The lights were burning low and dimly in the picture-gallery when he
entered it and saw Maryllia there, pacing restlessly up and down,
the folds of her dress with the 'diamants' sparkling around her as
she moved, like a million little drops of frost on gossamer, while
her small head, lifted proudly on its slim arched throat, seemed to
his heated fancy, as though crowned with fresh coronals of gold
woven from the summer sun. Turning, she confronted him and paused
irresolute,--then, with a sudden impulsive gesture, came forward
swiftly,--her cheeks flaming crimson,--her lips trembling, and her
bosom heaving with its quickened breath like that of a fluttered
bird.
"How dare you!" she said, in a low, strained voice--"How dare you!"
He met her eyes,--and in that moment individual and personal
considerations were swept aside, and only the Right and the Wrong
presented themselves to his mental vision, like witnesses from a
higher world, invisible but omnipotent, waiting for the result of
the first clash of combat between two human souls. Yielding to his
own over-mastering emotion, and reckless of consequences, he caught
her two hands lightly in his own.
"And how dare YOU!" he said earnestly,--"Little girl, how dare YOU
so hurt yourself!"
They gazed upon one another,--each one secretly amazed at the
other's outbreak of feeling,--she grown white and speechless,--he
with a swift strong sense of his own power and authority as a mere
man, nerving him to the utterance of truth for her sake--for her
sake!--regardless of all forms and ceremonies. Then he dropped her
hands as quickly as he had grasped them.
"Forgive me!" he said, very softly,--and paused, till recovering
more of his self-possession, he continued quietly--"You should not
have sent for me, Miss Vancourt! Knowing that I had offended you, I
was leaving your house, never intending to enter it again. Why did
you summon me back? To reproach me? It would be kinder to spare me
this, and let me go my own way!"
He waited for her to speak. But she was silent. Anger, humiliation
and wounded pride, mingled with a certain struggling respect and
admiration for his boldness, held her mute. She little knew how
provocatively lovely she looked as she stood haughtily immovable,
her eyes alone flashing eloquent rebellion;--she little guessed that
John committed the picture of her fairness to the innermost
recording cells of his brain, there to be stored up preciously, and
never forgotten.
"I am sorry,"--he resumed--"that I spoke as I did just now at your
table--because you are angry with me. But I cannot say that I am
sorry for any other reason--"
At this Maryllia found her voice suddenly.
"You have insulted my guests---"
"Ah, no!" said John, almost with a smile--"Women who are habitual
smokers are not easily insulted! They are past that, believe me! The
fine susceptibilities which one might otherwise attribute to them
have been long ago blunted. They do not command respect, and
naturally, they can scarcely expect to receive it."
"I do not agree with you!" retorted Maryllia, with rising warmth, as
she regained her self-control, and with it her deep sense of
irritation--"You were rude,--and rudeness is unpardonable! You said
as much as to imply that none of the women present were ladies---"
"None of those who smoked were!"--said John, coolly.
"Mr. Walden! I myself, smoked!"
"You did,"--and he moved a step or two nearer to her, his whole face
lighting up with keen emotion--"And why did you? The motive was
intended to be courteous--but the principle was wrong!"
"Wrong!" she echoed, angrily--"Wrong?"
"Yes--wrong! Have you never been told that you can do one thing
wrong among so many that you do right, Miss Vancourt?" he asked,
with great gentleness--"You had it in your power to show your true
womanliness by refusing to smoke,--you could, in your position as
hostess, have saved your women friends from making fools of
themselves--yes--the word is out, and I don't apologise for it!"--
here a sudden smile kindled in his fine eyes--"And you could also
have given them all an example of obedience."
"Obedience!" exclaimed Maryllia, astonished,--"What do you mean?
Obedience to whom?"
"To me!" replied John, with perfect composure.
She gazed at him, scarcely believing she had heard aright.
"To you?" she repeated--"To you?"
"Why certainly!" said John, wondering even as he spoke at his own
ease and self-assurance--"As minister of the parish I am the only
person here that is set in authority over you--and the first thing
you do is to defy me!"
His manner was whimsical and kindly,--his tone of voice playfully
tender, as though he were speaking to some naughty child whom,
notwithstanding its temper, he loved too well to scold,--and
Maryllia was completely taken aback by this unexpected method of
treating her combative humour. Her pretty mouth opened like a
rosebud,--she seemed as though she would speak, but only an
inarticulate murmur came from her parted lips; while the very
faintest lurking suspicion of a smile crept dimpling over her face,
to be lost again in the hostile expression of her eyes.
"You say I was rude,"--he went on,--"If I was, need you have been
rude too?"
She found utterance quickly.
"I was not rude---" she began.
"Pardon me,--you were! Rude to me--and still more rude to yourself!
The last was the worst affront, in my opinion!"
"I do not understand you," she said, impatiently--"Your ideas of
women are not those of the present day---"
"Thank God, they are not!" he replied--"I am glad to be in that
respect, old-fashioned! You say you do not understand me. Now that
is not true! You do understand! You know very well that if I was
rude in my UNpremeditated speech, you were much more rude in your
premeditated act!--that of deliberately spoiling your womanly self
by doing what you know in your own heart was--will you forgive me
the word?--unwomanly!"
Maryllia flushed red.
"There is no harm in smoking," she said, coldly;--"it is quite the
usual thing nowadays for ladies to enjoy their cigarettes. Why
should they not? It is nothing new. Spanish women have always
smoked--Austrian and Italian women smoke freely without any adverse
comment--in fact, the custom is almost universal. English women have
been the last, certainly, to adopt it--but then, England is always
behind every country in everything!"
She spoke with a hard flippancy,--and she knew it. Walden's eyes
darkened into a deeper gravity.
"Miss Vancourt, this England of ours was once upon a time not
behind, but BEFORE every nation in the whole world for the
sweetness, purity and modesty of its women! That it has become one
with less enlightened races in the deliberate unsexing and
degradation of womanhood does not now, and will not in the future,
redound to its credit. But I am prolonging a discussion uselessly,--
" He waited a moment. "I shall trouble you no more with my opinions,
believe me,--nor shall I ever again intrude my presence upon
yourself or your guests,"--he continued, slowly,--"As I have already
said, I am sorry to have offended YOU,--but I am not sorry to have
spoken my mind! I do not care a jot what your friends from London
think of me or say of me,--their criticism, good or bad, is to me a
matter of absolute indifference--but I had thought--I had hoped---"
He paused,--his voice for the moment failing him. Maryllia looked at
his pale, earnest face, and a sudden sense of shamed compunction
smote her heart. Her anger was fast cooling down,--and with the
swift change of mood which made her so variable and bewitching, she
said, more gently:
"Well, Mr. Walden? You thought--you hoped?"
"That we might be friends,"--he answered, quietly--"But I see
plainly that is impossible!"
She was silent. He stood very still,--his eyes wandering
involuntarily to the painted beauty of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de
Vaignecourt,' which he had admired and studied so often for many
lonely years, and back again along the dimly lit gallery to that
unveiled portrait of the young bride who never came home, the mother
of the little proud creature who confronted him with such fairy-like
stateliness and pretty assertion of her small self in combat against
him, and upon whom his glance finally rested with a lingering
sadness and pain. Then he said in a low tone:
"Good-night, Miss Vancourt--good-bye!"
At this a cloud of distress swept across her mobile features. "There
now!" she said to herself--"He's going away and he'll never come to
the Manor any more! I intended to make him quite ashamed of himself-
-and he isn't a bit! So like a man! He'd rather die than own himself
in the wrong--besides he ISN'T wrong,--oh dear!--he mustn't go away
in a huff!"
And with a sudden yielding sweetness and grace of action of which
she was quite unconscious, she extended her hands to him--
"Oh, no, Mr. Walden!" she said, earnestly--"I am not so angry as all
that! Not good-bye!" Hardly knowing what he did, he took her
offered hands and held them tenderly in his own.
"Not good-bye!" she said, trembling a little, and flushing rose-red
with a certain embarrassment--"I don't really want to quarrel--I
don't indeed! We--we were getting on so nicely together--and it is
so seldom one CAN get on with a clergyman!"--here she began to
laugh--"But you know it was dreadful of you, wasn't it?--at any rate
it sounded dreadful--when you said that English ladies never smoked-
--"
"Neither they do,"--declared John resolutely, yet smilingly, "Except
by way of defiance!"
She glanced up at him,--and the mirthful sparkle in his eyes was
reflected in her own.
"You are very obstinate!" she said, as she drew her hands away from
his--"But I suppose you really do think smoking is wrong for women?"
His heart was beating, his pulses thrilling under the influence of
her touch, her appealing look and sudden change of manner,--but he
was not to be moved from his convictions, though all the world
should swim round him in a glamour of blue eyes and gold hair.
"I think so, most certainly!"
"But why?"
He hesitated.
"Well, the act of smoking in itself is not wrong--but the
associations of the habit are unfit for womanhood. I know very well
that it has become usual in England for ladies to smoke,--most
unfortunately--but there are many habits and customs in this country
as well as in others, which, because they are habitual, are not the
less, but rather the more, pernicious. I confess to a strong
prejudice against smoking women."
"But men smoke--why should not women smoke also?" persisted
Maryllia.
Walden heard this plea with smiling patience.
"Men,--a very large majority of them too--habitually get drunk. Do
you think it justifiable for women to get drunk by way of following
the men's example?"
"Why no, of course not!"--she answered quickly--"But drunkenness is
a vice---"
"So is smoking! And it is quite as unhealthy as all vices are. There
have been more addle-pated statesmen and politicians in England
since smoking became a daily necessity with, them than were ever
known before. I don't believe in any human being who turns his brain
into a chimney. And.--pardon me!--when YOU deliberately put that
cigarette in your mouth---"
"Well!" and a mischievous dimple appeared on each soft cheek as she
looked up--"What did you think of me? Now be perfectly frank!"
"I will!" he said, slowly, with an earnest gravity darkening in his
eyes--"I should not be your true friend if I were otherwise! But if
I tell you what I thought--and what I may say I know from long
experience all honest Englishmen think when they see a woman
smoking--you must exonerate me in your mind and understand that my
thoughts were only momentary. I knew that your better, sweeter self
would soon reassert its sway!"
Her head drooped a little--she was quite silent.
"I thought,"--he went on, "when I saw you actually smoking, that
something strange and unnatural had happened to you! That you had
become, in some pitiful way, a different woman to the one that
walked with me, not so long ago, and showed me her old French damask
roses blossoming in the border!"--he paused an instant, his voice
faltering a little,--then he resumed, quietly and firmly--"and that
you had, against all nature's best intentions for you, descended to
the level of Lady Beaulyon---"