Part 27 (1/2)
Athena looked at the man standing before her in a very singular manner.
Her voice was charged with significance.
He met her challenging look quite coolly. ”Yes, I do wish it to come right,” he said, ”because I believe that it would be for Jane's ultimate happiness. Come, Athena, make an effort!”
He spoke good-humouredly, as a grown-up person speaks to a spoilt child, and a cruel little devil entered into Mrs. Maule's mind.
”Isn't it funny,” she said lightly, ”how Jane the Good, and I, Athena the Bad, always attract the same man? They don't always like us at the same time, but----”
She stopped speaking, for d.i.c.k Wantele had turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind him, a thing he very seldom did.
CHAPTER XVII
”Nous devrions baiser les pantoufles de certaines femmes du cote ou les pantoufles touchent a la terre, car en dedans ce serait tout au plus digne des anges.”
The long day came to an end at last. Jane felt a sense of almost physical relief in the knowledge that to-morrow night she would no longer be there, and yet she had not spoken of her decision to the others.
For Athena Maule the day was not yet over. She waited till the house was sunk into darkness and stillness, and then, dismissing her maid, she put on a dressing-gown and went downstairs to the library.
The book she had mentally marked down that morning was found by her in a moment; but instead of looking at it there she took it to her boudoir.
It was possible that Wantele--Wantele who had been so rude and unkind to her this afternoon--might, like herself, feel wakeful, and come down to the library.
With the heavy old law book in her arms, she made her way through the now dark corridor which ran the whole length of Rede Place till she reached her own sitting-room, and there, before turning up the light, she locked the door.
Then she sat down, and drawing forward a little table she spread the book out open before her.
The dying wood fire suddenly burst into flame; Athena looked round her.
She wondered if she would ever have so pretty a room again.
There was no hurry; she knew all that it was really necessary for her to know, thanks to Maud Stanwood's idle words.
Maud Stanwood? What would Maud Stanwood say of her when she heard what Mrs. Maule was about to do? So wondering, Athena suddenly made up her mind that there would be no necessity for her to go on knowing that lady. A woman who talked as Maud Stanwood talked would be no friend for General Lingard's wife!
The important thing--the one thing she must find out, and that this book would doubtless tell her--was how long a period must elapse after the dissolution of her marriage to Richard Maule before any second marriage contracted by her would be legal. She was aware that after a divorce a full six months must elapse between the Nisi and the Absolute; also that it was actually left to the good feeling of the offended party--that was very unfair--as to whether the decree should be made absolute at all.
Athena felt a tremor of fear. It would indeed be an awful thing if she put it into Richard's power to leave her in the disagreeable, the ridiculous, position of being neither married nor single.
But thanks to the excellent index of this useful work on the marriage laws of England, it only took Mrs. Maule a very few moments to discover that in this important matter her fear was quite groundless. Once judgment was given--once, that is, a marriage was dissolved--there was no impediment to an immediate remarriage on the part of the injured party.
She looked up and gave a long, unconscious sigh of relief. There had been a secret, unacknowledged terror in her heart, that she might find, now at the last moment, some hidden snag.
Sitting back in her straight, carved Italian chair, she began to make a mental list of her large circle of acquaintances. Which of them would give her shelter during the weeks, nay the months, that must perhaps elapse before she would be free?
Mrs. Maule had but one intimate friend--that friend was Jane Oglander.
She had little doubt that as soon as the painful business of the engagement was over, she and Jane would return to their old terms of unquestioning affection.
What a pity it was that Hew Lingard's rather absurd conscience and his--well, his sense of delicacy, would make any arrangement with Jane impossible! However, she knew several good-natured women who might help her through such a pa.s.s--especially if she could venture to whisper the truth as to what the future held for her....