Part 10 (1/2)
”Well, Frank,” said his brother, ”now what have you to say for yourself?
Why didn't you come long ago? You have played the adventurer for five years, and what have you to show for it? Have you a fortune?” Frank shook his head, and twisted a shoulder. ”What have you done that is worth the doing, then?”
”Nothing that I intended to do, d.i.c.k,” was the grave reply.
”Yes, I imagined that. You have seen them, have you?” he added, in a softer voice.
Frank blew a great cloud of smoke about his face, and through it he said: ”Yes, I have seen a d.a.m.ned sight more than I deserved to see.”
”Oh, of course; I know that, my boy; but, so far as I can see, in another direction you are getting quite what you deserve: your wife and child are upstairs--you are here.”
He paused, was silent for a moment, then leaned over, caught his brother's arm, and said, in a low, strenuous voice: ”Frank Armour, you laid a hateful little plot for us. It wasn't manly, but we forgave it and did the best we could. But see here, Frank, take my word for it, you have had a lot of luck. There isn't one woman out of ten thousand that would have stood the test as your wife has stood it; injured at the start, constant neglect, temptation--” he paused. ”My boy, did you ever think of that, of the temptation to a woman neglected by her husband?
The temptation to men? Yes, you have had a lot of luck. There has been a special providence for you, my boy; but not for your sake. G.o.d doesn't love neglectful husbands, but I think He is pretty sorry for neglected wives.”
Frank was very still. His head drooped, the cigar hung unheeded in his fingers for a moment, and he said at last: ”d.i.c.k, old boy, I've thought it all over to-night since I came back--everything that you've said. I have not a word of defence to make, but, by heaven! I'm going to win my wife's love if I can, and when I do it I'll make up for all my cursed foolishness--see if I don't.”
”That sounds well, Frank,” was the quiet reply. ”I like to hear you talk that way. You would be very foolish if you did not. What do you think of the child?”
”Can you ask me what I think? He is a splendid little fellow.”
”Take care of him, then--take good care of him: you may never have another,” was the grim rejoinder. Frank winced. His brother rose, took his arm, and said: ”Let us go to our rooms, Frank. There will be time enough to talk later, and I am not so young as I once was.”
Truth to say, Richard Armour was not so young as he seemed a few months before. His shoulders were a little stooped, he was greyer about the temples. The little bit of cynicism which had appeared in that remark about the care of the child showed also in the lines of his mouth; yet his eyes had the same old true, honest look. But a man cannot be hit in mortal places once or twice in his life without its being etched on his face or dropped like a pinch of aloe from his tongue.
Still they sat and talked much longer, Frank showing better than when his brother came, Richard gone grey and tired. At last Richard rose and motioned towards the window. ”See, Frank,” he said, ”it is morning.”
Then he went and lifted the blind. The grey, unpurged air oozed on the gla.s.s. The light was breaking over the tops of the houses. A crossing-sweeper early to his task, or holding the key of the street, went pottering by, and a policeman glanced up at them as he pa.s.sed.
Richard drew down the curtain again.
”d.i.c.k,” said Frank suddenly, ”you look old. I wonder if I have changed as much?”
Six months before, Frank Armour would have said hat his brother looked young.
”Oh, you look young enough, Frank,” was the reply. ”But I am a good deal older than I was five years ago... Come, let us go to bed.”
CHAPTER X. THOU KNOWEST THE SECRETS OF OUR HEARTS
And Lali? How had the night gone for her? When she rose from the child's cot, where her lips had caught the warmth that her husband had left on them, she stood for a moment bewildered in the middle of the room. She looked at the door out of which he had gone, her bosom beating hard, her heart throbbing so that it hurt her--that she could have cried out from mere physical pain. The wifedom in her was plundering the wild stores of her generous soul for the man, for--as Richard had said that day, that memorable day!--the father of her child. But the woman, the pure translated woman, who was born anew when this frail life in its pink and white glory crept out into the dazzling world, shrank back, as any girl might shrink that had not known marriage. This child had come--from what?--She shuddered now--how many times had she done so since she first waked to the vulgar sacrilege of her marriage? She knew now that every good mother, when her first child is born, takes it in her arms, and, all her agony gone, and the ineffable peace of delivered motherhood come, speaks the name of its father, and calls it his child. But--she remembered it now--when her child was born, this little waif, the fruit of a man's hot, malicious hour, she wrapped it in her arms, pressed its delicate flesh to the silken folds of her bosom, and weeping, whispered only: ”My child, my little, little child!”
She had never, as many a wife far from her husband has done, talked to her child of its father, told it of his beauty and his virtues, arrayed it day by day in sweet linen and pretty adornments, as if he were just then knocking at her door; she had never imagined what he would say when he did come. What could such a father think of his child, born of a woman whose very life he had intended as an insult? No, she had loved it for father and mother also. She had tried to be good, a good mother, living a life unutterably lonely, hard in all that it involved of study, new duty, translation, and burial of primitive emotions. And with all the care and tearful watchfulness that had been needed, she had grown so proud, so exacting--exacting for her child, proud for herself.
How could she know now that this hasty declaration of affection was anything more than the mere man in him? Years ago she had not been able to judge between love and insult--what guarantee had she here? Did he think that she could believe in him? She was not the woman he had married, he was not the man she had married. He had deceived her basely--she had been a common chattel. She had been miserable enough--could she give herself over to his flying emotions again so suddenly?
She paced the room, her face now in her hands, her hands now clasping and wringing before her. Her wifely duty? She straightened to that.
Duty! She was first and before all a good, unpolluted woman. No, no, it could not be. Love him? Again she shrank. Then came flooding on her that afternoon when she had flung herself on Richard's breast, and all those hundred days of happiness in Richard's company--Richard the considerate, the strong, who had stood so by his honour in an hour of peril.
Now as she thought of it a hot wave s.h.i.+vered through all her body, and tingled to her hair. Her face again dropped in her hands, and, as on that other day, she knelt beside the cot, and, bursting into tears, said through her sobs: ”My baby, my own dear baby! Oh, that we could go away--away--and never come back again!”
She did not know how intense her sobs were. They waked the child from its delicate sleep; its blue eyes opened wide and wise all on the instant, its round soft arm ran up to its mother's neck, and it said: ”Don't c'y! I want to s'eep wif you! I'se so s'eepy!”