“I TAKE NOT ONE WORD BACK”
“I will do you the justice, Mr. Alston, to believe that you did not
anticipate this meeting?”
“You will only be doing me justice if you do not believe it,” Hugh
said.
The girl bent her proud head. “I did not know that you were a friend of
General Bartholomew’s?”
“Nor I till to-day, Miss Meredyth.”
“I don’t understand.”
Hugh explained that he had not seen the General since he was a child,
till the General had unearthed him at the Northborough Hotel that
afternoon.
Joan frowned. Why had the General done that? Why had he, not three
minutes ago, patted her on the shoulder, smiled on her, and told her to
run down and wait for him in the drawing-room? Suddenly her face burned
with a glowing colour. It seemed as if all the world were in league
together against her. But this time this man was surely innocent. She
had seen the look of astonishment on his face, and knew it for no
acting.
“I came here yesterday,” she said quietly, “in response to a warm
invitation from the General, who was my father’s friend.”
“My father’s too!”
“I—I wanted a home, a friend, and I accepted his invitation eagerly,
but since you have come—”
“My presence makes this house impossible for you, of course,” Hugh
said, and his voice was bitter. “Listen to me, I may never have an
opportunity of speaking to you again, Joan.” He used her Christian
name, scarcely realising that he did so.
“You feel bitterly towards me, and with reason. You have made up your
mind that I have deliberately annoyed and insulted you. If you ask me
to explain what I did and why I did it, I cannot do so. I have a
reason. One day, if I am permitted, I shall be glad to tell you
everything. I came here to London like a fool, a senseless, egotistical
fool, thinking I should be doing a fine thing, and could put everything
right by asking you to become my wife in reality. I can see now what
sort of a figure I made of myself, and how I must have appeared to you
when I was bragging of my possessions. I suppose I lack a sense of
humour, Joan, or there’s something wrong with me somewhere. Believe me,
senseless and crude as it all was, my intentions were good. I only
succeeded in sinking a little lower, if possible, in your estimation,
and now I wish to ask your pardon for it.”
“I am glad,” she said quietly, “that you understand now—”
“I do, and I have felt shame for it. I shall feel better now that I
have asked you to forgive. Joan,” he went on passionately, “listen! A
fool is always hard to separate from his folly. But listen! That day
when I saw you in the City, when I made my egregious proposal to
you—just for a moment you were touched, something appealed to you. I do
not know what it was—my folly, my immense conceit—for which perhaps you
pitied me. But it was something, for that one moment I saw you change.
The hard look went from your face, a colour came into your cheeks, your
eyes grew soft and tender—just for one moment—”
“What does all this—”
“Listen, listen! Let me speak! It may be my last chance. I tell you I
saw you as I know you must be—the real woman, not the hard, the
condemning judge that you have been to me. And as I saw you for that
one moment, I have remembered you and pictured you in my thoughts; and
seeing you in memory I have grown to love that woman I saw, to love her
with all my heart and soul.”
Love! It dawned on her, this man, who had made a sport of her name, was
offering her love now! Love! she sickened at the very thought of it—the
word had been profaned by Philip Slotman’s lips.
“I believe,” she thought, “I believe that there is no such thing as
love—as holy love, as true, good, sweet love! It is all selfish passion
and ugliness!”
“Just now, Mr. Alston”—her voice was cold and scornful, and it chilled
him, as one is chilled by a drenching with cold water—“just now you
said perhaps you lacked humour. I do not think it is that, I think you
have a sense of humour somewhat perverted. Of course, you are only
carrying this—this joke one step further—”
“Joan!”
“And as you drove me from Cornbridge Manor, I suppose you will now
drive me from this house. Am I to find peace and refuge nowhere,
nowhere?”
“If—if you could be generous!” he cried.
She flushed with anger. “You have called me ungenerous before! Am I
always to be called ungenerous by you?”
“Forgive me!” His eyes were filled with pleading. He did not know
himself, did not recognise the old, happy-go-lucky Hugh Alston, who had
accepted many a hard knock from Fate with a smile and a jest.
“And so I am to be driven from this home, this refuge—by you?” she said
bitterly. “Oh, have you no sense of manhood in you?”
“I think I have. You shall not be driven away. I, of course, am the one
to go. Through me you left Cornbridge, you shall not have to leave this
house. I promise you, swear to you, that I shall not darken these doors
again. Is that enough? Does that content you?”
“Then I shall have at least something at last to thank you for,” she
said coldly. And yet, though she spoke coldly, she looked at him and
saw something in his face that made her lip tremble. Yet in no other
way did she betray her feelings, and he, like the man he was, was of
course blind.
It was strange how long they had been left alone, uninterrupted. The
strangeness of it did not occur to him, yet it did to her. She turned
to the door.
“Joan, wait,” he pleaded—“wait! One last word! One day I shall hope to
explain to you, then perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive.
For the blunder that I made in Slotman’s office, for the further
insult, if you look on it as such, I ask you to forgive me now. It was
the act of a senseless fool, a mad fool, who had done wrong and tried
to do right, and through his folly made matters worse. To-night perhaps
I have sinned more than ever before in telling you that I love you. But
if that is a sin and past all forgiveness, I glory in it. I take not
one word of it back. I shall trouble you no more, and so”—he paused—“so
I say good-bye.”
“Good-bye!” He held out his hand to her, but she looked him full in the
face.
“Good-bye!” she said, and then turned quickly, and in a moment the door
was closed between them.
He did not see her hurry away, her hands pressed against her breast. He
did not see the face, all womanly and sweet, and soft and tender now.
He had only the memory of her brief farewell, the memory of her cold,
steady eyes—nothing else beside.