"That was just what I thought," she answered, "and I wanted to ask you. As a man of the world, what would you advise me to do?"
"Well," he began--then he rose and held out his hand to help her up from her little chair. "Will you come out and sit on the terrace," he said, "and allow me to smoke? The night is warm."
Angelica nodded, and preceded him through one of the open windows.
"Well," Mr. Kilroy resumed, when he had lit his cigar, and settled himself in a cane chair comfortably, with Angelica in another opposite. "What a lovely night it is after the rain yesterday"--this by way of parenthesis.
"Rather close, though," he observed, and then he returned to the subject.
"I suppose you mean that you do not want it to be all over between you?"
"_Between the Tenor and the Boy_," she corrected. "The whole charm of the acquaintance, don"t you see, for me, consisted in that footing--I don"t know how to express it, but perhaps you can grasp what I mean."
Mr. Kilroy reflected. "I am afraid," he said at last, "that footing cannot be resumed. The influences of s.e.x, once the difference is recognized, are involuntary. But, if he has no objection, I do not see why you should not be friends, and intimate friends too; and with that sort of man you might make some advance, especially as you are entirely in the wrong. I am not saying, you know, that this would be the proper thing to do as a rule; but here are exceptional circ.u.mstances, and here is an exceptional man."
"Now, that is significant," said Angelica, jeering. "Society is so demoralized that if a man is caught conducting himself with decency and honour on all occasions when a woman is in question, you involuntarily exclaim that he is an exceptional man!"
Mr. Kilroy smoked on in silence for some time with his eyes fixed on the quiet stars. His att.i.tude expressed nothing but extreme quiescence, yet Angelica felt reproved.
"Don"t snub me, Daddy," she exclaimed at last. "I came to you in my difficulty, and you do not seem to care."
Mr. Kilroy looked at his cigar, and flicked the ash from the end of it.
"Tell me how to get out of this horrid dilemma," Angelica pursued. "I shall never know a moment"s peace until we have resumed our acquaintance on a different footing, and I have been able to make him some reparation."
"Ah--reparation?" said Mr. Kilroy dubiously.
"Do you think it is impossible?" Angelica demanded.
"Not impossible, perhaps, but very difficult," he answered. "Really, Angelica," he broke off laughingly, "I quite forget every now and again that we are romancing. You must write this story for me.".
"We are _not_ romancing," she said impatiently, "and I couldn"t write it, it is too painful. Besides, we don"t seem to get any further."
"Let me see where we were?" Mr. Kilroy replied, humouring her good-naturedly. "It is a pity you cannot unmarry yourself. You see, being married complicates matters to a much greater extent than if you had been single. A girl might, under certain circ.u.mstances, be forgiven for an escapade of the kind, but when a married woman does such a thing it is very different. Still, if you can get well out of it, of course the difficulty will make the _denouement_ all the more interesting."
"But I don"t see how I am to get well out of it--unless you will go to him yourself, and tell him you know the whole story, and do whatever your tact and goodness suggest to set the matter right." She bent forward with her arms folded on her lap, looking up at him eagerly as she spoke, and beating a "devil"s tattoo," with her slender feet, on the ground impatiently the while.
"No," he answered deliberately, "that would not be natural. You see, either you must be objectionable or your husband must; and upon the whole I think you had better sacrifice the husband, otherwise you lose your readers" sympathy."
"Make _you_ objectionable, Daddy!" Angelica exclaimed. "The thing is not to be done! I could never have asked you to marry me if you had been objectionable. And I don"t see why I should be so either--entirely, you know. If I had been quite horrid, I should not have appreciated you, and the Tenor and Uncle Dawne and Dr. Galbraith--oh, dear! Why is it, when good men are so scarce, that I should know so many, and yet be tormented with the further knowledge that you are all exceptional, and crime and misery continue because it is so? What is the use of knowing when one can do nothing?"
Again Mr. Kilroy looked up at the quiet stars; but Angelica gave him no time to reflect.
"I don"t see why I should be severely consistent," she said. "Let me be a mixture--not a foul mixture, but one of those which eventually result in something agreeable, after going through a period of fermentation, during which they throw up an unpleasant sc.u.m that has to be removed."
"That would do," Mr. Kilroy responded gravely.
"But just now," Angelica resumed, "it seems as if I should be obliged to let matters take their course and do nothing, which is intolerable."
"Oh, but you must do something," Mr. Kilroy decided; "and the first thing will be to go to him."
"Go to him!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.
"Well, yes," he rejoined. "Naturally you will feel it. Now that you are no longer _The Boy_ made courageous by his unsuspicious confidence--I mean the Tenor"s--it is quite proper for you to be shy and ashamed of yourself. As a woman, of course, you are not wanting in modesty. But there is no help for it; he would never come to you, so you must go to him. I quite think that you owe him any reparation you can make. And, knowing the sort of man he is--you have made his character well known in the place, have you not?"
Angelica nodded. "Well, then, a visit from a lady of your rank will create no scandal, nor even cause any surprise, I should think, if you go quite openly; for you are known to be a musician, and might therefore reasonably be supposed to have business with one of the profession. I wish, by-the-bye, you had made him an ugly man, with kind eyes, you know; it would have been more original, I think. But you will find out who he is, of course?"
"No. I hardly think so." Angelica answered. "But you would advise me to go to him?"--this by way of bringing him back to the subject.
"Yes"--with a vigorous attempt to draw his cigar to life again, it having gone all but out--"I should advise you to go to him boldly, by day, of course; and just make him forgive you. Insist on it; you will find he cannot resist you. Then you will start afresh on a new footing as you wish, and the whole thing will end happily."
"You forget though, he did forgive me."
"There are various kinds of forgiveness," Mr. Kilroy replied. "There is the forgiveness that washes its hands of the culprit and refuses to be further troubled on his behalf--the least estimable form of forgiveness; and there is that which proves itself sincere by the effort which is afterward made to help the penitent, that is the kind of forgiveness you should try to secure."
"But somehow it still seems unfinished," Angelica grumbled.
"If you had been single now," Mr. Kilroy suggested, "you would, in the natural course of events, have married the Tenor."
"Oh, no!" Angelica vigorously interposed. "I should never have wanted to marry him. Can"t I make you understand? The side of my nature which I turned to him as _The Boy_ is the only one he has touched, and I could never care for him in any other relation."
"Well, I don"t know," Mr. Kilroy observed thoughtfully. "It may be so, of course, but it is unusual."
"And so am I unusual," Angelica answered quickly; "but there will be plenty more like me by and by. Now don"t look "Heaven forbid!" at me in that way."
"That was not in the least what I intended to express," he answered with his kindly smile--indulgent. "And I am inclined to think that your own idea of loving him without being in love with him is the best; it is so much less commonplace. But what do you think."--speaking as if struck by a bright idea--"what do you think of putting him under a great obligation which will bind him to you in grat.i.tude, and secure his friendship? You might, with great courage and devotion, and all that sort of thing, you know, find out all about him, prove him to be a prince or something--the heir to great estates and hereditary privileges, with congenial duties attached. The idea is not exactly new, but your treatment of it would be sure to be original--"
Angelica interrupted him by a decisive shake of her head. "But about going to him?" she demanded--"you do not think, speaking as a man of the world yourself, and remembering that he knows the world too although he _is_ such a saint; you do not think such a proceeding on my part will lower me still further in his estimation?"
"Well, no," Mr. Kilroy replied. "I feel quite sure it will have just the opposite effect. As a man of the world he will know what it has cost a young lady like you to humble herself to that extent; as a saint he will appreciate the act, looking at it in the light of a penance, which, in point of fact, it would be; and as a human being he will be touched by your confidence in him, and the value you set upon his esteem. So that, altogether, I am convinced it is the proper thing to do."
Angelica made no reply, but got up languidly after a moment"s thought, carefully ruffled his hair with both hands as she pa.s.sed, called him "Dear old Daddy!" and retired.
Mr. Kilroy did not like to have his hair ruffled in that way, particularly as he was apt to forget, and appear in public with it all standing up on end; but he bore the infliction as it was intended for a caress, Angelica"s caresses always took some such form; she a.s.sured him he would like them in time, and he sincerely hoped he might, but the time had not yet arrived.
The following evening they were again in the drawing room together. Mr.
Kilroy was reading the papers, Angelica was sitting with her hands before her doing nothing--not even listening, though she affected to do so, when he read aloud such news as he thought would interest her. The week was nearly over, and nothing more had been said about her return to town. She was just wondering now if Mr. Kilroy had found the week a long one. She had given him more than enough of her company and made him feel--at least so she hoped, slipping back to the mood in which he had found her upon his arrival--made him feel how pleasant a thing it is to dwell alone in your own house with no one to trouble you; and she quite expected to find, when it came to the point, that he would cheerfully take no for an answer.
Presently she rose, went to a mirror that was let into the wall, and looked at herself critically for some seconds.
"Should you think it possible for anybody to fall so hopelessly in love with my appearance that, when love was found to be out of the question, friendship would also be impossible?" she demanded in a tone of contempt for herself, turning half round from the mirror to look at Mr. Kilroy as she spoke.
Mr. Kilroy glanced at her over his _pince-nez_. That same appearance which she disliked to be valued for was a never-failing source of pleasure to him, but he took good care to conceal the fact. On this occasion, however, he fell into the natural mistake of supposing that she was coquettishly trying to extricate a compliment from him for once, an amusing feminine device to which she seldom condescended.
"Well, I should think it extremely probable," he replied--"if he were not already in love with another woman."
"Or an idea?" Angelica suggested with a yawn; and Mr. Kilroy, perceiving that he had somehow missed the point, took up his paper, and finished the paragraph he had been reading. Then he said, looking up at her again with admiring eyes: "I do not think I quite like that red frock of yours. It seems to me that it is making you look alarmingly pale."
Angelica returned to the mirror, and once more looked at herself deliberately. "Perhaps it does," she answered; "but at any rate you shall not see it again." And having spoken she sauntered out on to the terrace with a listless step, and from thence she wandered off into the gardens, where the scent of roses set her thinking, thinking, thinking. She sought to change the direction of her thoughts, but vainly; they would go on in spite of her, and they were always busy with the same subject, always working at the one idea. Israfil! Israfil! There was n.o.body like him, and how badly she had treated him, and how good he had always been to her, and how could she go on day after day like this with no hope of ever seeing him again in the old delightful intimate way? and oh! if she had not done this! and oh! if she had not done that! It might all have been so different if only _she_ had been different; but now how could it come right? A hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, case. She had lost his respect forever. And not to be respected! A woman and not respected!