"You must respect the moral foundations of a society that has made you what you are. Be true to it. That"s duty--that"s honour--that"s honesty."
He felt a great glow within him, as though he had swallowed something hot. He made a step nearer. She sat up and looked at him with an ardour of expectation that stimulated his sense of the supreme importance of that moment. And as if forgetting himself he raised his voice very much.
""What"s right?" you ask me. Think only. What would you have been if you had gone off with that infernal vagabond? . . . What would you have been? . . . You! My wife! . . ."
He caught sight of himself in the pier gla.s.s, drawn up to his full height, and with a face so white that his eyes, at the distance, resembled the black cavities in a skull. He saw himself as if about to launch imprecations, with arms uplifted above her bowed head. He was ashamed of that unseemly posture, and put his hands in his pockets hurriedly. She murmured faintly, as if to herself--
"Ah! What am I now?"
"As it happens you are still Mrs. Alvan Hervey--uncommonly lucky for you, let me tell you," he said in a conversational tone. He walked up to the furthest corner of the room, and, turning back, saw her sitting very upright, her hands clasped on her lap, and with a lost, unswerving gaze of her eyes which stared unwinking like the eyes of the blind, at the crude gas flame, blazing and still, between the jaws of the bronze dragon.
He came up quite close to her, and straddling his legs a little, stood looking down at her face for some time without taking his hands out of his pockets. He seemed to be turning over in his mind a heap of words, piecing his next speech out of an overpowering abundance of thoughts.
"You"ve tried me to the utmost," he said at last; and as soon as he said these words he lost his moral footing, and felt himself swept away from his pinnacle by a flood of pa.s.sionate resentment against the bungling creature that had come so near to spoiling his life. "Yes; I"ve been tried more than any man ought to be," he went on with righteous bitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed you to? . . . What possessed you? . . . Write such a . . . After five years of perfect happiness!
"Pon my word, no one would believe. . . . Didn"t you feel you couldn"t?
Because you couldn"t . . . it was impossible--you know. Wasn"t it?
Think. Wasn"t it?"
"It was impossible," she whispered, obediently.
This submissive a.s.sent given with such readiness did not soothe him, did not elate him; it gave him, inexplicably, that sense of terror we experience when in the midst of conditions we had learned to think absolutely safe we discover all at once the presence of a near and unsuspected danger. It was impossible, of course! He knew it. She knew it. She confessed it. It was impossible! That man knew it, too--as well as any one; couldn"t help knowing it. And yet those two had been engaged in a conspiracy against his peace--in a criminal enterprise for which there could be no sanction of belief within themselves. There could not be! There could not be! And yet how near to . . . With a short thrill he saw himself an exiled forlorn figure in a realm of ungovernable, of unrestrained folly. Nothing could be foreseen, foretold--guarded against. And the sensation was intolerable, had something of the withering horror that may be conceived as following upon the utter extinction of all hope. In the flash of thought the dishonouring episode seemed to disengage itself from everything actual, from earthly conditions, and even from earthly suffering; it became purely a terrifying knowledge, an annihilating knowledge of a blind and infernal force. Something desperate and vague, a flicker of an insane desire to abase himself before the mysterious impulses of evil, to ask for mercy in some way, pa.s.sed through his mind; and then came the idea, the persuasion, the cert.i.tude, that the evil must be forgotten--must be resolutely ignored to make life possible; that the knowledge must be kept out of mind, out of sight, like the knowledge of certain death is kept out of the daily existence of men. He stiffened himself inwardly for the effort, and next moment it appeared very easy, amazingly feasible, if one only kept strictly to facts, gave one"s mind to their perplexities and not to their meaning. Becoming conscious of a long silence, he cleared his throat warningly, and said in a steady voice--
"I am glad you feel this . . . uncommonly glad . . . you felt this in time. For, don"t you see . . ." Unexpectedly he hesitated.
"Yes . . . I see," she murmured.
"Of course you would," he said, looking at the carpet and speaking like one who thinks of something else. He lifted his head. "I cannot believe--even after this--even after this--that you are altogether--altogether . . . other than what I thought you. It seems impossible--to me."
"And to me," she breathed out.
"Now--yes," he said, "but this morning? And to-morrow? . . . This is what . . ."
He started at the drift of his words and broke off abruptly. Every train of thought seemed to lead into the hopeless realm of ungovernable folly, to recall the knowledge and the terror of forces that must be ignored.
He said rapidly--
"My position is very painful--difficult . . . I feel . . ."
He looked at her fixedly with a pained air, as though frightfully oppressed by a sudden inability to express his pent-up ideas.
"I am ready to go," she said very low. "I have forfeited everything . . . to learn . . . to learn . . ."
Her chin fell on her breast; her voice died out in a sigh. He made a slight gesture of impatient a.s.sent.
"Yes! Yes! It"s all very well . . . of course. Forfeited--ah! Morally forfeited--only morally forfeited . . . if I am to believe you . . ."
She startled him by jumping up.
"Oh! I believe, I believe," he said, hastily, and she sat down as suddenly as she had got up. He went on gloomily--
"I"ve suffered--I suffer now. You can"t understand how much. So much that when you propose a parting I almost think. . . . But no. There is duty. You"ve forgotten it; I never did. Before heaven, I never did. But in a horrid exposure like this the judgment of mankind goes astray--at least for a time. You see, you and I--at least I feel that--you and I are one before the world. It is as it should be. The world is right--in the main--or else it couldn"t be--couldn"t be--what it is. And we are part of it. We have our duty to--to our fellow beings who don"t want to . . . to . . . er."
He stammered. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and her lips were slightly parted. He went on mumbling--
". . . Pain. . . . Indignation. . . . Sure to misunderstand. I"ve suffered enough. And if there has been nothing irreparable--as you a.s.sure me . . . then . . ."
"Alvan!" she cried.
"What?" he said, morosely. He gazed down at her for a moment with a sombre stare, as one looks at ruins, at the devastation of some natural disaster.
"Then," he continued after a short pause, "the best thing is . . .
the best for us . . . for every one. . . . Yes . . . least pain--most unselfish. . . ." His voice faltered, and she heard only detached words.
". . . Duty. . . . Burden. . . . Ourselves. . . . Silence."
A moment of perfect stillness ensued.
"This is an appeal I am making to your conscience," he said, suddenly, in an explanatory tone, "not to add to the wretchedness of all this: to try loyally and help me to live it down somehow. Without any reservations--you know. Loyally! You can"t deny I"ve been cruelly wronged and--after all--my affection deserves . . ." He paused with evident anxiety to hear her speak.
"I make no reservations," she said, mournfully. "How could I? I found myself out and came back to . . ." her eyes flashed scornfully for an instant ". . . to what--to what you propose. You see . . . I . . . I can be trusted . . . now."
He listened to every word with profound attention, and when she ceased seemed to wait for more.
"Is that all you"ve got to say?" he asked.
She was startled by his tone, and said faintly--
"I spoke the truth. What more can I say?"
"Confound it! You might say something human," he burst out. "It isn"t being truthful; it"s being brazen--if you want to know. Not a word to show you feel your position, and--and mine. Not a single word of acknowledgment, or regret--or remorse . . . or . . . something."
"Words!" she whispered in a tone that irritated him. He stamped his foot.
"This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Words? Yes, words. Words mean something--yes--they do--for all this infernal affectation. They mean something to me--to everybody--to you. What the devil did you use to express those sentiments--sentiments--pah!--which made you forget me, duty, shame!" . . . He foamed at the mouth while she stared at him, appalled by this sudden fury. "Did you two talk only with your eyes?" he spluttered savagely. She rose.
"I can"t bear this," she said, trembling from head to foot. "I am going."
They stood facing one another for a moment.
"Not you," he said, with conscious roughness, and began to walk up and down the room. She remained very still with an air of listening anxiously to her own heart-beats, then sank down on the chair slowly, and sighed, as if giving up a task beyond her strength.
"You misunderstand everything I say," he began quietly, "but I prefer to think that--just now--you are not accountable for your actions."
He stopped again before her. "Your mind is unhinged," he said, with unction. "To go now would be adding crime--yes, crime--to folly. I"ll have no scandal in my life, no matter what"s the cost. And why? You are sure to misunderstand me--but I"ll tell you. As a matter of duty. Yes.
But you"re sure to misunderstand me--recklessly. Women always do--they are too--too narrow-minded."
He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn"t even look at him; he felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a man who suspects he is unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating sensation he recommenced talking very fast. The sound of his words excited his thoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he had glimpses now and then of the inexpugnable rock of his convictions, towering in solitary grandeur above the unprofitable waste of errors and pa.s.sions.
"For it is self-evident," he went on with anxious vivacity, "it is self-evident that, on the highest ground we haven"t the right--no, we haven"t the right to intrude our miseries upon those who--who naturally expect better things from us. Every one wishes his own life and the life around him to be beautiful and pure. Now, a scandal amongst people of our position is disastrous for the morality--a fatal influence--don"t you see--upon the general tone of the cla.s.s--very important--the most important, I verily believe, in--in the community. I feel this--profoundly. This is the broad view. In time you"ll give me . . .
when you become again the woman I loved--and trusted. . . ."