There was a momentary pause; then Mrs. Dennison, in her calmest voice, began to tell her husband of the sickness of the Baron. And over Harry Dennison"s face there rested a new look, and she felt it on her as she talked of the Baron. She had seen him before unsatisfied, puzzled, and bewildered by her, but never before with this look on his face. It seemed to her half entreaty and half suspicion. It was plain for everyone to see. He kept his eyes on her, and she knew that Marjory must be reading him as she read him. And under that look she went on talking about the Baron. The look did not frighten her. She did not fear his suspicions, for she believed he would still take her word against all the world--ay, against the plainest proof. But she almost broke under the burden of it; it made her heart sick with pity for him. She longed to cry out, then and there, "It isn"t true, Harry, my poor dear, it isn"t true." She could tell him that--it would not be all a lie. And when the children went away to prepare for lunch, she did much that very thing; for, with a laughing glance of apology at Marjory, she sat on her husband"s knee and kissed him twice on either check, whispering,
"I"m so glad you"ve come, Harry."
And he caught her to him with sudden violence--unlike his usual manner, and looked into her eyes and kissed her. Then they rose, and he turned towards the house.
For a moment Marjory and Mrs. Dennison were alone together. Mrs.
Dennison spoke in a loud clear voice--a voice her husband must hear.
"We"re shamefully foolish, aren"t we, Marjory?"
The girl made no answer, but, as she looked at Maggie Dennison, she burst into a sudden convulsive sob.
"Hush, hush," whispered Maggie eagerly. "My G.o.d! if I can, you can!"
So they went in and joined the children at their merry noisy meal.
CHAPTER XXI.
A JOINT IN HIS ARMOUR.
Willie Ruston slept, on the night following his return to London, in the Carlins" house at Hampstead. The all-important question of the railway made a consultation necessary, and Ruston"s indisposition to face his solitary rooms caused him to accept gladly the proffered hospitality.
The little cramped place was always a refuge and a rest; there he could best rejoice over a victory or forget a temporary defeat. There he fled now, in the turmoil of his mind. The question of the railway had hurried him from Dieppe, but it could not carry away from him the memories of Dieppe. Yet that was the office he had already begun to ask of it--of it and of the quiet busy life at Hampstead, where he lingered till a week stretched to two and to three, spending his days at work in the City, and his evenings, after his romp with the children, in earnest and eager talk and speculation. He regretted bitterly his going to Dieppe. He had done what he condemned; he had raised up a perpetual reproach and a possible danger. He was not a man who could dismiss such a thing with a laugh or a sneer, with a pang of penitence and a swift reaction to the low levels of morality, with a regret for imprudence and a prayer against consequences. His nature was too deep, and the influence he had met too strong, for any of these to be enough. Yet he had suffered the question of the railway to drag him away at a moment"s notice; and he was persuaded that he must take his leaving as setting an end to all that had pa.s.sed. All that must be put behind; forgetfulness in thought might be a relief impossible to attain, a relief that he would be ashamed of striving to attain; but forgetfulness in act seemed a duty to be done. In his undeviating reference of everything to his own work in life and his neglect of any other touchstone, he erected into an obligation what to another would have been a shameless matter of course; or, again, to yet another, a source of shame-faced relief. His sins were sin first against himself, in the second degree only against the partic.i.p.ant in them; his preoccupation with their first quality went far to blind him to the second.
Yet he was very sorry for Maggie Dennison. Nay, those words were ludicrously feeble for the meaning he wanted from them. Acutely conscious of having done her a wrong, he was vaguely aware that he might underestimate the wrong, and remembered uneasily how she had told him that he did not understand, and despaired because he could not understand. He felt more for her now--much more, it seemed to him; but the consciousness of failure to put himself where she stood dogged him, making him afraid sometimes that he could not realise her sufferings, sometimes that he was imputing to her fict.i.tious tortures and a sense of ignominy which was not her own. Searching light, he began to talk to Carlin in general terms, of course, and by way of chance discourse; and he ran up against a curious stratum of Puritanism imbedded amongst the man"s elastic principles. The narrowest and harshest judgment of an erring woman accompanied the supple trader and witnessed the surviving barbarian in Mr. Carlin; an accidental distant allusion displayed an equally relentless att.i.tude in his meek hard-working little wife. Willie Ruston drew in his feelers, and, aghast at the evil these opinions stamped as the product of his acts, declared for a moment that his life must be the only and insufficient atonement. The moment was a brief one.
He dismissed the opinions with a curse, their authors with a smile, and did not scorn to take for comfort even Maggie Dennison"s own enthusiasm for his work. That had drawn them together; that must rule and limit the connection which it had created. An end--a bound--a peremptory stop (there was still time to stop) was the thing. She would see that, as he saw it. G.o.d knew (he said to himself) what a wrench it was--for she meant more to him than he had ever conceived a woman could mean; but the wrench must be undergone. He would rather die than wreck his work; and she, he knew, rather die than prove a wrecking siren to him.
Suddenly, across the desponding stubbornness of his resolves, flashed, with a bright white light, the news of the Baron"s legacy, accompanying, but, after a hasty regretful thought and a kindly regretful smile, obliterating the fact of the Baron"s death. Half the steps upward, he felt, which he had set himself painfully and with impatient labour to cut, were hewn deep and smooth for his feet; he had now but to tread, and lift his foot and tread again. From a paid servant of his Company, powerful only by a secret influence unbased on any substantial foundation, he leapt to the position of a shareholder with a larger stake than any man besides; no intrigue could shake him now, no sudden gust of petulant impatience at the tardiness of results displace him. He had never thought of this motive behind the Baron"s large purchases of Omof.a.ga shares; as he thought of it, he had not been himself had he not smiled. And his smile was of the same quality as had burst on his face when first Maggie Dennison dropped the veil and owned his sway.
One day he did not go down to the city, but spent his time wandering on the heath, mapping out what he would do in the fast-approaching days in Omof.a.ga. The prospects were clearing; he had had two interviews with Lord Detchmore, and the Minister had fallen back from his own objections on to the scruples of his colleagues. It was a promising sign, and Willie was pressing his advantage. The fall in the shares had been checked; Tom Loring wrote no more; and Mrs. Carlin had forgotten to mourn the extinct coal business. He came home, with a buoyant step, at four o"clock, to find Carlin awaiting him with dismayed face. There was the worst of news from Queen Street. Mr. Dennison had written announcing resignation of his place on the Board.
"It"s a staggering blow," said Carlin, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "Can"t you bring him round? Why is he doing it?"
"Well, what does he say?" asked Ruston, a frown on his brow.
"Oh, some nonsense--pressure of other business or something of that kind. Can"t you go and see him, Willie? He"s back in town. He writes from Curzon Street."
"I don"t know why he does it," said Ruston slowly. "I knew he"d been selling out."
"He hasn"t made money at that."
"No. I"ve made the profit there," said Ruston, with a sudden smile.
"The Baron bought "em, eh?" laughed Carlin. "You generally come out right side up, Willie. You"ll go and see him, though, won"t you?"
Yes. He would go. That was the resolution which in a moment he reached.
If there were danger, he must face it, if there were calamity, he must know it. He would go and see Harry Dennison.
As he was, on the stroke of half-past four, he jumped into a hansom-cab, and bade the man drive to Curzon Street.
Harry was not at home--nor Mrs. Dennison, added the servant. But both were expected soon.
"I"ll wait," said Willie, and he was shown up into the drawing-room.
As the servant opened the door, he said in his low respectful tones,
"Mrs. Cormack is here, sir, waiting for Mrs. Dennison."
A moment later Willie Ruston was overwhelmed in a shrilly enthusiastic greeting. Mrs. Cormack had been in despair from _ennui_; Maggie"s delay was endless, and Mr. Ruston was in verity a G.o.dsend. Indeed there was every appearance of sincerity in the lady"s welcome. She stood and looked at him with an expression of most wicked and mischievous pleasure. The remorse detected by Tom Loring was not visible now; pure delight reigned supreme, and gave free scope to her frivolous fearlessness.
"_Enfin!_" she said. "Behold the villain of the piece!"
He opened his eyes in questioning.
"Oh, you think to deceive me too? Why, I have prophesied it."
"You are," said Willie, standing on the hearth-rug, and gazing at her nervous restless figure, so rich in half-expressed hints too subtle for language, "the most outrageous of women, Mrs. Cormack. Fortunately you have a fling at everybody, and the saints come off as badly as the sinners."
A shrug a.s.serted her opinion of his pretences. He answered,
"I really am so unfortunate as not to have the least idea what you"re driving at."
An inarticulate scornful little sound greeted this protest.
"Oh, well, I shall wait till you say something," remarked Willie, with a laugh. "I can"t deny villainies wholesale, and I can"t argue against Gallic e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns."
"You still come here?" she asked, ignoring his rudeness, and coming to close quarters with native audacity.
He looked at her for a moment, and then walked up to her chair, and stood over her. She leant back, gazing up at him with a smile.
"Look here! Don"t talk nonsense," he said brusquely; "even such talk as yours may do harm with fools."
"Fools!" she echoed. "You mean----?"
"More than half the world," he interrupted.
"Including----?" she began again in mockery.
"Some of our acquaintance," he answered, with the glimmer of a smile.
"Ah, I thought you were angry!" she cried, pointing at the smile on his lips.
"I shall be, if you don"t hold your tongue."
"You beg me to be silent, Mr. Ruston?"