"No? So glad of that! My dear girl, why are you so anxious to get rid of me?"
"Anxious to get rid of you? What an absurd idea!"
"Well, if not that, what on earth _do_ you mean?"
"I have told you! I have a headache."
"Like Lady Rylton. The fact is, Margaret," says he, turning upon her wrathfully, "she has bound you down not to listen to a word I can say in my own defence. The last day I was here you were very different. But I can see she has been at work since, and is fast prejudicing you against me. I call that most unfair. I don"t blame _you,_ though I think you _might_ give half an hour to a cousin and an old friend--one who was your friend long before ever _she_ saw you. You think the right is all on her side; but is it? Now I put it fairly to you. _Is it?"_
Margaret is quaking.
"My dear Maurice--I--you know how I feel for you--for"--with a frantic glance at the screen--"for _both_ of you, but----"
"Pshaw! that is mere playing with the subject. Do you mean to say you have given up even your honest opinion to her? You must know that it is not right for a wife to refuse to live with her husband.
Come"--vehemently--"you _must_ know that."
"Yes. Yes, of course," says poor Margaret, who doesn"t know on earth what she is saying.
Her eyes are riveted on that awful screen, and now she is shaken to the very core by the fact that it _is_ evidently undergoing a second earthquake! What is to be done? How long will this last? And when the end comes, will even _one_ of them be left alive to tell the tale?
"Look here!" says Rylton. "She won"t see me, it appears; she declines to acknowledge the tie that binds us. She has plainly decided on putting me outside her life altogether. But she can"t do that, you know. And"--with some vehemence--"what I wish to say is this, that if I was in fault when I married her, fancying myself in love with another woman----"
"Maurice, I entreat," says Margaret, rising, "I _desire_ you to----"
"No; you must listen. I will not be condemned unheard. She can"t have it all her own way. If I was in fault, so was she. Is it right for a woman to marry a man without one spark of love for him, with--she never concealed it--an almost open dislike to him?"
"Dislike? Maurice----"
"Well, is she not proving it now? My coming seems to be the signal for her hiding herself away in her own room. "In retirement" you said she was, with a bad headache. Do you think"--furiously--"I can"t see through her headaches? Now listen, Margaret; the case stands thus: I married her for her money, and she married me for my t.i.tle. We both accepted the risk, and----"
Margaret throws up her hands. Her face grows livid, her eyes are fastened on the screen, and at this moment it goes over with a loud crash.
"It is not true! It is a lie!" says t.i.ta, advancing into the middle of the room, her lips apart, her eyes blazing.
CHAPTER XXV.
HOW t.i.tA WAGES WAR WITH MARGARET AND MAURICE; AND HOW MARGARET SUFFERS IGNOMINIOUS TREATMENT ON BOTH HANDS; AND HOW MAURICE AT THE LAST GAINS ONE SMALL VICTORY.
There is a moment"s awful silence, and then t.i.ta sweeps straight up to Rylton, who is gazing at her as if he never saw her before. As for Margaret, she feels as if she is going to faint.
"I--_I!_" says t.i.ta; "to accuse me of marrying you for your t.i.tle! I never thought about your t.i.tle. I don"t care a fig for your t.i.tle.
My greatest grief now is that people call me Lady Rylton."
"I beg of you, t.i.ta----" begins Margaret, trembling; she lays her hand on the girl"s arm, but t.i.ta shakes her off.
"Don"t speak to me. Don"t touch me. You are as bad as he is. You took his part all through. You said you _felt_ for him! When he was saying all sorts of dreadful things about me. You said, "Yes, yes, of course." I heard you; I was listening. I heard every word."
"May I ask," says Rylton, "if you did not marry me for my t.i.tle, what _did_ you marry me for? Not," with a sneer, "for love, certainly."
"I should think not," with a sneer on her part that sinks his into insignificance. "I married you to escape from my uncle, who was making me wretched! But not"--with an ireful glance at him--_"half_ as wretched as _you_ have made me!"
Rylton shrugs his shoulders. You should never shrug your shoulders when a woman is angry.
"Yes, wretched--wretched!" says t.i.ta, angry tears flooding her eyes.
"There was never _any_ one so miserable as I have been since I married you."
"That makes it all the more unfortunate that you are married to me still," says Rylton icily.
"I may be married to you--I shan"t live with you," says t.i.ta.
"We shall see to that," says Rylton, who has lost his head a little.
"Yes, _I_ shall," returns she, with open defiance.
Meantime Margaret, who had been crushed by that first onslaught on her, has recovered herself a little. To appeal to t.i.ta again is useless; but to Maurice--she _must_ say a word of entreaty to Maurice. t.i.ta has been most unjust, but men are of n.o.bler make.
Maurice will understand.
"I think," says she very gently, catching his eye, "that it would be better for you to--to discuss all this--with t.i.ta--alone. I shall go, but I beg of you, Maurice, to----"
"Pray don"t beg anything of me," says Maurice, turning upon her with an expression that bodes no good to anyone. "I should think you ought to be the last person in the world to ask a favour of me."
"Good gracious! what have I done now?" exclaims Margaret shrinking back, and cut to the heart by this fresh affront.
"You knew she was there, behind that screen, and you never gave me even a hint about it. A hint would have been sufficient, but----"
"I did!" says Margaret, driven to bay. "I told you I had a headache, and that you were to go away--but you wouldn"t!"
"You told me you had twenty diseases, but even that wouldn"t exonerate you from letting her hear what was not meant for her ears."
"Ah! I"m glad you acknowledge even _so_ much," breaks in t.i.ta vindictively.
"Even though they weren"t meant for your ears I"m glad you heard them," says Rylton, turning to her with all the air of one who isn"t going to give in at _any_ price. "But as for you, Margaret, I did not expect this from you. I believed you stanch, at all events, and honest; yet you deliberately let me say what was in my mind, _knowing_ there was an unseen listener who would be sure to make the worst of all she heard."
"t.i.ta, _you_ shall explain this!" says Margaret, turning with a tragic gesture towards her. "Speak. Tell him."
"What is the good of telling him anything?" says t.i.ta, regarding her coldly. "Yet though you have forsaken me, Margaret, I will do as you wish." She turns to Rylton. "It was against Margaret"s wish that I hid behind that screen. I heard you coming, and there was no way out of the room except by the door through which you would enter, and rather than meet you I felt"--with a sudden flash of her large eyes at him--"I would willingly die. So I got behind that screen, and--and" She pauses. "Well, that"s all," says she.
"You see it was not my fault," says Margaret.
She lets a pa.s.sing glance fall on Rylton, and with an increase of dignity in her air leaves the room. The two left behind look strangely at each other.
"So you were listening?" says Rylton. "Listening all that time?"
"You wrong me as usual. I was _not_ listening all the time. I didn"t want to listen at all. Do you think I ever wanted to hear your voice again?"