CHAPTER XXXVII

“The Devil drove the woman out of Paradise; but not even the Devil could drive Paradise out of the woman.”

—GEORGE MACDONALD.

“THE worst of being unusual,” said Edith le Mentier to Jack as he talked with her under the cover of loud, unmeaning drawing-room music, “is—that’s it’s so common. Really you know it’s ridiculous running away. Everybody does it!”

“Still you know one can’t come back again—one’s got to count the cost,” he said looking at her anxiously.

She had made him think he cared a good deal for her, and she cared desperately for him. He did not realize how much—it was her greatest victory that he didn’t. She trembled at even feeling his eyes on her, his presence near her.

“I feel such a brute,” he said, “leaving Gladys.”

“Brutes can’t live with fools,” said Edith le Mentier. “I like—brutes,” she added under her breath. Then she looked at him. “I don’t see the necessity for you to leave—Gladys,” she said.

The music stopped with a crash. The hostess cried, “Oh, how delicious! Thank you! And _which_ of the dear old masters was that?” The conversation leaped joyously into freedom.

Jack felt the room and the plants and the beautiful dresses whirl round him like a dream.

“But,” he said, “I’m not that sort of a man.” He had risen to the very height of his standard. Edith understood instantly.

“I mean,” she said gently and sadly, “we might never see each other again.”

“Edith! Edith!” he said; “not that, my darling!”

“Remember where you are,” she said in an undertone. “They’re going to ask me to sing,” she added. “Come to me to-morrow.”

“I wish you would tell me if you mean to trust me!” he pleaded.

She shrugged her shoulders; they were very pretty ones; then she sang. They had nothing there she knew but Gounod’s “There is a green hill far away.” And so she sang that. She sang it beautifully.

Gladys was sitting up for him, she had had a headache and could not accompany him. She always had a headache if there was the chance of her meeting Edith le Mentier. She had dressed very sweetly to welcome him, and looked very young and pathetic. It was so late that he scolded her for sitting up for him, but she told him she had something special to say, and took him into the library, shutting the door. The fire gleamed cheerily, and Jack, as he leaned back in a big arm-chair, and looked at the pretty, eager face opposite him, felt more of a brute than ever.

“I have had Muriel with me all the afternoon,” she began nervously, “and she made me promise to talk it all over frankly with you. She’s been so good to me, Jack!—and I told her that I would——” She hesitated, and looked at the fire.

He could see that her lips trembled, and a sudden longing to take her in his arms and comfort her came over him, as he had done one short year ago in the Indian garden. But he did not—it was some time since he had done so. And there was this evening’s terrible barrier in between.

“Do you know, Jack, we haven’t been married quite a year, and yet we aren’t very happy, are we? I’m afraid I have been terribly to blame, Jack. I wanted to tell you so long ago, but you didn’t—didn’t seem to care a bit. Then you began to see such a lot of that horrible woman, and I hated that, and I thought I hated you! People told me I ought to amuse myself, and that there were other men besides neglectful husbands—and Major Kennedy, he’s a great friend of yours, and he came so often to the house—and you never seemed to care. Indeed, I don’t believe you ever took the trouble to find out, and I was very miserable and silly! I daresay being miserable should have made me wise, but you were the highest thing I loved, and _still_ love, Jack, and you didn’t care!” She paused a moment, catching her breath, and he grew white in a sudden agony of fear and pain.

He had lived with this woman—she was his wife! He had married her a young, untried girl, and he had given her the key to all the dangers, and left her to face them alone. He dared not interrupt her, and so he waited, fearing each heavy, silent moment as it passed.

“I wanted love, and he—he said he loved me, Jack! Ah! don’t speak! I was a fool and worse! but indeed I didn’t understand, and then—Muriel came,”—he drew in a deep breath, it might have been a sob of relief,—“and I tried to be different. Do you remember that night, two weeks ago, when you came in late and I kissed you, and you—laughed at me? Oh, Jack, how it hurt me! And then the next day he told me he would sell his soul for a kiss. Perhaps he didn’t mean anything, but you had gone to tea with Edith le Mentier, and I—let him, Jack!” He started forward, but she stopped him by a gesture. “Wait till I finish, please,” she said. “Then I understood, and I sent him away, and cried all the afternoon. He wanted me to run away with him, and I was weak and frightened. I don’t know what I should have done if it hadn’t been for Muriel. You said I wasn’t truthful, so I want to be quite truthful now. I think if it hadn’t been for Muriel I should have gone. I wanted to hurt your pride if I couldn’t win your love; but Muriel stood by me, and wouldn’t let me go. She told me what to say to Major Kennedy. I’m not sure—but I believe she said something to him herself—anyway he went off somewhere at once. Oh, Jack, _can’t_ you love me! can you ever be good to me again?” She lifted up her arms towards him, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. She was weak and irresolute, vain and foolish, but he had done nothing to help her, yet she had gone through what had defeated him, and she was asking him whether he could forgive her! “I loved you, Jack,” she cried piteously; “I loved you all the time! And it’s all over now for ever and ever!” The color rushed into her face and a new look came into her eyes—a look he did not understand.

“Why do you say it’s all over?” he asked dully. “It may happen again.”

“It will never come again,” she said, “because—oh, Jack, I—I’m afraid, but I’m very glad too—it’s always so wonderful, and don’t you understand?” she covered her face with her hands, “I am going to be—the mother of your child!” At last it came to him, and for ever killed the irresponsibility of love’s selfishness. He took her now in his arms, he dared to do so, because now for him too the other was all over. She was helpless and clinging, she was his wife, and she was going into the valley of the shadow of death because she loved him. “Oh, Jack, will you forgive?”

“Forgive you!” he cried, and tried to explain to her how sorry he was, how much to blame, and how glad at last that they both of them understood, and how now it would all be different—so wonderfully different! But he did not tell her about Edith le Mentier.

When she was safe in bed he wrote to the other woman, and hurt her very bitterly. The other woman, for all her faults, is very often brave, and Edith le Mentier suffered horribly; but she bore the great defeat, and was only a very little irritable the next morning. She did not sing Gounod’s song again; she said it was scarcely suitable.

She always shrugged her shoulders and smiled when people mentioned Jack’s wife, and when they spoke of him she said “Poor fellow!”

Who could tell that those were the figures of the sum called tragedy? Not the tragedy of the true-hearted who see through pain the vista of glory, but that inordinate agony which because it is so solely selfish eats into the heart that bears it, and for the vista substitutes a _cul-de-sac_.

Jack and Gladys went to his estate in the country, where they spent some bad hours, and learned lessons of tolerance. It was, fortunately for Jack, the hunting season, and he rode hard to hounds. Gladys cultivated the country people, read a great deal, and took an intelligent interest in Jack’s “runs.” At the end of the time they could live together quite comfortably, and avoided the unendurable with the ready forbearance of quite long married people. The knowing what to avoid is the key to most things, though it is often difficult to turn.

A son was born to them, making Jack a proud father, and consequently a good husband. And Gladys found a life more engrossing than her own. She wrote and asked Muriel to stand godmother.