Part 18 (2/2)
”The reason remains. Indeed it is stronger now than it was when I first left England,” he answered. He leaned forward with his elbows upon his knees, gazing into the fire. The light played upon his face, and Chase could not but notice the change which these few months had brought to him. He had grown thin, and rather worn; he had lost the comfortable look of prosperity; his face was tanned. But there was more. It might have been expected that the rough surroundings amidst which Stretton had lived would leave their marks. He might have become rather coa.r.s.e, rather gross to the eye. On the contrary, there was a look of refinement. It was the long battle with his own thoughts which had left the marks. The mind was showing through the flesh. The face had become spiritualised.
”Yes, the reason remains,” said Stretton. ”I left home to keep my wife. We lived a life of quarrels. All the little memories, the a.s.sociations, the thousand and one small private things--ideas, thoughts, words, jokes even, which two people who care very much for one another have in common--we were losing, and so quickly; so very quickly. I can't express half what I mean. But haven't you seen a man and a woman at a dinner-table, when some chance sentence is spoken, suddenly look at one another just for a second, smile perhaps, at all events speak, though no word is spoken? Well, that kind of intimacy was going. I saw indifference coming, perhaps dislike, perhaps contempt; yes, contempt, just because I sat there and looked on. So I went away. But the contempt has come. Oh, don't think I believe that I made a mistake in going away. It would have come none the less had I stayed. But I have to reckon with the fact that it has come.”
Mr. Chase sat following Stretton's words with a very close attention.
Never had Stretton spoken to him with so much frankness before.
”Go on,” said Chase. ”What you are saying is--much of it--news to me.”
”Well, suppose that I were to go back now,” Stretton resumed, ”at once--do you see?--that contempt is doubled.”
”No,” cried Chase.
”Yes, yes,” Stretton insisted. ”Look at it from Millie's point of view, not from yours, not even from mine. Look at the history of the incident from the beginning! Work it out as she would; nay,” he corrected himself, remembering the letters, ”as she has. I leave her when things are at their worst. That's not all. I take half Millie's fortune, and am fool enough to lose it right away. And that's not all.
I stay away in the endeavour to recover the lost ground, and I continually fail. Meanwhile Millie has the dreary, irksome, exacting, unrequited life, which I left behind, to get through as best she can alone; without pleasure, and she likes pleasure----” He suddenly looked at Chase, with a challenge in his eyes. ”Why shouldn't she?” he asked abruptly. Chase agreed.
”Why shouldn't she?” he said, with a smile. ”I am not disapproving.”
Stretton resumed his former att.i.tude, his former tone.
”Without friends, and she is fond of having friends about her; without any chance of gratifying her spirits or her youth! To make her life still more disheartening, every mail which reaches her from New York brings her only another instalment of my disastrous record. Work it out from her point of view, Chase; then add this to crown it all.” He leaned forward towards Chase and emphasized his words with a gesture of his hand. ”The first moment when her life suddenly becomes easy, and does so through no help of mine, I--the failure--come scurrying back to share it. No, Chase, no!”
He uttered his refusal to accept that position with a positive violence, and flung himself back in his chair. Chase answered quietly--
”Surely you are forgetting that it is your father's wealth which makes her life easy.”
”I am not forgetting it at all.”
”It's your father's wealth,” Chase repeated. ”You have a right to share in it.”
”Yes,” Stretton admitted; ”but what have rights to do with the question at all? If my wife thinks me no good, will my rights save me from her contempt?”
And before that blunt question Mr. Chase was silent. It was too direct, too unanswerable. Stretton rose from his chair, and stood looking down at his companion.
”Just consider the story I should have to tell Millie tonight--by George!” he exclaimed suddenly--”if I went back to-night. I start out with fifteen hundred pounds of hers to make a home and a competence; and within a few months I am working as a hand on a North Sea trawler at nineteen s.h.i.+llings a week.”
”A story of hards.h.i.+ps undergone for her sake,” said Chase; ”for that's the truth of your story, Stretton. And don't you think the hards.h.i.+ps would count for ever so much more than any success you could have won?”
”Hards.h.i.+ps!” exclaimed Stretton, with a laugh. ”I think I would find it difficult to make a moving tale out of my hards.h.i.+ps. And I wouldn't if I could--no!”
As a fact, although it was unknown to Tony, Chase was wrong. Had Stretton told his story never so vividly, it would have made no difference. Millie Stretton had not the imagination to realise what those hards.h.i.+ps had been. Tony's story would have been to her just a story, calling, no doubt, for exclamations of tenderness and pity. But she could not have understood what he had felt, what he had thought, what he had endured. Deeper feelings and a wider sympathy than Millie Stretton was dowered with would have been needed for comprehension.
Stretton walked across the room and came back to the fire. He looked down at Chase with a smile. ”Very likely you think I am a great fool,”
he said, in a gentler voice than he had used till now. ”No doubt nine men out of ten would say, 'Take the gifts the G.o.ds send you, and let the rest slide. What if you and your wife drift apart? You won't be the only couple.' But, frankly, Chase, that is not good enough. I have seen a good deal of it--the boredom, the gradual ossification. Oh no; I'm not content with that! You see, Chase,” he stopped for a moment and gazed steadily into the fire; then he went on quite simply, ”you see, I care for Millie very much.”
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