I could hardly reply, my heart pounded with such fright.
"To--to New York, sir."
"What for?"
"Be-because," I faltered. "I want to--to get away."
"Why do you want to get away?"
"For--for every reason."
"But suppose I don"t want you to go?"
"I should still have to be gone."
He said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper:
"I want you to stay--and--and marry Hugh."
I clasped my hands.
"Oh, but how can I?"
"He"s willing to forget what you"ve said--what my daughter Ethel has said; and I"m willing to forget it, too."
"Do you mean as to my being in love with some one else? But I am."
"Not more than you were at the beginning of the evening. You were willing to marry him then."
"But he didn"t know then what he"s had to learn since. I hoped to have kept it from him always. I may have been wrong--I suppose I was; but I had nothing but good motives."
There was a strange drop in his voice as he said, "I know you hadn"t."
I couldn"t help taking a step nearer him.
"Oh, do you? Then I"m so glad. I thought--"
He turned slightly away from me, toward a huge ugly fish in a gla.s.s case, which Mr. Rossiter believed to be a proof of his sportsmanship and an ornament to the hall.
"I"ve had great trials," he said, after a pause--"great trials!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "I"VE HAD GREAT TRIALS . . . I"VE ALWAYS BEEN MISJUDGED.
. . . THEY"VE PUT ME DOWN AS HARD AND PROUD"]
"I know," I agreed, softly.
He walked toward the fish and seemed to be studying it.
"They"ve--they"ve--broken me down."
"Oh, don"t say that, sir!"
"It"s true." His finger outlined the fish"s skeleton from head to tail.
"The things I said to-night--" He seemed hung up there. He traced the fish"s skeleton back from tail to head. "Have we been unkind to you?" he demanded, suddenly, wheeling round in my direction.
I thought it best to speak quite truthfully.
"Not unkind, sir--exactly."
"But what did Ethel mean? She said we"d been brutes to you. Is that true?"
"No, sir; not in my sense. I haven"t felt it."
He tapped his foot with the old imperiousness. "Then--what?"
We were so near the fundamentals that again I felt I ought to give him nothing but the facts.
"I suppose Mrs. Rossiter meant that sometimes I should have been glad of a little more sympathy, and always of more--courtesy." I added: "From you, sir, I shouldn"t have asked for more than courtesy."
Though only his profile was toward me and the hall was dim, I could see that his face was twitching. "And--and didn"t you get it?"
"Do you think I did?"
"I never thought anything about it."
"Exactly; but any one in my position does. Even if we could do without courtesy between equals--and I don"t think we can--from the higher to the lower--from you to me, for instance--it"s indispensable. I don"t remember that I ever complained of it, however. Mrs. Rossiter must have seen it for herself."
"I didn"t want you to marry Hugh," he began, again, after a long pause; "but I"d given in about it. I shouldn"t have minded it so much if--if my wife--"
He broke off with a distressful, choking sound in the throat, and a twisting of the head, as if he couldn"t get his breath. That pa.s.sed and he began once more.
"I"ve had great trials. . . . My wife! . . . And then the burden of this war. . . . They think--they think I don"t care anything about it but--but just to make money. . . . I"ve always been misjudged. . . .
They"ve put me down as hard and proud, when--"
"I could have liked you, sir," I interrupted, boldly. "I told you so once, and it offended you. But I"ve never been able to help it. I"ve always felt that there was something big and fine in you--if you"d only set it free."
His reply to this was to turn away from his contemplation of the fish and say:
"Why don"t you come back?"
I was sure it was best to be firm.
"Because I can"t, sir. The episode is--is over. I"m sorry, and yet I"m glad. What I"m doing is right. I suppose everything has been right--even what happened between me and Hugh. I don"t think it will do him any harm--Cissie Boscobel is there--and it"s done me good. It"s been a wonderful experience; but it"s over. It would be a mistake for me to go back now--a mistake for all of us. Please let me go, sir; and just remember of me that I"m--I"m--grateful."
He regarded me quietly and--if I may say so--curiously. There was something in his look, something broken, something defeated, something, at long last, kind, that made me want to cry.
I was crying inwardly when he turned about, without another word, and walked toward the door.
It must have been the impulse to say a silent good-by to him that sent me slowly down the hall, though I was scarcely aware of moving. He had gone out into the dark and I was under the Oriental lamp, when he suddenly reappeared, coming in my direction rapidly. I would have leaped back if I hadn"t refused to show fear. As it was, I stood still. I was only conscious of an overwhelming pity, terror, and amazement as he seized me and kissed me hotly on the brow. Then he was gone.