"I"m exceedingly sorry for her. I don"t know what she thinks she said."
"Well, that she asked you why you came so often to Grosvenor Place. I don"t see anything so awful in that, if you did go."
"Yes, I went very often. I liked to go."
"Now, that"s exactly where I wish to prevent a misconception," said Lady Davenant. "If you liked to go you had a reason for liking, and Laura Wing was the reason, wasn"t she?"
"I thought her charming, and I think her so now more than ever."
"Then you are a dear good man. Vous faisiez votre cour, in short."
Mr. Wendover made no immediate response: the two sat looking at each other. "It isn"t easy for me to talk of these things," he said at last; "but if you mean that I wished to ask her to be my wife I am bound to tell you that I had no such intention."
"Ah, then I"m at sea. You thought her charming and you went to see her every day. What then did you wish?"
"I didn"t go every day. Moreover I think you have a very different idea in this country of what const.i.tutes--well, what const.i.tutes making love.
A man commits himself much sooner."
"Oh, I don"t know what _your_ odd ways may be!" Lady Davenant exclaimed, with a shade of irritation.
"Yes, but I was justified in supposing that those ladies did: they at least are American."
""They," my dear sir! For heaven"s sake don"t mix up that nasty Selina with it!"
"Why not, if I admired her too? I do extremely, and I thought the house most interesting."
"Mercy on us, if that"s your idea of a nice house! But I don"t know--I have always kept out of it," Lady Davenant added, checking herself. Then she went on, "If you are so fond of Mrs. Berrington I am sorry to inform you that she is absolutely good-for-nothing."
"Good-for-nothing?"
"Nothing to speak of! I have been thinking whether I would tell you, and I have decided to do so because I take it that your learning it for yourself would be a matter of but a very short time. Selina has bolted, as they say."
"Bolted?" Mr. Wendover repeated.
"I don"t know what you call it in America."
"In America we don"t do it."
"Ah, well, if they stay, as they do usually abroad, that"s better. I suppose you didn"t think her capable of behaving herself, did you?"
"Do you mean she has left her husband--with some one else?"
"Neither more nor less; with a fellow named Crispin. It appears it all came off last evening, and she had her own reasons for doing it in the most offensive way--publicly, clumsily, with the vulgarest bravado.
Laura has told me what took place, and you must permit me to express my surprise at your not having divined the miserable business."
"I saw something was wrong, but I didn"t understand. I"m afraid I"m not very quick at these things."
"Your state is the more gracious; but certainly you are not quick if you could call there so often and not see through Selina."
"Mr. Crispin, whoever he is, was never there," said the young man.
"Oh, she was a clever hussy!" his companion rejoined.
"I knew she was fond of amus.e.m.e.nt, but that"s what I liked to see. I wanted to see a house of that sort."
"Fond of amus.e.m.e.nt is a very pretty phrase!" said Lady Davenant, laughing at the simplicity with which her visitor accounted for his a.s.siduity. "And did Laura Wing seem to you in her place in a house of that sort?"
"Why, it was natural she should be with her sister, and she always struck me as very gay."
"That was your enlivening effect! And did she strike you as very gay last night, with this scandal hanging over her?"
"She didn"t talk much," said Mr. Wendover.
"She knew it was coming--she felt it, she saw it, and that"s what makes her sick now, that at _such_ a time she should have challenged you, when she felt herself about to be a.s.sociated (in people"s minds, of course) with such a vile business. In people"s minds and in yours--when you should know what had happened."
"Ah, Miss Wing isn"t a.s.sociated----" said Mr. Wendover. He spoke slowly, but he rose to his feet with a nervous movement that was not lost upon his companion: she noted it indeed with a certain inward sense of triumph. She was very deep, but she had never been so deep as when she made up her mind to mention the scandal of the house of Berrington to her visitor and intimated to him that Laura Wing regarded herself as near enough to it to receive from it a personal stain. "I"m extremely sorry to hear of Mrs. Berrington"s misconduct," he continued gravely, standing before her. "And I am no less obliged to you for your interest."
"Don"t mention it," she said, getting up too and smiling. "I mean my interest. As for the other matter, it will all come out. Lionel will haul her up."
"Dear me, how dreadful!"
"Yes, dreadful enough. But don"t betray me."
"Betray you?" he repeated, as if his thoughts had gone astray a moment.
"I mean to the girl. Think of her shame!"
"Her shame?" Mr. Wendover said, in the same way.
"It seemed to her, with what was becoming so clear to her, that an honest man might save her from it, might give her his name and his faith and help her to traverse the bad place. She exaggerates the badness of it, the stigma of her relationship. Good heavens, at that rate where would some of us be? But those are her ideas, they are absolutely sincere, and they had possession of her at the opera. She had a sense of being lost and was in a real agony to be rescued. She saw before her a kind gentleman who had seemed--who had certainly seemed----" And Lady Davenant, with her fine old face lighted by her bright sagacity and her eyes on Mr. Wendover"s, paused, lingering on this word. "Of course she must have been in a state of nerves."
"I am very sorry for her," said Mr. Wendover, with his gravity that committed him to nothing.
"So am I! And of course if you were not in love with her you weren"t, were you?"
"I must bid you good-bye, I am leaving London." That was the only answer Lady Davenant got to her inquiry.
"Good-bye then. She is the nicest girl I know. But once more, mind you don"t let her suspect!"
"How can I let her suspect anything when I shall never see her again?"
"Oh, don"t say that," said Lady Davenant, very gently.
"She drove me away from her with a kind of ferocity."
"Oh, gammon!" cried the old woman.
"I"m going home," he said, looking at her with his hand on the door.