Chapter IV: Part 4

‘Why, there was no need for defence,’ he stammered. ‘The whole thing is in a nutshell—an author’s an author, man or woman, and there’s an end of it. Of course you’re alone responsible for the book, and, as I said, if he don’t like it he needn’t read it, and no one asked him to give it to his sisters!’

‘You prevaricate,’ interrupted Delicia, steadily; ‘But perhaps it is as well you did not think it necessary to defend me to such a man as Captain Fitz-Hugh, who for years has been the notorious lover of Lady Rapley, to the disgrace of her husband who permits the scandal. And for Captain Fitz-Hugh’s sisters, who are the chief purveyors of slander in the wretched little provincial town where they live, each one of them trying her best to catch the curate or the squire, I shall very willingly write a book some day that deals solely with the petty lives lived by such women—women more unclean in mind than a Swift, and lower in the grade of intellect than an aspiring tadpole, who at any rate has the laudable ambition and intention of becoming an actual frog some day!’

Carlyon stared, vaguely startled and chilled by her cold, calm accents.

‘By Jove! You _are_ cutting, you know, Delicia!’ he expostulated. ‘Poor Fitz-Hugh! he can’t help himself falling in love with Lady Rapley—’

‘Can’t help himself!’ echoed Delicia, with supreme scorn. ‘Can he not help disgracing her? Is it not possible to love greatly and nobly, and die with the secret kept? Is there no dignity left in manhood? Or in womanhood? Do you think, for instance, that _I_ would permit myself to love any other man but you?’

His handsome face flushed, and his eyes kindled. He smiled a self-satisfied smile.

‘Upon my life, that’s splendid—the way you say that!’ he exclaimed. ‘But all women are not like you—’

‘I know they are not,’ she replied. ‘Captain Fitz-Hugh’s sisters, for example, are certainly not at all like me! They do well to avoid my book; they would find female cant and hypocrisy too openly exposed there to please them. But with regard to your complaint—for I regard it to be a complaint from you—you may challenge the whole world of slander-mongers, if you like, to point to one offensive expression in my writings—they will never find it.’

He rose and put his arm round her. At his touch she shuddered with a new and singular aversion. He thought the tremor one of delight.

‘And so you will never permit yourself to love any other man but me?’ he asked caressingly, touching the rich masses of her hair with his lips.

‘Never!’ she responded firmly, looking straight into his eyes. ‘But do not misunderstand my meaning! It is very possible that I might cease to love you altogether—yes, it certainly might happen at any moment; but I should never, because of this, love another man. I could not so degrade myself as to parcel my affections out in various quarters, after the fashion of Lady Rapley, who has descended voluntarily, as one of our latter-day novelists observes, “to the manners and customs of the poultry yard.” If I ceased to love you, then love itself for me would cease. It could never revive for anyone else; it would be dead dust and ashes! I have no faith in women who love more than once.’

Carlyon still toyed with her hair; the undefinable something he missed in her fretted and perplexed him.

‘Are you aware that you look at me very strangely this morning, Delicia?’ he said at last; ‘Almost as if I were not the same man! And this is the first time I have ever heard you speak of the possibility of your ceasing to love me!’

She moved restlessly in his embrace, and presently, gently putting him aside, rose from the breakfast-table and pretended to busy herself with the arrangement of some flowers on the mantelpiece.

‘I have been reading philosophy,’ she answered him, with a tremulous little laugh. ‘Grim old cynics, both ancient and modern, who say that nothing lasts on earth, and that the human soul is made of such imperishable stuff that it is always out-reaching one emotion after another and striving to attain the highest perfection. If this be true, then even human love is poor and trifling compared to love divine!’ Her eyes darkened with intensity of feeling. ‘At least, so say some of our sage instructors; and if it be indeed a fact that mortal things are but the passing shadow of immortal ones, it is natural enough that we should gradually outlive the temporal in our desire for the eternal.’

Carlyon looked at her wonderingly; she met his gaze fully, her eyes shining with a pure light that almost dazzled him.

‘I can’t follow all your transcendental theories,’ he said, half pettishly; ‘I never could. I have always told you that you can’t get reasoning men to care about any other life than this one—they don’t see it; they don’t want it. Heaven doesn’t suggest itself to them as at all a jolly sort of place, and you know, if you come to think of it, you’d rather not have an angel to love you; you’d much rather have a woman.’

‘Speak for yourself, my dear Will,’ answered Delicia, with a slight smile. ‘If angels, such as I imagine them to be, exist at all, I should much prefer to be loved by one of them than by a man. The angel’s love might last; the man’s would not. We see these things from different points of view. And as for this life, I assure you I am not at all charmed with it.’

‘Good heavens! You’ve got everything you want,’ exclaimed Carlyon, ‘Even fame, which so rarely attends a woman!’

‘Yes, and I know the value of it!’ she responded. ‘Fame, literally translated, means slander. Do you think I am not able to estimate it at its true worth? Do you think I am ignorant of the fact that I am followed by the lies and envies and hatreds of the unsuccessful? Or that I shut my eyes to the knowledge of the enmity that everywhere pursues me? If I were old, if I were poor, if I were ugly, and had scarcely a gown to my back, and still wrote books, I should be much more liked than I am. I daresay some rich people might even be found willing to “patronise” me!’ She laughed disdainfully. ‘But when these same rich people discover that I can afford to patronise _them_,—who is there that can rightly estimate the measure or the violence of their antipathy for me? Yet when I say I am not charmed with life, I only mean the “social” life; I do not mean the life of nature—of that I am never tired.’

‘Well, this morning, at any rate, you appear to be tired of me,’ said Carlyon, irritably. ‘So I suppose I’d better get out of your way!’

She made no answer whatever. He fidgeted about a little, then began to grumble again.

‘I’m sorry you’re in such a bad humour.’ At this she raised her eyebrows in smiling protest. ‘Yes, you know you’re in a bad humour,’ he went on obstinately; ‘you pretend you’re not, but you are. And I wanted to ask you a question on your own business affairs.’

‘Pray ask it!’ said Delicia, still smiling. ‘Though, before you speak, let me assure you my business affairs are in perfect order.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he went on uneasily; ‘these d——d publishers often wriggle out of bargains, and try to “do” a woman. That firm, now—the one that has just published your last book—have they paid you?’

‘They have,’ she answered with composure. ‘They are, though publishers, still honourable men.’

‘It was to be eight thousand, wasn’t it?’ he asked, looking down at the lapels of his well-fitting morning-coat and flicking a speck of dust off the cloth.

‘It was, and it is,’ she answered. ‘I paid four thousand of it into your bank yesterday.’

His eyes flashed.

‘By Jove! What a clever little woman you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fancy getting all that cash out of your brain-pan! It’s quite a mystery to me how you do it, you know! I can never make it out—’

‘There’s no accounting for the public taste,’ said Delicia, watching him with the pained consciousness of a sudden contempt. ‘But you need not puzzle yourself over the matter.’

‘Oh, I never bother my head over literature at all!’ laughed Carlyon, becoming quite hilarious, now that he knew an extra four thousand pounds had been piled into his private banking account. ‘People often ask me, “How does your wife manage to write such clever books?” And I always reply, “Don’t know, never could tell. Astonishing woman! Shuts herself up in her own room like a silkworm, and spins a regular cocoon!” That’s what I say, you know; yet nobody ever seems to believe me, and lots of fellows swear you _must_ get a man to help you.’

‘It is part of man’s conceit to imagine his assistance always necessary,’ said Delicia, coldly smiling. ‘Considering how loudly men talk of their own extraordinary abilities, it is really astonishing how little they manage to do. Good-bye! I’m going upstairs to spin cocoons.’

He stopped her as she moved to leave the room.

‘I say, Delicia, it’s awfully sweet of you to hand over that four thousand—’

She gave a little gesture of offence.

‘Why speak of it, Will? You know that half of every sum I earn is placed to your account; it has been my rule ever since our marriage, and there is really no need to allude to what is now a mere custom of business.’

He still held her arm.

‘Yes, that’s all very well; but look here, Delicia, you’re not angry with me for anything, are you?’

She raised her head and looked straightly at him.

‘No, Will—not angry.’

Something in her eyes intimidated him. He checked himself abruptly, afraid to ask her anything more.

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ he stammered hurriedly. ‘I’m glad you’re not angry. I thought you seemed a little put out; but it’s jolly that I’m mistaken, you know. Ta-ta! Have a good morning’s grind.’

And as she went, he drew out a cigar from his silver case with rather shaking fingers, and pretended to be absorbed in lighting it. When it was finally lit and he looked up, she was gone. With a sigh, he flung himself into an arm-chair and puffed away at his choice Havana in a sore and miserable confusion of mind. No human being, perhaps, is quite so sore and miserable as a man who is born with the instincts of a gentleman and yet conducts himself like a cad. There are many such tramps of a decayed and dying gentility amongst us—men with vague glimmerings of the ancient chivalry of their race lying dormant within them, who yet lack the force of will necessary to plan their lives resolutely out upon those old-fashioned but grand foundations known as truth and loyalty. Because it is ‘the thing’ to talk slang, they pollute the noble English language with coarse expressions copied from stable conversation; and because it is considered ‘swagger’ to make love to other men’s wives, they enter into this base form of vulgar intrigue almost as if it were a necessary point of dignity and an added grace to manhood. If we admit that men are the superior and stronger sex, what a pitiable thing it is to note how little their moral forces assist in the elevation of woman, their tendency being to drag her down as low as possible! If she be unwedded, man does his best to compromise her; if he has married her, he frequently neglects her; if she be another’s wife, he frequently tries to injure her reputation. This is ‘modern’ morality, exhibited to us in countless varying phases every day, detailed every morning and evening in our newspapers, witnessed over and over again through every ‘season’s’ festivities; and this, combined with atheism, and an utter indifference as to the results of evil, is making of ‘upper class’ England a something worse than pagan Rome was just before its fall. The safety of the country is with what we elect to call the ‘lower classes,’ who are educating themselves slowly but none the less surely; but who, it must be remembered, are not yet free from savagery,—the splendid brute savagery which breaks out in all great nations when aristocratic uncleanness and avarice have gone too far,—a savagery which threw itself panting and furious upon the treacherous Marie Antoinette of France, with her beauty, her wicked wantonness, her thoughtless extravagance and luxury, and her cruel contempt for the poor, and never loosened its fangs till it had dragged her haughty head to the level of the scaffold, there to receive the just punishment of selfishness and pride. For punishment must fall sooner or later on every wilful misuser of life’s opportunities; though had anyone told Lord Carlyon this by way of warning, he would have bidden him, in the choicest of ‘swagger’ terms, to ‘go and be a rotten preacher!’ And in saying so, he would have considered himself witty. Yet he knew well enough that his ‘little affair’ with La Marina was nothing but a deliberate dishonour done to his blameless wife; and he was careful to avoid thinking as to where the money came from as he flung it about at cards, or in restaurants, or on race-courses.

‘After all,’ he considered now, as he smoked his cigar leisurely, and allowed his mind to dwell comfortably on the reflection of that four thousand pounds placed to his account, ‘she likes her work; she couldn’t get on without it, and there’s nothing so much in her handing me over half the “dibs” as she’s got all the fame.’

And through some curious process of man’s logic he managed to argue himself into a perfect state of satisfaction with the comfortable way the world was arranged for him through his wife’s unremitting toil.

‘Poor little soul!’ he murmured placidly, glancing at his handsome face in an opposite mirror, ‘She loves me awfully! This morning she half pretends she doesn’t, but she would give every drop of blood in her body to save me from a pin-prick of trouble. And why shouldn’t she? Women must have something to love; she’s perfectly happy in her way, and so am I in mine.’

With which consoling conclusion he ended his meditations, and went out for the day as usual.

On returning home to dinner, however, he was considerably put out to find a note waiting for him in the hall; a note from his wife, running thus:—

‘Shall not return to dinner. Am going to the “Empire” with the Cavendishes; do not wait up for me.’

‘Well, I call that pretty cool!’ he muttered angrily. ‘Upon my word, I call that infernally cool!’

He marched about the hall, fuming and fretting for a minute or two, then he called his valet.

‘Robson, I sha’n’t want dinner served,’ he said snappishly; ‘I’m going out.’

‘Very good, my lord.’

‘Did her ladyship leave any message?’

‘None, my lord. She merely said she was going to dine with Mr and Mrs Cavendish, and would probably not be back till late.’

He frowned like a spoilt child.

‘Well, I sha’n’t be back till late either, if at all,’ he said fretfully. ‘Just come and get me into my dress suit, will you?’

Robson followed him upstairs obediently, and bore with his caprices, which were many, during the business of attiring him for the evening. He was in an exceedingly bad humour, and gave vent to what the children call a ‘bad swear’ more than once. Finally he got into a hansom and was driven off at a rattling pace, the respectable Robson watching his departure from the open hall door.

‘You’re a nice one!’ remarked that worthy personage, as the vehicle containing his master turned a sharp corner and disappeared. ‘Up to no end of pranks; as bad and worse than if you was the regular son of a king! Yes, taking you on and off, one would almost give you credit for being a real prince, you’ve got so little conscience! But my lady’s one too many for you, I fancy; she’s quiet but she’s clever; and I don’t believe she’ll keep her eyes shut much longer. She can’t, if you’re a-going on continual in the way you are.’

Thus Robson soliloquised, shutting the street door with a bang to emphasise the close of his half-audible observations. Then he went up into Delicia’s study to give Spartan some dinner. Spartan received the plateful brought to him with majestic indifference, and an air which implied that he would attend to it presently. He had a little white glove of Delicia’s between his paws, and manifested no immediate desire to disturb himself. He had his own canine ideas of love and fidelity; and though he was only a dog, it may be he had a higher conception of honour and truth than is attained by men, who, in the excess of self-indulgence, take all the benefits of love and good fortune as their ‘rights,’ and are destitute of even the saving grace of gratitude.

*CHAPTER VI*

It was no impetus of feminine recrimination or spite that had caused Delicia to go out on that particular evening, and thus deprive her husband of her society in the same abrupt fashion with which he had so often deprived her of his. Mr and Mrs Cavendish were old friends of hers. They had known her when she was a little orphan girl with no brothers or sisters—no companions of her own age to amuse her—nothing, in fact, but her own pensive and romantic thoughts, which had, though she then knew it not, helped to weave her now brilliant destiny. They were elderly, childless people, and they had always been devoted to Delicia, so that when Mrs Cavendish paid an unexpected call in the afternoon and stated that she and her husband were ‘mopy,’ and that they would take it very kindly if Delicia would come and dine with them, and afterwards accompany them to the ‘Empire,’ for which they had a box near the stage, Delicia readily accepted the proposition as a welcome change from her own uncomfortable and unprofitable thoughts. To begin with, she had grown so accustomed now to her husband’s telegrams announcing that he would not be back to dinner, that she accepted his absence as a far greater probability than his home-returning. Therefore she was glad of the chance of dining in friendly company. Next, the idea of going to the ‘Empire’ filled her with a certain sense of pained curiosity and excitement. La Marina was the chief attraction there, and she had never seen her. So she shut up her books and papers, put on a simple black skirt, and a pretty blouse of soft pink chiffon, daintily adorned with a shoulder-knot of roses, tied her rich hair up, in the fashion of the picture of Madame le Brun, with a strip of pink ribbon, bade good-bye to Spartan, gave him her glove to guard by way of consolation, and then went with her old friend, leaving for her husband, in case he should return, the brief note that had vexed his high mightiness so seriously. And it was with a strained anticipation and sharp unrest that she sat in the box at the ‘Empire,’ withdrawn from view as much as possible, and waited for the appearance of the famous dancer, whose performance was advertised on the programme as ‘Marvellous Evolution! The Birth of a Butterfly! La Marina!’ The music-hall was crowded, and looking down on the densely-packed arena, she saw rows and rows of men, smoking, grinning, whispering in each other’s ears,—some sitting squat in their _fauteuils_, with the bulging appearance of over-filled flour sacks, the extended feet beyond the sacks, and the apoplectically swelled heads on the tops thereof, suggestive of the full meals just enjoyed,—others, standing up with opera glasses levelled at the promenade, or else leering in the same direction without glasses at all. There were young men, sodden and stupid with smoke and drink,—and old men, blear-eyed and weak-jointed, painfully endeavouring to assume the airs of joyous juvenility. There were fast women, with eyelashes so darkened with kohl as to give them the appearance at a distance of having no eyes at all, but only black sockets;—middle-aged frowsy feminine topers, whose very expression of face intimated a ‘looking forward to the next glass,’—and a few almost palsy-stricken antiquities of womanhood, the possible ruins of fifty-year-ago ballet-girls and toe-and-heel stage ‘fairies,’ who sat in the stalls twisting their poor old mouths into the contortion of a coquettish smile—a contortion dreadfully reminding one of the way a skull grins when some careless gravedigger throws it out of the mould where it has hidden its ghastly mirth for perhaps twenty years. All this seething witches’ cauldron of life, Delicia looked down upon with a mingling of shame and sorrow. Were these low-looking creatures real humanity?—the humanity which God created and redeemed? Surely not! They were more like apes than human beings—how was it?—and why was it? She was still pondering the question when old Mr Cavendish spoke.

‘Not a very distinguished audience, is it, Delicia?’ he said. He had called her Delicia from childhood, and he did not care, at the age of sixty-five, to break himself of the pleasant habit.

‘No,’ she replied, with a faint smile; ‘I have never been here before. Have you?’

‘Oh, yes, often; and so has my wife. The great advantage of music-halls like these is that one can come and be entertained at any moment of the evening without being forced to devour one’s dinner with the lightning speed of a Yankee tourist. The mistake made by all theatre managers is the earliness of the hour they appoint for the rising of the curtain. Eight o’clock! Good heavens!—that’s the usual London dinner time; and if one wants to get to the theatre punctually one must dine at six-thirty, which is ridiculous. Plays ought to commence at half-past nine and finish at half-past eleven; especially during the season. No man who loves his home comfort cares to gallop through the pleasantest meal of the day, and rush off to a theatre at eight o’clock; it’s hard work, and is seldom rewarded by any real pleasure. The “Empire” and other places of the same character get on so very well, partly because they leave us a certain choice of hours. La Marina, you see, doesn’t come on till ten.’

‘She is very beautiful, isn’t she?’ asked Delicia.

‘Oh, my dear!’ said Mrs Cavendish, laughing a little, ‘Beautiful is rather a strong expression! She’s a—well—! What would you call her, Robert?’ appealing to her husband.

‘I should call her a fine, fleshy woman,’ answered Mr Cavendish; ‘Coarsely built, certainly; and I should say she drank a good deal. She’ll get on all right enough while she’s young; but at middle-age she’ll be an appalling spectacle in the way of fat!’

He laughed, but Delicia scarcely heard his last words. She was lost in a wondering reverie. She could have easily understood a low-minded man becoming enamoured of an equally low-minded woman, but what puzzled her was to realise that her handsome and proudly-aristocratic husband should find anything attractive in a person who was ‘coarse’ and ‘drank a good deal.’ But now the musical prelude to the wonderful ‘Birth of a Butterfly’ began, and the low shivering of the violins responded to the melodious complaints of the deeper-toned ’cellos, as the lights of the ‘Empire’ were darkened, and over the crowded audience the kindly veil of a semi-obscurity fell, hiding the play of mean and coarse emotions on many a degraded face, and completely shadowing the wicked devilry of eyes so bereft of honesty, that had hell itself needed fresh sparks to kindle flame, those ugly human glances might have served the purpose. The curtain rose, displaying an exquisitely-painted scene called the ‘Garden of Aurora,’ where, in the rosy radiance of a deftly-simulated ‘dawn of day,’ the green trees trembled to the murmur of the subdued orchestral music, and roses—admirable creations of calico and gauze—hung from the wings in gay clusters, looking almost as if they were real. In the middle of the stage, on a broad green leaf that glittered with a thousand sparkles of imitation dew, lay a large golden cocoon, perfect in shape and shining gloriously in the beams of the mimic sun, to this central object the gaze of everyone in the audience was drawn and fixed. The music now grew wilder and sharper, the violins began to scream, the ’cellos to swear, and Sound itself, torn into shreds of impatient vibration, was beginning to protest discordantly at the whole representation, when lo!—the golden cocoon grew slowly more and more transparent, as if some invisible hand were winding off the silken treasure of the spinning, and the white form of a woman was dimly, delicately seen through the half-opaque covering. Loud murmurs of applause began, which swelled into a rapturous roar of ecstasy as with a sudden, sharp noise, which was echoed and repeated in the orchestra, the cocoon split asunder, and La Marina bounded forward to the footlights. Clad in diaphanous drapery, which scarcely concealed her form, and spreading forth two white butterfly wings, illumined in some mysterious way by electricity, she commenced her gliding dance—an intricate whirl of wonderful sinuous movements, every one of which might have served as a study for a sculptor. Her feet moved flyingly without sound; her face, artistically tinted for stage-effect, was beautiful; her hair of reddish-brown, lit weirdly by concealed electric dewdrops, flowed about her in a cloud that resembled a smouldering fire; and as she danced, she smiled as sweetly and with as perfect an imitation of childlike innocence as though she had in very truth been newly born in fairyland that night, just as she seemed,—a creature of light, love and mirth, with no idea at all of the brandy awaiting her by her own order in her dressing-room off the ‘wings.’ And Delicia, frozen into a kind of unnatural calm, watched her steadily, coldly, critically; and watching, realised that the Bond Street jeweller had not spoken without knowledge, for there, on Marina’s panting bosom, gleamed the diamond dove carrying the golden love-token, which said, ‘_Je t’adore ma mie!_’ Flashing brilliantly with every toss and whirl of the dancer’s pliant body, it was to Delicia the proof-positive of her husband’s dishonour. And yet she found it difficult to grasp the truth at once; she was not aware of any particular emotion of hurt, or rage, or grief; she only felt very cold and sick, and she could not put so strong a control on herself as to quite hide these physical sensations altogether, for Mrs Cavendish, glancing at her in alarm, exclaimed,—

‘Delicia, you are not well! Robert, she’s going to faint; take her out of the box! Give her some air!’

Delicia forced herself to smile—to speak.

‘It is nothing, I assure you,’ she said, ‘nothing but the heat and the smoke. Pray do not mind me; it will soon pass.’

But despite her words, she half rose and looked nervously about her as if seeking for some escape; then, refusing Mr Cavendish’s hastily-offered arm, she sat down again.

‘I will see this dance out,’ she said tremulously; ‘and then, perhaps, if you are ready, we will go.’

And she turned her eyes once more on the stage, which was now flooded with purple and golden light, causing La Marina, in her impersonation of a butterfly, to glow with all the brilliant and soft colours of the rainbow. Her white wings were irradiated with all sorts of wonderful tints—now crimson, now blue, now green—and in the midst of all the glitter and play of light shone Marina’s face, smiling with its sweetly simulated expression of innocence, while the diamond dove sparkled beneath her rounded chin. And as Delicia glanced from her to the arena to see the effect of the performance on the audience, she started, and in the extreme tension of her nerves almost screamed,—for there,—looking straight up at her, was her husband! Their eyes met; the crowded space of the auditorium and the brilliantly-lit stage, with the swaying figure of the popular dancer gliding to and fro upon it, severed them—the visible and outward signs of a wider separation to come. Lord Carlyon surveyed his wife with a lofty and offended air, and quickly understanding the expression on his features, Delicia could have laughed aloud, had she been less stunned and miserable. For he was assuming an aspect of injured virtue, which, considering the actual state of affairs, had something ludicrous about it; and for a moment Delicia studied him with a curiously calm and critical analysis, just as if he were a subject for literary treatment and no more. She saw, from his very look upward at her, that he considered her to have outraged the proprieties by visiting the ‘Empire’ at all, even though she was accompanied by two of her oldest and most familiar friends; and of his own guilt in connection with La Marina it was highly probable he never thought at all. Men are judged to be excellent logicians, superseding in that particular branch of knowledge all the feeble efforts of womankind; and undoubtedly they have a very peculiar form of arguing out excuses for their own vices, which must be acknowledged as exceedingly admirable. Before La Marina’s gyrations were over, and while the male part of the audience was exhausting itself in frantic salvos of applause, Delicia was moved by such a keen and pungent appreciation of the comedy side of the situation that she could not help smiling. There was a wide wound in her heart; but it was so deep and deadly that as yet the true anguish of it was not betrayed—the throbbing ache had not begun, and she herself was scarcely as yet aware of her own mortal hurt. The brilliancy of her brain saved her, for the time being, from knowing to what extent her tenderest and best emotions had been outraged; and she could not avoid perceiving something almost droll in the fact that she, Delicia, had worked, among other things, for this, to enable her husband to deck his mistress with jewels purchased out of her hard earnings!

‘It is very funny!’ she said half aloud, ‘and perhaps the funniest thing of all is that I should never have thought it of him!’

‘What did you say, Delicia?’ asked Mr Cavendish, bending down towards her.

Delicia smiled.

‘Nothing!’ she replied. ‘I was talking to myself, which is a bad habit. I saw Will just now; he’s in the arena somewhere. I expect he’s not best pleased to see me here.’

‘Well, he’s here himself often enough,’ retorted Mr Cavendish; ‘at least, if one is to believe what people say.’

‘Ah, but one must never believe what people say,’ answered Delicia, still smiling quite radiantly. ‘The majority of mankind tell more lies than truths; it suits their social customs and conveniences better. May we go now?’

‘Willingly,’ and the Cavendishes rose at once. ‘Shall we look for Lord Carlyon?’

‘Oh, no; there is such a crowd, we should never find him. He will probably go home in a hansom.’

They left the hall; and Delicia, who had placed her carriage at the service of her friends that night, took them back in it to their own door.

‘You haven’t told us what you think of La Marina,’ said Mrs Cavendish, smiling, when they were bidding each other good-night. ‘Were you disappointed in her?’

‘Not at all,’ Delicia answered tranquilly; ‘she is an admirable dancer. I never expected her to be anything more than that.’

‘Numbers of men have quite lost their heads about her,’ observed Mr Cavendish, as he stood on the pavement outside his house and looked in at Delicia, where she sat in her carriage shadowed from the light. ‘Somebody told me the other day she had more jewels than a queen.’

‘No doubt,’ responded Delicia, carelessly; ‘She is a toy, and the only chance she has of not being broken is to make herself expensive. Good-night!’

She waved her hand, and was driven off. Mr and Mrs Cavendish entered their own quiet house, and in the semi-lighted hall looked at each other questioningly.

‘It is no use dropping any more casual hints,’ said Mr Cavendish, almost crossly; ‘she doesn’t take them.’

‘I don’t think she’ll ever believe a word against Carlyon,’ responded his wife; ‘and old friends as we are, we should only offend her if we speak out and tell her all we hear. It is no use making mischief.’

‘It is no use speaking truth, you mean,’ observed Mr Cavendish. ‘What a singular thing it is that one can never be honest in society without offending somebody!’

Mrs Cavendish sighed and smiled. She had had her turn of social life long years ago, and had got thoroughly tired of its vapid folly and hypocrisy, but she had managed to find a good husband, and for that was daily and hourly thankful. The great sorrow of her life was that she had not been blessed with children, and it was partly this shadow, on her otherwise happy and tranquil lot, which made her attachment to Delicia peculiarly tender. Had that brilliant and popular novelist been her own daughter, she could not have loved her more, and there was an uneasy sense of foreboding in her good, motherly soul that night which kept her awake for a long time, thinking and wondering as to what would happen if certain rumours concerning Lord Carlyon turned out to be true. She knew Delicia’s character better than most people; she was aware that beneath that apparently pliant, sweet nature, there was a resolute spirit, strong as iron, firm as adamant—a spirit which would assuredly make for right and justice whenever and however tested and tried; but she could not foresee in what way Delicia would resent a wrong, supposing she had cause for such resentment. She looked slight as a reed and delicate as a lily; but appearances are deceptive; and nothing can well be more foolish than to estimate a person’s mental capacity by his or her outward bearing. A rapier is a thin, light weapon, but it can nevertheless kill; a nightingale has nothing to boast of in its plumage, but its singing surpasses that of all the other birds in creation. Only the purely barbaric mind judges things or individuals by surface appearances. Anyone who had attempted to fathom Delicia’s character by her looks would have formed a very erroneous estimate of her, for, to the casual observer, she was merely a pretty, lovable woman, with a sunny smile and a graceful bearing, and that was all. No one would have given her credit for such virtues as strong self-restraint, courage, determination, and absolute indifference to opinions; yet all these she had in no small degree, combined with an extraordinary directness and swiftness of action which is commendable enough when it distinguishes a man, but is somewhat astonishing when discovered in the naturally capricious composition of a woman. This direct method of conduct impelled her now; for while Mrs Cavendish lay awake worrying about her, she herself, on returning home that evening, had fully made up her mind as to what she meant to do. Going into her study, she sat down and wrote a letter to her husband, in which, with concise and uncomplaining brevity, she told him all. She concluded her epistle thus:—

‘I am unable to tell you my own feelings on this matter, as I have not yet had time to realise them even to myself. The surprise is too sudden—the disappointment I experience in you too keen. I am quite aware that many men keep stage-artistes for their own amusement in hours of leisure, but I do not think they are accustomed to do so on their wives’ earnings. It would be inexpressibly painful to me to have to talk this over with you; it is a subject I could not possibly discuss. I therefore deem it best to leave you for a few days in order that we may both, apart from one another, have leisure in which to consider our positions and arrange what is best to do for the future. In order to save all unnecessary gossip and scandal, I shall return to town in time for Lady Dexter’s “crush,” to which we are both especially invited. I am going to Broadstairs, and will telegraph my address on arrival.

‘DELICIA VAUGHAN.’

When she had written all she had to say, she placed the letter in an envelope, addressed it, and, calling Robson, bade him deliver it to his master directly he returned. Robson glanced at her deferentially, wondering within himself at the extreme pallor of her face and feverish brightness of her eyes.

‘His lordship said he would probably not return to-night,’ he ventured to observe.

Delicia started slightly, but quickly controlled herself.

‘Did he? Well, whenever he does return, give him that letter.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

He withdrew, and Delicia went quietly upstairs to her bedroom and summoned her maid.

‘I am going down to the sea for a few days, Emily,’ she said; ‘to Broadstairs. Just put my things together, and be ready yourself by ten o’clock to-morrow morning.’

Emily, a bright-looking young woman, who had none of the airs and graces about her which are too frequently assumed by ladies’ maids, and who, moreover, had the further recommendation of being devotedly attached to her mistress, received her instructions with her usual pleased readiness, and set about loosening her lady’s hair for the night. As she unwound the glistening mass and let it fall, Delicia suddenly started up with a smothered cry of pain.

‘Oh, my lady, what is it?’ exclaimed Emily, startled.

Delicia stood trembling and looking at her.

‘Nothing, nothing,’ she faltered at last, faintly forcing a smile. ‘I have just found out something, that is all—something I did not quite understand before. I understand it now—I understand—my God, I understand! There, Emily, don’t look so frightened. I am not ill; I am only a little tired and puzzled. You can go now; I would rather be alone. Be sure you call me in good time for the train, and have everything packed in readiness. I shall take Spartan with me.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ stammered Emily, still looking a trifle scared. ‘Are you sure you are not ill? Can’t I do anything for you?’

‘No, nothing,’ answered Delicia, gently. ‘Go to bed, Emily, and get up early, that’s all. Good-night!’

‘Good-night, my lady!’ and Emily reluctantly retired.

Left alone, Delicia moved to the door and locked it. Then, turning, she drew aside the curtain which hung before the niche she called her ‘oratory,’ where an ivory crucifix hung white against draperies of purple. The anguished eyes of the suffering Saviour looked down upon her; the thorn-crowned head drooped as it were towards her; the ‘Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief,’ with arms outstretched upon the cross, seemed waiting to receive her,—and with a sudden, sobbing cry she fell on her knees.

‘Oh, my God, my God.’ she wailed, ‘I know now what I have lost! All my love and all my joy! Gone, gone like a foolish dream,—gone for ever! Gone, and nothing left but the crown of thorns called Fame!’

Shuddering, she hid her face on the cushion of her _prie-dieu_ and wept slow, passionate tears, that rose from a breaking heart and scalded her eyelids as they fell. Veiled in the golden glory of her hair, she fretted like a little ailing child, till finally, exhausted and shivering with emotion, she lifted her head and looked straight at the sculptured Christ that faced her.

‘I have loved him too much,’ she said half aloud. ‘I have made him the idol of my life, and I am punished for my sin. We are all apt to forget the thunders of Mount Sinai and the great Voice which said, “Thou shalt have none other gods save Me.” I had forgotten,—nay, I was almost willing to forget! I made of my beloved a god; he has made of me—a convenience!’

She rose, flung back her hair over her shoulders, and standing still for a moment listened. There was not a sound in the house, save an occasional uneasy movement from Spartan, who was lying on his mat outside her bedroom door.

‘“My lord’s” sense of what is right and proper for women has been outraged to-night by seeing me at the “Empire,” she said, with a little disdainful smile; ‘but his notions of morality do not go far enough to prevent him from being with La Marina at this very moment!’

A look of disgust passed over her mobile features.

‘Poor Love! Poor little, delicate moth! How soon a coarse touch will kill it—kill it hopelessly, so that it will never rise again! It is the only passion I think we possess that once dead, can never be resuscitated. Ambition is perennial, but Love!—it is the aloe flower that blossoms but once in a hundred years. I wonder what I shall do with my life now,—now that it is crippled and paralysed?’

She walked slowly to her mirror and looked long and earnestly at her own reflection.

‘You poor little woman!’ she said pityingly, ‘What a mistake you have made of it! You fancied that out of all the world of men you had won for yourself a hero,—a man whose nature was noble, whose disposition was chivalrous, whose tenderness and truth were never to be doubted! A protector and defender who, had anyone presumed to slander you, would have struck the liar across the mouth and made him answer for his insolence. Instead of this wonderful Marc Antony or Theseus of your imagination, what have you got? Don’t be afraid, poor Delicia! I see your mouth trembling and your eyes filling with foolish tears—now that’s all nonsense, you know! You must not shrink from the truth, my dear; and if God has chosen to take up your beautiful idol and break it in your sight, you must not begin to argue about it, or try to pick up the pieces and tell God He is wrong. Courage, Delicia! Face it out! What did you think you had won for a sure certainty out of all the flitting pageant of this world’s illusions? A true heart,—a faithful lover,—and, as before said, a kind of Theseus in looks and bravery! But even Theseus deserted Ariadne, and in this case your hero has deserted you. Only what you have to realise, you deluded creature, is this—that he is not a hero at all—that he never was a hero! That is the hardest part, isn’t it? To think that the god you have worshipped is no more than an “officer and gentleman,” as a great many “officers and gentlemen” go, who lives comfortably on your earnings, and spends the surplus money on the race-course, music-halls and—La Marina! Put off your rose-coloured spectacles, my dear, and look at him as he is. Don’t be a little coward about it! Yes, I know what you are saying over and over again in your own heart; it is the old story, “I loved him, oh, I loved him!” like the burden of a sentimental song. Of course you loved him—-how deeply,—how passionately,—how dearly,—you will never, never be able to express, even to yourself.’

Here, in spite of her remonstrances to her own image in the glass, the tears brimmed over and fell.

‘There, of course I suppose you must cry a little; you can’t help it,—you have been so thoroughly deceived, and the disillusion is so complete, you poor, poor little woman!’

And, moved by a quaint compassion for herself, she leant forward and kissed the reflection of her own quivering lips in the mirror.

‘It’s no good your looking about anywhere for consolation,’ she went on, wiping away her tears. ‘You are not made after the fashion of the modern lady, who can love anywhere and everywhere, so large is her heart; you are of that dreadfully old-world type of person, who, loving once, can never love again. Your love is killed in you; you are only half yourself now, and you must make the best of it. You must cut down your sentiments, smother your emotions, and live like St John in the wilderness, on ‘locusts and wild honey,’ by which you will for the future understand the rewards of Fame. And you will be in a desert all by yourself, fasting—fasting day and night—for the food of tenderness and love which you will never, never get—remember that! It’s rather a hard lot, you poor, weeping, weak little woman! But it’s marked out for you, and you will have to bear it!’

She smiled a pained, difficult smile, and she watched her own reflection smile back at her in the same sad way. Glancing at a time-piece on her dressing-table, she saw it was nearly two in the morning. Her husband had not returned. Twisting up her hair in a loose knot, she lay down on the bed and tried to sleep, but only succeeded in falling into an uneasy doze for about an hour. Ill and restless as she felt, however, she was up and dressed when her maid came to her in the morning, and before eleven o’clock she had left the house, with Spartan sitting beside her on the floor of the brougham which took her to the station, from whence she started for Broadstairs. She left no instructions with her household, beyond impressing once again upon Robson the urgent necessity of giving Lord Carlyon the letter she had written for him as soon as he returned. Robson promised implicit obedience, and watched the disappearance of the carriage containing his lady, her maid and her dog, with feelings of mingled curiosity and uneasiness.

‘Something’s in the wind, I’m pretty sure,’ he mused; ‘she has never gone away in this way, sudden-like, before. Very quiet, too, she looks, and very pale. She wouldn’t be the one to make a fuss about anything, but she’d feel all the more. I wonder if she knows?’

He stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall, evidently struck by this idea, and repeated the words to himself slowly and reflectively—‘I wonder if she knows?’

*CHAPTER VII*

It is strange, but nevertheless true, despite all our latter-day efforts at the reasoning away of sentiment, that conscience is still so very much alive in some of us, that when a man of birth and good-breeding has, according to his own stock-phrase for indulgence in vicious amusements, ‘seen life,’ by spending his time in low company, he is frequently moved by a strong reaction,—so powerful as almost to create nausea, and put him in a very bad and petulant humour. This was the case with Carlyon when he returned to his home at about luncheon time on the day Delicia departed seawards. He was not merely irritable, but he took a fantastic pleasure in knowing himself to be irritable, and in keeping his temper up to the required pitch of spleen. He was really angry with himself, but he managed to pretend that he was angry with Delicia. He had seen something in one of the papers about her which he judged as quite sufficient ground of offence to go upon, though he knew it was an attempt to vilify her fair name, which he, as her husband, should have instantly resented. In his own mind he was perfectly cognisant that, had he acted a manly part in the matter, he should have taken his riding-whip, and with it dealt a smart cut across the face of the literary liar who had published the false rumour, and yet, though he was aware of this, he had managed to work himself up into such a peculiar condition of self-pity that he could see nothing at all on his limited horizon but himself, his own feelings and his own perfections; and though he was partially and shamedly conscious of his own vices as well, he found such a number of excuses for these, that by the time he reached his own door he had, by dint of many soothing modern doctrines, and comfortable progressive moralist arguments, almost decided that he, taking men as they were, was really an exceptional paragon and pattern of virtue.

‘I must really speak very seriously to Delicia,’ he said to himself. ‘A woman as well-known as she is ought not to be seen at the “Empire,” and she has no business to receive actors at her “at homes.”’

With these highly moral feelings at work within him, he admitted himself into his own house, or rather his wife’s house, with his latch-key, and finding no one about, walked straight upstairs into Delicia’s study. The blinds were down, the room was deserted, and only the marble ‘Antinous’ stared at him with a cold smile. Descending to the hall again, he summoned Robson, who, instantly appearing, handed him Delicia’s letter on a silver salver with elaborately polite ceremony.

‘What’s this?’ he asked impatiently. ‘Is her ladyship out again?’

‘She left for Broadstairs this morning, my lord,’ replied Robson, demurely. ‘Her maid went with her, and she took Spartan.’

Carlyon muttered something like an oath, and turning into the smoking-room, opened and read his wife’s letter. Growing hot and cold by turns, he perused every calm, convincing, clearly-written word, and for a moment sat stunned and completely overwhelmed. Guilt, shame and remorse fought for the mastery of his feelings, and during the space of two or three minutes he thought he would at once follow Delicia, throw himself on her mercy, declare everything, and ask her forgiveness. But what would be the use of that? She might forgive, but she would never forget. And her blind adoration of him, her passionate love, her devout confidence? He had sense enough to realise that these fair feelings of tenderness and reverence in her for him were dead for ever!

Pulling at his handsome moustache fretfully, he surveyed his position and wondered whether it was likely that she would sue for a divorce? And if so, would she get it? No, for she could not prove cruelty or desertion. There was no cruelty in his having an ‘affair’ with Marina, or a dozen Marinas if he liked—_not in the eyes of the law_. There was not even any cruelty, legally speaking, in his spending his wife’s earnings on Marina, if his wife gave him money to do as he liked with. To get a divorce legally, Delicia would have to prove not only infidelity but cruelty and desertion as well for two years and upwards. Oh, just law! Made by men for themselves and their own convenience! The ‘cruelty’ which robs an innocent woman of love, of confidence, of happiness at one blow, has no existence, according to masculine justice. She may have to endure wilful neglect, and to be the witness of the open intimacy of her husband with other women; but provided he does not beat her, or otherwise physically ill-use her, and continues to live with her in apparent union, while all the while she shrinks from his touch and resents his companionship as an outrage, she cannot be separated from him. This Carlyon remembered with a commendable amount of self-congratulation.

‘She can’t get rid of me, that’s one thing,’ he reflected; ‘not that I suppose she would try it on. Damn that Bond Street jeweller for an ass! Why couldn’t the fellow hold his confounded tongue! Of course, it is a split between us; but, by Jove!—a woman who writes books ought to know that a man must get some fun out of life. We can’t all be literary! Besides, if there is to be a row, I have got a very good cause of complaint on my side!’

Whereupon he snatched up a pen and wrote as follows:—

‘DEAR DELICIA,—I regret that a woman of your culture and intelligence should not be able to understand the world and the ways of the world better. Men do not discuss such subjects as that alluded to in your letter; the least said the soonest mended. I enclose a cutting from _Honesty_, in which you will perceive that I possibly have more cause to complain of you than you of me. Greater licence is permitted to men than to women, as I imagined you knew, and your position with regard to the public should make you doubly careful. I hope you will enjoy your change of air.—Yours affectionately, WILL.’

He read over the press-cutting alluded to, which ran as follows:—