Letty hesitated; then, remembering all she could of Harding"s ill-natured gossip, she flung out some names, exaggerating and inventing freely. The emphasis with which she spoke reddened all the small face again--made it hot and common.
Tressady raised his shoulders as she came to the end of her tirade.
"Well, you know I don"t believe all that--and I don"t think Harding believes it. Lady Maxwell, as you once said yourself, is not, I suppose, a woman"s woman. She gets on better, no doubt, with men than with women.
These men you speak of are all personal and party friends. They support Maxwell, and they like her. But if anybody is jealous, I should think they might remember that there is safety in numbers."
"Oh, that"s all very well! But she wants _power_, and she doesn"t care a rap how she gets it. She is a dangerous, intriguing woman--and she just trades upon her beauty!"
Tressady, who had been leaning with his face averted from her, turned round with sparkling eyes.
"You foolish child!" he said slowly--"you foolish child!"
Her lips twitched. She put out a shaking hand to her cloak, that had fallen from her arms.
"Oh! very well. I sha"n"t stay here to be talked to like that, so good-night."
He took no notice. He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Don"t you know what it is"--he spoke with a curious imperiousness--"that protects any woman--or any man either for the matter of that--from Marcella Maxwell"s beauty? Don"t you know that she adores her husband?"
"That"s a pose, of course, like everything else," cried Letty, trying to move herself away; "you once said it was."
"Before I knew her. It"s not a pose--it"s the secret of her whole life."
He walked back to the mantelpiece, conscious of a sudden rise of inward bitterness.
"Well, I shall go to bed," said Letty, again half rising. "You might, I think, have had the kindness and the good taste to say you were sorry I should have the humiliation of finding out where my husband spends his evenings, from Harding Watton!"
Tressady was stung.
"When have I ever concealed what I did from you?" he asked her hotly.
Letty, who was standing stiff and scornful, tossed her head without speaking.
"That means," said Tressady after a pause, "that you don"t take my word for it--that you suspect me of deceiving you before to-night?"
Letty still said nothing. His eyes flashed. Then a pang of conscience smote him. He took up his cigarette again with a laugh.
"I think we are both a pair of babies," he said, as he pretended to look for matches. "You know very well that you don"t really think I tell you mean lies. And let me a.s.sure you, my dear child, that fate did not mean Lady Maxwell to have lovers--and that she never will have them. But when that"s said there"s something else to say."
He went up to her again, and touched her arm.
"You and I couldn"t have this kind of scene, Letty, could we, if everything was all right?"
Her breast rose and fell hurriedly.
"Oh! I supposed you would want to retaliate--to complain on your side!"
"Yes," he said deliberately, "I think I do want to complain. Why is it that--I began to like going down to see Lady Maxwell--why did I like talking to her at Castle Luton? Well! of course it"s pleasant to be with a beautiful person--I don"t deny that in the least. But she might have been as beautiful as an angel, and I mightn"t have cared twopence about her. She has something much less common than beauty. It"s very simple, too--I suppose it"s only _sympathy_--just that. Everybody feels the same.
When you talk to her she seems to care about it; she throws her mind into yours. And there"s a charm about it--there"s no doubt of that."
He had begun his little speech meaning to be perfectly frank and honest--to appeal to her better nature and his own. But something stopped him abruptly, perhaps the sudden perception that he was after playing the hypocrite--perhaps the consciousness that he was only making matters worse.
"It"s a pity you didn"t say all these things before," she said, with a hard laugh, "instead of denouncing the political woman, as you used to do."
He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her, balancing lightly, with his hands in his pockets.
"Did I denounce the political woman? Well, the Lord knows I"m not in love with her now! It isn"t politics, my dear, that are attaching--it"s the kind of human being. Ah! well, don"t let"s talk of it. Let"s go back to that point of sympathy. There"s more in it than I used to think. Suppose, for instance, you were to try and take a little more interest in my political work than you do? Suppose you were to try and see money matters from my point of view, instead of driving us"--he paused a moment, then went on coolly, lifting his thin, long-chinned face to her as she stood quivering beside him--"driving us into expenses that will, sooner or later, be the ruin of us--that rob us, too, of self-respect. Suppose you were to take a little more account, also, of my taste in people? I am afraid I don"t like Harding, though he is your cousin, and I don"t certainly see why he should furnish our drawing-rooms and empty our purse for us as he has been doing. Then, as to Lord Cathedine, I"m really not over-particular, but when I hear that fellow"s in the house, my impulse is to catch the nearest hansom and drive away from it. I heard him speak to his wife to-night in a way for which he ought to be kicked down Oxford Street--and, in general, I should say that it takes the shine off a person to be much seen with Cathedine."
The calm att.i.tude--the voice, just a shade interrogative, exasperated Letty still more. She, too, sat down, her cheeks flaming.
"I am _extremely_ obliged to you! You really couldn"t have been more frank. I am sorry that _nothing_ I do pleases you. You must be quite sorry by now you married me--but really I didn"t force you! Why should I give up my friends? You know very well you won"t give up Lady Maxwell."
She looked at him keenly, her little foot beating the ground.
George started.
"But what is there to give up?" he cried. "Come and see her yourself--come with me, and make friends with her. You would be quite welcome."
But as he spoke he knew that he was talking absurdly, and that Letty had reason for her laugh.
"Thank you! Lady Maxwell made it _quite_ plain to me at Castle Luton that she didn"t want _my_ acquaintance. I certainly sha"n"t force myself upon her any more. But if you"ll give up going to see her--well, perhaps I"ll see what can be done to meet your wishes; though, of course, I think all you say about Harding and Lord Cathedine is just unreasonable prejudice!"
George was silent. His mind was torn between the p.r.i.c.ks of a conscience that told him Letty had in truth, as far as he was concerned, a far more real grievance than she imagined, and a pa.s.sionate intellectual contempt for the person who could even distantly imagine that Marcella Maxwell belonged to the same category as other women, and was to be won by the same arts as they. At last he broke out impatiently:
"I cannot possibly show discourtesy to one who has been nothing but kindness to me, as she is to scores of others--to old friends like Edward Watton, or new ones like--"
"She wants your vote, of course!" threw in Letty, with an excited laugh.
"_Either_ she is a flirt--_or_ she wants your vote. Why should she take so much notice of you? She isn"t your side--she wants to get hold of you--and it makes you ridiculous. People just laugh at you and her!" She turned upon him pa.s.sionately. A little more, and the wish to say the wounding, venomous thing would have grown like a madness upon her. But George kept his self-possession.
"Well, they may laugh," he said, with a strong effort to speak good-humouredly. "But politics aren"t managed like that, as you and they will find out. Votes are not so simple as they sound."
He got up and walked away from her as he spoke. As usual, his mood was beginning to cool. He saw no way out. They must both accept the _status quo_. No radical change was possible. It is character that makes circ.u.mstance, and character is inexorable.
"Well, of course I didn"t altogether believe that you would really be such a fool, and wreck all your prospects!" said Letty, violently, her feverish eyes intent the while on her husband and on the thin fingers once more busied with the cigarette. "There now! I think we have had enough of this! It doesn"t seem to have led to much, does it?"
"No," said George, coolly; "but perhaps we shall come to see more alike in time. I don"t want to tyrannise--only to show you what I think. Shall I carry up your cloak for you?"
He approached her punctiliously. Letty gathered her wraps upon her arm in a disdainful silence, warding him off with a gesture. As he opened the door for her she turned upon him:
"You talk of my extravagance, but you never seem to consider what you might do to make up to me for the burden of being your mother"s relation!
You expect me to put up with the annoyance and ridicule of belonging to her--and to let her spend all your money besides. I give you fair warning that I sha"n"t do it! I shall try and spend it on my side, that she sha"n"t get it."
She was perfectly conscious that she was behaving like a vixenish child, but she could not restrain herself. This strange new sense that she could neither bend nor conquer him was becoming more than she could bear.
George looked at her, half inclined to shake her first, and then insist on making friends. He was conscious that he could probably a.s.sert himself with success if he tried. But the impulse failed him. He merely said, without any apparent temper, "Then I shall have to see if I can invent some way of protecting both myself and you."
She flung through the door, and almost ran through the long pa.s.sage to the stairs, in a sobbing excitement. A sudden thought struck George as he stood looking after her. He pursued her, caught her at the foot of the stairs, and held her arm strongly.