"Yes," said Stephen. ""The priest who slew the slayer, and shall himself be slain"--that system"s by no means obsolete in modern civilization."
"Obsolete! It"s the soul of it, its essence, its gospel." It was Mrs.
Lenoir who spoke.
"A definition of compet.i.tion?" asked Stephen.
"Yes, and of progress--as they call it."
Tora Aikenhead was consolatory, benign, undismayed. "To be slain when you"re old and weak--what of that?"
"But ye don"t think ye"re old and weak. That"s the shock of it," cried Dennehy.
"It is rather a shock," Mrs. Lenoir agreed. "The truth about yourself is always a shock--or even another person"s genuine opinion."
Winnie Maxon remembered how she had administered to her husband his "awful facer"; she recollected also, rather ruefully, that he had taken it well. You always have to hurt somebody, even when you want so obvious a right as freedom! A definite declaration of incompatibility must be wounding--at any rate when it is not mutual.
It is an irksome thing to have--nay, to const.i.tute in your own person--an apposite and interesting case, and to be forbidden to produce it. If only Winnie Maxon might lay her case before the company while they were so finely in the mood to deal with it! She felt not merely that she would receive valuable advice (which she could not bring herself to doubt would be favourable to her side), but also that she herself would take new rank; to provide these speculative minds with a case must be a pa.s.sport to their esteem. Bitterly regretting her unfortunate promise, she began to arraign the justice of holding herself bound by it, and to accuse her husband"s motives in extorting it. He must have wished to deprive her of what she would naturally and properly seek--the counsel of her friends. He must have wanted to isolate her, to leave her to fight her bitter battle all alone. To chatter in public was one thing, to consult two or three good friends surely another? Promises should be kept; but should they not also be reasonably interpreted, especially when they have been exacted from such doubtful motives?
Thus straying, probably for the first time in her life, in the mazes of casuistry, the adventurous novice was rewarded by a really brilliant idea. Why should she not put her case in general terms, as an imaginary instance, hypothetically? The promise would be kept, yet the counsel and comfort (for, of course, the counsel would be comfortable) would be forthcoming. No sooner conceived than executed! Only, unfortunately, the execution was attended with a good deal of confusion and no small display of blushes--a display not indeed unbecoming, but sadly compromising. It was just as well that they had got to the stage of coffee, and the parlour-maid had left the room.
Dennehy did not find her out. He was not an observant man, and he was more interested in general questions than in individual persons. Hence Winnie had the benefit of listening to a thoroughgoing denunciation of the course she had adopted and was resolved to maintain. Kingdoms might--and in most cases ought to--fall; that was matter of politics.
But marriage and the family--that was matter of faith and morals. He bade Winnie"s hypothetical lady endure her sufferings and look for her reward elsewhere. At the close of his remarks Tora Aikenhead smiled and offered him a candied apricot. He had certainly spoken rather hotly.
Stephen guessed the truth, and it explained what had puzzled him from the first--the sudden visit of his cousin, unaccompanied by her husband. He had suspected a tiff. But he had not divined a rupture. He was surprised at Winnie"s pluck; it must be confessed that he was also rather staggered at being asked to consider Cyril Maxon as quite so impossible to live with. However, Winnie ought to know best about that.
"Oh, come, d.i.c.k, there are limits--there must be. You may be bound to take the high line, but the rest of us are free to judge cases on the merits. At this time of day you can"t expect women to stand being sat upon and squashed all their lives."
G.o.dfrey Ledstone had not talked much. Now he came forward on Winnie"s side.
"A man must appreciate a woman, or how can he ask her to stay with him?"
"I don"t see why she shouldn"t do as she likes," said Tora. "Especially as you put a case where there are no children, Winnie."
Mrs. Lenoir was more reserved. "Let her either make up her mind to stand everything or not to stand it at all any more. Because she"ll never change a man like that."
Only one to the contrary--and he a necessarily prejudiced witness! She claimed Mrs. Lenoir for her side, in spite of the reserve. The other three were obviously for her. Winnie was glad that she had put her case.
Not only was she comforted; somehow she felt more important. No longer a mere listener, she had contributed to the debate. She would have felt still more important had she been free to declare that it was she herself who embodied the matter at issue.
For such added consequence she had not long to wait. After the guests had gone, Stephen Aikenhead came to her in the garden.
"I don"t want to pry into what"s not my business, but I think some of us had an idea that--well, that you were talking about yourself, really, at lunch. Don"t say anything if you don"t want to. Only, of course, Tora and I would like to help."
She looked up at him, blushing again. "I promised not to tell. But since you"ve guessed----"
"I"m awfully sorry about it."
"At least I promised not to tell till it was settled. Well--it is settled. So I"ve not broken the promise, really."
Stephen did not think it necessary--or perhaps easy--to pa.s.s judgment on this point.
"At any rate it"s much better we should know, I think. I"m sure you"ll find Tora able to help you now."
She was not thinking of Tora--nor of Dennehy"s tirade, nor even of Mrs.
Lenoir"s reserve.
"Do you think Mr. Ledstone--guessed?"
Stephen smiled. "He took a very definite stand on the woman"s side when you put your parable. I should say it"s probable that he guessed."
Thus it befell that the secret leaked out, though the promise was kept; and Winnie found herself an object of sympathy and her destinies a matter of importance at Shaylor"s Patch. It is perhaps enough to say that she would have been behaving distinctly well if, for the sake of a scrupulous interpretation of her promise, she had forgone these consolations. They were very real and precious. They negatived the doleful finality which she had set to her life as a woman. They transformed her case; instead of a failure, it became a problem. A little boldness of vision, a breath of the free air of Shaylor"s Patch, a draught of the new wine of speculation--and behold the victim turned experimentalist!
CHAPTER V
THE GREAT ALLIES
Although the Reverend Francis Attlebury was vowed in his soul to celibacy and had never so much as flirted since he took his degree at Oxford twenty-three years ago, he had more knowledge of the mind of woman than most married men pleasurably or painfully achieve. Women came to him with their troubles, their grievances, even sometimes their sins; it was no more his business to pooh-pooh the grievances than to extenuate the sins; one does not carry a cross the more cheerfully or, as a rule, any further, because a bystander a.s.sures one that it is in reality very light.
He was a tall stout man--a grievance of his own was that he looked abominably well-fed in spite of constant self-denial--and possessed a face of native and invincible joviality. He was looking quite jovial now as he listened to Cyril Maxon, agreed that he had been shamefully used, and concluded in his own mind that if the negotiations were to be carried on in that spirit they might just as well not be initiated at all. The thing was not to prove how wrong she had been in going, but to get her back. She was more likely to come back, if it were conceded to her that she had at least a fair excuse for going. Would Cyril Maxon ever make such a concession--or let somebody make it for him?
The two men were old and intimate friends; moreover Maxon was even eager to acknowledge an authority in Attlebury"s office, as well as a confidence in his personal judgment.
"You won"t make her think she was always wrong by proving that you were always right, Cyril."
"Am I to say I was wrong where I know I was right?"
"You"ve probably said you were right already. Need you repeat it?"
"I"m ready to forgive her--absolutely and unreservedly."
"Would you go a little further--do something rather harder? Accept forgiveness?" The diplomatist smiled. "Conditional forgiveness we might call it, perhaps. Forgiveness in case there might be anything for her to forgive?"
Maxon broke out in natural impatience at the incomprehensible. "On my honour, I don"t understand what she"s got to complain of. I took her from a poor home, I"ve given her every luxury, she shares my career--I needn"t use mock modesty with you, Frank--I"ve given her absolute fidelity----" He ended with a despairing wave of his hands.
Attlebury neither argued nor rebuked. "Is there anybody who has influence with her--whom she likes and relies on?"
"I should hate anybody else being dragged into it--except you, of course. I asked her to come to you."
"Oh, I know I"m suspect. I should be no good." He smiled contentedly.
"n.o.body you can think of?"
"Well, the man she consulted about it was Hobart Gaynor." His tone was full of grudging dislike of such a consultation.
"Hobart Gaynor? Yes, I know him. Not a bad choice of hers, Cyril, if she felt she had to go to some one. Not quite our way of thinking, but a very good fellow."
"Why is he to poke his nose into my affairs?"