"You have no right to be her teacher."
"Right! right!" cried Wyvis, impatiently "I am tired of this cuckoo-cry about my rights! I have the right to do what I choose, to get what pleasure out of life I can, to do my best for myself. It is everybody"s right, and he is only a hypocrite who denies it."
"There is one limitation," said Janetta. "Get what you can for yourself, if you like--it seems to me a somewhat selfish view--as long as you don"t injure anybody else."
"Whom do I injure?" he asked, looking at her defiantly in the face.
"Margaret."
He dropped his eyes, and the defiance went suddenly out of his look and voice.
"Injure her?" he said, in a very low tone. "Surely, you know, I wouldn"t do _that_--to save my life."
Janetta looked at him mutely. The words were a revelation. There was a pause, during which she heard, as in a dream, the sound of children"s voices and children"s feet along the pa.s.sages of the house. Julian and Tiny were running riot; but she felt, for the time being, as if she had nothing to do with them: their interests did not touch her: she dwelt in a world apart. Hitherto Wyvis had stood, hat in hand, as if he were ready to go at a moment"s notice; but now he changed his att.i.tude. He seated himself determinedly, put down his hat, and looked back at her.
"Well," he said, "I see that I must explain myself if I mean to make my peace with you, Janetta. I am, perhaps, not so bad as you think me. I have not mentioned to Miss Adair that Julian"s mother is alive, because I consider myself a free man. Julian"s mother, once my wife, has divorced me, and is, I believe, on the point of marrying again. Surely in that case I am free to marry too."
"Divorced you?" Janetta repeated, with dilating eyes.
"Yes, divorced me. She has gone out to America and managed it there. It is easy enough in some of the States to get divorced from an absent wife or husband, as no doubt you know. Incompatibility of temper was the alleged reason. I believe she is going to marry a Chicago man--something in pork."
"And you are legally free?"
"She says so. I fancy there is a legal hitch somewhere but I have not yet consulted my lawyers. We were married by the Catholic rite in France, and the Catholic Church will probably consider us married still.
But Margaret is not a Catholic--nor am I."
"And you think," said Janetta, very slowly, "of marrying Margaret?"
He looked up at her and laughed, a little uneasily.
"You think she won"t have me?"
"I don"t know. I think you don"t know her yet, Wyvis."
"I dare say not," said her cousin. Then he broke out in quite a different tone: "No wonder I don"t; she"s a perpetual revelation to me.
I never saw anything like her--so pure, so spotless, so exquisite. It"s like looking at a work of art--a bit of delicate china, or a picture by Francia or Guido. Something holy and serene about her--something that sets her apart from the ordinary world. I can"t define it: but it"s there. I feel myself made of a coa.r.s.e, common clay in her presence: I want to go down on my knees and serve her like a queen. That"s how I feel about Margaret."
"Ah!" said Janetta, "my princess of dreams. That is what I used to call her. That is what I--used to feel."
"Don"t you feel it now?" said Wyvis, sitting up and staring at her.
Janetta hesitated. "Margaret is my dear friend, and I love her. But I am older--perhaps I can"t feel exactly in that way about her now."
"You talk as if you were a s.e.xagenarian," said Wyvis, exploding into genial laughter. He looked suddenly brighter and younger, as if his outburst of emotion had wonderfully relieved him. "I am much older than you, and yet I see her in the same light. What else is there to say about her? She is perfect--there is not much to discuss in perfection."
"She is most lovely--most sweet," said Janetta, warmly. "And yet--the very things you admire may stand in your way, Wyvis. She is very innocent of the world. And if you have won her--her--affection before you have told her your history----"
"You think this wretched first marriage of mine will stand in the way?"
"I do. With Margaret and with her parents."
Wyvis frowned again. "I had better make sure of her--marry her at once, and tell her afterwards," he said. But perhaps he said it only to see what Janetta would reply.
"You would not do that, Wyvis?"
"I don"t know."
"But you want to be worthy of her?"
"I shall never be that so it"s no good trying."
"She would never forgive you if you married her without telling her the truth."
Wyvis laughed scornfully. "You know nothing about it. A woman will forgive anything to the man she loves."
"Not a meanness!" said the girl, sharply.
"Yes, meanness, deceit, lies, anything--so long as it was done for her sake."
"I don"t believe that would be the case with Margaret. Once disgust her, and you lose her love."
"Then she can"t have much to give," retorted Wyvis.
Janetta was silent. In her secret heart she did not think that Margaret _could_ love very deeply--that, indeed, she had not much to give.
"Well, what"s the upshot?" said her cousin, at last, in a dogged tone.
"Are you satisfied at last?"
"I shall be better satisfied when you make things plain to the Adairs.
You have no right to win Margaret"s heart in this secret way. You blamed Cuthbert for making love to Nora. It is far worse for you to do it to Margaret Adair."
"I am so much beneath her, am I not?" said Wyvis, with a sneer. And then he once more spoke eagerly. "I _am_ beneath her: I am as the dust under her feet. Don"t you think I know that? I"ll tell you what, Janetta, when I first saw her and spoke to her--here, in this room, if you remember--I thought that she was like a being from another world. I had never seen anyone like her. She is the fairest, sweetest of women, and I would not harm her for the world."
"I don"t know whether I ought even to listen to you," said Janetta, in a troubled voice and with averted head. "You know, many people would say that you were in the wrong altogether--that you were not free----"
"Then they would say a lie! I am legally free, I believe, and morally free, I am certain. I thank G.o.d for it. I have suffered enough."
He looked so stern, so uncompromising, that Janetta hastened to take refuge in concrete facts.
"But you will tell Margaret everything?"
"In my own good time."
"Do promise me that you will not marry her without letting her know--if ever it comes, to a talk of your marriage."
"_If ever?_ It will come very soon, I hope. But I"ll promise nothing.
And you must not make mischief."
"I am like you--I will promise nothing."