"At all events," goes on Tessie, "when you made up your mind to marry my son, you——"
"It was your son who married me," says Tita, with a touch of hauteur that sits very prettily on her. She feels suddenly stronger—more equal to the fight.
"Was it? I quite forget"—Tessie shrugs her shoulders—"these little points," says she. "Well, I give you that! Oh! he was honest!" says she. "But, after all, not quite honest enough."
"I think he was honest," says Tita.
Her heart is beginning to beat to suffocation. There is a horror in her mind—the horror of hearing again that he—he had loved Marian. But how to stop it?
"You seem to admire honesty," says Lady Rylton, with a sneering laugh. "It is a pity you do not emulate his! If Maurice is as true to you as you"—with a slight laugh—"imagine him, why, you should, in common generosity, be true to him. And this flirtation, with this Mr. Hescott——"
"Don't go on!" says Tita passionately; "I cannot bear it. Whoever has told you that I ever—— Oh!" She covers her eyes suddenly with her pretty hands. "Oh! it is a lie!" cries she.
"No one has told me a lie," says Lady Rylton implacably.
The sight of the girl's distress is very pleasant to her. She gloats over it.
"Then you have invented the whole thing," cries Tita wildly, who is so angry, so agitated, that she forgets the commonest decencies of life. We all do occasionally!
"To be rude is not to be forcible," says Tessie, who is now a fury, "and I believe all that I have heard about you!" She makes a quick movement towards Tita, her colour showing even through the washes that try to make her skin look young. "How dare you insult me?" cries she furiously. Tessie in a rage is almost the vulgarest thing that anyone could see. "I wish my son had never seen you—or your money. I wish now he had married the woman he loved, instead of the woman whom——"
"He hated," puts in Tita very softly.
She smiles in a sort of last defiance, but every hope she has seems lying dead. In a second, as it were, she seems to care for nothing. What is there to care for? It is so odd. But it is true! How blank the whole thing is!
"Yes. Hated!" says Tessie in a cold fury. "I tell you he wanted to marry Marian, and her only. He would have given his soul for her, but she would not marry him! And then, when hope was at an end, he—destroyed self—he married you!"
"You are very plain! You leave nothing to be said." Tita has compelled herself to this answer, but her voice is faint. Her poor little face, beautiful even in its distress, is as white as death. "I am sorry——"
"For Maurice? So you ought to be," says Lady Rylton, unmoved even by that pathetic face before her.
Tita turns upon her. All at once the old spirit springs to life within the poor child's breast.
"No, for myself!" cries she, with a bitterness hardly to be described.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW TITA GOES FOR A WALK WITH TWO SAD COMPANIONS—ANGER AND DESPAIR; AND HOW SHE MEETS SIR MAURICE; AND HOW SHE INTRODUCES HIM TO ANGER.
Escaping from her mother-in-law's room, Tita goes hurriedly, carefully downstairs. There is no one in the smaller hall; she runs through it, and into one of the conservatories that has a door leading to the gardens outside. Its is a small conservatory, little frequented; and when one gets to the end of the two steps, one finds one's self at the part of the garden that leads directly into the woods beyond.
Tita, flinging open the little rustic gate that opens a way to these woods, hastens through it as though all the furies are at her back, and never ceases running until she finds herself a good half-mile from home.
And now she throws herself upon a sort mossy bank, and, clasping her hands in front of her, gives herself up to thought. Most women when in grief make direct for their bedrooms; Tita, a mere child of Nature, has turned to her mother in her great extremity. Her heart seems on fire, her eyes dry and burning. Her quick, angry run has left her tired and panting, and like one at bay.
She lays her flushed cheek against the cold, sweet mosses.
How good, how eternally good is the exquisite heart of the earth! A very balm from it seems now to arise and take this young creature into its embrace. The coolness, the softness of it! Who shall describe it? The girl lying on the ground, not understanding, feels the great light hand of the All-Mother on her head, and suddenly the first great pang dies. Nature, the supreme Hypnotizer, has come to her rescue, not dulling or destroying the senses, but soothing them, and showing a way out of the darkness, flinging a lamp into the dim, winding ways of her misery.
The cool mosses have brought her to herself again. She sits up, and, taking her knees into her embrace, looks out upon the world. To her it seems a cruel world, full of nothing but injustice. She has a long talk with herself, poor child!—a most bitter conversation. And the end of it is this: If only she could see Maurice and tell him—tell him what she thinks of him; and if only—— But it seems so impossible.
And here is where Mother Nature's doings come in. She has driven Maurice from his house almost as Tita left it, and has sent him here; for does he not know that Tita loves this solitary spot, and——
He has sprung upon the wall, and it is quite suddenly he sees her. Her attitude makes his heart stand still. Has it come to this? Has he brought her to this? What a child she was when he married her!—light-hearted, free——
Free! Was she free? This word spoils all his sympathy. Was she really free? Did she not love her cousin even then, when she consented to marry him? He springs lightly to the ground; his gun is on his shoulder, but he lays that against a tree, and goes lightly towards her.
How still she is! How tightly her small hands are clasped! How _very _small they are! Is that the first ring he had given her, shining on her third finger? She had not flung that back in his face, at all events! He hardly understands the wild, quick thrill of joy that this knowledge affords him. And how pale she is!
"In all her face was not one drop of blood."
She is staring before her, as if into the future—as if demanding happiness from it for her youth. He goes quickly to her.
"I was just getting over that fence there," says he, in a rather stammering sort of way, the new strange pallor on that small, erstwhile happy face having disarranged his nerves a little, "when I saw you. I am glad I saw you, as I wanted to say that perhaps I spoke to you too—roughly last night."
Tita remains silent. Something in her whole air seems to him changed. Her eyes—her mouth—what has happened to them? Such a change! And all since last night! Had he indeed been so rough with her as to cause all this?
"How bitter and winterly waxed last night
The air that was mild!
How nipped with frost were the flowers last night
That at dawning smiled!
How the bird lost the tune of the song last night
That the spring beguiled!"
Did it all happen last night? He breaks through his wonder to hear her.
"I don't know how you dared speak to me at all," says she at last slowly, deliberately.
Where is the childish anger now that used to irritate—and amuse him? It is all gone. This is hardly Tita, this girl, cold, repellent; it is an absurd thought, but it seems to him that she has grown!
"I spoke—because—— I think I explained," says he, somewhat incoherently, upset not so much by her words (which are strange, too) as by the strange look that accompanies them.
"Ah, explained!" says she. Her lips curl slightly, and her eyes (always fastened upon his) seem to grow darker. "If you are coming to explanations——" says she softly, but with some intensity. "Have you explained things? And when? Was it before our marriage? It _should _have been, I think!"
Rylton changes colour. It is such a sudden change that the girl goes over to him and lays her hand upon his chest.
"Did you think—all this time—that I did not know?" says she, raising her eyes to his—such solemn young eyes. "I have known it a long, long time. Always, I think! Your mother told me when we went to the Hall after our—trip abroad."
"She told you what?"
It is a last effort to spare—— To spare whom? Marian or himself—or—— All at once he knows it is Tita whom he would spare.
"Ah, that is useless," says Tita, with a slight gesture. "She told me a great deal then; she has told me more to-day."
"To-day?"
"A few last items," says the girl, her eyes burning into his as she stands before him, her hand upon his breast. "Shall I tell them to you? You married me for my money! You ruined your life"—she seems to be looking back and repeating things that had been said to her—"by doing that. Your mother" slowly, "seemed sorry that your life was ruined!"
"Tita!"
"No, listen; there is a little more. You only consented to make me your wife when you found Mrs. Bethune would not have you."
"You shall hear me," says he.
His face is as white as death now, but she silences him. She lifts her small, cold hand from his breast, and lays it on his lips that are nearly as cold.
"You proposed to her four times! All your love was hers! And it was only when hope was dead—when life seemed worthless—that you—married me."
"She told you that—all that?" asks Rylton; he has caught her hand.
"All that—and more." Tita is smiling now, but very pitifully. "But that was enough. Why take it to heart? It is nothing, really. It does not concern us. Of course, I always knew. You told me—that you did not love me."
"I shall not forgive her," says Rylton fiercely.
There is anguish as well as rage in his tone. He is holding her hand tightly clenched between both his own.
"I don't care whether you do or not," says Tita suddenly, almost violently. "You can forgive her or not, as you choose. The whole thing," dragging her hand forcibly from his, "is a matter of no consequence whatever to me!"
"You mean that you don't care?" says Rylton, in a suffocating voice.
"Care!" contemptuously. "No! Why should I care, or wonder, or waste one thought upon your love affairs?"
This insolent answer rouses Rylton from his remorse.
"Why, indeed!" says he, stung by her scorn. "You have your own to think of!"
And now a terrible thing happens—swift as lightning she lifts her hand, and gives him a little stinging blow across his face.
A second afterwards she has her hands upon her breast, and is crying affrightedly.
"I'm sorry—I'm sorry—I'm sorry!"
Yet through all the fright he can hear there is not an atom of real sorrow in her voice.
"Let that alone," says he, smiling grimly. "I dare say I deserved it. I take it meekly, as you see. But now—how is it to be between us?"
"You know. You ought to know. We agreed before our marriage that you were to go your way, and I—mine!"
"Very well," says Rylton slowly. "Let it be so. Remember always, however," looking fixedly at her, "that it was you who insisted on it."
"I shall remember," says Tita.
She turns and walks quickly on the path that leads to the house. Rylton turns to accompany her. But she, stopping short, looks up at him with a frowning brow.
"We have been talking about ways," says she. "This," with a little significant gesture to the right, "is my way."
He lifts his brows and laughs, a very sad and dismal laugh, however.
"And therefore not mine," says he. "You are right so far. I meant to go on to Upsall Farm, but I should like to see you safely back to the avenue, at all events—if you will allow me?"
"No!" Tita has turned upon him like a little fury. All her rage and grief and misery has at last overpowered her. "I shall not allow you! I shall go nowhere with you! Our ways, as you say, are separate."
"As I say——"
"It doesn't matter," says she vehemently; "words are nothing. There is only meaning left, and what I mean is that I want never to go anywhere with you again."
"As you will, of course," says he, drawing back. Evidently it is to be war to the knife.
He could have laughed at himself as he leans back against a huge oak-tree and lights a cigar. Truly he is no Don Juan! The woman he loved did not love him to any measurable extent; the woman he married cares for him even less!
A very rage of anger against Tita is filling his breast, but now, standing here in the cold soft shades of the silent wood, his anger gives place to thought. By what right is he angry with her? By what right does he upbraid her? She knows all—everything. His mother had seen to that. Yes, his wife knows——
And yet, after all, what is there to condemn him for? What man under heaven has been so scrupulous, so careful as he? There had been that one night at the Warbeck's dance—but beyond that, never by word or look had he been unfaithful!
He is beginning almost to pride himself upon his good behaviour, when all at once it comes to him that it has been easy to be faithful, that there has been no trouble at all about being scrupulous.
It is like a dagger in his heart. Is it all at the end then? Must it be regarded as a thing that was told—that old, sweet story! Dead, withered, with the life, the meaning, gone from it. And if so, what remains?
Nothing but the face of a small, angry little girl defying him—defying him always.
Pouf! He thrusts it from him. He lights another cigar. Again the old anger breaks out. Tita's words come back to him. Plainly she would be as glad to get rid of him as he—— She had spoken of her own way. Why not let her go that way? It leads to her cousin. All the finger-posts point in that direction. Well—— If so—— There might be a divorce, and a divorce would mean marriage with Marian, and——
He stands staring stupidly at the ground before him. What is the matter with him? Only three months, three little months ago, and such a thought would have raised ecstasy within his heart, and now——
How flat it all seems, how unprofitable! Nothing seems alive within him save a desire for vengeance on this child who has dared to drag his name into the dust.
This child!
Again her face rises before him. Pale, determined, scorning him! He had read hatred in her glance, and behind that hatred—bred of it, perhaps—love for her cousin.
He flings his cigar into a bush near him, and goes back to the house, taking the path his wife had chosen.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW TITA, RUNNING FROM THE ENEMY, SUDDENLY FINDS HERSELF FACE TO FACE WITH ANOTHER FOE; AND HOW SHE FIGHTS A SECOND BATTLE, AND COMES OFF VICTORIOUS!
Tita, once out of the sight of Maurice, had run home very quickly. She knew that she was crying, and despised herself for so doing, but could not check her tears. She was not sure what they meant, grief or rage. Perhaps a little of both. All her guests were in the garden, so she would not return to the house that way, though it was much the nearest; but turning into a side path she made for a point in the shrubberies, from which one could get to the armoury door without being seen by anyone.
She is wrong in her calculations, however, for just as she steps into the shrubbery walk, she finds herself face to face with Tom Hescott.
"Tita! You have been crying!" says he suddenly, after a devouring glance at her small face, that indeed shows all the signs of woe.
"No, no!" cries Tita breathlessly.
She puts up her hands in protestation. She has grown crimson with shame and vexation.
"You have," says Hescott, almost savagely. The knowledge that he is leaving to-morrow (they are all leaving except the elder Lady Rylton) has rendered him desperate, and made more difficult of concealment the mad passion he entertains for her. "What has happened?" he asks, going closer to her and letting his cigar drop to the ground. "Are you unhappy? You," breathing quickly, "have been unhappy for a long time!"
"And even so, am I the only person in the world who is unhappy? Are you never unhappy?" demands Tita defiantly.
"God knows I am, always!" says Hescott. "But you! That you should be unhappy!"
"Never mind me," says Tita petulantly. "And I must say," with a little flaming glance at him, "that it would have been in much better taste if you—if you had pretended to see that I was not crying."
Hescott does not hear, or takes no notice of this little bombshell.
"Has your husband been unkind to you?" asks he sharply, most unpardonably.
Tita looks at him for a second as if he had struck her, and then waves him aside imperiously.
"Maurice is never unkind to me," says she, "and even if he were, I should not allow you or anyone to question me in the matter. What are you thinking of?"
"Of you," slowly.
"You waste your time," says Tita.
"It is not wasted. It is spent on you," says Hescott, with compressed but strong passion. "And now a last word, Tita. If ever you want to—to——" He hesitates. "To leave him," he had almost said, but her proud eyes and her pale lips made him hesitate—such pride! It raises his love for her to fever-heat. "If ever you should want anyone to help you, I——"
She interrupts him. She makes a haughty little gesture with hand. It would be impossible to describe the wild grace and beauty of it—or the dignity.
"If ever I should, I shall have Maurice!" says she coldly.
Hescott looks at her. Of course he has been told that old story about Mrs. Bethune, and has seen for himself many things.
"You are an angel!" says he at last, very sadly; yet he would not have wished her less than that.
"Don't be absurd!" says Tita most ungratefully.
She marches past him with her angry little head still upheld, but presently a word from him brings her to a standstill.
"Don't be angry with me, Tita," he is saying in a low tone. "I'm going away to-morrow."
"Ah, so you are!" says Tita. Her sweet nature comes back to her. Dear old Tom! And she has been saying such horrid things to him. "Never mind me, Tom!" says she, holding out her hand to him. "I'm dreadfully cross sometimes, but I don't ever mean it, really. And," smiling gently at him, "you know that I love you!"
Hescott takes her hand. His heart seems very full—too full for words. Those words, "I love you!" He stoops and presses a kiss upon the little warm fingers now resting within his own. And without another word he leaves her.
He is hardly gone, when Rylton lays his hand upon her arm.
"Well," says he, his voice vibrating with anger. He had followed her, as has been said, with no idea of watching her, but with a curious longing to get near to her again. Why, he could hardly have explained even to himself. The only thing he did know in that walk homeward was that he was most horribly, most unreasonably unhappy!
He had followed her and he had found her crying, or at least with the signs of tears upon her eyes, and had seen her cousin kissing her hand. A slight madness came over him then. Crying for her cousin, no doubt, because he must leave her to-morrow!
"Well!" His tone is abrupt, almost brutal. Yet even in this hour where all things point to her discomfiture he cannot get the victory over her.
"Well?" demands she in return, shaking her arm loose from his hold.
"You have been crying for him, no doubt—for your——" He pauses.
"My what?" asks Tita. She is looking at him with fearless, wondering eyes.
"Your cousin," says Rylton, altering the phrase that would have made it in his anger, "your lover."
"I have not been crying because of Tom," says Tita coldly, "though I am very sorry he is going. He loves me, I think."
"Do you?" says Rylton. A sarcastic smile crosses his lips "And you? Do you love him? No doubt cousins are charming possessions. And so I find you crying because your dear possession is going, and because, no doubt, you were confiding to him what a desperate monster a husband can be."
There is hardly anything in his life afterwards that Rylton is so ashamed of as this; even now in the heat of the terrible anger that leads him so to forget himself, he cowers before the girl's eyes.
"Is that what people do in your set?" says she coldly—icily. "In the charmed circle within which your mother tells me I am not fit to enter? If so, I am glad I do not belong to it. Set your mind at ease, Maurice. I have not told Tom anything about you. I have not even told him what a——" She pauses. A flash from her eyes enters his. "I have told him nothing—nothing," says she, running past him into the house.
CHAPTER XIII.
HOW A LITTLE SPARRING IS DONE AMONGST THE GUESTS AT OAKDEAN; AND HOW TOM HESCOTT TELLS A STORY.
Meantime all the others are sitting out in the garden, gossiping to their hearts' content. They had tried tennis, but the courts are rather soft now; and though an Indian summer has fallen upon us, still it has not sufficed to dry up all the moisture caused by the late rains.
The little thatched hut at the end of the gardens, where the sun is now blazing, has drawn them all into a net, as it were. It is an off day, when there is no shooting, and the women are therefore jubilant, and distinctly in the ascendant. The elder Lady Rylton is not present, which adds to the hilarity of the hour, as in spite of her wonderful juvenility she is by no means a favourite. Miss Gower, however, _is—_which balances the situation.
"I don't believe I ever felt so sorry for leaving any place," says Mrs. Chichester (who is always talking) with a soft but prolonged sigh—the sigh that is meant to be heard. She casts a languishing glance at Marryatt as she says this. He is not invited to the next country house to which she is bound. He returns her glance fourfold, upon which she instantly dives behind Mrs. Bethune's back, on the pretence of speaking to Margaret, but in reality to hide her face.
"Yes; I feel sorry too," says Colonel Neilson. "Where are you going?"
"To the Hastings'," says Mrs. Chichester, who has now emerged from behind Marian's back, with the same sad face as before. "You know her. Matilda Bruce!"
"Bless me! Has she got married?" says Colonel Neilson, who is really the kindest-hearted man alive.
"Yes; quite a year ago."
Mrs. Bethune laughs her usual slow, cruel little laugh, that is always in some strange way so full of fascination. She, too, had known Matilda Bruce. "I am afraid poor Mr. Hastings must have had a great many refusals," says she. She looks at Mrs. Chichester. "So you are going there?"
"Yes, for my sins. Fred Hastings is a very old friend of mine."
"What a great many old friends you have," says Mrs. Bethune softly.
"Well, it is better to have old friends than no friends"—making the retort courteous, with a beaming smile.
"I've been staying at the Hastings', too," says Minnie Hescott, glad to show that she is within the sacred circle, even though it be on its outermost edge. "But——" She stops.
"I know. You needn't go on," says Mrs. Chichester. "I've heard all about it. A terrible ménage, and no fires anywhere. Amy Stuart told me—she was staying with them last Christmas—that she often wished she was the roast joint in the oven, she felt so withered up with cold."
"Well, marriage improves people," says Colonel Neilson, laughing. "Let us hope it will enlarge Mrs. Hastings' mind as to the matter of fires."
"It will!" says Mrs. Chichester.
"But why? If——" says Margaret, leaning forward.
"Because marriage improves women, and"—Mrs. Chichester pauses, and lets her queer green eyes rest on Marryatt's—"and does the other thing for men."
Marryatt is looking back at her as if transfixed. He is thinking of her words rather than of her. Has marriage disimproved her husband? Has he been a brute to her? He knows so little—she has told him so little! At this moment it occurs to him that she has told him nothing.
"What are you staring at?" asks she presently. "Is anything the matter with me? Have I straws in my hair?"
His answer is interrupted by Mr. Gower.
"Take it down," says he. "How can anyone tell nowadays what a woman has in her hair unless one sees?"
"Well, it's not straws, any way," says Mrs. Chichester, with a shrug of her lean shoulders.
"It might be worse!" says Mr. Gower, who has always declared that Mrs. Chichester has dyed her hair. His tone, which is always sepulchral, attracts immediate attention, as all things sepulchral do. "And as for Matilda Bruce, I refuse to see why you should sit upon her with such determined cruelty. I know her, and I think her a most excellent wife, and house-wife, and—mother!"
"A mother!" says Margaret, who had known Mrs. Bruce slightly, but had not been in sympathy with her.
"Why, yes! She's got a baby," says Mrs. Chichester. "Didn't you hear? Nobody does hear much about them. For my part, I pity her about that baby! It's so awkward to have children!"
"Awkward?"
"Yes. Nasty people go about asking their ages, especially the age of the eldest little horror, and then they can guess to a nicety how long one must have lived. It's a mean way of finding out one's age. I'm thankful I have no children."
Mrs. Chichester leans back in her chair and laughs.
Perhaps—perhaps—there is a regret in her laugh.
"I think it is the children who ought to be thankful," says old
Miss Gower, covering her with a condemnatory glance.
Mrs. Chichester turns her eye on her.
"Do you know, Miss Gower, you have for once hit a happy truth," says she.
She smiles blandly on the terrible old maid. But Tita, who has just come down from her room, and has entered the hut, is struck by the queer expression in her eyes.
"You have come at last, Tita," says Margaret, going to her.
"I have had such a headache," says Tita, pressing her hands to her brow. "It has worried me all day. But I came down now, hoping the air and"—sweetly looking round her—"all of you would cure it."
"I think you ought to be lying down," says Margaret, seeing the pallor of the young face before her, and pitying the determination, so plainly to be seen, to keep up.
"Maurice"—to Rylton, who has come on the scene a moment later than his wife, so immediately after her, indeed, that one might be forgiven for imagining he had come in her train, only for one thing, he had come from an opposite direction—"Maurice, I think Tita should be induced to lie down for a bit. She looks tired."
"Nonsense," says Tita.
Her tone is almost repellent, although it is to Margaret she speaks.
But in reality the tone is meant for Maurice.
"I've got a headache, certainly. But I firmly believe that it has grown out of the knowledge that you are all going to desert me to-morrow."
This little speech, most innocently meant, she points by smiling at her cousin, Tom Hescott. She had been unkind to him down there in the shrubbery awhile ago, she tells herself, and now she is telling him in silent, sweet little ways that she meant nothing nasty, nothing cold or uncourteous.
Her husband, watching her, sees the glance, and grinds under it. He misunderstands it. As for Tom! Poor Tom! He, too, sees the pretty glance, and he, too, misunderstands it.
All at once a quick but most erroneous thought springs to life within his heart. Her glance now! Her tears awhile ago! Were they for him? Is she sorry because he is leaving her? Is her life here unbearable?
Mrs. Bethune has risen and come up to Tita.
"You speak as if we were going to leave you to immediate destruction?" says she. "Are you afraid of being left alone with—Maurice?"
Mrs. Chichester, who has a great deal of good in her, mixed up with a terrible amount of frivolity, comes forward so quietly that Tita's sudden whiteness is hardly seen, except by one.
"Fancy being afraid of Sir Maurice," says she. "Sir Maurice," casting a laughing glance at him, "I shouldn't be afraid of you."
Sir Maurice laughs back, and everyone laughs with him, and Mrs.
Bethune's barb is blunted.
"I am not afraid of anything," says Tita lightly. "But I confess I feel sorry at the thought of losing you all, even for a time——"
This prettily, and with a glance round her as good as an invitation for next year.
"I know you, Minnie" (to her cousin), "are going to delightful people—and you," turning suddenly to Mrs. Bethune, "I hope you are going to friends?"
"Friends! I have no friends," says Marian Bethune sombrely. "I have learned to forbid myself such luxuries. I can't afford them. I find them too expensive!"
"Expensive?"
"Yes. A loss to me of peace of mind that can never be made up." She smiles at Tita, a cold, unpleasant smile. "Do you know what my definition of a friend is? Someone who takes delight in telling you all the detestable things your other friends have said of you."
"I don't think much of your friends, any way," says Mrs.
Chichester, who as a rule is always en évidence. "Do you, Sir
Maurice?"
"Do I what?"
"Do you agree with Mrs. Bethune?"
"I always agree with everybody," says Rylton, smiling.
Tita moves abruptly away.
"What a hot day it is," says she petulantly, "and nothing to do. Tom," beckoning Hescott to her, "tell us a story. Do. You used to tell beautiful ones—in—the old days."
"Do you still long for them?" asks Mrs. Bethune, always with her supercilious smile, and in a tone that is almost a whisper, yet quite loud enough for Rylton, who is standing near, to hear.
"Do you?" demands Tita, turning upon her with eyes ablaze with miserable anger.
"I?" haughtily. "What do you mean?"
Tita lifts her eyes to Rylton—such eyes.
"He will tell you," says she, and with a little scornful lifting of her chin she turns away.
"Now for your story, Tom," cries she gaily, merrily.
"You take me very short," says Hescott, who seems, in his present mood, which is of the darkest, to be the last man in Europe to tell an amusing tale. "But one occurs to me, and, of course," looking round him, "you all know it. Everyone nowadays knows every story that has and has not been told since the world began. Well, any way, I heard of a man the other day who—it is a most extraordinary thing—but he hated his wife!"
"For goodness' sake tell us something new," says Mrs. Chichester, with open disgust.
"Isn't that new? Well, this man was at a prayer-meeting of some sort. There is a sort of bad man that hankers after prayer-meetings, and, of course, this was a bad man because he hated his wife. It was at the East End, and Job was the subject. Job is good for an East-End meeting, because patience is the sort of thing you must preach there nowadays if you wish to keep your houses from being set on fire; and he heard of all the troubles of Job, and how he was cursed—and how his children and cattle and goods had been taken from him—and only his wife left! That struck him—about the wife! 'Hang it! That was a big curse!' said he. 'Fancy leaving the wife!' And the odd part of it was," says Hescott, lifting his eyes and looking deliberately at Rylton, "that his wife was an angel, whereas he—well, she was the Job of his life. She had to endure all things at his hands."
Rylton looks back at him, and feels his brow grow black with rage.
He would have liked to take him and choke the life out of him.
"A delightful story," says he, with a sneer. "So fresh, so original!"
"Very dull, I think," says Mrs. Chichester, who can't hold her tongue. "An everyday sort of thing. Lady Rylton, what do you think?"
But when they look round for her they find Tita has disappeared.
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW TITA FLINGS HERSELF UPON MARGARET'S BREAST; AND HOW MARGARET COMFORTS HER; AND HOW TITA PROMISES TO BE GOOD; AND HOW SHE HAS A MEETING "BY LAMPLIGHT ALONE."
It is now eleven o'clock. Margaret, who is in her own room, and has sent her maid to bed, is sitting over her fire dreaming of many things, when her door is suddenly opened and as suddenly closed, and, just as suddenly as all the rest of it, a little fragile thing runs towards her, and flings herself in a perfectly tragic fashion upon her breast, lying there prone—lost, apparently, in an unappeasable outburst of grief.
"Tita, my child, my darling! What has happened?" exclaims Margaret, pressing the girl to her. "Do look up, my dear, and tell me. There is nothing new, surely, Tita."
"Oh, I'm tired—I'm tired of it all!" cries Tita wildly. "I want to be done with it. Oh, Margaret, I've said nothing, nothing! Have I, now?" appealing to her with great drenched eyes. "But I can go on no longer. He hates me."
"Oh, hush, hush, Tita!"
"He does! He was unkind to me all to-day. He is always unkind to me.
He hates me, and he—loves her."
"I don't think so. I don't, really. Sit down, darling," says
Margaret, in great agitation.
"I know he does. Did you see that he would hardly speak to me this evening, and——"
"I thought it was you who would not speak to him."
"Oh no, no! I was longing to speak to him. I can't bear being bad friends with anyone; but, of course, I could not go up to him, and tell him so; and he—what did he do?—he spent the whole evening with Mrs. Bethune in the conservatory."
"Tita, I assure you he was not alone with her then. Mrs.
Chichester——"
"I don't care about his being alone with her," says Tita, whose mind is as fresh as her face. "He was with her all the evening; you know he was. Oh, how I hate that woman!"
"Tita, listen——"
"Yes; I hate her. And——" She stops and lays her hands on Margaret's arm and looks piteously at her. "Do you know," says she, "I used not to hate people. I thought once I hated my uncle, but I didn't know. It was nothing like this. It is dreadful to feel like this."
There is poignant anguish in the young voice. It goes to Margaret's heart.
"Tita, be sensible," says she sharply. "Do you think all the misery of the world is yours?"
"No, no," faintly. "Only my portion is so heavy."
She bursts into tears.
"Good heavens!" says Margaret distractedly, caressing her and soothing her. "What a world it is! Why, why cannot you and Maurice see how delightful you both are? It is an enigma. No one can solve it. Tita darling, take heart. Why—why, if Marian were so bad as you think her—which I pray God she isn't—still, think how far you can surpass her in youth, in charm, in beauty."
"Beauty!"
The girl looks up at Margaret as if too astonished to say more.
"Certainly in beauty," firmly. "Marian in her best days was never as lovely as you are. Never!"
"Ah! Now I know you love me," says Tita very sadly. "You alone think that." She pauses, and the pause is eloquent. "Maurice doesn't," says she.
"Maurice is a fool" is on Margaret's lips, but she resists the desire to say it to Maurice's wife, and, in the meantime, Tita has recovered herself somewhat, and is now giving full sway once more to her temper.
"After all, I don't care!" exclaims she. "Why should I? Maurice is as little to me as I am to him. What I do care about is being scolded by him all day long, when I have quite as good a right to scold him. Oh, better! He has behaved badly, Margaret, hasn't he? He should never have married me without telling me of—of her."
"I think he should have told you," says Margaret, with decision. "But I think, too, Tita, that he has been perfectly true to you since his marriage."
"True?"
"I mean—I think—he has not shown any special attention to Marian."
"He showed it to-night, any way," rebelliously.
"He did not indeed. She asked him to show her the chrysanthemums, and what could he do but go with her to the conservatory? And I particularly noticed that as he passed Mrs. Chichester he asked her to come and see them too."
"He didn't ask me, at all events," says Tita.
"Perhaps he was afraid; and, indeed, Tita"—very gently—"you are not so altogether blameless yourself. You talked and played cards the whole night with Mr. Hescott."
"Oh, poor old Tom! That was only because I had been unkind to him in the morning, and because"—ingenuously—"I wanted to pay out Maurice."
Margaret sighs.
"It is all very sad," says she.
"It is," says Tita, tears welling up into her eyes again—a sign of grace that Margaret welcomes.
"Well, go to bed now, darling; and, Tita, if Maurice says anything to you—anything——"
"Cross—I know!" puts in Tita.
"Promise me you will not answer him in anger, do promise me! It makes me so unhappy," says Margaret persuasively, kissing the girl, and pressing her in her arms.
"Oh! Does it? I'm sorry," says Tita, seeing the real distress on Margaret's sweet face. "There! He may say what he likes to me, I shan't answer him back. Not a word! A syllable! I'll be as good as gold!"
She kisses Margaret fondly, and leaves the room.
Outside, in the long corridor, the lamps are beginning to burn dimly. It is already twelve o'clock. Twelve strokes from the hall beneath fall upon Tita's ear as she goes hurriedly towards her own room. It is the midnight hour, the mystic hour, when ghosts do take their nightly rounds!
This is not a ghost, however, this tall young man, who, coming up by the central staircase, meets her now face to face.
"Tita! Is it you?"
"Yes, yes," says Tita, trying to hurry past him.
If Tom has come up from the smoking-room, of course the others will be coming too, and, on the whole, she is not as well got up as usual. It is with a sort of contempt she treats the charming gown in which she is now clothed. And yet she has hardly ever looked lovelier than now, with her eyes a little widened by her late grief, and her hair so sweetly disturbed, and her little slender form showing through the open folds of the long white gown that covers her.
"Don't go. Don't!" says Tom Hescott; his tone is so full of poignant anguish that she stops short. "Stay a moment." In his despair he has caught a fold of her gown. To do him fair justice, he honestly believes that she hates her husband, and that she is thoroughly unhappy with him. Unhappy with great cause. "I am going—you know that, and—I have a last word to say. I tried to say it this afternoon—out there—you know—in the shrubberies, and when you wouldn't listen—I—I respected that. I respected you. But—a time may come when you"—hurriedly—"may not always choose to live this wretched life. There will be a way out of it, Tita—a way not made by you!"
Tita suddenly feels very cold, chilled to her heart's core. She had listened so far as if stunned; but now she wakes, and the face of Marian Bethune seems to look with a cold sneer into hers.
"And after that," goes on Hescott, "if—if——" He breaks down.
"Well, if that comes, you know I—love you, Tita."
He tries to take her hand.
"Don't touch me!" says Tita vehemently. She pushes his hand from her; such a disdainful little push. "Oh, I thought you really did love me," says she, "but not like this!" Suddenly a sort of rage and of anger springs to life within her. She turns a face, singularly childish, yet with the sad first break of womanhood upon it, to his. "How dare you love me like this?" says she.
"Tita, listen to me——"
"No. Not I! You must be a fool to talk to me like this. Of what use is it? What good? If you loved me for ever, what good could come of it? I don't love you! Ah!"—she catches her breath and looks straight at him with an undying sense of indignation—"Maurice was right about you, and I was wrong. He saw through you, I didn't. I"—with a little inward glance into her own feelings—"I shan't forgive you for that, either!"
"You mean——"
"It really doesn't matter," says Tita, cruel for the first time in all her sweet young life. The light is so dim that she cannot see his face distinctly. Perhaps if she had, she would have been kinder. "I mean nothing. Only go; go at once! Do you hear?"
Her childish voice grows imperious.
"I am going," says Hescott dully—"in the morning."
"Oh! I'm glad"—smiting her hands together—"by the early train?"
"The earliest!"
Hescott's soul seems dying within him. All at once the truth is clear to him, or, at least, half of it. She may not love her husband, but, beyond all question, love for him—Hescott—has never entered into her mind.
"And a good thing too!" says Tita wrathfully. "I hope I shall never see you here again. I could never bear to look at you after this!" She is standing trembling with agitation before him, like one full-filled with wrath. "To-day—I shall not forget that. To-day—and that story"—she stops as if choking—"what did you mean by telling that story?" demands she, almost violently. "Everyone there knew what you meant. It dragged me down to the ground. I hated you for it! You invented it. You know you did, just to humiliate him! You think Maurice hates me, but he doesn't. It is a lie!" She pauses, her lovely eyes aflame. "It is a lie!" she repeats passionately.
"If so——" begins Hescott, but in so low a tone, and so dead, that she scarcely heeds it.
"And to call me an angel before them all. Ah! I could read through you. So could everyone. It was an insult! I won't be called an angel. I am just what Maurice is, and no more. I wonder Maurice didn't kill you—and he would, only you were his guest. So would I—only——"
She breaks off. The tears are running down her cheeks. She makes a little swift turn of her body towards him.
"Oh, Tom! and I did so believe in you!"
There is a short silence fraught with misery for one soul, at all events.
"Believe in me still," says Tom Hescott, in a queer, low tone. "Believe in me now—and for ever—to"—with passionate fondness—"the last moment of your life." He draws his breath sharply. "And now good-bye."
He struggles with himself, and, failing in the struggle, catches her suddenly to his breast, and there holds her to his heart for half a minute, perhaps.
Then he releases her. It is all over. He had not even tried to kiss her. He goes swiftly past her into the gloom beyond the dying lamp, and is lost.
Tita stands as if stricken dumb. For a second only. Then she is conscious of a hand being laid on her arm, of her being forcibly led forward to her own room, of the door being closed behind her.
She turns and looks up at Rylton. His eyes are blazing. He is dangerously white across cheeks and nose.
"There shall be an end of this!" says he.
CHAPTER XV.
HOW JEALOUSY RUNS RIOT IN OAKDEAN; AND HOW MARGARET TRIES TO THROW OIL UPON THE WATERS; AND HOW A GREAT CRASH COMES, WITH MANY WORDS AND ONE SURPRISE.
Tita has wrenched herself from his grasp.
"Of what?" demands she.
"Do you think you can hoodwink me any longer? There shall be an end of it—do you hear?" Rylton's face, as she now sees it in the light of the lamps in her room, almost frightens her. "I've had enough of it!"
"I don't understand you!" says Tita, standing well away from him, her face as white as ashes.
As for his face——
"Don't you?" violently. "Then I shall explain. I've had enough of what ruins men's lives and honours—of what leads to——"
"To?" says the girl, shrinking, yet leaning forward.
"To the devil—to the Divorce Court!" says Rylton, with increasing violence. "Do you think I did not see you and him just now—you—in his arms! Look here!"
He seizes her arm. There is a quick, sudden movement, and she is once again free. Such a little, fragile creature! She seems to have grown a woman during this encounter, and to be now tall to him, and strong and imperious.
"Don't!" says she, in a curious tone, so low as to be almost unheard, yet clear to him. "Don't come near me. Don't! What do you accuse me of?"
"You know right well. Do you think the whole world—our world, at all events—has not seen how it has been with you and——"
He cannot go on. He pauses, looking at her. He had meant to spare her feelings; but, to his surprise, she meets his gaze fully, and says, "Well?" in a questioning way.
At this his rage bursts forth.
"Are you quite shameless that you talk to me like this?" cries he. "Are you mad?" As he speaks, his fingers tighten on a piece of paper—evidently a letter—that he is holding in his right hand. "You must know that I saw you with him to-night—you—in his arms—you——"
Tita turns upon him.
"It is you who are mad," says she. She goes quite close to him. "He was going. He was bidding me good-bye." She pauses; her breath comes heavily, but she goes on: "He was bidding me good-bye, and—he told me he loved me——"
Rylton flings her from him.
"Do you pretend that was the first time?"
"The first—the first?" cries Tita passionately. "Do you think—do you dare to think that——"
"I refuse to tell you what I think. There is one thing more, however, to be said; you shall give up all further intercourse with your cousin."
Now, Tita had decided, during her late interview with Tom, that she would never willingly see him again; but here and thus to be ordered to do her own desire is more than she can bear.
"No, I shall not do that," says she.
"You shall," says Rylton, whose temper is now beyond his control.
"I shall not." Tita is standing back from him, her small flower-like head uplifted, her eyes on fire. "Oh, coward!" cries she. "You do right to speak to me like this—to me, who have no one to help me."
"You—you!" interrupts he. "Where is Hescott, then?"
His voice, his tone, his whole air, is one great insult.
Tita stands for one moment like a marble thing transfixed; then:
"Tom is not here," says she slowly, contemptuously, and with great meaning. "If he were—— In the meantime, I am in your power, so far that I must listen to you. There is no one to help me. I haven't a living soul in the wide world to stand by me, and you know it."
Here the door is thrown open, and Margaret comes in, pale, uneasy. By a mere chance she had left her room to place a letter for the early post in the box in the corridor outside, and had then seen Hescott going down the corridor (unconscious of Rylton coming up behind him)—had seen the latter's rather rough impelling of Tita into her bedroom, and—— And afraid of consequences, she had at last smothered her dreadful repugnance to interfering with other people's business, and had gone swiftly to Tita's door. Even then she was on the point of giving up—of being false to her principles—when Tita's voice, a little high, a little strained, had frightened her. It had been followed by an angry answer from Rylton. Margaret opened the door and went in.
Tita is standing with her back to a small table, her hands behind her, resting upon it, steadying her. She is facing Rylton, and every one of her small beautiful features breathes defiance—a defiance which seems to madden Rylton. His face is terribly white, and he has caught his under lip with his teeth—a bad sign with him.
"Maurice, it is not her fault. Tita, forgive me! I heard—I saw—I feared something." The gentle Margaret seems all broken up, and very agitated. After a pause, as if to draw her breath—a pause not interrupted, so great is the amazement of the two belligerents before her et her so sudden appearance—she addresses herself solely to Sir Maurice. "She had been with me," she begins. "It was the merest chance her leaving me just then; she was going to her own room."
But Tita cuts he short.
"I forbid you, Margaret!" cries she violently. "Be silent! I tell you I will not have myself either excused or explained. Do not arrange a defence for me. I will not be defended."
"Let me explain, my dearest—do let me explain," entreats Margaret earnestly. "It is for your good."
"It is not; and even if it were, I should not allow it. Besides, there is nothing to explain. I was only bidding good-bye to Tom!" She pauses, and tears spring to her eyes—tears half angry, half remorseful. "Oh, poor Tom!" cries she. "He loves me!" Her breast rises and falls rapidly, and, after a struggle with herself, she bursts out crying. "He was my one friend, I think! And I was so unkind to him! I told him I should never ask him here again! I was abominable to him! And all for nothing—nothing at all. Only because he said he—loved me!"
She is sobbing passionately now.
"Tita," says Rylton; he takes a step towards her.
"As for you," cries she wildly, putting up her hands as if to keep him far from her, "I wish I had been born a beggar. Then," slowly, and in a voice vibrating with scorn—"then I should not have been chosen by you!"
The cut goes home. For a second Rylton winces, then his fingers close even more tightly over the paper he is holding, and a cynical smile crosses his lips.
"You believe much in money," says he.
"I have reason to do so," coldly. The strange smile on his lips has caught her attention, and has killed the more vehement form of her passion. "It induced you to marry me! Your mother told me so!"
"Did she?" He is smiling still. "Well, all that is at an end." Something in his voice makes Margaret look quickly at him, and he flings the letter he has been crushing in his hand to her. "Read that!" says he.
Margaret catches it, opens it hurriedly, and reads. Her face grows very pale. She looks up.
"You got it?"
"By the night mail, two hours ago."
"What is it?" demands Tita imperiously.
She had taken no notice of his giving the letter to Margaret; but now she is sure that some mystery lies in it—a mystery that has something to do with her.
Margaret regards her piteously.
"My dear—I——"
She breaks down, and looks now at Rylton as if reproaching him for having cast this task upon her shoulders. Rylton shakes his head.
"From you—it will be kinder," says he.
"What is it?" asks Tita again, taking a step towards Margaret, and holding out her hand for the letter.
"Your money!" falters Margaret nervously.
"Yes—yes!"
"It is all gone!"
"Gone?"
"All! There is nothing left," says Margaret, pale as ashes.
"Gone!" Tita repeats the word once or twice, as a child might, trying to learn a new syllable; she seems a little stunned. Then suddenly her whole face grows bright; it wakes into a new life as it were. "Is it all gone?" asks she.
"Yes, my dearest girl, I am afraid so. But you must not be unhappy,
Tita; I——"
"Oh, unhappy!" cries the girl, in a high clear tone, one full of fresh, sweet courage and delight. She walks straight up to Rylton. "Now I can leave you!" says she.
If she had been planning a revenge, she could hardly have arranged it better. Rylton looks back at her. He is silent, but she reads the disturbance of his soul in his firmly shut mouth, and the little, quick, flittering frown that draws his brows together in momentary rapidity. He had thought many things of her, but that she should hail with rapture the ruin that seemed to give her a chance of escape from him—that thought had not been his.
In a moment, however, he has pulled himself together. He tells himself he sees at once the right course to pursue. In other words, he has decided on conquering her.
"You shall certainly not do that," says he icily.
"I shall, however." She almost laughs as she steps back from him, and up to Margaret. There is an air about her as though she had snapped her pretty fingers in his face. "Now you must help me to gain my living," cries she gaily. "'A child of the people' (I quote your mother again)," smiling at Rylton, "I will go back to the people."
"It is not quite so bad as that," says Margaret, who has been studying the fatal letter with a view of tearing some good out of it. "It seems that when these speculations that your uncle made with your money all failed—and these failures have been going on for years—that still he tried to keep up his credit with you by—by sacrificing all his own money, and——"
"Poor old Uncle George," says the girl softly. For the first time she seems sorry for the misfortune that has fallen on her house. "Perhaps I can go to him, and help him. I dare say, now he is down in the world, he might be a little kinder to me."
"Impossible, Tita. He has gone abroad," says Margaret, who, as she tells herself miserably, is developing into a determined liar!
Uncle George, so runs the letter, has committed suicide. Truly he has gone abroad with a vengeance, and no man knoweth whither.
Tita sighs. It is, to tell truth, a sigh of relief. Uncle George had not been palatable to her.
"Well, I can earn something."
"You need not that," says Margaret. "It seems there is from two to three hundred a year left to you that cannot be disputed. It should be sufficient to——"
"I can live on half that!" cries Tita eagerly.
"You shall live with me," says Rylton, breaking in with cold anger.
"You are my wife. You shall not leave me."
Tita makes a little gesture.
"Why waste time over it?" says she. "I shall leave you as soon as ever I can. To-morrow. I am afraid it is too late to-night. I should have gone any way, after what you said to me just now——"
"After what he said to you, you mean!" bursts in Rylton violently, losing all control over his temper. "You were going with him——"
"Maurice!" Margaret has stepped between them. "How dare you speak to her like that?" says she, her calm, kind face transfigured. "I hope to see you ashamed of yourself to-morrow. Be quiet, Tita. I will look after you." She turns again hurriedly to Rylton, who is looking very white and breathing heavily, with his eyes immovably fixed on Tita. "She will come with me—to my house to-morrow," says Margaret. "You will, Tita?"
"Oh yes, to you!" cries Tita, running to her, and flinging herself into her arms. "You are the only one who—of his family"—with a baleful glance at Rylton over her shoulder—"who has been kind to me!"
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW MAURICE TELLS HIS MOTHER OF THE GREAT FIASCO; AND HOW SHE RECEIVES THE NEWS.
The guests have all gone! The morning train had swallowed up the
Hescotts, and the eleven o'clock had disposed of the rest. Only the
Dowager Lady Rylton and Margaret still remain.
The latter has decided on going by the evening train and taking Tita with her, deeming it best to separate husband and wife for a little while, until the calamity be overpast for a few weeks, at all events. As for Tessie, she had come with a determination to linger on until Christmas with her son and his wife, though asked for three weeks only; and it is her son's pleasing task to be obliged now to explain to her why and wherefore she must go back at once to the old home—to The Place—to the old home partially saved from ruin by his unhappy marriage, and now doomed to a sure destruction because of the loss of the fortune that had been the primary motive in the making of that marriage.
Rylton got through the telling of his lamentable tale more easily than he could have supposed possible. Whilst walking up the stairs to his mother's room, he had tried to compose certain forms of speech that might let the whole affair "down easy," to quote from the modern English language, but had failed utterly. Yet, when on the spot, he had run glibly through it all—coldly—almost without feeling. And his mother had heard him as coldly, until she learned all hope was at an end—as far as Tita's thousands were concerned.
Then she gave way to hysterics!
And even now, when, by the help of a wet sponge and a maid and a bottle of champagne, he has pulled her through, sufficient at all events to be able to talk rationally, she is still in the very lowest depths of despair.
"And to think you should have sacrificed yourself for a mere 'person' like that! A little"—sob—"wretched nobody. Oh! if your father could only see you now! A creature of no family, no manners, no——"
"Who are you talking of, mother? My father?"
"If you can be frivolous at this moment, Maurice, you can be frivolous for ever," says his mother, weeping (presumably) behind her little lace rag, her voice like a dagger.
"I'm far from that," says Maurice, flinging himself into a chair. "But the fact is, mother, let us leave Tita out of this affair. I object to hearing her—er—criticised by you—or anyone."
Tessie weeps afresh.
"The soul of honour," breathes she, apostrophizing the ceiling. "But I cannot let you, Maurice, be so deceived by a mere swindler such as she is. Do you for a moment imagine—ah yes!" throwing up her hands and plainly admiring Maurice with great fervour—"you probably do; you have a soul, Maurice, a great soul, inherited from me! But I shall not permit that little vulgar fraud of a girl to demoralize it. Of course she knew all about her uncle's speculations—and married you gladly, knowing what the end would be. Oh! my poor boy!"
Lady Rylton retires again behind her lace rag.
"That will do," says Maurice curtly.
It seems almost funny to him that he, who has been condemning Tita all the night and morning in his heart, can now be so violently angry with another fellow-creature for decrying her.
"Of course, I know. I understand," says Tessie, still weeping, "it is always so painful to know that one has been thoroughly taken in. No wonder you can't listen even to your own mother with common patience. I excuse you, Maurice. I often had to excuse your dear father. Both you and he were a little weak—a little noble, perhaps—but well, you required someone to look after you. And I—poor, poor I—what could I do?" Tessie shakes her head mournfully from side to side. "And as for this miserable little deception——"
"Look here, mother——"
"Oh! I know, I know. It is not the nice thing to do, of course, but alone with one's only son one may waive a point and condole with him on the abominable qualities of the woman he has chosen to be his wife—— Dear Maurice, you should be careful. Didn't you see that footstool? I quite thought you kicked it. And her laugh. Do you know it used to hurt me?"
"Not until after our marriage, however," says Rylton, who is now a little strung.
"Oh! no wonder you reproach me," says his mother. "I shall for ever reproach myself. Such a person—without a penny—to fling herself into your arms."
"Ah! she had a penny then," says Maurice.
"Then? Yes! Do you think I should have countenanced your marriage otherwise?"
"My dear mother, of course not. I know you too well for that."
His irony is thrown away upon Tessie, who is not equal to these drags upon her intellect, and as a fact Rylton is scarcely listening to her; his whole soul is in a turmoil. He scarcely knows what he wants or what he does not want—whom he loves or hates. Only Tita—Tita is always before him; and as hate is stronger than love, as some folk have it (though they lie), he believes that all his thoughts grow with a cruel persistence of detestation towards the small, ill-tempered child whom he has married.
"At all events she knew what she was about," says Tessie, flinging down her handkerchief and speaking with a touch of viciousness. "She knew perfectly how she stood with her wretched uncle before she married you. No doubt they arranged it between them. She was fully aware of the state of her finances, and so was the uncle. So glad that miserable old person is out of the way for ever, of making young men of family marry young women of no family, who have not even money to recommend them. I must say your—I shudder to utter the word, Maurice—your wife—is as thoroughly dishonest a person as——" Tessie pauses, and casts a furtive glance at him. "After all, there may be a hope for you, Maurice. That cousin! So prononcée the whole thing—so unmistakable. And once a divorce was established——"