Part 50 (2/2)

”It seems to me you take it too tragically to begin with--”

”It isn't to begin with. I saw there was a screw loose from the first.

And since then some one has told me that she was--half in love with him, by Jove!--as it was.”

She remained standing beside the tea-table. ”That must have been Cousin Henry. He'd have a motive in thinking so--not so much to deceive you as to deceive himself. But if it's any comfort to you to know it, I've talked to them both. I suppose they spoke to me confidentially, and I haven't felt justified in betraying them. But rather than see you suffer--”

He put the poker in its place among the fire-irons and swung round in his chair toward her. ”Oh, I say! It isn't suffering, you know. That is, it isn't--”

She smiled feebly. ”Oh, I know what it is. You don't have to explain.

But I'll tell you. I asked Peter--or practically asked him--some time ago--if he was in love with her--and he said he wasn't.”

His face brightened. ”Did he, by Jove?”

”And when I told her that--the other day--she said--”

”Yes? Yes? She said--?”

”She didn't put it in so many words--but she gave me to understand--or _tried_ to give me to understand--that it was a relief to her--because, in that case, she wasn't obliged to have him on her mind. A woman _has_ those things on her mind, you know, about one man when she loves another.”

He jumped up. ”I say! You're a good pal. I shall never forget it.”

He came toward her, but she stepped back at his approach. She was more sure of herself in the shadow.

”Oh, it's nothing--”

”You see,” he tried to explain, ”it's this way with me. I've made it a rule in my life to do--well, a little more than the right thing--to do the high thing, if you understand--and that fellow has a way of getting so d.a.m.nably on top. I can't allow it, you know. I told you so the other day.”

”You mean, if he does something fine, you must do something finer.”

He winced at this. ”I can't go on swallowing his beastly favors, don't you see? And hang it all! if he is--if he _is_ my--my rival--he must have a show.”

”And how are you going to give him a show if he won't take it?”

He started to pace up and down the room. ”That's your beastly America, where everything goes by freaks--where everything is queer and inconsequent and tortuous, and you can't pin any one down.”

”It seems to me, on the contrary, that you have every one pinned down.

You've got everything your own way, and yet you aren't satisfied. Peter has taken himself off; old Cousin Vic has paid the debts; and Olivia is ready to go to church and marry you on the first convenient day. What more can you ask?”

”That's what _she_ said, by Jove!--the old Marquise. She said the question would never be raised unless I raised it.”

Drusilla tried to laugh. ”Eh, bien? as she'd say herself.”

He paused in front of her. ”Eh, bien, there is something else; and,” he added, tapping his forehead sharply, ”I'll be hanged if I know what it is.”

She was about to say something more when the sound of the shutting of the street door stopped her. There was much puffing and stamping, with shouts for Jane to come and take an umbrella.

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