XIX.

One evening in spring Mildred returned home. Harold had not long

returned from the city, the candles were lighted. He was sitting in

the drawing-room thinking, thinking of her.

'Mildred! is that you?'

'Yes, how do you do, Harold?'

'Come and sit near the fire, you've had a cold journey. When did you

return?'

'Last night. We had a dreadful crossing, I stayed in bed all the

morning. That was why I didn't come to see you in the city.'

Harold sat for some moments without speaking, looking into the fire.

Reticence was natural to him; he refrained from questioning her, and

thought instead of some harmless subject of conversation. Her

painting? But she had abandoned painting. Her money? she had lost

it! ... that was the trouble she was in. He had warned her against

putting her money into that paper.... But there was no use worrying

her, she would tell him presently. Besides, there was not time to talk

about it now, dinner would soon be ready.

'It is now half-past six, don't you think you'd better go upstairs and

get ready?'

'Oh, don't bother me about the dinner, Harold. What does it matter if

it is a few minutes late. I can't go upstairs yet. I want to sit

here.'

She looked round the room and remembered how her father used to sit in

the chair Harold was sitting in. He was getting bald just like father.

He looked just like father, his head seen against the book-cases, the

light catching the ends of his bristly hair. But who was she like? she

didn't know, not like poor dear mother who thought of nothing but her

husband and her children. From whom had she got her tastes, her taste

for painting--her ideas, God knows. She wished she were like other

people. Like Harold. Yet she didn't know that she would like to be

quite so simple, so matter of fact. They were only like in one thing,

neither had married. She had never thought of that before, and

wondered why. But he would marry one of these days. He wasn't forty

yet. Then she would have to leave Sutton, she couldn't live there with

a step-sister.

'So you're not married yet, Harold.'

'No, not yet.'

'Not even engaged?'

'No, not even engaged.'

'I suppose you will one of these days.'

'Perhaps, one of these days, but I'm in no hurry. And you, are you as

much set against marriage as ever? Alfred Stanby has never married, I

don't think he ever will. I think you broke his heart.'

'I don't believe in breaking men's hearts.'

'You are just the kind of woman who does break men's hearts.'

'Why do you say that? You think me heartless.'

'No, Mildred, I don't think you heartless--only you're not like other

girls.'

No, I'm not. I've too much heart, that's been my misfortune, I should

have got on better if I had less.'

Harold had no aptitude or taste of philosophical reflections, so he

merely mentioned that Alfred was living in Sutton, and hoped that

Mildred would not mind meeting him.

'No, I don't mind meeting him, but he may not like to meet me. Does he

ever speak of me?'

'Yes, he does sometimes.... I never knew why you threw him over. He's

really a very good fellow. He has worked hard and is now making a fair

income.'

'I'm glad of that.... I suppose I did treat him badly. But no worse

than men treat women every day.'

'Why did you throw him over?'

'I don't know. It's so long ago. He didn't understand me. I thought I

should find some one who did.... I know the world better now.'

'Would you marry him if he were to propose again?'

'I don't know, I don't know.... I don't know what I should do now.

Don't question me, Harold.'

At that moment the gong sounded for dinner. Harold refrained from

saying 'I knew you'd be late.' An hour after, brother and sister were

sitting by the library fire. At last Harold said:

'I'm glad you're going to stop here for the present, that you're not

going back to Paris. Do you never intend to live there again?'

'There's no reason why I should go back, certainly none that I should

live there again, my life in Paris is ended.'

She did not recount her misfortunes in plain straightforward

narrative, her story fluctuated and transpired in inflections of voice

and picturesque glances. She was always aware of the effect of herself

on others, and she forgot a great deal of her disappointment in the

pleasure of astonishing Harold. The story unwound itself like spun

silk. The principal spool was the Panama scandals.... But around it

there were little spools full of various thread, a little of which

Mildred unwound from time to time.

When the first accusations against the Deputies were made, I warned

him. I told him that the matter would not stop there, but he was over

confident. Moreover, I warned him against Darres.'

'Who's Darres?'

'Oh, he was the _secretaire de la redaction_ and a sort of partner.

But I never liked him. I gave him one look.... I told M. Delacour not

to trust him. ... And he knew that I suspected him. He admired me, I

could see that, but he wasn't my kind of man: a tall, bullet--headed

fellow, shoulders thrown well back, the type of the _sous officier, le

beau soudard,_ smelling of the cafe and a cigarette. A plain

sensualist. I can tell them at once, and when he saw that I was not

that kind of person, he went and made love to Madame Delacour. She was

only too glad to listen to him.'

'Is Madame Delacour good-looking?'

'I daresay she's what some people would call good-looking. But she has

wretched health, she never got over the birth of her last child.'

Madame Delacour's health was the subject of many disparaging remarks,

in the course of which Mildred called into question the legitimacy of

one of her children, and the honourability of Darres as a card-player.

The conversation at last turned on Panama. M. Delacour had, of course,

denied the charge of blackmail and bribery. Neither had been proved

against him. Nevertheless, his constituency had refused to re-elect

him. That, of course, had ruined him politically. Nothing had been

proved against him, but he had merely failed to explain how he had

lived at the rate of twelve thousand a year for the last three years.

'But the paper?'

'The paper never was a pecuniary success.'

'The money you put into it, I suppose, is lost.'

'For the present at all events. Things may right themselves, Delacour

may come up to the top of the wheel again.'

'He must have cheated you, he swindled you.'

'I suppose he did, but he was very hard pressed at the time. He didn't

know where to turn for money.'

Harold was surprised by the gentleness of Mildred's tone.

'You must give me the particulars, and I'll do all that can be done to

get back your money. Now tell me how--'

'Yes, you shall have all the particulars,' she said, 'but I'm afraid

that you'll not be able to do much.'

'What were the conditions?'

'I cannot talk about them now, I'm too tired.'

There was a petulant note in her voice which told Harold that it would

be useless to question her. He smoked his pipe and listened, and, in

her low musical and so well-modulated voice, she continued her tale

about herself, M. Delacour, _La Voix du Peuple_, and M. Darres. Her

conversation was full of names and allusions to matters of which

Harold knew nothing. He failed to follow her tale, and his thoughts

reverted to the loss of three thousand pounds in the shocking _Voix

du Peuple_ and two thousand in scandalous Panama. Every now and then

something surprising in her tale caught his ear, he asked for precise

information, but Mildred answered evasively and turned the

conversation. She was much more interested in the influence M.

Delacour had exercised over her. She admitted that she had liked him

very much, and attributed the influence he had exercised to hypnotism

and subordination of will. She had, however, refused to run away with

him when he had asked her.

'You mean to say that he asked you to run away with him--a married

man?'

'Yes; but I said no. I knew that it would ruin him to run away with

me. I told him that he must not go away either with me or alone, that

he must face his enemies and overcome them. I was a true friend.'

'It is most extraordinary. You must have been very intimate for him to

propose such a thing.'

'Yes; we were very intimate, but, when it came to the point, I felt

that I couldn't.'

'Came to the point!'

It was impossible to lead Mildred into further explanation, and she

spoke of the loss of the paper. It had passed into the hands of M.

Darres; he had changed the staff; he had refused her articles, that

was the extraordinary part; explained the unwisdom Darres had showed

in his editorship. The paper was now a wreck. He had changed its

policy, and the circulation had sunk from sixty to twenty-five

thousand. Harold cared nothing whether _La Voix du Peuple_ was well or

badly edited, except so far as its prosperity promised hope of the

recovery of the money Mildred had invested in it; and he had begun

to feel that the paper was not responsible for M. Delacour's debts,

and that Mildred's money was lost irretrievably. He was thinking of M.

Delacour and the proposal he had made to Mildred, that they should go

away together. M. Delacour, a married man! But his wife must have been

aware of her husband's intimacy, of his love for Mildred.

'But wasn't Madame Delacour jealous of you, of your intimacy with her

husband?'

'She knew there was nothing wrong.... But she accused me of kissing

her husband; that was spite.'

'But it wasn't true?'

'No; certainly it wasn't true. I wonder you can ask me. But, after

that, it was impossible for me to stay any longer in the house.'

'Where is Madame Delacour, is she with her husband?'

'No; she's separated from him. She's gone back to her own people. She

lives with them somewhere in the south near Pau, I think.'

'She's not with Darres?'

Mildred hesitated.

'No; she's not living with him; but I daresay they see each other

occasionally.'

'They can't see each other very often if she's living near Pau, and

he's editing a paper in Paris.'