Part 23 (1/2)
”Ask him?” Roger pointed to Boyson.
”Is there any legal way, Boyson, in which I can recover the custody and companions.h.i.+p of my child?”
Boyson turned away.
”None that I know of--and I have made every possible inquiry.”
”And yet,” said Barnes, with emphasis, addressing the English barrister, ”by the law of England I am still Daphne's husband and that child's legal guardian?”
”Certainly.”
”And if I could once get her upon ground under the English flag, she would be mine again, and no power could take her from me?”
”Except the same private violence that you yourself propose to exercise.”
”I'd take care of that!” said Roger briefly.
”How do you mean to do it?” asked French, with knit brows. To be sitting there in an English vicarage plotting violence against a woman disturbed him.
”He and I'll manage it,” said the quiet voice of the American officer.
The others stared.
”_You?_” said French. ”An officer in active service? It might injure your career!”
”I shall risk it.”
A charming smile broke on Penrose's meditative face.
”My dear French, this is much more amusing than the law. But I don't quite see where _I_ come in.” He rose tentatively from his seat.
Boyson, however, did not smile. He looked from one to the other.
”My sister and I introduced Daphne Floyd to Barnes,” he said steadily, ”and it is my country, as I hold,--or a portion of it--that allows these villainies. Some day we shall get a great reaction in the States, and then the reforms that plenty of us are clamouring for will come about.
Meanwhile, as of course you know”--he addressed French--”New Yorkers and Bostonians suffer almost as much from the abomination that Nevada and South Dakota call laws, as Barnes has suffered. Marriage in the Eastern States is as sacred as with you--South Carolina allows no divorce at all--but with this licence at our gates, no one is safe, and thousands of our women, in particular--for the women bring two-thirds of the actions--are going to the deuce, simply because they have the opportunity of going. And the children--it doesn't bear thinking of!
Well--no good haranguing! I'm ashamed of my country in this matter--I have been for a long time--and I mean to help Barnes out, _coute que coute_! And as to the money, Barnes, you and I'll discuss that.”
Barnes lifted a face that quivered, and he and Boyson exchanged looks.
Penrose glanced at the pair. That imaginative power, combined with the power of drudgery, which was in process of making a great lawyer out of a Balliol scholar, showed him something typical and dramatic in the two figures:--in Boyson, on the one hand, so lithe, serviceable, and resolved, a helpful, mercurial man, ashamed of his country in this one respect, because he adored her in so many others, penitent and patriot in one:--in Barnes, on the other, so heavy, inert, and bewildered, a s.h.i.+p-wrecked suppliant as it were, clinging to the knees of that very America which had so lightly and irresponsibly wronged him.
It was Penrose who broke the silence.
”Is there any chance of Mrs. Barnes's marrying again?” he asked.
Barnes turned to him.
”Not that I know of.”
”There's no one else in the case?”