering he could
not bear to look at.
“You know the position, of course?” he said gently, after a pause.
“I know she has promised to marry Mr. Dinneford.”
“But only if I give my consent.”
“I am sure that is right.” A note of relief came into her tone. “She
has done exactly as one could have wished.”
“If one could only see the thing as clearly as you do!” he said with a
reluctant shake of the head. “At any rate let us try to be as just as
the circumstances will allow us to be.”
“Can we hope to do justice and not hurt other people?”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, as things are. But for a moment let us
try to consider the whole matter from her point of view. Perhaps you’ll
allow me to say at once that the course you insisted on taking seems
to have justified itself completely. She is a girl to be proud of; and
she appears to be living a happy and useful life. One sees now how wise
it was not to take half-measures. She has been allowed to fight her
own battle with the gifts of the good God, and the result does your
foresight the highest credit.”
The judicial words, very simply uttered, brought a flood of color to
the pale cheeks. But listening with bent head, she did not look up, nor
did she say a word in reply.
“The heroic method has proved to be the right one, but I think now
we have to be careful not to take any unfair advantage of that fact.
It’s a terribly difficult case, but as far as we can we ought not to
overlook what is due to the girl herself.”
“But the others!” said Harriet with fear in her eyes.
“Yes, a terribly difficult situation.” The Duke sighed. “But for the
moment let us try to see the matter simply as it affects her. She has
been made to suffer a grievous injustice so that others might benefit.
The question is, must she still be made to sacrifice herself?”
Harriet had no answer to give. The long silence which followed was
almost unendurable in its intensity.
“Well?” he said at last, as he looked at her white face.
She shook her head mutely, unable to speak, unable to meet his eyes.
Tears crept again along her eyelids.
“You wish me to decide?”
“Yes,” she said at last.
He looked at her now with the light of pity in his face. Not at
once did he speak, and when he did it was with a clear, a too-clear
perception of the impotence of his words.
“The truth is,” he said, “the problem is beyond me.”