Part 61 (1/2)

Channing, and--it's not like you. If you realized how much I--I cared for him, you would be fairer.--Mother, I want to tell you something, now that it's all done and over.”

Kate braced herself for what she knew was coming.

”I--I kept on seeing Mr. Channing, even after you told me not to--You never made _me_ promise anything, you know.”

”I trusted you.”

”Yes, but it isn't fair to trust people when they don't want you to! If you had asked me any questions, I think I should have told you the truth--I _think_ so. But you didn't ask me any questions.--It wasn't his fault, Mummy. I made him come. I used to meet him in the Ruin every night.” She peered at her mother anxiously, and Kate got up abruptly and crossed the room so that her face should not be visible.

”That isn't all,” went on the hurried voice, rather breathless now. ”You see--it didn't seem very honorable, somehow, to go on meeting him like that, on your place, when you didn't know about it--”

”No,” agreed Kate.

”So--so I thought I'd just better go away with him.--Oh, he didn't ask me to, he didn't really want me to--he said it was too much of a sacrifice to ask of me. But--you and I know, Mother, don't we? that there's no sacrifice too great to make when you love a man!”

”Oh, my little girl,” groaned Kate, ”how could you love him like that when you knew about--that woman, knew what sort of man he was?”

Jacqueline said eagerly, ”But he explained all about that woman. He never really loved her at all, but he was lonely, and she was very beautiful and fascinating, as that sort of woman knows how to be. And artistic people are so susceptible. It was a sort of experiment--experience is an author's stock in trade, you know.” (Kate could almost hear Channing saying it.) ”It turned out wrong, of course.

Why, Mother, she was _horrid_! The fact that a bad woman had got hold of him was all the more reason for a good woman to--to win him back. Oh, I suppose he was weak--I know he was--but weak people are the very ones who need us most, Mother, aren't they?”

Kate came behind her chair and laid her cheek on the girl's hair. ”Don't say anything more, dear. I know, I understand. Surely n.o.body, neither G.o.d nor man, can condemn us women for our divine gift of pity.”

But Jacqueline had dedicated herself to honesty that day. ”It wasn't just pity, Mummy. I----I wanted him, too! I wanted him as much as he wanted me--more, I think, because after all he never came for me. Just went away without a word.” Suddenly she hid her face in her hands. ”Oh, Mummy, and I loved him so! I adored him!--I loved him as much as you loved Phil's father.”

Kate opened her lips in quick protest, but did not speak. How could she explain the difference between this childish infatuation for a first lover and her own devotion to such a man as Jacques Benoix? Was there, after all, such a difference? It is not the recipient but the giver that makes love a holy thing.

She knelt beside the girl, and put both arms around her. ”My dear!--Did it hurt very much when he did not come?”

Jacqueline leaned her head on the warm shoulder that had received so many of her griefs, and gave way freely to the relief of weeping.

”Oh, yes, it hurt,” she said between sobs. ”It still hurts.”

”You don't mean that you still--care for him?”

The other raised tear-filled eyes in surprise. ”Now that I am married to Philip? Why, of course not! How could I? My husband is the dearest thing in the world!”

Kate laughed in sheer relief.

But the girl's lips were still quivering, and she ducked her head down on the comfortable shoulder again. ”I can't help feeling ashamed, though,” she sobbed. ”Ashamed be-because Mr. Channing proved to be such--such a coward, and because--he never could have loved me at all, or he would have come for me, or written, or something!--He must have been glad to get away from me, just as he was from that other woman.”

”Listen, darling!” Kate realized that her own moment of confession had arrived. ”He _did_ come for you! It is my fault that he has never explained to you;”--and with the girl's widening, incredulous eyes fixed upon her, she told every detail of her experience that night of the storm.

When she finished, Jacqueline was on her feet, queerly white and still.

”You knew,” she whispered as if to herself, ”and you let me think him--?

You never told me--you let me suffer--Oh, _Mother_!--Why, it was deceit!

It was a lie!”

Kate frowned. ”What of it? Lying, deceit--what are they to me beside your happiness? I only wanted that--and thank G.o.d I've got it!”

Jacqueline gave her a strange look. ”My happiness,” she repeated.