"I'm afraid I can't help it, sir," said Wyndham.
Mr. Paget and his son-in-law were standing together in the very
comfortable private room before alluded to in the office of the former.
Wyndham was standing with his back to the mantel-piece; Valentine's
lovely picture was over his head. Her eyes, which were almost dancing
with life, seemed to have something mocking in them to Mr. Paget, as he
encountered their gaze now. As eyes will in a picture, they followed
him wherever he moved. He was restless and ill at ease, and he wished
either that the picture might be removed, or that he could take up
Wyndham's position with his back to it.
"I tell you," he said, in a voice that betrayed his perturbation, "that
you must help it. It's a clear breaking of contract to do otherwise."
"You see," said Wyndham, with a slow smile, "you under-rated my
attractions. I was not the man for your purpose after all."
"Sit down for God's sake, Wyndham. Don't stand there looking so
provokingly indifferent. One would think the whole matter was nothing
to you."
"I am not sure that it is much; that is, I am not at all sure that I
shall not take my full meed of pleasure out of the short time allotted
to me."
"Sit down, take that chair, no, not that one--that--ah, that's better.
Valentine's eyes are positively uncomfortable the way they pursue me
this evening. Wyndham, you must feel for me--you must see that it will
be a perfectly awful thing if my--my child loses her heart to you."
"Well, Mr. Paget, you can judge for yourself how matters stand. I--I
cannot quite agree with you about what you fear being a catastrophe."
"You must be mad, Wyndham--you must either be mad, or you mean to cheat
me after all."
"No, I don't. I have a certain amount of honor left--not much, or I
shouldn't have lent myself to this, but the rag remaining is at your
service. Seriously now, I don't think you have grave cause for alarm.
Valentine is affectionate, but I am not to her as you are."
"You are growing dearer to her every day. I am not blind, I have
watched her face. She follows you with her eyes--when you don't eat she
is anxious, when you look dismal--you have an infernally dismal face at
times, Wyndham--she is puzzled. It wasn't only what I saw last night.
Valentine is waking up. It was in the contract that she was not to wake
up. I gave you a child for your wife. She was to remain a child
when----"
"When she became my widow," Wyndham answered calmly.
"Yes. My God, it is awful to think of it. We must go in, we daren't
turn back, and she may suffer, she may suffer horribly, she has a great
heart--a deep heart. It is playing with edged tools to make it live."
"Can't you shorten the time of probation?" asked Wyndham.
"I wish to heaven I could, but I am powerless. Wyndham, my good friend,
my son--something must be done."
"Don't call me your son," said the younger man, rising and shaking
himself. "I have a father who besides you is--there, I won't name what
I think of you. I have a mother--through your machinations I shall
never see her face any more. Don't call me your son. You are very wise,
you have the wisdom of a devil, but even you can overreach yourself.
You thought you had found everything you needed, when you found
me--the weak young fool, the despairing idiotic lover. Poor? Yes,
cursedly poor, and with a certain sense of generosity, but nothing at
all in myself to win the heart of a beautiful young girl. You should
have gone down to Jewsbury-on-the-Wold for a little, before you summed
up your estimate of my character, for the one thing I have always found
lying at my feet is--love. Even the cats and dogs loved me--those to
whom I gave nothing regarded me with affection. Alack--and alas--my
wife only follows the universal example."
"But it must be stopped, Wyndham. You cannot fail to see that it must
be stopped. Can you not help me--can you not devise some plan?"
Wyndham dropped his head on his hands.
"Hasten the crisis," he said. "I want the plunge over; hasten it."
There came a tap at the room door. Mr. Paget drew back the curtain
which stood before it, slipped the bolts, and opened it.
"Ah, I guessed you were here!" said Valentine's gay voice; "yes, and
Gerald too. This is delightful," added she, as she stepped into the
room.
"What is it, Val?" asked her father. "I was busy--I was talking to your
husband. I am very much occupied this afternoon. I forgot it was the
day you generally called for me. No, I'm afraid I can't go with you, my
pet."
Valentine was looking radiant in winter furs.
"I'll go with Gerald, then," she said. "He's not too busy."
She smiled at him.
"No, my dear, I'll go with you," said the younger man. "I don't think,
sir," he added, turning round, with a desperately white but smiling
face, "that we can advance business much by prolonging this interview,
and if you have no objection, I should like to take a drive with my
wife as she has called."
Valentine instinctively felt that these smoothly spoken words were
meant to hide something. She glanced from the face of one man to
another; then she went up to her father and linked her hand in his arm.
"Come, too, daddy," she said. "You used always to be able to make
horrid business wait upon your own Valentine's pleasure."
Mr. Paget hesitated for a moment. Then he stooped and lightly kissed
his daughter's blooming cheek.
"Go with your husband, dear," he said, gently. "I am really busy, and
we shall meet at dinner time."
"Yes, we are to dine with you to-night--I've a most important request
to make after dinner. You know what it is, Gerry. Won't father be
electrified? Promise beforehand that you'll grant it, dad."
"Yes, my child, yes. Now run away both of you. I am really much
occupied."
Valentine and her husband disappeared. Mr. Paget shut and locked the
door behind them--he drew the velvet curtains to insure perfect
privacy. Then he sank down in his easy-chair to indulge in anxious
meditation.
He thought some of those hard thoughts, some of those abstruse,
worrying, almost despairing thoughts, which add years to a man's life.
As he thought the mask dropped from his handsome face; he looked old
and wicked.
After about a quarter-of-an-hour of these meditations, he moved
slightly and touched an electric bell in the wall. His signal was
answered in about a minute by a tap at the room door. He slipped the
bolts again, and admitted his confidential clerk, Helps.
"Sit down, Helps. Yes, bolt the door, quite right. Now, sit down.
Helps, I am worried."
"I'm sorry to observe it, sir," said Helps. "Worries is nat'ral, but
not agreeable. They come to the good and they come to the bad alike;
worries is like the sun--they shines upon all."
"A particularly agreeable kind of glare they make," responded Mr.
Paget, testily. "Your similes are remarkable for their aptitude, Helps.
Now, have the goodness to confine yourself to briefly replying to my
questions. Has there been any news from India since last week?"
"Nothing fresh, sir."
"No sign of stir; no awakening of interest--of--of--suspicion?"
"Not yet, sir. It isn't to be expected, is it?"
"I suppose not. Sometimes I get impatient, Helps."
"You needn't now, sir. Your train is, so to speak, laid. Any moment you
can apply the match. Any moment, Mr. Paget. Sometimes, if you'll excuse
me for speaking of that same, I have a heart in my bosom that pities
the victim. You shouldn't have done it from among the clergy. Mr.
Paget, and him an only son, too."
"Hush, it's done. There is no help now. Helps, you are the only soul in
the world who knows everything. Helps, there may be two victims."
Helps had a sallow face. It grew sickly now.
"I don't like it," he muttered. "I never did approve of meddling with
the clergy--he was meant for the Church, and them is the Lord's
anointed."
"Don't talk so much," thundered Mr. Paget. "I tell you there are two
victims--and one of them is my child. She is falling in love with her
husband. It is true--it is awful. It must be prevented. Helps, you and
I have got to prevent it."
Helps sat perfectly still. His eyes were lowered; they were following
the patterns of the carpet. He moved his lips softly.
"It must be prevented," said Mr. Paget. "Why do you sit like that? Will
you help me, or will you not?"
Helps raised his greeny-blue eyes with great deliberation.
"I don't know that I will help you, Mr. Paget," he replied; and then he
lowered them again.
"You won't help me? You don't know what you are saying, Helps. Did you
understand my words? I told you that my daughter was falling in love
with that scamp Wyndham."
"He ain't a scamp," replied the clerk. "He's in the conspiracy, poor
lad, he's the victim of the conspiracy, but he's no scamp. Now I never
liked it. I may as well own to you, Mr. Paget, that I never liked your
meddling with the clergy. I said, from the first, as no good would come
of it. It's my opinion, sir--" here Helps rose, and raising one thin
hand shook it feebly at his employer, "it's my opinion as the Lord is
agen you--agen us both for that matter. We can't do nothing if He is,
you know. I had a dream last night--I didn't like the dream, it was a
hominous dream. I didn't like your scheme, Mr. Paget, and I don't think
I'll help you more'n I have done."
"Oh, you don't? You are a wicked old scoundrel. You think you can have
things all your own way. You are a thief. You know the kind of
accommodation thieves get when their follies get found out. Of course,
it's inexpensive, but it's scarcely agreeable."
Helps smiled slightly.
"No one could lock me up but you, and you wouldn't dare," he replied.
These words seemed somehow or other to have a very calming effect on
Mr. Paget. He did not speak for a full moment, then he said quietly--
"We won't go into painful scenes of the past, Helps. Yes; we have both
committed folly, and must stand or fall together. We have both got only
daughters--it is our life's work to shield them from dishonor, to guard
them from pain. Suppose, Helps, suppose your Esther was in the
position of my child? Suppose she was learning to love her husband, and
you knew what that husband had before him, how would you feel, Helps?
Put yourself in my place, and tell me how you'd feel."
"It 'ud all turn on one point," said Helps. "Whether I loved the girl
or myself most. Ef I saw that the girl was going deep in love with her
husband--deep, mind you--mortal deep--so I was nothing at all to her
beside him, why then, maybe, I'd save the young man for her sake, and
go under myself. I might do that, it 'ud depend on how much I loved."
"Nonsense; you would bring dishonor and ruin on her. How could she ever
hold up her head again?"
"Maybe he'd comfort her through it. There's no saying. Love, deep love,
mind you, does wonders."
Mr. Paget began to pace up and down the room.
"You are the greatest old fool I ever came across," he said. "Now, mind
you, your sentiments with regard to your low-born daughter are nothing
at all to me. _Noblesse oblige_ doesn't come into the case with you as
it does with my child. Dishonor shall never touch her; it would kill
her. She must be guarded against it. Listen, Helps. We have talked
folly and sentiment enough. Now to business. That young man must not
rise in my daughter's esteem. There is such a thing--listen, Helps,
come close--such a thing as blackening a man's character. You think it
over--you're a crafty old dog. Go home and look at Esther, and think it
over. God bless me, I'd not an idea how late it was. Here's a five
pound note for your pretty girl, Helps. Now go home and think it
over."