Victoria"s excitement was infecting him.
Victoria did not answer. Mary stood before them, her eyes downcast before the drama. She was waiting for orders.
"Can"t you speak?" growled Cairns. "Who is it?"
Victoria found her voice at last.
"My brother," she said hoa.r.s.ely.
Cairns did not say a word. He walked once up and once down the room, stopped before the mirror to settle his tie. Then turned to Mary.
"Tell the gentleman Mrs Ferris can"t see him!"
Mary turned to go. There was a sound of footsteps in the dining-room.
The b.u.t.ton of the door turned twice as if somebody was trying to open it. The door was locked but Cairns almost leaped towards it. Victoria stopped him.
"No," she said, "let me have it out. Tell Mr Wren I"m coming, Mary."
Mary turned away. The incident was fading from her mind as a stone fades away as it falls into an abyss. Victoria clung to Cairns and whispered in his ear.
"Tom, go away, go away. Come back in an hour. I beg you."
"No, old girl, I"m going to see you through," said Cairns doggedly.
"No, no, don"t." There was fear in her voice. "I must have it out. Go away, for my sake, Tom."
She pushed him gently into the hall, forced him to pick up his hat and stick and closed the door behind him. She braced herself for the effort; for a second the staircase shivered before her eyes like a road in the heat.
"Now for it," she said, "I"m in for a row."
A pleasant little tingle was in her veins. She opened the dining-room door. It was not very light. There was a slight singing in her ears.
She saw nothing before her except a man"s legs clad in worn grey trousers where the knees jutted forward sharply. With an effort she raised her eyes and looked Edward in the face.
He was pale and thin as ever. A ragged wisp of yellow hair hung over the left side of his forehead. He peered at her through his silver-mounted gla.s.ses. His hands were twisting at his watch chain, quickly, nervously, like a mouse in a wheel. As she looked at his weak mouth his insignificance was revealed to her. Was this, this creature with the vague idealistic face, the high shoulders, something to be afraid of?
Pooh!
"Well, Edward?" she said, involuntarily aggressive.
Wren did not answer. His hands suddenly stopped revolving.
"Well, Edward?" she repeated. "So you"ve found me?"
"Yes," he said at length. "I . . . . Yes, I"ve found you." The movement of his hands began again.
"Well?"
"I know. I"ve found out. . . . I went to Finsbury."
"Oh? I suppose you mean you tracked me from my old rooms. I suppose Betty told you I . . . my new occupation."
Wren jumped.
"d.a.m.n," he growled. "d.a.m.n you."
Victoria smiled. Edward swearing. It was too funny. What an awful thing it was to have a sense of humour.
"You seem to know all about it," she said smoothly. "But what do you want?"
"How dare you," growled Edward. "A woman like you. . . . ."
A hard look came into Victoria"s eyes.
"That will do Edward, I know my own business."
"Yes, a dirty business." A hot flush spread over the man"s thin cheeks.
"You little cur." Victoria smiled; she could feel her lips baring her eye teeth. "Fool."
Edward stared at her. Pa.s.sion was stifling his words.
"It"s a lot you know about life, schoolmaster," she sneered. "Who are you to preach at me? Is it your business if I choose to sell my body instead of selling my labour?"
"You"re disgraced." His voice went down to a hoa.r.s.e whisper.
"Disgraced."
Victoria felt a wave of heat pa.s.s over her body.
"Disgraced, you fool? Will anybody ever teach you what disgrace is?
There"s no such thing as disgrace for a woman. All women are disgraced when they"re born. We"re parasites, toys. That"s all we are. You"ve got two kinds of uses for us, lords and masters! One kind is honourable labour, as you say, namely the work undertaken by what you call the lower cla.s.ses; the other"s a share in the nuptial couch, whether illegal or legal. Yes, your holy matrimony is only another name for my profession."
"You"ve no right to say that," cried Edward. "You"re trying to drag down marriage to your level. When a woman marries she gives herself because she loves; then her sacrifice is sublime." He stopped for a second.
Idealism, sentimentalism, other names for ignorance of life, clashed in his self-conscious brain without producing light. "Oh, Victoria," he said, "you don"t know how awful it is for me to find you like this, my little sister . . . of course you can"t love him . . . if you"d married him it would have been different."
"Ah, Edward, so that"s your philosophy. You say that though I don"t love him, if I"d married him it would have been different. So you won"t let me surrender to a man unless I can trick him or goad him into binding himself to me for life. If I don"t love him I may marry him and make his life a h.e.l.l and I shall be a good woman; but I mustn"t live with him illegally so that he may stick to me only so long as he cares for me."
"I didn"t say that," stammered Edward. "Of course, it"s wrong to marry a man you don"t care for . . . but marriage is different, it sanctifies."
"Sanctifies! Nothing sanctifies anything. Our deeds are holy or unholy in themselves. Oh, understand me well, I claim no ethical revelation; I don"t care whether my deeds are holy or not. I judge nothing, not even myself. All I say is that your holy bond is a farce; if women were free--that is, trained, able and allowed to earn fair wages for fair labour--then marriage might be holy. But marriage for a woman is a monetary contract. It means that she is kept, clothed, amused; she is petted like a favourite dog, indulged like a spoiled child. In exchange she gives her body."
"No, no."
"Yes, yes. And the difference between a married woman and me is her superior craft, her ability to secure a grip upon a man. You respect her because she is permanent, as you respect a vested interest."
The flush rose again in Edward"s cheeks. As he lost ground he fortified his obstinacy.
"You"ve sold yourself," he said quickly, "gone down into the gutter . . . . Oh!"
"The gutter." Victoria was so full of contempt that it almost hurt her.
"Of course I"m in the gutter. I always was in the gutter. I was in the gutter when I married and my husband boarded and lodged me to be his favourite. I was in the gutter when I had to kow-tow to underbred people; to be a companion is to prost.i.tute friendship. You don"t mind that, do you? I was in the gutter in the tea shops, when I decoyed men into coming to the place because they could touch me, breathe me. I"m in the gutter now, but I"m in the right one. I"ve found the one that"s going to make me free."