BETWEEN LOVE AND DUTY
Rochester's hansom set him down in Cadogan Street just as a new and
very handsome motor-car moved slowly away from the door. His face
darkened as he recognised Saton leaning back inside, and he ignored
the other's somewhat exaggerated and half ironical greeting.
"Lady Marrabel is 'at home'?" he asked the butler, who knew him well.
The man hesitated.
"She will see you, no doubt, sir," he remarked. "We had our orders
that she was not 'at home' this afternoon."
"The gentleman who has just left--" Rochester began.
"Mr. Saton," the butler interrupted. "He has been with Lady Marrabel
for some time."
Rochester found himself face to face with Pauline, but it was a
somewhat grim smile with which he welcomed her.
"Still fascinated, I see, by the new science, my dear Pauline," he
said. "I met your professor outside. He has a fine new motor-car. I
imagine that after all he has discovered the way to extract money from
science."
Pauline shrugged her shoulders.
"Those are matters which do not concern me," she said--"I might add,
do not interest me. You are the only man I know who disputes Mr.
Saton's position, and you are wrong. He is wonderfully, marvelously
gifted."
Rochester bowed slightly.
"Perhaps," he said, "I judge the man, and not his attainments."
"You are very provincial," she declared. "But come, don't let us
quarrel. You did not come here to talk about Mr. Saton."
"No!" Rochester answered. "I had something else to say to you."
His tone excited her curiosity. She looked at him more closely, and
realized that he had indeed come upon some mission.
"Well," she said, "what has happened? Is it----"
She broke off in her sentence. Rochester stood quite still, as though
passionately anxious to understand the meaning of that interrupted
thought.
"It is about Mary," he said.
"Yes?" Pauline whispered. "Go on. Go on, please."
"It is something quite unexpected," Rochester said slowly--"something
which I can assure you that her conduct has never at any time in any
way suggested."
"She wants to leave you?" Pauline asked, breathlessly.
"On the contrary," Rochester said, "she wants what she has never asked
for or expected--something, in fact, which was not in our marriage
bond. She has been going to this man Father Cresswell's meetings. She
is talking about our duty, about making the best of one another."
Pauline was amazed. Certainly no thought of this kind had ever entered
into her head.
"Do you mean," she said, "that Mary wants to give up her silly little
flirtations, and turn serious?"
"That is exactly what she says," Rochester answered. "I don't believe
she has the least idea that what she proposes comes so near to
tragedy."
"What have you answered?" Pauline asked.
"We have established a probationary period," he said. "We have agreed
to see a little more of one another. I drove her down to Ranelagh
yesterday afternoon, and we are going to dine together to-night. What
am I to do, Pauline? I have come to ask you. We must decide it
together, you and I."
She leaned a little forward in her chair. Her hands were clasped
together. Her eyes were fixed on vacancy.
"It is a thunderbolt," she murmured.
"It is amazing."
"You must go back to her."
Rochester drew a little breath between his teeth.
"Do you know what this means?" he asked.
"Yes, I know!" she answered. "And yet it is inevitable. What have you
and I to look forward to? Sometimes I think that it is weakness to see
so much of one another."
"I am afraid," Rochester said slowly, "that I would sooner have you
for my dear friend, than be married to any woman who ever lived."
"I wonder," she said softly. "I wonder. You yourself," she continued,
"have always held that there is a certain vulgarity, a certain loss of
fine feeling in the consummation of any attachment. The very barrier
between us makes our intercourse seem sweeter and more desirable."
"And yet," he declared, leaning a little toward her, "there are times
when nature will be heard--when one realizes the great call."
"You are right," she answered softly. "That is the terrible part of it
all. You and I may never listen to it. We have to close our ears, to
beat our hands and hide, when the time comes."
"And is it worth while, I wonder?" he asked. "What do we gain----"
She held out her hand.
"Don't, Henry," she said--"don't, especially now. Be thankful, rather,
that there has been nothing in our great friendship which need keep
you from your duty."
"You mean that?" he asked hoarsely.
"You know that I mean it," she answered. "You know that it must be."
He rose to his feet and walked to the window. He remained there
standing alone, for several minutes. When he came back, something had
gone from his face. He moved heavily. He had the air of an older man.
"Pauline," he said, "you send me away easily. Let me tell you one of
the hard thoughts I have in my mind--one of the things that has
tortured me. I have fancied--I may be wrong--but I have fancied that
during the last few months you have been slipping away from me. I
have felt it, somehow. There has been nothing tangible, and yet I have
felt it. Answer me, honestly. Is this true? Is what I have told you,
after all, something of a relief?"
She answered him volubly, almost hysterically. Her manner was
absolutely foreign. He listened to her protestations almost in
bewilderment.
"It is not true, Henry. You cannot mean what you are saying. I have
always been the same. I am the same now. What could alter me? You
don't believe that anything could alter me?"
"Or any person?" he asked.
"Or any person," she repeated, hastily. "Go through the list of our
acquaintances, if you will. Have I ever shown any partiality for
anyone? You cannot honestly believe that I have not been faithful to
our unwritten compact?"
"Sometimes," he said slowly, "I have had a horrible fear. Pauline, I
want you to be kind to me. This has been a blow. I cannot easily get
over it. Let me tell you this. One of the reasons--the great
reason--why I fear and dread this coming change, is because it may
leave you more susceptible to the influence of that person."
"You mean Mr. Saton?" she said.
"I do," Rochester answered. "Perhaps I ought not to have mentioned his
name. Perhaps I ought not to have said anything about it. But there
the whole thing is. If I thought that any part of your interest in the
man's scientific attainments had become diverted to the man himself,
I should feel inclined to take him by the neck and throw him into the
Serpentine."
She said nothing. Her face had become very still, almost
expressionless. Rochester felt his heart turn cold.
"Pauline," he said, "before I go you will have to tell me that what I
fear could not come to pass. Perhaps you think that I insult you in
suggesting it. This young man may be clever, but he is not of our
world--yours and mine. He is a _poseur_ with borrowed manners,
_flamboyant_, a quack medicine man of the market place. He isn't a
gentleman, or anything like one. I am not really afraid, Pauline, and
yet I need reassurance."
"You have nothing to fear," she answered quietly. "I am sorry, Henry,
but I cannot discuss Mr. Saton with you. Yet don't think I am blind. I
know that there is truth in all you say. Sometimes little things about
him set my very teeth on edge."
Rochester drew a sigh of relief.
"So long as you realize this," he said, "so long as you understand, I
have no fear."
Pauline looked away, with a queer little smile upon her lips. How
little a man understood even the woman whom he cared for!
"Henry," she said, "I can only do this. I can give you my hands, and I
can wish you happiness. Go on with your experiment--I gather that for
the moment it is only an experiment?"
"That is all," he answered.
"When it is decided one way or the other," she continued, "you must
come and tell me. Please go away now. I want to be alone."
Rochester kissed her hands, and passed out into the street. He had a
curious and depressing conviction that he was about to commence a new
chapter of his life.