Part 31 (1/2)

Perhaps, had the English officers seen her, they might have advised her return, even though there was as yet no antic.i.p.ation of danger; had there been one, the first thought would have been to clear the neighboring bungalows. But they were in the main-guard, and she set down the stare of the natives to the fact that nine o'clock was unusually late for an English lady to be braving the May sun. The road beyond was also unusually deserted, but she was too busy searching for the winged words, barbed well, yet not too swift or sharp to wound beyond possibility of compromise, which she meant to use ere long, to pay any attention to her surroundings. She did not even catch the glimpse of Sonny, still playing with the c.o.c.katoo, as she sped past the Seymours' house, and she scarcely noticed the groom's ”_Hut! teri, hut!_” (Out of the way! you there!) to a figure in a green turban, over which she nearly ran, as it came sneaking round a corner as if looking for something or someone; a figure which paused to look after her half doubtfully.

Yet these same words, which came so readily to her imaginings, failed her, as set words will, before the commonplace matter-of-fact reality.

If she could have jumped from the dog-cart and dashed into them without preamble, she would have been eloquent enough; but the necessary inquiry if Mrs. Gissing could see her, the ushering in as for an ordinary visit, the brief waiting, the perfunctory hand-shake with the little figure in familiar white-and-blue were so far from the high-strung appeal in her thoughts that they left her silent, almost shy.

”Find a comfy chair, do,” came the high, hard voice. ”Isn't it dreadfully hot? My old Mai will have it something is going to happen.

She has been dikking me about it all the morning. An earthquake, I suppose; it feels like it, rather. Don't you think so?”

Kate felt as if one had come already, as, quite automatically, she satisfied Alice Gissing's choice of ”a really--really comfy chair.”

How dizzily unreal it seemed! And yet not more so, in fact, than the life they had been leading for months past; knowing the truth about each other absolutely; pretending to know nothing. Well! the sooner that sort of thing came to an end, the better!

”I have had a letter from my husband,” she began, but had to pause to steady her voice.

”So I supposed when I saw you,” replied Alice Gissing, without a quiver in hers. But she rose, crossed over to Kate, and stood before her, like a naughty child, her hands behind her back. She looked strangely young, strangely innocent in the dim light of the sunshaded room. So young, so small, so slight among the endless frills and laces of a loose morning wrapper. And she spoke like a child also, querulously, petulantly.

”I like you the better for coming, too, though I don't see what possible good it can do. He said in his letter to me he would tell you all about it, and if he has, I don't see what else there is to say, do you?”

Kate rose also, as if to come nearer to her adversary, and so the two women stood looking boldly enough into each other's eyes. But the keenness, the pa.s.sion, the pity of the scene had somehow gone out of it for Kate Erlton. Her tongue seemed tied by the tameness; she felt that they might have been discussing a trivial detail in some trivial future. Yet she fought against the feeling.

”I think there is a great deal to say; that is why I have come to say it,” she replied, after a pause. ”But I can say it quickly. You don't love my husband, Alice Gissing, let him go. Don't ruin his life.”

Bald and crude as this was in comparison with her imagined appeal, it gave the gist of it, and Kate watched her hearer's face anxiously to see the effect. Was that by chance a faint smile? or was it only the barred light from the jalousies. .h.i.tting the wide blue eyes?

”Love!” echoed Alice Gissing. ”I don't know anything about love. I never pretended to. But I can make him happy; you never did.”

There was not a trace of malice in the high voice. It simply stated a fact; but a fact so true that Kate's lip quivered.

”I know that as well as you do. But I think I could--now. I want you to give me the chance.”

She had not meant to put it so humbly; but, being once more the gist of what she had intended to say, it must pa.s.s. There was no doubt about the smile now. It was almost a laugh, that hateful, inconsequent laugh; but, as if to soften its effect, a little jeweled hand hovered out as if it sought a resting-place on Kate's arm.

”You can't, my dear. It _is_ so funny that you can't see that, when I, who know nothing about--about all that--can see it quite plainly. You are the sort of woman, Mrs. Erlton, who falls in love--who must fall in love--who--don't be angry!--likes being in love, and is unhappy if she isn't. Now I don't care a rap for people to be thinking, and thinking, and thinking of me, nothing but me! I like them to be pleasant and pleased. And I make them so, somehow----” She shrugged her shoulders whimsically as if to dismiss the puzzle, and went on gravely, ”And you can't make people happy if you aren't happy yourself, you know, so there is no use in thinking you could.”

It was bitter truth, but Kate was too honest to deny it. There had always been the sense of grievance in the past, and the sense of self-sacrifice, at least, would remain in the future.

”But there are other considerations,” she began slowly. ”A man does not set such store by--by love and marriage as a woman. It is only a bit----”

”A very small bit,” put in Mrs. Gissing, with a whimsical face.

”A very small bit of his life,” continued Kate stolidly, ”and if my husband gives up his profession----”

Mrs. Gissing interrupted her again; this time petulantly. ”I told him it was a pity--I offered to go away anywhere. I did, indeed! And I couldn't do more, could I? But when a man gets a notion of honor into his head----”

”Honor!” interrupted Kate in her turn, ”the less said about honor the better, surely, between you and me!”

The wide blue eyes looked at her doubtfully.

”I never can understand women like you,” said their owner. ”You pretend not to care, and then you make so much fuss over so little.”

”So little!” retorted Kate, her temper rising. ”Is it little that my boy should have to know this about his father--about me? You have no children, Mrs. Gissing! If you had you would understand the shame better. Oh! I know about the baby and the flowers--who doesn't? But that is nothing. It was so long ago, it died so young, you have forgotten----”