A Butterfly on the Wheel Part 9

"Like George Admaston!" Collingwood answered, and now for the first time there came a glint of malicious and real ill-humour over his face. It came and pa.s.sed in a second, but it had been there.

"Yes," Peggy replied; "like George Admaston! He is a fighter, Colling. I think many women would love George. He is not the b.u.t.terfly type--but----"

"But he has all the luck," Collingwood broke in fiercely. "I could do anything if you were with me. I must have something--or someone--to fight for. My nature must be baffled. There must be obstacles in the way for me. I have a wicked streak in me somewhere that turns red when I can't get what I want. Peggy, you must let Admaston get a divorce."

The words seemed to strike her dumb. All colour had left her face long since, but now almost all expression went from it also for a moment. It was as if she had been struck some paralysing blow.

He was watching her keenly, and as he noted the effect of his words a spasm of pain went through him, though he showed nothing of it in his face or manner. He loved her, he loved her dearly; there was no doubt about that. He hated to give her pain, yet he felt he was being cruel only to be kind. She must face the situation once and for all, and then perhaps everything might be right. The situation, serious as it was, was very largely of his own creation. Seeing no other way, he had deliberately endeavoured to compromise Mrs. Admaston. All his plans, all his ideas, had been directed to this end. He wanted to force her husband's hand and to marry Peggy after the divorce. He loved her wildly, madly, pa.s.sionately. He would have been a perfect husband to her--there can be no doubt of that.

But his love was selfish. In order to win this woman for his own he was ready to subject her to all the indignities and all the shame of a process in the courts. In his overmastering desire, her reputation, her honour, mattered nothing to him. It was she that he wanted, and any means should be taken to achieve that end.

Men like Roderick Collingwood have few guiding principles in life, save only those of their own appet.i.tes. Of course, the public school and the university have given them a certain code. They must pay their gambling debts, they must do various other things of that sort; but as far as any conception of the morality and decency, which have made England what it is, is concerned, they are absolutely without it.

He nodded at Peggy, driving home the words.

"Divorce! Oh, you mustn't talk like that. You know how it hurts me," she said at last, when she had recovered a little. "Really, really, you are mistaken. I am quite satisfied with my life--only, sometimes when I am foolish I feel just a bit lonely and neglected."

He turned on her almost with a sneer. He was bitterly hurt and angry, and there is no doubt that, from his point of view, he had reason for complaint. She had led him on. She had flirted outrageously with him.

She had deliberately done her best to be provocative. Her intentions, doubtless, were innocent enough as far as any dishonour to her husband entered into the question. But her love of adulation, her vanity, her desire of power, were all gratified by her conquest of him; while at the same time she still had a real and genuine friendship for a man who, with all his faults, was essentially charming, good-natured, and kind.

"Then you have deceived me!" he cried.

"Colling, don't say that. I never meant----"

"Never meant? Good heavens! I told you six months ago that I loved you, and ever since then you have let me go here and there with you, and I have told you of my love again and again."

"But you have always been so good. You have never been unkind to me before to-night."

"Good G.o.d! Unkind! Why, most men would have divorced their wives on far less evidence than we have furnished. And all the while you have accepted the position without a murmur. You don't know what you have done."

"Colling, what do you mean?"

"Mean?" he answered. "I mean that you have led me to believe that you didn't care what we did--what people said about us. Mean? I mean that the call of love is in the spring, Peggy, whispering to you and me.

Mean? I mean that I am a man and you are a woman--our souls stand bare to one another--that I love you and that you love me."

He sprang at her and caught her up in his arms once more.

"I don't love you, Colling! Let me go!" she cried.

"I can't let you go! It is my hour! It is your fault as well as mine!

Kiss me, Peggy! You have tortured me long enough! Kiss me!"

He held her tight, tight! His face blazed. There was a fury in his voice.

At that very moment when he stopped speaking and was gazing down at her, while she lay for a moment almost pa.s.sive in his arms after her first fight and struggle, a loud, sharp, clear sound rang out in the room. It was the bell of the telephone upon the wall.

"Ellerdine!" Peggy said.

"Let him ring," Collingwood answered.

They stood there for another moment clasped together, and once more the insistent summons of the bell came.

"No, no," Peggy cried; "answer him, please!"

With an odd, instinctive gesture Collingwood put his arm right round her. Before he had been straining her to him pa.s.sionately. Now there was something protective in his att.i.tude.

And again the bell whirred.

At last with great reluctance Collingwood stepped up to the wall and caught up the receiver.

"Well, well!" he said. "Who is it? What! Ad----Admaston!"

A voice which was robbed of all ordinary qualities shivered out into the room.

"My husband!" said Peggy.

Collingwood made a warning gesture with his left hand, telling her to keep quiet.

"Yes," he said; "we took the wrong train. Yes, Collingwood. Yes, it is he speaking."

"Where is he?" came hissing to the ears of the man at the telephone.

Again he motioned her to silence, giving a slight impatient tap with his foot upon the carpet.

"Oh yes. We have just finished supper. What? I can't hear you distinctly. You want to speak to Ellerdine? Hold the line a moment; I'll call him."

He put down the receiver upon the table and ran up to Peggy, who was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

"He wants to speak to you, too, I think," Collingwood said in a low, fierce whisper; "but perhaps you had better not."

"I can't," Peggy answered, swaying this way and that as if about to fall. He put out his arm and steadied her.

"All right, darling," he said; "it is all right!"

"Where is he? London?" she said.

"I didn't ask," he replied. "Wait a minute!"

He hurried to the telephone again. "h.e.l.lo! Ellerdine has just gone out.

h.e.l.lo! Where are you speaking from? d.a.m.n! We're cut off. h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!"

He listened for nearly half a minute, taut and strained as a greyhound on the leash; then he flung the receiver angrily upon the bracket.

"We're cut off," he repeated, looking at her almost stupidly, as if the situation was beyond him.

Collingwood said nothing for a little time. At last he spoke. "I didn't think of that," he said. "Can he have had us----"

"What? What?" she almost shrieked.