Lord Hayes had been rather troubled about his health during the winter
in which the foregoing events had occurred, though it had not stood in
the way of their giving several large house-parties. But at one of these
he had suddenly fainted dead off in the middle of dinner, and, when the
house was empty again, he had gone up to London to see a doctor.
Eva was sitting in her room when he returned, feeling rather bored.
"Well, Hayes," she said, as he came in, "what did they say to you?"
Lord Hayes adjusted his trousers about the knee before he answered.
"I have all the symptoms of dangerous heart disease," he said. "I may
live for many years, and die of something else. Again, I may die almost
at any moment."
Eva's book drooped off her knee.
"How horrible!" she said at length. "Can nothing be done? Are they sure
they are right?"
"Unfortunately, they are quite sure," he said; "and nothing can be done.
They consider the chance of my dying quite suddenly at any time as
possible, but not at all likely."
Eva, in her serene health, felt a sudden, great pity for him, but not
unmixed with horror. She had no sympathy with disease; it seemed to her
hardly decent.
"Poor Hayes," she said. "I cannot tell you how shocked I am."
"I thought it was best to tell you," said he, "but let us avoid the
subject altogether. I shall live to bore you for many years yet."
Eva looked at him admiringly.
"You are a brave man. But you are right. Don't let us talk about it."
This took place late in November, but the fact that the symptoms, which
had been the result of over-fatigue, did not re-occur, made Eva soon get
used to the thought, and, in a measure, her husband too. He took the
doctor's advice, did not over-exert himself at all, and found that the
discovery they had made did not affect his health. The days soon began
to pass on as usual.
Eva had suddenly determined to go abroad for a few weeks, for she had an
intense dislike to an English winter. Hence it came about that one
morning at breakfast, when she and her husband were alone, she had said
to him,--
"What do you propose to do during these next two months, Hayes?"
Lord Hayes looked up from his breakfast, not quite understanding the
purport of her question.
"I suppose we shall remain here till Easter," he said. "We are paying
some visits in January, I believe."
"I should rather like to go abroad for a few weeks now this horrible
weather has begun." She looked out of the window, where snow was
beginning to fall heavily, and shivered sympathetically. "I hate this
English weather," she said; "it is like being in a cold bath. Dry cold
is not so bad, there is something exhilarating about it. But this
doesn't suit me in the least. Why shouldn't we go to Algiers again?"
"I thought you didn't like Algiers," he said. "Do you propose that we
should go alone?"
"Oh no, we won't make any intolerable demands of that sort on each
other. I think it suits us best to have people with us. I daresay Percy
would like to come for a bit, perhaps your mother would join us, and
then there's Jim Armine, who always wants to go abroad whenever he can."
Eva spoke with the utmost indifference, but her husband found himself
wondering whether that indifference was not a very subtle piece of
acting. That he had some inkling of the young man's feelings towards his
wife was very possible, but he had not the least objection to that. In
fact, it rather pleased him than otherwise, as it afforded a sort of
testimonial to his own admirable taste in wishing her to become his
wife, and to his enviable success in securing her for that purpose. He
knew quite well that the _rôle_ of jealous husband would not suit him in
the least, and he had no intention of being a complaisant one, but he
had sense enough to guess that complaisance was not necessary. He had no
reason to believe that Eva had a heart at all; and he had no desire to
make a mistake. If he suggested to Eva that he would rather not have Jim
Armine with them, his remark would be liable to be interpreted in a way
which she might with justice resent; in fact, that was the only
interpretation open to her, for he liked the young man well enough in
himself. He did not even admit the smallest suspicion into his mind; he
only realised that there was the possibility of an avenue, down which
suspicion might some day choose to walk; and when suspicion was seen by
him walking down that avenue, he would go and take its hand, and they
would knock at Eva's door, and show themselves.
Eva rose from the table.
"Then you don't mind coming to Algiers?"
It was clearly impossible to say "No; but I do mind Jim Armine coming,"
and so he proposed a date some ten days off for their departure.
"Why shouldn't we go sooner?" asked Eva.
"There's been some unpleasantness down at the ironworks," he said, "and
I think that, as owner, I ought to just wait till it's settled in some
form or another."
"Do you mean down at Trelso?"
"Yes; the men are striking, or wanting to strike, for higher wages--more
pay, in fact."
"Couldn't you go down there to-day, and see the agents or managers or
whoever they are?"
"There is nothing definite yet; we only know that there is a good deal
of discontent."
"Surely, then, you can leave it with your manager to deal with, when it
occurs. It is absurd waiting in England for a handful of miners to tell
you what they want."
"It would be better, I think, if I waited," he said.
"I wish you would explain to me exactly why."
"Simply because, as owner," he said, "they would wish to consult me if
anything went really wrong."
"Surely there is a telegraph to Algiers. I should infinitely prefer
starting in less than a week. I really cannot stand this sort of
weather."
"I feel sure I am right to stop," he said. "It is certainly best."
Eva hesitated a moment.
"Would you mind my going on without you, then? Perhaps that would be the
best plan. I daresay Jim will come with me."
Her husband looked at her narrowly. He felt he was playing a losing
game.
"I will go down to Trelso to-day, and see exactly what the state of
affairs is--how they stand, in fact."
"Very good. I shall start on Thursday, then. I will write to Jim to-day.
I hope you won't lose any more money over this."
He smiled rather grimly.
"I hope not. This last year has been very expensive. I don't grudge it
in the least; in fact, it is very interesting to me to see how much a
woman can spend."
He was conscious of an impotent desire to make it not quite pleasant for
Eva, even if she did get her own way in the main, and he was pleased to
see her flinch, just perceptibly. She was annoyed with herself for doing
it.
"Yes, I suppose you find you spend much more now than you used."
"About ten thousand a year more."
"Dear me, that is a great deal. You can hardly have counted the cost."
"I did not quite realise it at the time. That's what I mean by saying it
was more than I anticipated."
"Ah! of course you wouldn't anticipate it," said Eva. "Love is blind,
you know."
Lord Hayes was rather sorry he had begun. He was somewhat in the
position of a dog which runs out from its shelter to bite a passer-by,
and when it gets into the open, discovers that its intended victim
carries a stick.
Eva waited long enough to give him time to reply if he wanted, but
finding he said nothing, turned and left the room.
Two days after this, as they were sitting at dinner, Eva asked him what
had happened about the ironworks.
"I am glad you reminded me," he said. "I told them that I wished
particularly to leave England at once, and asked them to telegraph to me
in case I was wanted. It appears that they do not expect any immediate
disturbance, so I shall be able to come with you on Thursday--in fact,
there will be nothing to detain me."
"You had better stop if you think you are wanted," said Eva. "I can
manage perfectly by myself, and Jim Armine will be with me; he wrote
to-day. But if they don't want you, of course you'll go with me."
"Armine is coming, then, is he?" asked her husband.
"Yes; you don't object to him, I hope?"
"Not in the least."
"If you do, it would have been better if you had said so at once," said
Eva, carelessly. "I've asked him now."
"Why should you suppose I object to him?" he asked suddenly.
"You didn't seem very cordial about it. Have you asked anybody else?"
"I mentioned it to my mother when I saw her in Trelso, but she said she
wouldn't come."
"Ah!" said Eva, with the ghost of a smile, "did she say why?"
"Apparently it was for your sake--because of you, in fact."
"I expect she meant for her own sake. I should be charmed to have her.
There is a straightforwardness, a refusal to compromise, in her
behaviour to me, that is very refreshing."
"She speaks of you with bitterness--I might almost say rancour,"
remarked Lord Hayes.
"I am more sinned against than sinning, then," said Eva. "I always feel
perfectly charitable towards her. She loathes me; but, after all, that
is not her fault. Really, it is wonderful what a fine order of hatred is
compatible with the most orthodox Christianity. But of course I am one
of the works of the devil, which she has been led to renounce from a
child."
Thus it came about that, before the middle of December, Lord Hayes and
his wife, and Jim Armine, were installed in the charming little villa
at Algiers. The Gulf of Lyons was kinder on this occasion to the
susceptibilities of Lord Hayes, and he produced his white umbrella, and
sat on a deck chair in untroubled contemplation. He always wore a
yachtsman's cap and brown shoes on calm trips, which were, somehow,
particularly aggravating to Eva.
She was sitting on deck when he came upstairs on the morning after their
departure from Marseilles, and Eva had a long, malignant look at him as
he approached her.
"You look completely nautical this morning," she said slowly. "I hope it
won't get rough, for your sake, or you will have to retire. The
commodore will be found groaning in his cabin. But, perhaps you are only
a fighting sailor, like Lord Nelson, who was always ill, wasn't he? In
that case, I hope we sha'n't meet any Moorish privateers. If we are
attacked during a storm, you will be completely exposed."
Eva had rarely said anything to him in such simple bad taste, and her
husband was surprised. The childishness of her strictures, however,
rather amused him than otherwise, for he thought he had the key to them,
in a rather awkward little scene which had taken place the evening
before. Eva had been arguing some point with Jim Armine, and he had got
a little excited. She had just made an assertion which seemed to him to
contradict what she had said a moment before, and by an unlucky slip he
exclaimed,--
"Why, Eva, you said just the opposite a minute ago."
The mistake was pardonable enough: when a man is in love with a woman,
he naturally thinks of her by her Christian name, and it is excusable
if, in some momentary excitement, he uses it. Eva was startled. He had
never called her that before, and, losing her self-control for one half
second, she uttered a sudden exclamation of anger, and glanced at her
husband. He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, looking at
the sunset. He turned to Jim Armine, and said politely,--
"I think you must have misunderstood Lady Hayes."
The poor young man flushed deeply, and Eva bit her lips, divided between
her annoyance and a desire to laugh. But the annoyance conquered in the
end, as the delicate, veiled insult of her husband's speech dawned upon
her. His words certainly bore another interpretation, though whether he
had meant it or not she was not quite sure, and she could not ask him.
But Jim Armine evidently took them in the obscurer sense and was
horribly disconcerted, and Eva not unnaturally felt extremely annoyed.
He was, possibly, trying to make a fool of her, and she had not the
least intention of being treated in such a manner. After a few moments
she found something to say, but the conversation was evidently over. Jim
Armine soon strolled away to the other end of the deck, and Eva was left
alone with her husband.
As soon as the other was out of hearing, she said to him,--
"I do not wish you to speak of me in that way. Please remember that."
"I regret having offended you," replied he, "but I do not choose that
Armine should call you by your Christian name, Eva, in fact."
"Your speech implied more than that," she said.
Lord Hayes determined to make a stand.
"You are very quick at finding meanings."
"What you said was insulting."
"It is insulting to you that he should call you Eva?"
"Do you admit, then, that your speech bore another meaning?"
Lord Hayes lit another cigarette.
"I admit nothing of the sort. Not at all."
"You will be so good as to apologise to him."
"I have no reason for supposing that he imagined it to bear any meaning
but the obvious one--the one, in fact, which I meant to convey. Of
course you are at liberty to explain to him that, if you choose."
For the first time Eva was conscious of a slight disadvantage, and Lord
Hayes distinctly saw it. As she sat still silent, he looked at his
watch and remarked,--
"I am afraid they propose to give us dinner at seven. It is a barbarous
custom. Perhaps you would like to know that it is now five minutes to
seven."
He carefully furled his white umbrella, and walked down the deck to the
saloon. He made in his mind a careful little note of the occurrence,
against that possible contingency of suspicion coming down the avenue.
It was characteristic of him that he was as evenly polite as ever to Jim
Armine, and advised him to drink white wine and not red, and remarked to
him at tea afterwards that the Albert biscuits were stale, but that it
was interesting to observe that the English manufactories of biscuits
held their own abroad; in fact, that the makers of the stale Albert
biscuits were Huntly & Palmer.
This suggestive little scene accounted, in his mind, for Eva's unusual
want of politeness on the subject of his yachtsman's cap and brown
canvas shoes. But he did not consider that a reason for abandoning them;
in fact, they became to him a sort of commemorative medal on the
occasion of his victory. A force which has an unbroken record of defeat
is apt to dwell on a single and unexpected victory. In the main he was
right in attributing Eva's irritation that morning to her slight
discomfiture on the evening before, for though she had dismissed, or
rather forgotten, the occurrence, there was still in her a latent
resentment that unconsciously vented itself in this manner.
They had been at the villa four or five days, and Lord Hayes had got
into the habit of observing his wife and Jim Armine somewhat closely.
Eva was rather silent; to her husband she hardly spoke at all, though
now and then at meals she would begin talking, more to herself than the
others. Jim Armine was not a very wise young man, and he said things
sometimes, that, with another woman, would have betrayed him, but Eva
did not seem to notice them.
They were seated at lunch one day, when Eva took up her parable. She had
said nothing at all, as her way was, for some minutes, and Lord Hayes
had been describing to Jim how the eucalyptus oil was extracted from the
tree.
"You must excuse my silence, Mr. Armine," she said, "but, you know, I
have all sorts of recollections about this villa. We were here, you
know, on our wedding tour, after we had been on the Riviera--just Hayes
and myself--and we used to sit out in the garden and listen to the
nightingales singing of love. It was very romantic; no doubt Hayes has
spoken to you of it, when you pour out your hearts in the smoking-room,
after I have gone to bed. It is always odd to me that men choose that
time for being confidential. I should have thought it would have
disturbed your night's rest."
"How do you know that we are confidential, then?" asked Jim.
"Why, of course you are; there isn't time to be confidential during the
day. Besides, that is the only time when you are sure not to be invaded
by women. I shall hide in the smoking-room some night and listen to what
you say."
"There is nothing you might not hear," said her husband.
"You mean that, I suppose, in order to deter me from listening, assuming
that, being a woman, I only care to hear what is not meant for my ears.
But you said it very politely."
"Not at all; it was a formal invitation," said he, "an assurance of how
entirely welcome you would be."
"Thanks. Of course you and I are under a sort of mutual compact to
delight in each other's society at any time or place."
Lord Hayes laughed.
"One eternal honeymoon. Surely the golden age will return."
Jim Armine, not unnaturally, felt that this was distinctly a comedy _à
deux_, and that the presence of a third person was unnecessary. But no
man can leave his red mullet half eaten for such reasons. Everything
goes to the wall before our material needs.
Lord Hayes's punctilious little manner always vanished in anything like
a scene. He began to be self-possessed at exactly that point when most
self-possessed people begin to be nervous and flurried, for his
punctiliousness was the result not of nervousness, but a desire not to
be nervous, and when the occasion was interesting enough to allow him to
forget this, his tinge of finished cynicism and indifference to his
fellow men assumed its natural predominance. He rather enjoyed a little
polite sparring match with his wife, until he began to get the worst of
it; as long as the buttons were on the foils he could fence very
decently, but the sight of the bare point distinctly discomposed him.
Eva flushed.
"Let us reserve our raptures for when we are alone," she said. "They are
slightly embarrassing to a third person."
Lord Hayes smiled. For the second time the banner of victory seemed to
wave over his head. He saw his wife flush, and knew that she was very
angry. That desire to avenge herself which she had felt so strongly on
her return from her honeymoon, the sense that she had been trapped, and
was being exhibited as a rare bird in a cage, was very strong in her;
the added insolence of the trapper pretending to be on intimate and
loving terms with her made her furious, and the consciousness that she
had brought it upon herself, did not tend to diminish her rage. For the
second time he was trying to make a fool of her before a third person.
How far a scene that took place a day or two after this was brought on
by Eva's dislike of her husband and her thirst for vengeance, is not
part of this narrative to determine. The chronicler's mission is not to
form conclusions, but to present data, and my immediate mission is to
present some rather important data.
Even in December, in Algiers, it is often pleasant to sit out of doors
at nine in the evening, for the air is cool but dry, and Eva often spent
an hour in the little open passage which ran round the central courtyard
of the house, and in which, a year before, she had talked to her husband
on the position of women. This time it was Jim Armine who was her
companion; Lord Hayes had gone upstairs to write to his mother, and he
proposed to give her some accurate descriptions, based on observation,
about the date palm.
His room looked out on to the aforementioned courtyard, and before
beginning his letter, he went across to the window to close it, for he
had heard that the night air of Algiers is unwholesome. Just as he was
in the act of taking this little precaution, there lighted on his ear
the grumbling noise of a basket chair being dragged in passive, grating
resistance over a stone floor, followed by the sound of Eva's voice. As
he could not see her, he came to the very logical conclusion that she
was sitting directly below his window, and where she could not see him,
and as she was talking, and Jim Armine was the only person in the house,
he pictured her talking to him. After all, the evening air was not
unpleasant, and instead of closing the window he stood by it and
listened. The emphatic deliberation of this manoeuvre was, he felt
vaguely, in its favour from a conventional point of view.
The voices, at first, were inaudible to him, for the sense of hearing
requires focussing as much as the sense of sight, and he only caught a
word here and there. But, for the sake of the reader, it will be
necessary to give the inaudible part of the conversation.
The two seated themselves in their basket chairs, and Jim Armine lit a
cigarette. There was a small lamp by him, the flame of which burned
steadily in the still air. It cast a square of brilliant light into the
courtyard beyond, across which, as across a magic-lantern sheet, white
moths wandered from time to time, losing themselves again in the
surrounding dark. There were several moments' silence, and then he
looked at Eva, half of whose face was in brilliant illumination, and
said,--
"You look tired to-night."
"No, I am not tired," she said, "but I am feeling blank. Just now
everything appears to me extremely uninteresting. I know from experience
that things are not uninteresting really, and that is the worst of it.
They are there, but I cannot touch them. I live in a grey fog; there is
sunshine somewhere, quite close, but I cannot get to it. What else could
I expect?"
Jim was attending eagerly.
"Of course I mayn't say how sorry I am for you," he said in a low voice.
Eva did not turn her head, but the least sparkle returned to her eyes.
Perhaps things were going to be amusing, after all, for a few minutes.
"I am grateful, of course," she said. "One is to be pitied when the fog
is so palpably dense. Of course, it will lift again; fogs don't last for
ever. I am glad you are with us, though I don't think you ought to be.
After all, nothing matters much."
Lord Hayes had by this time successfully focussed his ear to the
indistinct sounds, and Eva's last remark was perfectly audible.
"Ah! but things _do_ matter," said the young man earnestly. "And all men
are not like some men."
"By which I suppose you mean me to understand that you are not like some
men. How can I know that? You have no halo round your head, no dawning
of ineffable joy in your face. Why should I suppose you are more than
others? You have spoken to me before now of your great aims, your
enthusiasms for great causes, by which, as far as I know, you only mean
Home Rule, or the Unionist policy--I forgot what your politics are--and
even that seems to have been in abeyance lately. You have been with us a
week or more, and what have you done, what have you thought about? You
seem to prefer, after all, talking to me--"
"You are very cruel, Eva," said he.
Lord Hayes shut his window. Perhaps the night air was unwholesome after
all. In any case, he had heard enough. Suspicion was running down the
avenue, and growing clearer at every step. He hesitated a moment, and
then left his room and walked downstairs. As he came out into the
courtyard he heard the echo of Eva's light, cruel laughter.
Jim Armine was standing in front of her, with his arms hanging
listlessly by his side. He did not look exactly happy, and the sight of
Lord Hayes only added a very slightly deeper shade to his face.
Eva's husband never felt more methodically cool in his life. He had
quite determined what to do. She had not seen him approach, and a smile
still lingered on her lips. She was lying back in her chair, in indolent
languor; only in her eyes was amusement and excitement.
"You looked very fine just then," she was saying to Jim, and turning,
she saw her husband.
The smile died off her lips, the amusement from her eyes. Only that air
of utter languor was left. But she saw her vengeance coming near, as
Lord Hayes had seen suspicion, and she met it joyfully.
Lord Hayes laid his hand on the young man's shoulder.
"The steamers only go twice a week to Marseilles," he said, "and there
will be no steamer to-morrow. In the meantime, I am sure you will see
the advisability of your spending the next two nights at the Hotel St.
George. They say it is a very good hotel. Of course we shall not receive
callers."
Eva shifted her position slightly, and looked at her husband.
"Kindly explain why he should go off so suddenly," she said.
"I would not insult you by doing so."
"The insult lies in your silence. I suppose you overheard something."
"Yes," said her husband. "I was listening."
"Ah! that is so like you. What were you listening for?"
"I was listening more or less for what I heard."
"In fact, you suspected something of the sort?"
"Yes."
"And yet you did not warn me. Go away, Mr. Armine, and don't listen,
please. Sit down, Hayes; I wish to talk to you. What a lovely night it
is. Quite idyllic. By the way, I wish to know whether your suspicions
are entirely confined to him."
"Absolutely and entirely."
"You are quite sure?"
"Quite."
"That is good," said Eva. "But naturally I wanted to know. To
return--why did you not warn me?"
Lord Hayes found that things were not going exactly as he had foreseen.
"I did not think it would be of any use to warn you," he said at length.
"Then, as you have no suspicions whatever of me, what purpose is served
by his going away?"
"His presence here, under this roof, is an insult to you and me."
"Yet you did not warn me," said Eva. "It seems to me that you have
cancelled the insult to yourself. Shall I tell you exactly what has
happened, or do you know it all?"
"I know enough," he said.
"Possibly, from your point of view. But I am afraid you must have left
your box before the end. The end was important. How much did you hear
exactly? However, it doesn't matter. He said something--well, extremely
ill-judged, and I told him he had mistaken me altogether. I laughed as
well. Did you hear me laugh? I said I had not the slightest doubt of his
devotion, but that I did not feel the least inclined to accept it. I
don't appreciate devotion, except my husband's, of course."
Eva waited a moment. A refined cruelty waits a little every now and then
for the full effect of the pain to be felt.
"It is impossible that he should remain here," said he.
"Please listen to me a moment. I have not finished yet. You have
insulted me grossly, twice; in the first place, by not warning me, in
the second, by listening. I do not like insults in the least, and I have
no intention of receiving them. Jim committed an extreme indiscretion,
for which you are mainly responsible. If you had spoken to him or me
before, this would not have happened. Again, if you had not listened,
you would have known nothing of it, and you will be good enough to take
my word for it, that no one would have been the worse. He would have
learnt a lesson, and I should have had the pleasure of teaching it him.
I did not expect this in the least, for I did not think he would have
been so foolish as to speak of it."
The degradation which her husband would have imposed on her grew more
and more bitter. She stood up with intense anger intensely repressed.
"I choose that he should stop," she said. "I despise you for listening.
If you like, you may insist on his going, and, if you do, I shall go
too. I tell you I am perfectly reckless, and perfectly determined. Your
point is that I have been insulted. It was you who insulted me by not
giving me warning, and if you play the spy on me in this way, I owe you
absolutely nothing. That is all. You may choose; and choose quickly."
She waited a moment, giving him time to reply.
"Apparently you have nothing to say. In fact, there is nothing for you
to say. That is all, then. If you are going to sit out here with us, you
had better tell them to bring you a chair. Understand me quite clearly;
it is over. I shall never allude to this again, and I must ask you not
to, either."
Lord Hayes walked away without saying a word. Eva stood still one
moment, steadying herself, and then she called out to Jim, who was
leaning against a pillar at the opposite corner of the court.
"You can come back," she said. "We are not going to send you away. Let
us go on talking from the last remark but two."
She settled herself again in her chair and laughed. The evening had been
unexpectedly amusing.
"He will not listen again, and you will not talk nonsense again, I hope.
Really, this is an unique position, and I am the only one of the three
who comes out of it with credit. _A_ suspects that _B_, his friend, is
making love to his wife. Does not warn her, but listens, and hears
something that confirms his suspicions. Tries to drive _B_ out of the
house. They all meet amicably at breakfast next morning."
Certainly, if Eva had felt she had any small score to wipe off against
her husband, she had wiped it off very cleanly. He was, for those few
moments when she had stood up with her intense anger thoroughly in hand,
mortally afraid of her, and she knew it. She had used her anger as a
weapon against him, and had not let it act wildly, or unpremeditatedly.
She well knew that, as a weapon, anger is most useful when it is
skilfully handled, controlled, compressed. A horse without a rider,
lashed into the enemies' lines, may, it is true, do some service by
promiscuous kicking, but it is a blind, ungoverned force; a skilful
rider, however, who adapts its savage strength to his own intelligence,
can guide it and direct it, and its destructive potentialities are
increased tenfold.
It was as a serviceable though savage brute that Eva employed her anger
against her husband; she spurred it and lashed it into fury, but never
gave it its head. That cruel, governed anger of women is a very terrible
thing; the hot, blustering anger of a man is like a squib that bursts
and jumps here and there, sometimes singeing its immediate surroundings
and, perhaps, breaking something, but it wastes its force in childish,
cracker-like explosions that hurt nothing but sensitive nerves, which
regard such exhibitions as a lamentable want of taste. But Eva's anger
could not have offended the most fastidious; it gave no annoying little
bangs, no unexpected leaps, no fizzing, no unmomentous crackling; it was
still, deep, intense, not pleasant to fight with.
Eva and Jim sat in the little courtyard for some half-hour more, which
was rather a hard burden for the young man. To Eva it appeared to be no
effort to talk as usual. She had required just one moment in which to
steady herself, to dismount her quivering, indignant steed, and then for
her, as she had told her husband, it was over. She had been angry,
furious, insulted, and she had used the whip with a vengeance. The
offence and the punishment were past, and she threw the whip into a
corner. But Jim was silent, which was not altogether unnatural. He had
no taste for scenes, and his great _coup_, his ace of trumps, which, to
his shame, had been forced from him, seemed to have fallen very flat. He
had played it, and Eva had seen it, but that was all--it had simply been
wasted. Naturally enough he felt he had spoiled his hand. Eva had
laughed at him, but she had not been offended. Surely such an attitude
was almost unprecedented.
When she went upstairs half-an-hour later, she turned into her husband's
room to get a book she wanted, and found him sitting by the window, as
if expecting her. He rose as she entered, and stood like a servant
waiting for orders. But Eva gave no orders, and, having found her book,
only remarked that it was growing a little chilly. He did not reply, and
she turned to look at him. There was something miserably shrunken about
his appearance which was rather pitiful.
"You look tired," she said. "I should go to bed if I were you."
He did not meet her eyes, but continued to look out of the window.
"It has been a terrible night," he said.
Eva frowned.
"It has been nothing of the sort," she said. "Don't be absurd, Hayes.
You made a very bad mistake; you did not treat me in the way I wish to
be treated, and I was intensely angry with you. But I assure you I am
angry no longer. It is quite over, as far as I am concerned. Don't let
us quarrel more than is necessary. Just now, it is quite unnecessary to
quarrel."
Lord Hayes had a certain potentiality for being malignant.
"It is not the quarrelling," he said; "it is the mutual position that I
find we occupy to each other."
She grew a little impatient.
"Let that be enough," she said. "We only waste words."
She came a step nearer to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder, as if
he had been a woman, or she a man.
"Come," she said, "be sensible. There is nothing more to say about it.
You had better go to bed. Good-night!"