Part 22 (1/2)
And as she talked, the problem before my cousin a.s.sumed graver and yet graver proportions. He perceived more and more clearly the complexity of the situation with which he was entrusted. In the first place it was not at all clear that Miss Glendower was willing to receive back her lover except upon terms, and the Sea Lady, he was quite sure, did not mean to release him from any grip she had upon him. They were preparing to treat an elemental struggle as if it were an individual case. It grew more and more evident to him how entirely Mrs. Bunting overlooked the essentially abnormal nature of the Sea Lady, how absolutely she regarded the business as a mere every-day vacillation, a commonplace outbreak of that jilting spirit which dwells, covered deep, perhaps, but never entirely eradicated, in the heart of man; and how confidently she expected him, with a little tactful remonstrance and pressure, to restore the _status quo ante_.
As for Chatteris!--Melville shook his head at the cheese, and answered Mrs. Bunting abstractedly.
III
”She wants to speak to you,” said Mrs. Bunting, and Melville with a certain trepidation went upstairs. He went up to the big landing with the seats, to save Adeline the trouble of coming down. She appeared dressed in a black and violet tea gown with much lace, and her dark hair was done with a simple carefulness that suited it. She was pale, and her eyes showed traces of tears, but she had a certain dignity that differed from her usual bearing in being quite unconscious.
She gave him a limp hand and spoke in an exhausted voice.
”You know--all?” she asked.
”All the outline, anyhow.”
”Why has he done this to me?”
Melville looked profoundly sympathetic through a pause.
”I feel,” she said, ”that it isn't coa.r.s.eness.”
”Certainly not,” said Melville.
”It is some mystery of the imagination that I cannot understand. I should have thought--his career at any rate--would have appealed....”
She shook her head and regarded a pot of ferns fixedly for a s.p.a.ce.
”He has written to you?” asked Melville.
”Three times,” she said, looking up.
Melville hesitated to ask the extent of that correspondence, but she left no need for that.
”I had to ask him,” she said. ”He kept it all from me, and I had to force it from him before he would tell.”
”Tell!” said Melville, ”what?”
”What he felt for her and what he felt for me.”
”But did he----?”
”He has made it clearer. But still even now. No, I don't understand.”
She turned slowly and watched Melville's face as she spoke: ”You know, Mr. Melville, that this has been an enormous shock to me. I suppose I never really knew him. I suppose I--idealised him. I thought he cared for--our work at any rate.... He _did_ care for our work. He believed in it. Surely he believed in it.”
”He does,” said Melville.
”And then-- But how can he?”
”He is--he is a man with rather a strong imagination.”
”Or a weak will?”