He had never had reason to regret his kindness. On the contrary, he and Katty had become, as time went on, closer and closer friends, and more and more had he come to miss her during her frequent absences from home.
Some months ago he had even ventured to tell her that he thought she gadded about a bit too much! Why couldn"t she be content to stay quietly at Rosedean? "Look at me and Laura," he had exclaimed. "We hardly ever go away for a holiday, and we very seldom pay a visit!" Katty had shaken her pretty head playfully: "Ah, but you don"t know how lonely I am sometimes! Laura is most dear and kind to me, but you know, G.o.dfrey, I don"t see her often----"
He had not liked to remind her that he very often did.
Then something happened which quite curiously quickened G.o.dfrey Pavely"s unavowed feeling for Katty. Oliver Tropenell, a virtual stranger to them all, came home from Mexico to spend the summer in England with his mother. And three times, during Oliver"s first fortnight in England, G.o.dfrey arrived at Rosedean to find the then stranger there. On these three occasions each man had tried to sit the other out, and finally they had left the house together. As a result of these meetings G.o.dfrey soon caught himself wondering with a mixture of feelings he did not care to a.n.a.lyse, whether Tropenell could possibly be thinking of marrying Katty?
He found the notion intolerable.
Then came a strange turn to the situation. Katty had gone away, on one of those tiresome little visits she was so fond of paying, and Providence, which means women, especially any woman placed in an ambiguous position, to stay quietly at home, had caught her out! She had fallen ill, when on a visit, of scarlet fever, and she had been compelled to stay away six weeks. During those weeks he, G.o.dfrey Pavely, and Oliver Tropenell had become friends--on more intimate terms of friendship than Pavely had ever expected to find himself with any man.
This was, of course, partly owing to the fortunate fact that Laura liked Oliver too, and didn"t seem to mind how often he came and went to The Chase.
But G.o.dfrey Pavely had a tenacious memory. He did not forget that for a little while, at any rate, Oliver had seemed to enjoy being in Katty"s company. And when Laura, more than once since Mrs. Winslow"s return to Rosedean, had suggested asking Katty in to dinner to meet Oliver, her husband coldly vetoed the proposal.
CHAPTER VII
Only Harber, the woman who, after having been maid to Katty during her troubled married life, had stayed on with her as house-parlourmaid and general factotum, was aware of how very often Mr. Pavely called at Rosedean on his daily walk home from Pewsbury. To-day he had hardly pressed the bell-k.n.o.b before the front door opened. It was almost as if Harber had been waiting for him in the hall.
As he put down his hat and stick he was conscious of feeling very glad that he was going to see Katty. Mrs. Winslow had again been away, was it for four days, or five? It"s true that for part of that time he himself had been to London, and very busy, but even so the time had seemed long.
He told himself that he had a hundred things to say to her, and he even felt a little thrill of excitement as he followed the servant through the hall.
And Katty? Katty, who the moment she had heard the front-door bell had quietly begun making the tea--she always made tea herself, with the help of a pretty spirit lamp--Katty also felt a queer little thrill, but for a very different reason. Since they had last met she had come to a certain resolution with regard to G.o.dfrey Pavely, and though she did not mean to say anything to-day even remotely bearing on it, still it affected her, made her regard him with rather different eyes.
It is a great mistake to think that coldness and calculation always go together. Katty Winslow was calculating, but she was not cold. For once she had been quite honest when writing that odd little postscript to her letter of thanks for G.o.dfrey Pavely"s wedding present. G.o.dfrey had, in very truth, been her first love, and she had suffered acutely in her heart, as well as in her pride, when he had run away. Even now, she felt as if there were a strong, secret, pa.s.sionate link between them, and there was no day when she did not tell herself that she would have made the banker a perfect, and yes--a very happy wife.
G.o.dfrey came into the drawing-room with a pleased, eager look on his face. He took his hostess"s hand in his, and held it for perhaps a thought longer than he would have held, say, Mrs. Tropenell"s hand. But the hand he now held was a soft, malleable little hand, not thin and firm, like that of Oliver"s mother.
Katty was smiling at him, such a bright, friendly, pretty smile. "Sit down," she said softly. "And before we begin talking, take a cup of tea.
You look very tired--and you"re late, too, G.o.dfrey. I was beginning to think that you weren"t coming at all!"
And then he said something which surprised her, but which somehow chimed in quite surprisingly with what had been filling her busy, active brain of late.
"Jim Beath has been with me most of the afternoon," he spoke wearily, complainingly. "I had to ask him to lunch at the Club, and he stayed on and on."
Now the Beaths were by way of being intimate friends of Katty Winslow, and Jim Beath was a client of G.o.dfrey Pavely.
"Oh, but that"s very interesting!" she cried. "I"ve been wondering so much how that affair is going on--I do so hope it will be all right!"
And then, as she saw a shocked look come over her visitor"s narrow, rather fleshy face, she said in a low voice, "You know how I feel about the divorce laws, G.o.dfrey. I can"t help it. They"re horribly unfair--so--so ridiculous, in fact!"
As he remained silent, she went on, insisting on her own point of view far more than was her usual way when talking to her self-opinionated friend: "Don"t you realise how hard it is that two people utterly unsuited to one another should have to go through that sort of horrid farce just in order to get free?"
He looked at her uncomfortably. Sometimes, even now, Katty startled him by the things she said. But how pretty she looked to-day, bending over the tea-things! Her burnished hair was dressed in thick soft coils, her white, well-manicured hand busily engaged in pouring him out just the cup of tea he liked, with the exact proportions of milk, cream, and sugar that were right--and which Laura never remembered.
So it was mildly that he answered: "I don"t think the Beaths ought to want to get what you call "free." Divorce was not inst.i.tuted to meet a case like theirs--" he hesitated, and then with a certain effort he went on: "Divorce was inst.i.tuted to meet a case like yours, Katty."
G.o.dfrey Pavely was weary of the Beaths and of their divorce plot--for so he called it to himself. There were other things he wanted to talk to Katty about. Besides, he did not think that that sort of affair was a nice subject of discussion between a man and a woman, however intimate.
In some ways G.o.dfrey Pavely was very old-fashioned.
But she wouldn"t let it alone. "Divorce _ought_ to meet a case like theirs," she went on obstinately.
"My dear Katty! What would happen to the country if all the married people who didn"t get on with one another were to separate?"
And then, looking at her defiant face, a most extraordinary and disagreeable suspicion darted into G.o.dfrey Pavely"s mind. Was it possible, conceivable, that Katty was thinking of Jim Beath as a second husband for herself? The thought shook him with anger and with repugnance. He felt he must have that out--here and now.
"Do you like Jim Beath?" he asked slowly; "I know you"ve been seeing a great deal of them this last year. In fact, he mentioned you to-day."
She could read him like a book, and she remained silent long enough to make him feel increasingly suspicious and uncomfortable.
But to-day Katty was not in the mood for a cat-and-mouse game, so she answered deliberately: "No, G.o.dfrey, I can"t say that I do like Jim Beath! I"ve tried to like him. But--well, I do thoroughly understand Nita"s feeling towards him. He"s so sarcastic--so hard and unsympathetic!" She waited a moment, then added significantly: "Still, I think he"s behaving awfully well now. He"d have been quite willing to go on--he told me that himself. But when he saw that Nita was _really_ unhappy, and that she was getting fond of another man, he made up his mind that he would do all he could to make her free."
Katty was playing rather nervously with the edge of the pretty tea-cloth, and Pavely wondered whether she was telling him the whole truth. She was flushed, and she looked unwontedly moved.
"It"s a very odd thing for a man to do," he said coldly. "I mean a man being willing to give up his wife to another man."
"Why shouldn"t he? When he doesn"t love her, and when she positively dislikes him! Nita never understood Jim Beath--she was always afraid of him, and of his sharp, clever tongue. Of course it"s sad about their little boy. But they"ve made a very good arrangement--they"re going to share him. Jim will have the child half the year, and Nita the other half, till he goes to school--when they will have him for alternate holidays."
"You talk as if it was all settled!" Katty"s visitor exclaimed crossly.
"If they say as much to other people as they seem to do to you, they will never get their divorce--the King"s Proctor is sure to intervene!"
Katty gave a quick, curious look at her visitor. G.o.dfrey went too far--sometimes.
The thought flashed through her mind that she was wasting her life, her few remaining years of youth, on a man who would never be more to her than he was now, unless--unless, that is, she could bring him to the point of putting himself imaginatively, emotionally into Jim Beath"s shoes. _Then_ everything might be changed. But was there any hope of such a thing coming to pa.s.s?
But all she said, in a constrained tone, was, "Of course I ought not to have said anything of the matter to you at all. But I"m afraid, G.o.dfrey, that I often do tell you things I ought to keep to myself. You must try and forget what I said."
He was surprised, bewildered, by the sudden steely coldness of her tone.
"Of course you can say anything you like to say to me. Why, Katty, I tell you all my secrets!"
"Do you?" She glanced over at him rather sharply. "I don"t think you tell me _all_ your secrets, G.o.dfrey."
He looked at her puzzled. "You _know_ that I do," he said in a low voice. "Come, Katty, you"re not being fair! It"s because I have such a high regard for you, that I feel sorry when you talk as you"ve been talking just now--as if, after all, the marriage bond didn"t matter."
But even as he said these words, G.o.dfrey Pavely felt a wild impulse to throw over the pretty little gimcrack tea-table, take Katty in his arms, and kiss her, kiss her, kiss her! He came back, with an inward start, to hear her exclaim,
"I don"t consider the peculiar relations which exist between Nita and Jim Beath a marriage at all! They have nothing in common the one with the other. What interests him doesn"t interest her----"
She waited a moment, saw that he was reddening uncomfortably, and then hurried on, driven by some sudden instinct that she was at last playing on the hidden chord she had so often longed to find and strike in G.o.dfrey Pavely"s sore heart: "Nita can"t bear Jim to touch her--she will hardly shake hands with him! Do you call _that_ a marriage?"
As he remained silent, she suddenly said in a voice so low as to be almost a whisper, "Forgive me, G.o.dfrey. I--I ought not have said that to you."
He answered loudly, discordantly, "I don"t know what you mean, Katty!
Why shouldn"t you say anything you like about these people? They are nothing, and less than nothing to me, and I don"t suppose they"re very much to you."