Mrs. Maxon Protests. Hope Anthony

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СКАЧАТЬ The reserve was not so much in words – she had let her frank chaff show plainly enough that she liked her companion; it lay rather in manner and carriage. Only on the hint of melancholy – only that once – had she put her eyes to any significant use. He was conscious of having made greater calls on his. That was right enough; he was the man, and he was a bachelor. Ledstone could not be charged with an exaggerated reverence for marriage, but he did know that he paid a married woman a poor compliment if he assumed beforehand that she would underrate the obligation of her status.

      When they entered the long, low, panelled parlour that gave on to the garden, Mrs. Lenoir had already arrived and was sitting enthroned in the middle of the room; she had a knack of investing with almost regal dignity any seat she chanced to occupy. She was a tall woman of striking appearance, not stout, but large of frame, with a quantity of white hair (disposed under an enormous black hat), a pale face, dark eyes, and very straight dark eyebrows. She had long slim hands which she used constantly in dramatic gesture. Stephen Aikenhead had credited her with a "really grand" manner. It was possible to think it just a trifle too grand, to find in it too strong a flavour of condescension and of self-consciousness. It might be due to the fact that she had been in her own way almost an historical figure – and had certainly mingled with people who were historical. Or it was possible to see in it an instinct of self-protection, exaggerated into haughtiness, a making haste to exact homage, lest she should fail even of respect. Whatever its origin, there it was, though not in a measure so strong as fatally to mar the effect of her beauty or the attraction of her personality. Save for the hat, she was dressed very simply; nay, even the hat achieved simplicity, when the spectator had enjoyed time to master it. On one hand she wore only her wedding-ring – she had married Mr. Lenoir rather late in life and had now been a widow for several years – on the other a single fine diamond, generally considered to be ante-Lenoirian in date. Lord Hurston was a probable attribution.

      Winnie was at sea, but found the breeze exhilarating and was not upset by the motion. She was a responsive being, taking colour from her surroundings. A little less exaction on the part of her husband might have left her for ever an obedient wife; what a more extended liberty of thought, of action, of the exploitation of herself, might do – and end in – suggested itself in a vague dim question on this her first complete day of freedom.

      At lunch Dick Dennehy could not get away from his victory at lawn-tennis. He started on an exposition of the theory of the game. He was heard in silence, till Tora Aikenhead observed in her dispassionate tones, "But you don't play at all well, Dick."

      "What?" he shouted indignantly, trying to twist up a still humid moustache.

      "Theory against practice – that's the way of it always," said Stephen.

      "Well, in a sense ye're right there," Dennehy conceded. "It needs a priest to tell you what to do, and a man to do it."

      "Let's put a 'not' in the first half of the proposition," said Ledstone.

      "And a woman in the second half?" Mrs. Lenoir added.

      "That must be why they like one another so much," Dennehy suggested. "Each makes such a fine justification for the existence of the other. They keep one another in work!" He rubbed his hands with a pleasantly boyish laugh.

      "I always try to be serious, though it's very difficult with the people who come to my house." Stephen was hypocritically grave.

      "Ye're serious because ye're an atheist," observed Dennehy.

      "I'm not an atheist, Dick."

      "The Pope'd call you one, and that's enough for a good Catholic like me. How shouldn't you behave yourself properly when you don't believe that penitence can do you any good?"

      "The weak spot about penitence," remarked Tora, "is that it doesn't do the other party any good."

      Winnie ventured a meek question: "The other party?"

      "There always is one," said Mrs. Lenoir.

      Stephen smiled. "I always like to search for a contradictory instance. Now, if a man drinks himself to death, he benefits the revenue, he accelerates the wealth of his heirs, promotes the success of his rivals, gratifies the enmity of his foes, and enriches the conversation of his friends. As for his work – if he has any —il n'y a pas d'homme nécessaire."

      "It seems to me it would be all right if nobody wasted time and trouble over stopping him," said Dennehy – a teetotaller, and the next instant quaffing ginger-beer immoderately.

      "He would be sure to be hurting somebody," said Mrs. Lenoir.

      "And why not hurt somebody? I'm sure somebody's always hurting me," Dennehy objected hotly. "How would the world get on else? Don't I hold my billet only till a better man can turn me out?"

      "Yes," said Stephen. "'The priest who slew the slayer, and shall himself be slain' – that system's by no means obsolete in modern civilization."

      "Obsolete! It's the soul of it, its essence, its gospel." It was Mrs. Lenoir who spoke.

      "A definition of competition?" asked Stephen.

      "Yes, and of progress – as they call it."

      Tora Aikenhead was consolatory, benign, undismayed. "To be slain when you're old and weak – what of that?"

      "But ye don't think ye're old and weak. That's the shock of it," cried Dennehy.

      "It is rather a shock," Mrs. Lenoir agreed. "The truth about yourself is always a shock – or even another person's genuine opinion."

      Winnie Maxon remembered how she had administered to her husband his "awful facer"; she recollected also, rather ruefully, that he had taken it well. You always have to hurt somebody, even when you want so obvious a right as freedom! A definite declaration of incompatibility must be wounding – at any rate when it is not mutual.

      It is an irksome thing to have – nay, to constitute in your own person – an apposite and interesting case, and to be forbidden to produce it. If only Winnie Maxon might lay her case before the company while they were so finely in the mood to deal with it! She felt not merely that she would receive valuable advice (which she could not bring herself to doubt would be favourable to her side), but also that she herself would take new rank; to provide these speculative minds with a case must be a passport to their esteem. Bitterly regretting her unfortunate promise, she began to arraign the justice of holding herself bound by it, and to accuse her husband's motives in extorting it. He must have wished to deprive her of what she would naturally and properly seek – the counsel of her friends. He must have wanted to isolate her, to leave her to fight her bitter battle all alone. To chatter in public was one thing, to consult two or three good friends surely another? Promises should be kept; but should they not also be reasonably interpreted, especially when they have been exacted from such doubtful motives?

      Thus straying, probably for the first time in her life, in the mazes of casuistry, the adventurous novice was rewarded by a really brilliant idea. Why should she not put her case in general terms, as an imaginary instance, hypothetically? The promise would be kept, yet the counsel and comfort (for, of course, the counsel would be comfortable) would be forthcoming. No sooner conceived than executed! Only, unfortunately, the execution was attended with a good deal of confusion and no small display of blushes – a display not indeed unbecoming, but sadly compromising. It was just as well that they had got to the stage of coffee, and the parlour-maid had left the room.

      Dennehy did not find her out. He was not an observant man, and he was more interested in general questions than in individual persons. Hence Winnie had the benefit of listening to a thoroughgoing denunciation of the course СКАЧАТЬ