ROCHESTER IS INDIGNANT
Rochester accepted his wife's offer of a lift in her victoria after
the luncheon party in Cadogan Street.
"Mary," he said, as soon as the horses had started, "I cannot imagine
why you were so civil to that insufferable bounder Saton."
She looked at him thoughtfully.
"Is he an insufferable bounder?" she asked.
"I find him so," Rochester answered, deliberately. "He dresses like
other men, he walks and moves like other men, he speaks like other
men, and all the time I know that he is acting. He plays the game
well, but it is a game. The man is a bounder, and you will all of you
find it out some day."
"Don't you think, perhaps," his wife remarked, "that you are
prejudiced because you have some knowledge of his antecedents?"
"Not in the least," Rochester answered. "The fetish of birth has never
appealed to me. I find as many gentlefolk amongst my tenants and
servants, as at the parties to which I have the honor of escorting
you. It isn't that at all. It's a matter of insight. Some day you will
all of you find it out."
"All of us, I presume," Lady Mary said, "includes Pauline."
Rochester nodded.
"Pauline has disappointed me," he said. "Never before have I known her
instinct at fault. She must know--in her heart she must know that
there is something wrong about the fellow. And yet she receives him at
her house, and treats him with a consideration which, frankly, shall
we say, annoys me?"
"One might remind you," Lady Mary remarked, "that it is you who are
responsible for this young man's introduction amongst our friends."
"It is true," Rochester answered. "I regret it bitterly. I regret it
more than ever to-day."
"Because of Pauline?" Lady Mary asked.
"Because of Pauline, and for one other reason," Rochester answered,
lowering his voice, and turning a little in his seat towards his wife.
"Mary, I was unfortunate enough to hear a sentence which passed
between you and this person in the hall. I would have shut my ears if
I could, but it was not possible. Am I to understand that you have
made use of him in some way?"
Lady Mary gasped. This was a thunderbolt to descend at her feet
without a second's warning!
"As a matter of fact," she said slowly, "he has done me a service."
Rochester's face darkened.
"I should be interested," he said, "to know the circumstances."
Lady Mary was not a coward, and she realized that there was nothing
for it but the absolute truth. Her husband's eyes were fixed upon her,
filled with an expression which she very seldom saw in them. After
all, she had little enough to fear. Their relations were scarcely such
that he could assume the position of a jealous husband.
"I suppose that you will laugh at me, Henry," she said. "Perhaps you
will be angry. However, one must amuse oneself. Frankly, I think that
all this talk that is going on about occultism, and being able to read
the future, and to find new laws for the government of the will, has
perhaps turned my brain a little. Anyhow, I went to one of those Bond
Street people, and asked them a few questions."
"You mean to one of these crystal-gazers or fortune-tellers?" he
asked.
"Precisely," she answered. "No doubt you think that I am mad, but if
you had any idea of the women in our own set who have done the same
thing, I think you would be astonished. Well, whilst I was there I
chanced to drop, or leave behind--it scarcely concerns you to know
which--a letter written to me by a very dear friend. One of my
perfectly harmless love affairs, you know, Henry, but men do make such
idiots of themselves when they have pen and paper to do it with."
Rochester moved a little uneasily in his place.
"May I inquire----" he began.
"No, I shouldn't!" she interrupted. "You know very well, my dear
Henry, the exact terms upon which we have both found married life
endurable. If I choose to receive foolish letters from foolish men,
it concerns you no more than your silent adoration of Pauline Marrabel
does me. You understand?"
"I understand," he answered quietly. "Go on."
"Well," she continued, "a few days afterwards I had just about as
terrifying a specimen of a blackmailing letter as you can possibly
imagine."
"From these people?" Rochester asked.
"No! From a firm who called themselves agents, and said that the
letter had come into their possession, had been deposited with them,
in fact, by someone who owed them some money," Lady Mary answered. "Of
course, I was frightened to death. I don't know what made me think of
Bertrand Saton as the best person to consult, but anyhow I did. He
took the matter up for me, paid over some money on my account, and
recovered the letter."
"The sum of money being?"
"Five hundred pounds," Lady Mary answered, with a sigh. "It was a
great deal, but the letter--well, the letter was certainly very
foolish."
Rochester was silent for several moments.
"Do you know," he asked at length, "what the natural inference to me
seems--the inference, I mean, of what you have just told me?"
"You are not going to say anything disagreeable?" she asked, looking
at him through the lace fringe of her parasol.
"Not in the least," he answered. "I was not thinking of the personal
side of the affair--so far as you and I are concerned, I have
accepted your declaration. I claim no jurisdiction over your
correspondence. I mean as regards Saton."
"No! What?" she asked.
"It seems to me highly possible," he declared, "that Saton was in
league with these blackmailers, whoever they may have been. Any
ordinary man whom you had consulted would have settled the matter in a
very different way."
"I was quite satisfied," Lady Mary answered. "I thought it was really
very kind of him to take the trouble."
"Indeed!" Rochester remarked drily. "I must say, Mary, that I gave you
credit for greater perspicuity. The man is an intriguer. Naturally, he
was only too anxious to be of service to so charming a lady."
Lady Mary raised her eyebrows, but did not answer.
"I might add," Rochester continued, "that however satisfactory our
present relations may seem to you, I still claim the privilege of
being able to assist my wife in any difficulty in which she may find
herself."
"You are very kind," she murmured.
"Further," Rochester said, "I resent the interference of any third
party in such a matter. You will remember this?"
"I will remember it," Lady Mary said. "Still, the circumstances being
as they are, you can scarcely blame me for having been civil to him
to-day. Besides, you must admit that he is clever."
"Clever! Oh! I've no doubt that he is clever enough," Rochester
answered, impatiently. "Nowadays, all you women seem as though you can
only be attracted by something freakish--brains, or peculiar gifts of
some sort."
Lady Mary laughed lightly.
"My dear Henry," she said, "you are not exactly a fool yourself, are
you? And then you must remember this. Bertrand Saton's cleverness is
the sort of cleverness which appeals to women. We can't help our
natures, I suppose, and we are always attracted by the mysterious. We
are always wanting to know something which other people don't know,
something of what lies behind the curtain."
"It is a very dangerous curiosity," Rochester said. "You are liable to
become the prey of any adventurer with a plausible manner, who has
learned to talk glibly about the things which he doesn't understand.
I'll get out here, if I may," he added, "and take a short cut across
the Park to my club. Mary, if you want to oblige me, for Heaven's sake
don't run this fellow! He gets on my nerves. I hate the sight of him."
Lady Mary turned towards her husband with a faint, curious smile as
the carriage drew up.
"You had better talk to Pauline," she said. "He is more in her line
than mine."
Rochester walked across the Park a little gloomily. His wife's last
words were ringing in his ears. For the first time since he could
remember, a little cloud had loomed over his few short hours with
Pauline. She had resented some contemptuous speech of his, and
as though to mark her sense of his lack of generosity, she had
encouraged Saton to talk, encouraged him to talk until the other
conversation had died away, and the whole room had listened to this
exponent of what he declared to be a new science. The fellow was a
_poseur_ and an impostor, Rochester told himself vigorously. He knew,
he was absolutely convinced that he was not honest.
He sat down on a seat for a few minutes, and his thoughts somehow
wandered back to that night when he had strolled over the hills and
found a lonely boy gazing downward through the tree tops to the fading
landscape. He remembered his own whimsical generosity, the feelings
with which he had made his offer. He remembered, too, the conditions
which he had made. With a sudden swift anger, he realized that those
conditions had not been kept. Saton had told him little or nothing of
his doings out in the world, of his struggles and his failures, of the
growth of this new enthusiasm, if indeed it was an enthusiasm. He had
hinted at strange adventures, but he had spoken of nothing definite.
He had not kept his word.
Rochester rose to his feet with a little exclamation.
"He shall tell me!" he muttered to himself, "or I will expose him, if
I have to turn detective and follow him round the world."
He swung round again across the Park toward Mayfair, and rang the bell
at Saton's new house. Mr. Saton was not at home, he was informed, but
was expected back at any moment. Rochester accepted an invitation to
wait, and was shown into a room which at first he thought empty. Then
someone rose from an old-fashioned easy-chair, set back amongst the
shadows. Rachael peered forward, leaning upon her stick, and shading
her eyes as though from the sun.
"Who is that?" she asked. "Who are you?"
Rochester bowed, and introduced himself. As yet he could see very
little of the person who had spoken. The blinds, and even the curtains
of the room, were close drawn. It was one of Rachael's strange fancies
on certain days to sit in the darkness. Suddenly, however, she leaned
forward and touched the knob of the electric light.
"My name is Rochester," he said. "I called to see Mr. Saton for a few
minutes. They asked me to wait."
"I am the Comtesse de Vestignes," Rachael said slowly, "and Bertrand
Saton is my adopted son. He will be back in a few moments. Draw your
chair up close to me. I should like to talk, if you do not mind this
light. I have been resting, and my eyes are tired."
Rochester obeyed, and seated himself by her side with a curious little
thrill of interest. It seemed to him that she was like the mummy of
some ancient goddess, the shadowy presentment of days long past. She
had the withered appearance of great age, and yet the dignity which
refuses to yield to time.
"Come nearer," she said. "I am no longer a young woman, and I am a
little deaf."
"You must tell me if you do not hear me," Rochester said. "My voice is
generally thought to be a clear one. I am very much interested in this
young man. Suppose, while we wait, you tell me a few things about
him. You have no objection?"
Rachael laughed softly.
"I wonder," she said, "what it is that you expect to hear from me."