If boisterous good spirits can make a man agreeable at the dinner-table, then indeed Mr. Vimpany, on his return to the cottage, played the part of a welcome guest. He was inexhaustible in gallant attentions to his friend"s wife; he told his most amusing stories in his happiest way; he gaily drank his host"s fine white Burgundy, and praised with thorough knowledge of the subject the succulent French dishes; he tried Lord Harry with talk on politics, talk on sport, and (wonderful to relate in these days) talk on literature. The preoccupied Irishman was equally inaccessible on all three subjects. When the dessert was placed on the table--still bent on making himself agreeable to Lady Harry--Mr. Vimpany led the conversation to the subject of floriculture. In the interests of her ladyship"s pretty little garden, he advocated a complete change in the system of cultivation, and justified his revolutionary views by misquoting the published work of a great authority on gardening with such polite obstinacy that Iris (eager to confute him) went away to fetch the book. The moment he had entrapped her into leaving the room, the doctor turned to Lord Harry with a sudden change to the imperative mood in look and manner.
"What have you been about," he asked, "since we had that talk in the Gardens to-day? Have you looked at your empty purse, and are you wise enough to take my way of filling it?"
"As long as there"s the ghost of a chance left to me," Lord Harry replied, "I"ll take any way of filling my purse but yours."
"Does that mean you have found a way?"
"Do me a favour, Vimpany. Defer all questions till the end of the week."
"And then I shall have your answer?"
"Without fail, I promise it. Hush!"
Iris returned to the dining-room with her book; and polite Mr. Vimpany owned in the readiest manner that he had been mistaken.
The remaining days of the week followed each other wearily. During the interval, Lord Harry"s friend carefully preserved the character of a model guest--he gave as little trouble as possible. Every morning after breakfast the doctor went away by the train. Every morning (with similar regularity) he was followed by the resolute f.a.n.n.y Mere.
Pursuing his way through widely different quarters of Paris, he invariably stopped at a public building, invariably presented a letter at the door, and was invariably asked to walk in. Inquiries, patiently persisted in by the English maid, led in each case to the same result.
The different public buildings were devoted to the same benevolent purpose. Like the Hotel Dieu, they were all hospitals; and Mr.
Vimpany"s object in visiting them remained as profound a mystery as ever.
Early on the last morning of the week the answer from Lord Harry"s brother arrived. Hearing of it, Iris ran eagerly into her husband"s room. The letter was already scattered in fragments on the floor. What the tone of the Earl"s inhuman answer had been in the past time, that it was again now.
Iris put her arms round her husband"s neck. "Oh, my poor love, what is to be done?"
He answered in one reckless word: "Nothing!"
"Is there n.o.body else who can help us?" she asked.
"Ah, well, darling, there"s perhaps one other person still left,"
"Who is the person?"
"Who should it be but your own dear self?"
She looked at him in undisguised bewilderment: "Only tell me, Harry, what I can do?"
"Write to Mountjoy, and ask him to lend me the money."
He said it. In those shameless words, he said it. She, who had sacrificed Mountjoy to the man whom she had married, was now asked by that man to use Mountjoy"s devotion to her, as a means of paying his debts! Iris drew back from him with a cry of disgust.
"You refuse?" he said.
"Do you insult me by doubting it?" she answered.
He rang the bell furiously, and dashed out of the room. She heard him, on the stairs, ask where Mr. Vimpany was. The servant replied: "In the garden, my lord."
Smoking a cigar luxuriously in the fine morning air, the doctor saw his excitable Irish friend hastening out to meet him.
"Don"t hurry," he said, in full possession of his impudent good-humour; "and don"t lose your temper. Will you take my way out of your difficulties, or will you not? Which is it--Yes or No?"
"You infernal scoundrel--Yes!"
"My dear lord, I congratulate you."
"On what, sir?"
"On being as great a scoundrel as I am."
CHAPTER XLI
THE MAN IS FOUND.
THE unworthy scheme, by means of which Lord Harry had proposed to extricate himself from his pecuniary responsibilities, had led to serious consequences. It had produced a state of deliberate estrangement between man and wife.
Iris secluded herself in her own room. Her husband pa.s.sed the hours of every day away from the cottage; sometimes in the company of the doctor, sometimes among his friends in Paris. His wife suffered acutely under the self-imposed state of separation, to which wounded pride and keenly felt resentment compelled her to submit. No friend was near her, in whose compa.s.sionate advice she might have token refuge. Not even the sympathy of her maid was offered to the lonely wife.
With the welfare of Iris as her one end in view, f.a.n.n.y Mere honestly believed that it would be better and safer for Lady Harry if she and her husband finally decided on living separate lives. The longer my lord persisted in keeping the doctor with him as his guest, the more perilously he was a.s.sociated with a merciless wretch, who would be capable of plotting the ruin of anyone--man or woman, high person or low person--who might happen to be an obstacle in his way. So far as a person in her situation could venture on taking the liberty, the maid did her best to widen the breach between her master and her mistress.
While f.a.n.n.y was making the attempt to influence Lady Harry, and only producing irritation as the result, Vimpany was exerting stronger powers of persuasion in the effort to prejudice the Irish lord against any proposal for reconciliation which might reach him through his wife.
"I find an unforgiving temper in your charming lady," the doctor declared. "It doesn"t show itself on the surface, my dear fellow, but there it is. Take a wise advantage of circ.u.mstances--say you will raise no inconvenient objections, if she wants a separation by mutual consent. Now don"t misunderstand me. I only recommend the sort of separation which will suit our convenience. You know as well as I do that you can whistle your wife back again--"
Mr. Vimpany"s friend was rude enough to interrupt him, there.
"I call that a coa.r.s.e way of putting it," Lord Harry interposed.
"Put it how you like for yourself," the doctor rejoined. "Lady Harry may be persuaded to come back to you, when we want her for our grand project. In the meantime (for I am always a considerate man where women are concerned) we act delicately towards my lady, in sparing her the discovery of--what shall I call our coming enterprise?--venturesome villainy, which might ruin you in your wife"s estimation. Do you see our situation now, as it really is? Very well. Pa.s.s the bottle, and drop the subject for the present."
The next morning brought with it an event, which demolished the doctor"s ingenious arrangement for the dismissal of Iris from the scene of action. Lord and Lady Harry encountered each other accidentally on the stairs.
Distrusting herself if she ventured to look at him, Iris turned her eyes away from her husband. He misinterpreted the action as an expression of contempt. Anger at once inclined him to follow Mr.
Vimpany"s advice.
He opened the door of the dining-room, empty at that moment, and told Iris that he wished to speak with her. What his villainous friend had suggested that he should say, on the subject of a separation, he now repeated with a repellent firmness which he was far from really feeling. The acting was bad, but the effect was produced. For the first time, his wife spoke to him.
"Do you really mean it?" she asked,
The tone in which she said those words, sadly and regretfully telling its tale of uncontrollable surprise; the tender remembrance of past happy days in her eyes; the quivering pain, expressive of wounded love, that parted her lips in the effort to breathe freely, touched his heart, try as he might in the wretched pride of the moment to conceal it. He was silent.
"If you are weary of our married life," she continued, "say so, and let us part. I will go away, without entreaties and without reproaches.
Whatever pain I may feel, you shall not see it!" A pa.s.sing flush crossed her face, and left it pale again. She trembled under the consciousness of returning love--the blind love that had so cruelly misled her! At a moment when she most needed firmness, her heart was sinking; she resisted, struggled, recovered herself. Quietly, and even firmly, she claimed his decision. "Does your silence mean," she asked, "that you wish me to leave you?"
No man who had loved her as tenderly as her husband had loved her, could have resisted that touching self-control. He answered his wife without uttering a word--he held out his arms to her. The fatal reconciliation was accomplished in silence.
At dinner on that day Mr. Vimpany"s bold eyes saw a new sight, and Mr.
Vimpany"s rascally lips indulged in an impudent smile. My lady appeared again in her place at the dinner-table. At the customary time, the two men were left alone over their wine. The reckless Irish lord, rejoicing in the recovery of his wife"s tender regard, drank freely.