"But--what?"
"I know what you might do, or may have done. I know just as well what you have never done and could never do."
"But I have done some horrible things, Seymour."
"They are past. Let us forget them."
"But--horrible things come back in one"s life! They are like _revenants_. After years--they rise up."
"What is the matter, Adela? Do tell me."
"I want to, but I"m afraid."
And directly she had told him that she felt less afraid.
"What are you afraid of?"
"I"m afraid of you."
"Of me?"
"Of what you may think of me, feel towards me, if I tell you."
"Then--you do care what I feel?"
"I care very much. I care terribly."
Sir Seymour uncrossed his legs and made a slight movement as if he were going to get up. Then he sat still and took a pull at his cigar, and then he said:
"You need not be afraid of me, Adela. I have made up my mind about you.
Do you know what that means? It means that you cannot surprise me. And I think it is surprise which oftenest brings about changes in feeling.
What is it? You say it is something to do with Miss Van Tuyn?"
"Yes, but my life is in it, too; a horrible bit of my life."
"What can I do unless you tell me?"
"That"s true."
She sat for a moment in silence gazing at him, at the lean figure, the weather-beaten face, the curly white hair, and at the dark eyes which were looking steadily at her, but not penetratingly, not cruelly. And then she sat straight up, took her arm from the sofa, folded her hands on her lap with an effort to make them look calm, and began to tell him.
She spoke very simply, very steadily. She dressed nothing up. She strove to diminish nothing. Her only aim was to be quite unemotional and perfectly truthful. She began with Beryl Van Tuyn"s acquaintance with Arabian, how she had met him in Garstin"s studio, and went on till she came to the night when she and Craven had seen them together at the _Bella Napoli_.
"I recognized the man Beryl was with," she said. "I knew him to be a blackguard."
She described her abrupt departure from the restaurant, Craven"s following her, her effort to persuade him to go back and to take Beryl home.
"I went home alone," she said, "and considered what I ought to do.
Finally I wrote Beryl a letter, it was something like this."
She gave him the gist of the letter. Seymour sat smoking and did not say a word. Her narrative had been so consecutive and plain that he had no need to ask any question. And she was glad of his silence. Any interruption, she felt, would have upset her, perhaps even have confused her.
"Beryl was not satisfied with that letter," she went on. "On the night when she had it--last night--she came to me to ask for an explanation.
I didn"t want to give one. I did my best to avoid giving one. But when I found she was obstinate, and would not drop this man unless I gave her my reasons for warning her against him, when I found she had even thought of marrying him, I felt that it was my duty to tell her everything. So I told her--this."
And then she told him all the truth about the affair of the jewels, emphasizing nothing, but omitting nothing. She looked away from him, turned her eyes towards the fire, and tried to feel very calm and very detached. It was all ten years ago. But did that make any difference?
For was she essentially different from the woman who had been Arabian"s victim?
Still Seymour sat as before and went on smoking. As she was gazing at the fire she did not know for certain whether he was still looking at her or not.
At last she had finished the personal part of her narrative, though she had still to tell him how Beryl had taken it and what had happened that day. Before going on to that she paused for a moment. And immediately she heard Seymour move. He got up and went slowly to the table where the whisky and Perrier water had been placed by Murgatroyd. Then she looked at him. He stood with his back to her. She saw him bend down and pour out a gla.s.s of the water. Without turning he lifted the gla.s.s to his mouth and drank. Then he put the gla.s.s down; and then he stood for a moment quite still, always keeping his back towards her. She wondered what he was looking at. That was the question in her mind. "What can Seymour be looking at?"
At last he turned round. She thought that his face looked unusually stern, and his bushy eyebrows seemed--so she fancied--to be drawn down low above his eyes.
"Go on--my dear," he said in a rather gruff and very low voice.
She quivered. She, perhaps, scarcely knew why. At the moment she really believed that she did not know why. Suddenly emotion began to gain on her. But she struggled resolutely against it.
"Aren"t you--don"t you mean to sit down again?" she said.
"No. I think I"ll stand."
And he came slowly to stand by the fire.
"Well," she began again, making a great effort, "I thought that was all.
I didn"t think there was anything more for me to do. But Beryl came back again to-night and begged me to help her. She is terrified of what he may do. I tried to rea.s.sure her. But it was no good."
And again she narrated, now with difficulty forcing herself to seem calm and unembarra.s.sed, exactly what had happened that day between Beryl Van Tuyn and herself, till she came to the moment when she had turned away from Beryl and had gone to stand by the fire. Then once more she paused and seemed seized by hesitation. As Sir Seymour said nothing, did not help her out, at last she went on:
"Then I thought of you. I had never meant to tell anyone but Beryl, but as _I_ could do nothing to help her, and as she is perhaps, really in danger--she is only a girl, and she spoke of the fascination of fear--I felt I must make a further effort to do something. And I thought of you."
"Why was that?" asked Sir Seymour, turning towards her, but not impulsively.
"Because I knew if anyone could stop this thing you could."
"That was your reason?"
"That--and--and I knew that I could never tell all this--about myself, I mean--to anyone but you. For ten years no one has known it."
"You felt you could tell me!"
The way in which he said those words was so inexpressive that Lady Sellingworth did not know what was the feeling behind them, whether it was astonishment, indignation, or something quite different.
"I--I didn"t want to--" She almost faltered, again full of fear, almost of terror. "I was afraid to. But I felt I could, and I had told Beryl so."
"I wonder what made you feel you could," he said, still in the same curiously inexpressive way.
She said nothing. She leaned back on the sofa and her hands began to move restlessly, nervously. She plucked at her dress, put a hand to the ruby pinned in the front of her bodice, lifted the hand to her face, laid it on the back of the sofa.