"That"s not a man"s duty, it seems to me. Woman to woman, man to man. I wish you would do it, Rosalind!"
"Oh, no; I have not a _mother"s_ right," said she, softly.
But the remark had an effect which she had not antic.i.p.ated.
"That is true. It is a mother who should tell a girl her duty. Poor Lesley"s mother has not done all that she might do in that respect. Our unhappy quarrel has caused her to represent me to the girl in very dark colors, I believe. But I have lately been wondering whether that might not be amended. Did you hear that man"s taunt this afternoon--about the wife that had left me? I can"t endure that sort of thing. Think of the harm it does. And then the child must needs go and sing "Home, Sweet Home." To me, whose home was broken up by _her_ mother. I had the greatest possible difficulty in sitting through that song, Rosalind. And I said to myself that I was a great fool to put up with this state of things."
His sentences were unusually short, his tones abrupt; both covered an amount of agitation which Mrs. Romaine had not expected to see. She sat down and remained silent and motionless: she even held her breath, not well knowing what to expect. Presently he resumed, in a lower tone--
"I know that if I alter existing arrangements I shall give myself some pain and discomfort, and inflict more, perhaps, upon others; but I think this is inevitable. I am determined, if possible, to end my solitary life, and the solitary life also of a woman who is--I may say it now--dear to me." He spoke with deliberate gravity. Mrs. Romaine"s pulses beat faster: the hot color began to steal into her cheeks. "I never wished to inflict pain upon her. I have always regretted the years of separation and loneliness that we have both spent. So I have resolved--perhaps that is too strong a word--I am thinking of asking her to share my home with me again."
"Again?" The word escaped Rosalind"s lips before she knew that she had spoken.
"Yes, once again," said Caspar, quite unconscious of her emotion. "We did not get on very well when we lived together, but we are older now, and I think that if we made a fresh start it _might_ be possible--I wonder if Alice would consent?"
There was a moment"s pause. Then--"You think of asking Lady Alice to come back to you?" said Mrs. Romaine, in a hard, measured voice, which made Caspar look at her with some transient feeling of surprise. But he put down the change of tone to her astonishment at his proposition, and went on unmoved.
"I thought of it--yes. It would be much better for Lesley."
"Are you so devoted to Lesley that you want to sacrifice your whole life for her?" asked Rosalind, in the same hard, strained voice.
"My whole life? Well, no--but you exaggerate, Rosalind. I do not sacrifice my whole life by having my wife and daughter in my house."
"That is plausibly said. But one has to consider what sort of wife and daughter yours are, and what part of your life will have to be devoted to them."
Brooke sat and stroked his beard. He began to wish that he had not mentioned his project to Mrs. Romaine. But he could not easily tell her to hold her tongue.
"I am not going to presume," said Rosalind, "to say anything unkind--anything harsh of your wife: I know I have not the right, and I know that you would--very properly--resent it. So don"t be afraid. But I only want to remind you that Lady Alice is not even where she was when, as an over-sensitive, easily-offended girl, she fled from you. She has had twelve years of life under conditions differing most entirely from yours. She has lived in the fashionable world--a world which of all others you dislike. What sympathy can there be between you? She may be perfect in her own line, but it is not your line: you are different; and you will never be happy together."
"That is a hard thing to say, Rosalind."
"It will be a harder thing for you if you try it. Believe me, Caspar"--her voice trembled as she used his Christian name, which she very seldom did--"believe me that if it would be for your happiness I would welcome the change! But when I remember the discord, the incompatibility, the want of sympathy, which used to grieve me in those old days, I cannot think----"
She stopped short, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Lady Alice could not understand you--could not appreciate you," she said. "And it was hard--hard for your friends to look on and say--_nothing_!"
Brooke rose abruptly from his chair. "No one ever had a truer friend than I have in you," he said, huskily. "But it seems to me that Alice may have changed with the lapse of years; she may have become easier to satisfy, better able to sympathize----"
"Does she show that spirit in the way she has spoken of you to your daughter? What do you gather from Lesley as to her state of mind?" said Mrs. Romaine, keenly.
He paused. She knew very well that the question was a hard one for him to answer.
"Ah," he said, with a heavy sigh, "you know as well as I do."
Then he turned aside, and for an instant or two there was a silence.
"I suppose it would not be wise," he continued, at last. "But I wish that it could have been done. It would be better in many ways. A man and wife ought to live together. A girl ought to live with her parents.
We are all in false positions. And, perhaps, if any one is to be sacrificed, it ought to be myself," he said, with a curious smile.
"You forget," said Mrs. Romaine with emotion, "that you sacrifice others in sacrificing yourself."
"Others? No, I don"t think so. You allude to my sister?"
"No--not your sister."
"Sophy could go on living with us and managing the household affairs,"
said Brooke, who had no conception of what poor Mrs. Romaine meant; "and she is not a person who would willingly interfere with other people"s views or opinions. Indeed, she carries the _laisser-faire_ principle almost to an extreme. Sophy is no proselytizer, thank G.o.d!"
"I did not mean Sophy: I meant your friends--old friends like myself,"
said Rosalind, desperately. "You will cast us all off--you will forget us--forget--_me_!"
There was unusual pa.s.sion in her voice. Then she hid her face in her hands and burst into tears. Brooke made two steps towards her, and stopped short.
"Rosalind!" he exclaimed. "You cannot think that! you cannot think that I shall ever forget old friends!"
Then he halted, and stood looking down at her, and biting his beard, which he was crushing up to his lips with one hand, after his fashion when he was embarra.s.sed or perplexed. Some glimmer of the truth had begun to manifest itself to him. A hot, red flush crossed his brow.
"Rosalind," he said, in a softer but also a colder tone, "you must not take this matter so much to heart. Rest a.s.sured that I--and my wife, if she comes back, and my daughter also--will always look upon you as a very dear and valued friend."
"I am so alone in the world," she said, wiping away her tears and slightly lifting her head. "I cannot bear to think that the day will come when I----"
She paused--perhaps purposely. But Caspar was resolved to treat the subject more lightly now.
"When you are without friends? Oh, that will never be. You are too kind and sympathetic to be without as many friends as you choose to have."
"And you--yourself----"
"Oh, I am of a very constant disposition," he said, cheerfully. "I suppose it is for that reason that I want Alice back. You know that in spite of all our disagreements, I have always held to it that I never saw a woman half as charming, half as attractive, as Alice."
This was a speech not calculated to soothe Mrs. Romaine"s wounded feelings, or to implant in her a liking for Lady Alice. For Mrs. Romaine was not very generous, and she was irritated by the thought that she had betrayed her own secret. She rose to her feet at once, with a quick and rather haughty gesture.
"You are indeed a model of constancy," she said. "Some men would resent insults, even if offered to them by wives. You are capable, it seems, of much forgetfulness and much forgiveness."
"Do you think that a fault?" asked Brooke, calmly. Her mood changed at once. She burst into a shrill little laugh.
"Oh, not at all. Most convenient--for the wife. There is one danger--you may incur the censure of more worldly men; but then you are too high-minded to care for that!"
Caspar shrugged his broad shoulders.
"I think I can take care of myself," he said, good-humoredly. "And now I must go. Pray don"t distress yourself on my account. I will not do anything rash."
They stood facing each other, she with her eyes down, he looking straight into her face. Some instinct told her not to break the spell by looking up. There was a conflict going on in Caspar Brooke"s mind--a conflict between pity (not love) and duty. He was a tender-hearted man, and it would have been very easy to him just then to have given her some friendly, comforting words, or even----
Yes, he acknowledged to himself, he would have liked to kiss those soft lips of hers, those downcast eyelids, slightly reddened by recent tears!
And he did not think that she would resent the caress.
But how could he ask his wife to return to him if he did this thing? As he had indicated by his words, he still loved Lady Alice. He had the courage to be faithful to her, too. For Caspar Brooke was a man of strong convictions, steadfast will, and stainless honor. However great the temptation might be, he was not going to do a thing that he knew he should afterwards regret.