For one instant we all three stood facing each other,--I breathless and
mad with fury,--Lucio calm and disdainful,--my wife staggering back from
me, half-swooning with fear. In an access of black rage, I rushed upon
her and seized her in my arms.
"I have heard you!" I said--"I have seen you! I have watched you kneel
before my true friend, my loyal comrade there, and try your best to make
him as vile as yourself! I am that poor fool, your husband,--that blind
egoist whose confidence you sought to win--and to betray! I am the
unhappy wretch whose surplus of world's cash has bought for him in
marriage a shameless courtezan! You dare to talk of love? You profane
its very name! Good God!--what are such women as you made of? You throw
yourselves into our arms,--you demand our care--you exact our
respect--you tempt our senses--you win our hearts,--and then you make
fools of us all! Fools, and worse than fools,--you make us men without
feeling, conscience, faith, or pity! If we become criminals, what
wonder! If we do things that shame our sex, is it not because you set us
the example? God--God! I, who loved you,--yes, loved you in spite of all
that my marriage with you taught me,--I, who would have died to save you
from a shadow of suspicion,--I am the one out of all the world you
choose to murder by your treachery!"
I loosened my grasp of her,--she recovered her self-possession by an
effort, and looked at me straightly with cold unfeeling eyes.
"What did you marry me for?" she demanded--"For my sake or your own?"
I was silent,--too choked with wrath and pain to speak. All I could do
was to hold out my hand to Lucio, who grasped it with a cordial and
sympathetic pressure. Yet ... I fancied he smiled!
"Was it because you desired to make me happy out of pure love for me?"
pursued Sibyl--"Or because you wished to add dignity to your own
position by wedding the daughter of an Earl? Your motives were not
unselfish,--you chose me simply because I was the 'beauty' of the day
whom London men stared at and talked of,--and because it gave you a
certain 'prestige' to have me for your wife, in the same way as it gave
you a footing with Royalty to be the owner of the Derby-winner. I told
you honestly what I was before our marriage,--it made no effect upon
your vanity and egoism. I never loved you,--I could not love you, and I
told you so. You have heard, so you say, all that has passed between me
and Lucio,--therefore you know why I married you. I state it boldly to
your face,--it was that I might have your intimate friend for my lover.
That you should pretend to be scandalized at this is absurd; it is a
common position of things in France, and is becoming equally common in
England. Morality has always been declared unnecessary for men,--it is
becoming equally unnecessary for women!"
I stared at her, amazed at the glibness of her speech, and the cool
convincing manner in which she spoke, after her recent access of passion
and excitement.
"You have only to read the 'new' fiction,"--she went on, a mocking smile
lighting up her pale face, "and indeed all 'new' literature generally,
to be assured that your ideas of domestic virtue are quite out of date.
Both men and women are, according to certain accepted writers of the
day, at equal liberty to love when they will, and where they may.
Polygamous purity is the 'new' creed! Such love, in fact, so we are
taught, constitutes the only 'sacred' union. If you want to alter this
'movement,' and return to the old-fashioned types of the modest maiden
and the immaculate matron, you must sentence all the 'new' writers of
profitable pruriency to penal servitude for life, and institute a
Government censorship of the modern press. As matters stand, your
attitude of the outraged husband is not only ridiculous,--it is
unfashionable. I assure you I do not feel the slightest prick of
conscience in saying I love Lucio,--any woman might be proud of loving
him;--he, however, will not, or cannot love me,--we have had a 'scene,'
and you have completed the dramatic effect by witnessing it,--there is
no more to be said or done in the affair. I do not suppose you can
divorce me,--but if you can, you may--I shall make no defence."
She turned, as if to go;--I still stared dumbly at her, finding no words
to cope with her effrontery,--when Lucio's voice, attuned to a grave and
soothing suavity, interposed,--
"This is a very painful and distressing state of things,"--he said, and
the strange half-cynical, half contemptuous smile still rested on his
lips--"but I must positively protest against the idea of divorce, not
only for her ladyship's sake, but my own. I am entirely innocent in the
matter!"
"Innocent!" I exclaimed, grasping him again by the hand; "You are
nobility itself, Lucio!--as loyal a friend as ever man had! I thank you
for your courage,--for the plain and honest manner in which you have
spoken. I heard all you said! Nothing was too strong,--nothing could be
too strong to awaken this misguided woman to a sense of her outrageous
conduct,--her unfaithfulness----"
"Pardon me!" he interrupted delicately--"The Lady Sibyl can scarcely be
called unfaithful, Geoffrey. She suffers,----from----let us call it, a
little exaltation of nerves! In thought she may be guilty of infidelity,
but society does not know that,--and in act she is pure,--pure as the
newly-driven snow,--and as the newly-driven snow, will society, itself
immaculate, regard her!"
His eyes glittered,--I met his chill derisive glance.
"You think as I do, Lucio!" I said hoarsely--"You feel with me, that a
wife's unchaste thought is as vile as her unchaste act. There is no
excuse,--no palliative for such cruel and abominable ingratitude.
Why,"--and my voice rose unconsciously as I turned fiercely again
towards Sibyl--"Did I not free you and your family from the heavy
pressure of poverty and debt? Have I grudged you anything? Are you not
loaded with jewels?--have you not greater luxuries and liberties than a
queen? And do you not owe me at least some duty?"
"I owe you nothing!" she responded boldly--"I gave you what you paid
for,--my beauty and my social position. It was a fair bargain!"
"A dear and bitter one!" I cried.
"Maybe so. But such as it was, you struck it,--not I. You can end it
when you please,--the law ..."
"The law will give you no freedom in such a case,"--interposed Lucio
with a kind of satirical urbanity--"A judicial separation on the ground
of incompatibility of temper might be possible certainly--but would not
that be a pity? Her ladyship is unfortunate in her tastes,--that is
all!--she selected me as her _cavaliere servente_, and I refused the
situation,--hence there is nothing for it but to forget this unpleasant
incident, and try to live on a better understanding for the future----"
"Do you think"--said my wife, advancing with her proud head uplifted in
scorn, the while she pointed at me--"Do you think I will live with him
after what he has seen and heard to-night? What do you take me for?"
"For a very charming woman of hasty impulses and unwise
reasoning,"--replied Lucio, with an air of sarcastic gallantry--"Lady
Sibyl, you are illogical,--most of your sex are. You can do no good by
prolonging this scene,--a most unpleasant and trying one to us poor men.
You know how we hate 'scenes'! Let me beg of you to retire! Your duty is
to your husband; pray heaven he may forget this midnight delirium of
yours, and set it down to some strange illness rather than to any evil
intention."
For all answer she came towards him, stretching out her arms in wild
appeal.
"Lucio!" she cried--"Lucio, my love! Good-night!--Good-bye!"