The Royal End. Harland Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ money. Not long afterwards old Adgate died, and his daughter came into his millions. And so the ball goes on. They haven't ensnared a Duke for her yet, but that will only be a question of time.”

      Mrs. Wilberton tilted her head a little to one side, and smiled at poor Bertram with the smile, satisfied yet benevolent, of one who had successfully brought off a promised feat—a smile of friendly challenge to criticise or reply.

      But Bertram had his reply ready.

      “A compact,” he said. “How can any human being have any knowledge of such a compact, except the parties to it? Besides, I know Harry Pontycroft—I've known him for years, intimately. He would be utterly incapable of such a thing. Sell his 'social influence' for money? Worse still, sell his sister's? Old Adgate may have been a moneylender, and Harry Pontycroft may have owed him money. But to get out of it by a proceeding so ignoble as that—his character is the negation of the very idea. And then, a titled husband! Surely, a girl of Miss Adgate's beauty and wealth would need little assistance in finding one, if she really cared about it. And anyhow, to act as her matrimonial agent—that again is a thing of which Harry Pontycroft would be incapable. But, for my part, I can't believe that Miss Adgate has any such desire. She looks to me like a young woman of mind and heart, with ideas and ideals, who would either marry for love pure and simple, or not at all.”

      His visitor's lips compressed themselves—but failed to hide her amusement. “Oh, looks!” she said. “Ideas, ideals? What do we know of the ideas and ideals of those queer people? Shylock's daughter. You may be sure that whatever their ideals may be, they're very different from any we're familiar with. A young woman who never had a home, whose childhood was passed in hotels.” Mrs. Wilberton shuddered.

      “Yes,” agreed Bertram, “that's sad to think of. But Shylock's daughter—even Shylock's daughter married for love.”

      “If you come to that,” Mrs. Wilberton answered him, “it's as easy to love a peer as a peasant.”

      “By the bye,” questioned Bertram, thinking of Lewis Vincent, “if the Pontycrofts are really as mercenary as all this would show them to be, why doesn't Ponty marry her himself? He's not a peer, to be sure, but in England the headships of some of your ancient untitled families almost outrank peerages, do they not?”

      Mrs. Wilberton's face resumed its look of mystery. “Henry Pontycroft would be only too glad to marry her—if he could,” she said. “But alack-a-day for him, he can't, and for the best of reasons. He is already married.”

      Bertram stared, frowning.

      “Pontycroft married?” he doubted, his voice falling. “But since when? It must be very recent—and it's astonishing I shouldn't have heard.”

      “Oh no, anything but recent,” Mrs. Wilberton returned, a kind of high impersonal pathos in her tone; “and very few people know about it. But it's perfectly true—I have it on the best authority. When he was quite a young man, when he was still an undergraduate, he made a secret marriage—with some low person—a barmaid or music-hall singer or something. He hasn't lived with her for years—it seems she drank, and was flagrantly immoral, and had, in short, all the vices of her class—and most people have supposed him to be a bachelor. But there his wife remains, you see, a hopeless impediment to his marrying the Adgate millions.”

      “This is astounding news to me,” said Bertram, with the subdued manner of one who couldn't deny that his adversary had scored. But then, cheering up a little, “Why doesn't he poison her?” he asked. “Or, better still, divorce her? In a country like England, where divorce is easy, why doesn't he divorce her, and so be free to marry whom he will?”

      Mrs. Wilberton gave him a glance of wonder.

      “Oh, I thought you knew,” she murmured. “The Pontycrofts are Roman Catholics—one of the handful of families in England who have never recanted their Popish errors. But I beg your pardon—you are a Roman Catholic yourself? Of course. Well, surely, your Church doesn't permit divorce.”

      Bertram laughed, mirthlessly, grimly even.

      “Here is an odd confounding of scruples,” he said. “A man is low enough to take a girl's money for acting as her social tout, but too pious to divorce a woman who must be the curse of his existence.”

      “Oh,” replied Mrs. Wilberton, not without a semblance of pride in the circumstance, “our English Roman Catholics are very strict.”

      “I noticed,” said Bertram, playing with his watch-chain, “that you bowed very pleasantly when they passed.”

      Mrs. Wilberton raised her hands. “I'm not a prig,” she earnestly protested. “Don't think I'm a prig. This thing is known, but it's not official. In England until a thing becomes official, until it gets into the law-courts, we treat it, for all practical purposes, as if it didn't exist. Of course, I bowed to them. … Lucilla Dor, besides being a Pontycroft, is a leader in the most exclusive set; and Miss Adgate, officially, is simply her friend and protégée. And it isn't as if they were the only persons about whom ugly tales are told. If one began cutting one's acquaintances on that score, I don't know where one could stop.”

      “Ugly tales,” said Bertram, “yes. But this particular ugly tale—upon my word I can't see a single reason why it should be believed. The only scrap of evidence in support of it, as far as I can make out, is the fact that Lady Dor has a motor-car and a few furs and diamonds. Well, she has also a rich and generous brother. No: I will stake Miss Adgate's face and Harry Pontycroft's honour against all the ugly tales that Gath and Ashkelon between them can produce. I don't believe it, I don't believe it, and I can only wonder that you do.”

      Mrs. Wilberton was gathering herself together, evidently with a view to departure. Now she rose, and held out her hand.

      “Well, Prince,” she said, laughing, “I must congratulate you upon your faith in human nature. In a man who has seen so much of the world, such an absence of cynicism is beautiful. I feel quite as if I had been playing the part of—what do you call him?—the Devil's Advocate. But”—she nodded gravely, though perhaps there was a tinge of amusement in her gravity—“in this case I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid that your charity is mistaken.”

VII

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      When he came back from having conducted her to the waterside, he was followed by Balzatore and Rampicante. Rampicante leaped upon his shoulder, rubbed his bristly moustaches approvingly against his cheek, curled his tail about his collar, and, sublimely indifferent to any one's mood but his own, purred an egoist's satisfaction. Balzatore sat down before him, resting his long pointed muzzle on his knee and looked up into his face from alert, troubled, wistful eyes. “What is the matter? What is it that's worrying you?” they asked. For Balzatore knew that his master was not happy.

      No, his master was not happy. All round him were the light, the lucent colour, the shimmering warmth of Venice in early autumn, woven together in a transparent screen of beauty. The palaces opposite glowed pale gold, pale rose, pale amethyst, in the sun; the water below was dull blue-green and glassy, shot with changing reds and purples, like dark mother-of-pearl; the sky above was like blue-royal velvet; and where he sat, on his marble balcony, amid its ancient, time-worn carvings and traceries, all was cool blue shadow. But I doubt if he saw any of these things. What he saw was the face of Ruth Adgate, that odd, pretty, witty, frank, clear face of hers, those clear frank eyes, СКАЧАТЬ