Part 59 (1/2)
Stanley said nothing, and his companion, considering the silence dangerous, hastened to break it.
”If I really were to marry you,” she asked, ”would you desert me as you did yesterday?”
”If you treated me as you've treated me these last few days, I should probably desert you altogether.”
The situation was going from bad to worse, and something must be effected or the cause was lost.
”What have I done, Jim?” she asked piteously, taking the bull by the horns, and allowing her eyes to fill with tears.
”What have you done?” he said nonchalantly, with a flippancy which, in the case of women, const.i.tuted his most dangerous weapon. ”What have you done? Oh, nothing out of the common, I suppose, only, you see, unfortunately, we men are cursed with a certain, though defective, standard of morals; and the amount of--well, prevarication you've practised over this affair has shattered a number of cherished illusions.”
”I wish you wouldn't wax so disgustingly moral, Jimsy. It's so easy to be moral--and it bores me. Of course, I don't like saying what's not so, any more than you do, but one must be consistent. I promised Kingsland I'd arrange the match for him, and when that old fool of a parson put obstacles in the way, and then a.s.sumed I was the bride,--I'll give you my word I never told him so--why, it offered an easy solution of the difficulty. There was nothing illegal about the marriage. I'm sure I'm not responsible for every man who makes a fool of himself, and since I'd undertaken the affair, I was bound, in common decency, to see it through.”
”Do you consider 'common decency' just the word to apply to the transaction?”
”Don't pick up details and phrases in that way, Jimsy. They're unimportant--but very irritating.”
”Do you think so? Details and phrases go far to make up the sum of life.
Why does Colonel Darcy still remain here?”
”Why do you still persist in harping upon my friend's name?”
”Because I loathe him, Belle. If you knew his true character, you'd cut him the next time you met.”
”Ignorance is the only thing that makes life tolerable.”
”Nonsense.”
”Jim, answer me this question. If I were your wife, would you permit me to keep up my intimacy with Colonel Darcy?”
”No.”
”Then I must choose between you two?”
”Do you love me so little that there can be a question of choice?”
”You don't understand. It's easy for you to say, 'Throw him over'; the reality is a very different matter. He's my oldest friend.”
”And I'm the man who has asked you to share his name and his honour. If I could prove to you that Darcy was unworthy--would you give him up, for my sake?”
”Can you prove this?”
”I'm not at liberty to say.”
She smiled faintly, and thought hard. She had learned in that last speech what she most wanted to know--the measure of the Secretary's knowledge.
”Well?” he said, interrogatively.
”I don't know how to answer,” she replied. ”My intuition says no; my heart says--yes.”