REPROOF
‘Say it out frankly, Kate,’ cried Nina, as with flashing eyes and
heightened colour she paced the drawing-room from end to end, with that
bold sweeping stride which in moments of passion betrayed her. ‘Say it out.
I know perfectly what you are hinting at.’
‘I never hint,’ said the other gravely; ‘least of all with those I love.’
‘So much the better. I detest an equivoque. If I am to be shot, let me look
the fire in the face.’
‘There is no question of shooting at all. I think you are very angry for
nothing.’
‘Angry for nothing! Do you call that studied coldness you have
observed towards me all day yesterday nothing? Is your ceremonious
manner--exquisitely polite, I will not deny--is that nothing? Is your
chilling salute when we met--I half believe you curtsied--nothing? That you
shun me, that you take pains not to keep my company, never to be with me
alone is past denial.’
‘And I do not deny it,’ said Kate, with a voice of calm and quiet meaning.
‘At last, then, I have the avowal. You own that you love me no longer.’
‘No, I own nothing of the kind: I love you very dearly; but I see that
our ideas of life are so totally unlike, that unless one should bend and
conform to the other, we cannot blend our thoughts in that harmony which
perfect confidence requires. You are so much above me in many things,
so much more cultivated and gifted--I was going to say civilised, and I
believe I might--’
‘Ta--ta--ta,’ cried Nina impatiently. ‘These flatteries are very
ill-timed.’
‘So they would be, if they were flatteries; but if you had patience to hear
me out, you’d have learned that I meant a higher flattery for myself.’
‘Don’t I know it? don’t I guess?’ cried the Greek. ‘Have not your downcast
eyes told it? and that look of sweet humility that says, “At least I am not
a flirt?”’
‘Nor am I,’ said Kate coldly.
‘And I am! Come now, do confess. You want to say it.’
‘With all my heart I wish you were not!’ And Kate’s eyes swam as she spoke.
‘And what if I tell you that I know it--that in the very employment of
the arts of what you call coquetry, I am but exercising those powers of
pleasing by which men are led to frequent the salon instead of the café,
and like the society of the cultivated and refined better than--’
‘No, no, no!’ burst in Kate. ‘There is no such mock principle in the case.
You are a flirt because you like the homage it secures you, and because,
as you do not believe in such a thing as an honest affection, you have no
scruple about trifling with a man’s heart.’
‘So much for captivating that bold hussar,’ cried Nina.
‘For the moment I was not thinking of him.’
‘Of whom, then?’
‘Of that poor Captain Curtis, who has just ridden away.’
‘Oh, indeed!’
‘Yes. He has a pretty wife and three nice little girls, and they are
the happiest people in the world. They love each other, and love their
home--so, at least, I am told, for I scarcely know them myself.’
‘And what have I done with _him_?’
‘Sent him away sad and doubtful--very doubtful if the happiness he believed
in was the real article after all, and disposed to ask himself how it was
that his heart was beating in a new fashion, and that some new sense had
been added to his nature, of which he had no inkling before. Sent him away
with the notes of a melody floating through his brain, so that the merry
laugh of his children will be a discord, and such a memory of a soft
glance, that his wife’s bright look will be meaningless.’
‘And I have done all this? Poor me!’
‘Yes, and done it so often, that it leaves no remorse behind it.’
‘And the same, I suppose, with the others?’
‘With Mr. Walpole, and Dick, and Mr. O’Shea, and Mr. Atlee too, when he was
here, in their several ways.’
‘Oh, in theirs, not in mine, then?’
‘I am but a bungler in my explanation. I wished to say that you adapted
your fascinations to the tastes of each.’
‘What a siren!’
‘Well, yes--what a siren; for they’re all in love in some fashion or other;
but I could have forgiven you these, had you spared the married man.’
‘So you actually envy that poor prisoner the gleam of light and the breath
of cold air that comes between his prison bars--that one moment of ecstasy
that reminds him how he once was free and at large, and no manacles to
weigh him down? You will not let him even touch bliss in imagination? Are
_you_ not more cruel than _me_?’
‘This is mere nonsense,’ said Kate boldly. ‘You either believe that man was
fooling _you_, or that you have sent him away unhappy? Take which of these
you like.’
‘Can’t your rustic nature see that there is a third case, quite different
from both, and that Harry Curtis went off believing--’
‘Was he Harry Curtis?’ broke in Kate.
‘He was dear Harry when I said good-bye,’ said Nina calmly.
‘Oh, then, I give up everything--I throw up my brief.’
‘So you ought, for you have lost your cause long ago.’
‘Even that poor Donogan was not spared, and Heaven knows he had troubles
enough on his head to have pleaded some pity for him.’
‘And is there no kind word to say of _me_, Kate?’
‘O Nina, how ashamed you make me of my violence, when I dare to blame you!
but if I did not love you so dearly, I could better bear you should have a
fault.’
‘I have only one, then?’
‘I know of no great one but this. I mean, I know of none that endangers
good-nature and right feeling.’
‘And are you so sure that this does? Are you so sure that what you are
faulting is not the manner and the way of a world you have not seen? that
all these levities, as you would call them, are not the ordinary wear of
people whose lives are passed where there is more tolerance and less pain?’
‘Be serious, Nina, for a moment, and own that it was by intention you were
in the approach when Captain Curtis rode away: that you said something to
him, or looked something--perhaps both--on which he got down from his horse
and walked beside you for full a mile?’
‘All true,’ said Nina calmly. ‘I confess to every part of it.’
‘I’d far rather that you said you were sorry for it.’
‘But I am not; I’m very glad--I’m very proud of it.
Yes, look as reproachfully as you like, Kate! “very proud” was what I
said.’
‘Then I am indeed sorry,’ said Kate, growing pale as she spoke.
‘I don’t think, after all this sharp lecturing of me, that you deserve
much of my confidence, and if I make you any, Kate, it is not by way
of exculpation; for I do not accept your blame; it is simply out of
caprice--mind that, and that I am not thinking of defending myself.’
‘I can easily believe that,’ said Kate dryly.
And the other continued: ‘When Captain Curtis was talking to your father,
and discussing the chances of capturing Donogan, he twice or thrice
mentioned Harper and Fry--names which somehow seemed familiar to me; and
on thinking the matter over when I went to my room, I opened Donogan’s
pocket-book and there found how these names had become known to me. Harper
and Fry were tanners, in Cork Street, and theirs was one of the addresses
by which, if I had occasion to warn Donogan, I could write to him. On
hearing these names from Curtis, it struck me that there might be treachery
somewhere. Was it that these men themselves had turned traitors to the
cause? or had another betrayed them? Whichever way the matter went, Donogan
was evidently in great danger; for this was one of the places he regarded
as perfectly safe.
‘What was to be done? I dared not ask advice on any side. To reveal the
suspicions which were tormenting me required that I should produce this
pocket-book, and to whom could I impart this man’s secret? I thought of
your brother Dick, but he was from home, and even if he had not been, I
doubt if I should have told him. I should have come to you, Kate, but that
grand rebukeful tone you had taken up this last twenty-four hours repelled
me; and finally, I took counsel with myself. I set off just before Captain
Curtis started, to what you have called waylay him in the avenue.
‘Just below the beech-copse he came up; and then that small flirtation of
the drawing-room, which has caused you so much anger and me such a sharp
lesson, stood me in good stead, and enabled me to arrest his progress by
some chance word or two, and at last so far to interest him that he got
down and walked along at my side. I shall not shock you by recalling the
little tender “nothings” that passed between us, nor dwell on the small
mockeries of sentiment which we exchanged--I hope very harmlessly--but
proceed at once to what I felt my object. He was profuse of his gratitude
for what I had done for him with Walpole, and firmly believed that my
intercession alone had saved him; and so I went on to say that the best
reparation he could make for his blunder would be some exercise of
well-directed activity when occasion should offer. “Suppose, for instance,”
said I, “you could capture this man Donogan?”
‘“The very thing I hope to do,” cried he. “The train is laid already. One
of my constables has a brother in a well-known house in Dublin, the members
of which, men of large wealth and good position, have long been suspected
of holding intercourse with the rebels. Through his brother, himself a
Fenian, this man has heard that a secret committee will meet at this place
on Monday evening next, at which Donogan will be present. Molloy,
another head-centre, will also be there, and Cummings, who escaped from
Carrickfergus.” I took down all the names, Kate, the moment we parted, and
while they were fresh in my memory. “We’ll draw the net on them all,” said
he; “and such a haul has not been made since ‘98. The rewards alone will
amount to some thousands.” It was then I said, “And is there no danger,
Harry? “’
‘O Nina!’
‘Yes, darling, it was very dreadful, and I felt it so; but somehow one is
carried away by a burst of feeling at certain moments, and the shame only
comes too late. Of course it was wrong of me to call him Harry, and he,
too, with a wife at home, and five little girls--or three, I forget
which--should never have sworn that he loved me, nor said all that mad
nonsense about what he felt in that region where chief constables have
their hearts; but I own to great tenderness and a very touching sensibility
on either side. Indeed, I may add here, that the really sensitive
natures amongst men are never found under forty-five; but for genuine,
uncalculating affection, for the sort of devotion that flings consequences
to the winds, I say, give me fifty-eight or sixty.’
‘Nina, do not make me hate you,’ said Kate gravely.
‘Certainly not, dearest, if a little hypocrisy will avert such a
misfortune. And so to return to my narrative, I learned, as accurately as a
gentleman so much in love could condescend to inform me, of all the steps
taken to secure Donogan at this meeting, or to capture him later on if he
should try to make his escape by sea.’
‘You mean, then, to write to Donogan and apprise him of his danger?’
‘It is done. I wrote the moment I got back here. I addressed him as Mr.
James Bredin, care of Jonas Mullory, Esq., 41 New Street, which was the
first address in the list he gave me. I told him of the peril he ran,
and what his friends were also threatened by, and I recounted the absurd
seizure of Mr. Walpole’s effects here; and, last of all, what a dangerous
rival he had in this Captain Curtis, who was ready to desert wife,
children, and the constabulary to-morrow for me; and assuring him
confidentially that I was well worth greater sacrifices of better men, I
signed my initials in Greek letters.’
‘Marvellous caution and great discretion,’ said Kate solemnly.
‘And now come over to the drawing-room, where I have promised to sing for
Mr. O’Shea some little ballad that he dreamed over all the night through;
and then there’s something else--what is it? what is it?’
‘How should I know, Nina? I was not present at your arrangement.’
‘Never mind; I’ll remember it presently. It will come to my recollection
while I’m singing that song.’
‘If emotion is not too much for you.’
‘Just so, Kate--sensibilities permitting; and, indeed,’ she said,’ I
remember it already. It was luncheon.’