"It is extraordinary to me how little regard you have for appearances.
Comments were made upon the length of your former absence. They came
round to me. That was not to be endured in the case of my husband. I
put a stop to all that by cabling for you."
"Ah! yes, I see," Laurence said slowly. "When I arrived there certainly
seemed no very obvious reason for the sending of that cable. That was
unlike you. When I thought of it I confess I was puzzled."
"If you leave again after so short a stay, it will give colour to those
comments." Virginia spoke with emphasis, almost with solemnity. "I do
not propose to submit to that. So you must choose, Laurence. Either you
must give up going, or you must wait till it is convenient to me to go
with you. I do not care for a summer voyage; it is dull. Between the
seasons nobody one ever heard of is crossing. One may meet the wrong
people. My leaving would cause great disappointment here. It would break
up their summer. Still I would risk that to avoid the other. It would be
a scramble too, and nothing is more annoying than a scramble, but I dare
say I could arrange to be ready in two weeks from now."
"That's very good of you," Laurence replied. "But unfortunately I must
go at once, and, pardon my saying so, it will be better for me to go
alone. Everything is at sixes and sevens. Confusion reigns at Stoke
Rivers. I would not take you there under existing circumstances. You'd
receive a quite wrong impression. Oh, it would be utterly disastrous!"
he exclaimed.
For the first time he beheld Virginia depart from her faultless
self-complacency, lose herself a little and display signs of anger. Her
chin went up with a quick jerk, her eyes flashed, her features seemed
for the moment swollen. This shocked him, it was so wholly
unprecedented. He felt very sorry, as though he had been careless and
clumsy, as though he had broken something hitherto flawless, and
therefore charming, if not of supreme intrinsic value.
"I begin to believe," she cried, "you have an intention I shall never
see Stoke Rivers at all."
"No, no, my dear," he answered rapidly, rising as he spoke. "Nothing of
the kind. You are very distinctly mistaken. I have never been more ready
that you should see Stoke Rivers than within the last hour--that is,
when Stoke Rivers is fit to be seen. The poor, old house seems to have
been in jeopardy of final disappearance about a week ago. There's where
my bad news comes in. They write me word of a nasty fire there. Nobody's
fault--an electric light wire heated, and not being properly cased
charred some of the panelling which finally caught alight. The house has
been kept at such a high temperature for years, that the woodwork is
like so much tinder."
Virginia's chin was still in the air, but she had in great measure
recovered her self-control. Her manner was rather elaborately cold.
"That is a pity," she said calmly. "But, of course, the house and its
contents are insured."
"Oh, yes, the loss is more a matter of sentiment than of money. Only one
room is burnt out, as far as I can gather; and it didn't contain any
very valuable pictures, or any part of my uncle's collection."
"Probably it is as well this fire occurred, then," Virginia observed. "I
have always supposed Stoke Rivers would need some reconstruction before
it came up to the level of modern requirements."
"Possibly--" he spoke rather drily. "Only, you see, I happened to
entertain a peculiar fondness for this particular room, and I am sorry
to part with the outward and visible signs of certain memories."
The young lady did not answer immediately, but examined the dial-plate
of the little watch, set in diamonds, upon her wrist.
"The carriage will be here," she said. "I have not time to change my
dress. I cannot play golf with Horace Greener. It is very embarrassing.
I have no valid excuse to offer him."
"Oh, the heat, my dear, the heat," Laurence said, smiling. "Any excuse
is valid if you make it with sufficient conviction."
Virginia looked hard at him.--"I wonder just what you mean by that," she
retorted. She put up her hand, puffing her hair out a little more over
her ears. "That fire was not very serious on your own admission," she
continued, "I cannot see that it necessitates your hurrying over with
this frantic haste. And if I am to live in it it would be desirable I
should overlook the reconstruction of the house myself."
Her tone was meditative. Her statements were concise. Laurence felt his
back against the wall. He must take the consequences of his own action
however distasteful and disagreeable. His course would have been very
obvious had his record been quite clean in regard to Virginia; but, he
was an honest man. Something of exquisite, of incalculable value had
tempted him; and the peculiarities of his temperament had heightened
that temptation. He had been saved from falling, not by his own virtue,
but by the virtue and self-sacrifice of one adorably his superior. He
could not plume himself upon the achievement. He acknowledged that his
conscience was not clear in respect of Virginia; and this necessitated
the payment of a heavy penalty in connection with his own self-esteem.
His pride rebelled against "giving himself away," against further
self-revelation; only, the logic of the situation prevailed. It cut him
to the quick, yet it had to be done.
"You're quite right," he said. "The matter of the fire could have waited
a little, I dare say, though it isn't exactly satisfactory to know part
of one's house is roofless under a wet, English, July sky; but I had
other bad news to-day." He paused a moment. "I heard of the funeral of a
very dear connection of mine."
Virginia moved slightly, sweeping those fanwise-cut flounces to one
side.
"Funeral?" she said quickly. "Really you have the very oddest manner of
statement. Had you not already heard of his death, then?"
The young man moved too. He turned away, and a poignant sensation tore
and hacked at him, so to speak. It hurt him physically. He gazed out
over the dazzling whiteness of the smooth river seeing nothing, his
whole being tense with the effort to resist the showing of that pain.
"Yes, yes, I have heard of her death, but I refused to believe it," he
answered.
There was a moment of ominous silence, save for the shrilling of the
insects, and lapping of the stream.
"Oh, a woman!" she said, with an almost alarming calm. "Have I ever
heard of her?"
"I think not," Laurence answered.
"Then Louise had grounds for her assertions," she said, still with that
deadly calm. "I thought it unworthy to listen. I forbade her to write or
speak to me upon the subject. I--"
Laurence wheeled round. His eyes were dangerous. All the fanaticism of
his race, and something finer than that, looked out of them.
"Think what you please of me," he cried; "but of her, think no evil.
Never dare to think any evil. She was one of the saints of God; and you,
of all women, have no cause to misjudge her. She saved me from
committing a great sin."
A singular expression crossed the young lady's face, an imperious desire
to ask, to search out the ultimate of the matter. But it was momentary.
Spoilt child of fortune, she was too unaccustomed to vital drama to know
how to deal with it. It staggered, it also slightly disgusted her. She
could not rise to it. So conventionality proved stronger than even this
very legitimate curiosity. Virginia remained true to her somewhat
artificial traditions, to her own canons of good taste and
self-respect, to that singular clause of the social creed which
declares the thing unsaid also non-existent. Virginia appeared, in a
way, admirable just then, yet she gave the measure of her nature. It was
not great. She turned aside, with a movement of well-defined and lofty
superiority.
"Are you aware that you become very indelicate?" she asked.
"Most men are indelicate at times, unfortunately."
"But not over here," she said. "American women do not permit that. You
must remember whom you have married."--She waited a little. "The English
standards are different, I presume," she added, not without a touch of
sarcasm.
"I begin to think they are," Laurence answered.--He was paying, paying
abominably; yet there was a sensible relief in so doing.--"They are
based on the logic of fact," he continued. "And fact is more often
indelicate than not. It has never yet, you see, learned to be a
respecter of persons."
There was a pause, in which once again the fiddlings of the grasshoppers
and soothing lap of the water became audible.
"Do you still propose to go to England?"
Laurence nodded. "Yes," he said.
"Then"--began Virginia; but the young man held up his hand, partly in
warning, partly demanding a cessation of hostilities. His thought had
taken a new departure in regard to his wife. Somehow she had destroyed
her own legend. She was more slight and shallow a creature than he had
supposed, and he would never really stand in awe of her again. His smile
was sad yet wholly friendly.
"Then--in a couple of weeks or so--I shall come back and fetch you," he
declared. "And then, like wise and politic human beings, we will eschew
controversy, each giving the other as much room as possible. I fancy
you'll find we shall shake down pretty easily, and rub along like most
other married people.--Meanwhile what's becoming of poor, neglected
Horace Greener? Go and amuse both yourself and him, my dear. If you're
not in before I start--well--for the moment, _addio_."