Part 48 (2/2)

together. That they did not do so was an annoyance, but hardly a surprise to him.

But to Helen there was a good deal of unexpected grief and mortification of soul. She, at all events, had loved him; it was her own strength of will, the fervour of her own lawless pa.s.sion for him that had carried the day, and had, in the end, made her his wife. And she had said to herself that, once married to him, she would make him love her.

Alas, in love there is no such thing as compulsion! The heart that loves, loves freely, spontaneously, unreasonably; and, where love is dead, there neither entreaties nor prayers, nor yet a whole ocean of tears can serve to re-awaken the frail blossom into life.

But Helen had made sure that, once absolutely her own, once irrevocably separated from the girl whom instinct had taught her to regard as her rival, Maurice would return to the old allegiance, and learn to love her once more, as in days now long gone by.

A very short experience served to convince her of the contrary. Maurice yawned too openly, was too evidently wearied and bored with her society, too utterly indifferent to her sayings and her doings, for her to delude herself long with the hope of regaining his affection. It was all the same to him whatever she did. If she showered caresses upon him, he submitted meekly, it is true, but with so evident a distaste to the operation that she learnt to discontinue the kisses he cared for so little; if she tried to amuse him with her conversation, he appeared to be thinking of other things; if she gave her opinion, he hardly seemed to listen to it. Only when they quarrelled did the slightest animation enter into their conjugal relations; and it was almost better to quarrel than to be at peace on such terms as these.

And then Helen got angry with him; angry and sore, wounded in her heart, and hurt in her vanity. She said to herself that she had been ready to become the best and most devoted of wives; to study his wishes, to defer to his opinion, to surround him with loving attentions; but since he would not have it so, then so much the worse for him. She would be no model wife; no meek slave, subservient to his caprices. She would go her own way, and follow her own will, and make him do what she liked, whether it pleased him or not.

Had Maurice cared to struggle with her for the mastery, things might have ended differently, but it did not seem worth his while to struggle; as long as she let him alone, and did not fret him with her incessant jealousies and suspicions, he was content to let her do as she liked.

Even in that matter of living at Kynaston he learnt, in the end, to give way to her. Sir John, who had already started for Australia, had particularly requested him to occupy the house. Lady Kynaston did nothing but urge it in every letter. Helen herself was bent upon it. There was no good reason that he could bring forward against so reasonable and sensible a plan. The house was all ready, newly decorated, and newly furnished; they had nothing to do but to walk into it. It would save all trouble in looking out for a country home elsewhere, and would, doubtless, be an infinitely pleasanter abode for them than any other house could be. It was the natural and rational thing for them to do.

Maurice knew of only one argument against it, and that one was in his own heart, and he could speak of it to no one.

And yet, after all, what did it matter, what difference would it make? A little nearer, a little further, how could it alter things for either of them? How lessen the impa.s.sable gulf between her and him? It was in the natural course of things that he must meet her at times; there would be the stereotyped greeting, the averted glance, the cold shake of hands that could never hope to meet without a pang; these things were almost inevitable for them. A little oftener or a little seldomer, would it matter very much then?

Maurice did not think it would; bound as he was to the woman whom he had made his wife--tied to her by every law of G.o.d and of man, of honour, and of manly feeling--that there should be any actual danger to be run by the near proximity of the woman he had loved, did not even enter into his head. If he had known how to do his duty towards Helen before he had married her, would he not tenfold know how to do so now? Possibly he over-rated his own strength; for, however high are our principles, however exalted is our sense of honour--after all, we are but mortals, and unspeakably weak at the very best.

It did not in any case occur to him to look at the question from Vera's point of view. It is never easy for a man to put himself into a woman's place, or to enter into the extra sensitiveness of soul with which she is endowed.

So it was that he agreed to go straight back to Kynaston, and to make the old house his permanent home according to his wife's wishes.

It was whilst the newly-married couple were pa.s.sing through Switzerland on their homeward journey that they suddenly came across Mr. Herbert Pryme, who had been performing a melancholy and solitary pilgrimage in the land of tourists.

It was at the table d'hote at Vevay, upon coming down to that lengthy and untempting repast, chiefly composed of aged goats and stringy hens, which the inventive Swiss waiter exalts, with the effort of a soaring imagination, into ”Chamois,” and ”Salmi de Poulet,” that Captain and Mrs.

Kynaston, who had scarcely recovered from a pa.s.sage of arms in the seclusion of their bed-chamber, suddenly descried a familiar face amongst the long array of uncongenial people ranged down either side of the table.

What the print of a hob-nailed boot must be to the lonely traveller across the desert, what the sight of a man from one's own club going down Pall Mall is in mid-September, or as a draught of Giesler's '68 to an epicure who has been about to perish on ginger-beer--so did Herbert Pryme's face s.h.i.+ne upon Maurice Kynaston out of the arid waste of that Vevay _salle-a-manger_.

In England he had been only an acquaintance--at Vevay he became his most intimate friend. The delight of having a man to speak to, and a man who knew others of his friends, was almost intoxicating. To think of getting one evening--nay, one hour of liberty from that ever-present chain of matrimonial intercourse which was galling him so sorely, was a bliss for which he could hardly find words to express his grat.i.tude.

Herbert, who could not quite understand the reason of it, was almost overpowered by the warmth of Captain Kynaston's greeting. To have his place removed next to his own, and to grasp him heartily by both hands, wringing them with affectionate fervour, was the work of a few seconds.

And then, who so lively, so full of anecdote and laughter, so interested in all that could be said to him, as Maurice Kynaston during that dinner?

It made Helen angry to hear him. He could be agreeable enough, she thought, bitterly, to a chance acquaintance, picked up n.o.body knew where; he could find plenty of conversation for this almost unknown young man; it was only when they were alone together that he sat by glumly and silently, without a smile and without a word!

She did not take it into account how surfeited the man was with his honeycomb. Herbert Pryme, individually, was nothing much to him; but he came as the sight of a distant sail is to a s.h.i.+pwrecked mariner. It is doubtful, indeed, whether, under the circ.u.mstances, Maurice would not have been equally delighted to have met his tailor or his bootmaker.

After dinner was over the two men went out and smoked their cigars together. This was a fresh offence to Mrs. Kynaston; usually she enjoyed an evening stroll with her husband after dinner, but when he asked her to come out with him on this occasion, she refused, shortly and ungraciously.

”No, thank you; if you and Mr. Pryme are going to smoke, I could not possibly come; you know that I hate smoke.”

Poor Herbert was about to protest that nothing would induce him to smoke; but Maurice pa.s.sed his arm hurriedly through his.

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