"But I can see you in the morning before you leave?"
The accent was now that of request. The overtone in it was pitiful.
"Oh, don"t try to, sir. She wants to get away from every one. It will be so much better for her to do just as she likes. She had got to a point where she had to escape from everything she knew and cared about; and so all of a sudden--only--only to-day--she decided to come with me. She doesn"t need a trained nurse, because she"s perfectly well. All she wants is some one to be with her--whom she knows she can trust. She hasn"t even taken Anglique. She simply begs to be alone."
In the end I made my point, but only after genuine beseeching on his part and much repet.i.tion on mine. Having said good-night to him--he actually used the words--I called up Anglique, in order to bring peace to a household in which the mistress"s desertion would create some consternation.
Anglique and I might have been called friends. The fact that I spoke French _comme une Franaise_, as she often flattered me by saying, was a bond between us, and we had the further point of sympathy that we were both devoted to Mrs. Brokenshire. Besides that, there is something in me--I suppose it must be a plebeian streak--which enables me to understand servants and get along with them.
I gave her much the same explanation as I gave to Mr. Brokenshire, though somewhat differently put. In addition I asked her to pack such selections from the simpler examples of Mrs. Brokenshire"s wardrobe as the lady might need in a country place, and keep them in readiness to send. Anglique having expressed her relief that Mrs. Brokenshire was safe at a known address, in the company of a responsible attendant--a relief which, so she said, would be shared by the housekeeper, the chef, and the butler, all of whom had spent the evening in painful speculation--we took leave of each other, with our customary mutual compliments.
Though I was so tired by this time that fainting would have been a solace, I called for a Boston paper and began studying the advertis.e.m.e.nts of country hotels. Having made a selection of these I consulted the manager of our present place of refuge, who strongly commended one of them. Thither I sent a night-letter commandeering the best, after which, with no more than strength to undress, I lay down on a couch in Mrs. Brokenshire"s room. When I knew she was sleeping I, too, slept fitfully. About once in an hour I went softly to her bedside, and finding her dozing, if not sound asleep, I went softly back again.
Between four and five we had a little scene. As I approached her bed she looked up and said:
"What are we going to do in the morning?"
Afraid to tell her all I had put in train, I gave my ideas in the form of suggestion.
"No, I sha"n"t do that," she said, quietly.
She lay quite still, her cheek embossed on the pillow, and a great stray curl over her left shoulder.
"Then what would you like to do?"
"I should like to go straight back."
"To begin the same old life all over again?"
"To begin to see him all over again."
"Do you think that after last night you can begin to see him in the same old way?"
"I must see him in some way."
"But isn"t the way what you"ve still to discover?" I resolved on a bold stroke. "Wouldn"t part of your object in going away for a time be to think out some method of reconciling your feeling for Mr. Grainger with--with your self-respect?"
"My self-respect?" She looked as if she had never heard of such a thing.
"What"s that got to do with it?"
"Hasn"t it got everything to do with it? You can"t live without it forever."
"Do you mean that I"ve been living without it as it is?"
"Isn"t that for you to say rather than for me?"
She was silent for a minute, after which she said, fretfully:
"I don"t think it"s very nice of you to talk to me like that. You"ve got me here at your mercy, when I might have been--" A long, bubbling sigh, like the aftermath of tears, laid stress on the joys she had foregone.
"He"ll never forgive me now--never."
"Wouldn"t it be better, dear Mrs. Brokenshire," I asked, "to consider whether or not you can ever forgive him?"
She raised herself on her elbow and looked at me. Seated in a low arm-chair beside her bed, in an old-rose-colored kimono, my dark hair hanging down my back, I was not a fascinating object of study, even in the light of one small, distant, shaded bedroom lamp.
"What should I forgive him for?--for loving me?"
"Yes, for loving you--in that way."
"He loves me--"
"So much that he could see you dishonored and disgraced--and shunned by decent people all the rest of your life--just to gratify his own desires. It seems to me you may have to forgive him for that."
"He asked me to do only what I would have done willingly--if it hadn"t been for you."
"But he asked you. The responsibility is in that. You didn"t make the suggestion; he did."
"He didn"t make it till I"d let him see--"
"Too much. Forgive me for saying it, dear Mrs. Brokenshire; but do you think a woman should ever go so far to meet a man as you did?"
"I let him see that I loved him. I did that before I married Mr.
Brokenshire."
"You let him see more than that you loved him. You showed him that you didn"t know how to live without him."
"But since I didn"t know how--"
"Ah, but you should have known. No woman should be so dependent on a man as that."
She fell back again on her pillows.
"It"s easy to see you"ve never been in love."
"I have been in love--and am still; but love is not the most important thing in the world--"
"Then you differ from all the great teachers. They say it is."
"If they do they"re not speaking of s.e.xual love."
"What are they speaking of, then?"
"They"re speaking of another kind of love, with which the mere s.e.xual has nothing to do. I"m not an ascetic, and I know the s.e.xual has its place. But there"s a love that"s as much bigger than that as the sky is bigger than I am."
"Yes, but so long as one never sees it--"
I suppose it was her tone of feeble rebellion that roused my spirit and made me speak in a way which I should not otherwise have allowed myself.
"You do see it, darling Mrs. Brokenshire," I declared, more sweetly than I felt. "I"m showing it to you." I rose and stood over her. "What do you suppose I"m prompted by but love? What urges me to stand by Mr.