An Ambitious Woman Part 35

"You say that I led you into this disaster, Herbert," she presently responded, with an effort, and more than a successful one, to steady her voice. "I don't deny it, but at the same time remember that my forethought provided for us both in a case of just the present sort. I have the other house, you know. Its sale will bring us something. And then there are all my jewels--and"--

His eyes flashed and his lip curled. "You talk in that business-like style," he cried, "when I am asking you if you ever really loved me! Is your evasion an answer, Claire? _Were_ your marriage-vows falsehoods?"

His hand grasped her wrist, though not with violence. She rose, unsteadily, and shook the grasp off.

"Oh, Herbert," she said, "I never saw you like this before! Let us think of what we can do in case all _is_ really lost."

He withdrew from her, breaking into a hollow laugh. He stared at her with dilated, accusing eyes.

"You don't dare tell me. But I read it, as I read it yesterday.... What can we do? Ah! you're not the woman to live on a thousand or two a year.

You want fine things to wear and to eat. You want your jewels, too--don't sell them, for you couldn't get along without them, now." He kept silence for a moment, and then hurried with swift steps toward the door, again pausing. A kind of madness, that was born of an agony, possessed him and visibly showed its sway. "Get some one else to put you back into luxury," he went on, lifting one hand toward his throat, as though to make the words less husky that were leaping from his lips.

"Get Goldwin to do it. Yes, Goldwin. You've only to nod and he'll kneel to you--as I knelt. Perhaps he's got from you what I never could get.

You know what I mean--I've told you."

He pa.s.sed at once from the room, flinging the door shut behind him. The room was in dimness by this time. Claire almost staggered to a lounge, and sank within it. His wild insult had dizzied her.

He had not meant a word of it. He was tortured by the thought that she had never cared for him. He had used the first fierce reproach that his sorrow and exasperation could hit upon. He went to his own apartments, dressed, and then left the house. He forgot that he had not dined, but remembered only that there might be some sort of forlorn financial hope discovered by a certain a.s.semblage of men less deeply involved than himself, yet all sufferers in a similar way, which would take place privately that same evening at a popular hotel not far distant. All recollection of having suggested an infidelity to Claire quite escaped from his perturbed and over-wrought brain. The piercing realization that she had never loved him still continued its torment. But he failed to recall that the desperate sarcasm of his mood had ever hurled at her the name of Goldwin.

A knock at the door of the darkened room waked Claire from a kind of stupor. The knock came from her maid, and it acted with decisive arousing force. Lights were soon lit, and dinner, that evening, was ordered to become a canceled ceremony.

"You may bring me some _bouillon_, Marie," Claire directed. "That, and nothing else."

She drank the beverage when it was brought, and changed her dress. The gla.s.s showed her a pale but tranquil face.

'I would have clung to him if he would have let me,' incessantly pa.s.sed through her thoughts. 'But now he tells me that another can give me the luxury that I have lost. He is right. Goldwin will come this evening; I am sure of it.'

Goldwin did come, and she received him with a mien of ice. Underneath her coldness there was fire enough, but she kept its heat well hidden.

"I came to talk intimately with you," he at length said, "and you treat me as if we had once met, somewhere, for about ten minutes."

The smouldering force of Claire's inward excitement started into flame at these words. "I know with what _intimate_ feelings you came," she replied, meeting his soft glance with one of cold opposition. "You want to tell me that you can set Herbert right with his creditors."

"Yes," he answered, slowly, averting his eyes, "I did have that desire.

Is there anything wrong about it?"

"Yes. You should not have come to me. You should have gone to him."

"Why?" he asked.

"Why?" repeated Claire, breaking into a sharp laugh. A moment later she tossed her head with a careless disdain. "I'm not going to tell you why.

You know well enough. See Herbert. Ask him if he will let you help him."

"You are very much excited."

"I have good reason to be."

"You mean this dreadful change in your husband's affairs?"

"Yes, I mean that, and I mean more. You mustn't question me."

"Very well, I won't."

But he soon did, breaking the silence that ensued between them with gently harmonious voice, and fixing on Claire's half-averted face a look that seemed to brim with sympathy.

"Would Hollister take my help if I offered it? Does he not dislike me? I believe so--I am nearly sure so. You tap the floor with your foot. You are miserable, and I understand your misery. So am I miserable--on your account. I know all the ins and outs of your distress ... ah, do not fancy that I fail to do so. He has said hard things--undeserved things.

He has perhaps mixed my name with his ... what shall I call them? ...

reproaches, impertinences? You have had a quarrel--a quarrel that has been wholly on his side. He has accused you of not caring enough for him. It may be that he has accused you of not caring at all. Of course he has dilated on your love for the pomp and glitter of things. As if he himself did not love them! As if he himself has not given all of us proof that he loved them very much! Well; let that pa.s.s. You are to renounce everything. You are to dine on humble fare, dress in plain clothes, sink into obscurity. This is what he demands. Or, if it is not demanded, it is implied. And for what reason? Because he still sees you are beautiful, attractive, one woman in ten thousand, and that having gambled away every other pleasure in life he can still retain you."

Claire rose from the sofa on which they were both seated. She did not look at Goldwin while she answered him. Her voice was so low that he just caught her words and no more.

"To what does all this tend? Tell me. Tell me at once."

Goldwin in turn slowly rose while he responded: "I will tell you, if you will tell me whether you love your husband well enough to share poverty with him after he has insulted you."

"I did not say that he had insulted me."

"I infer it. Am I right or wrong?"

Still not looking at him, she made an impatient gesture with both hands.

"Allowing you are right. What then?"

He did not reply for several minutes. He was stroking his amber mustache with one white, well-shaped hand; his eyes were now turned from hers, hers from him.

"I shall go abroad in a short time. I shall go in less than a fortnight," he said.

It was a most audacious thing to say, and he knew it thoroughly. It was the bold stroke that must either annul his hopes completely, or feed them with a fresh life.

Claire seemed to answer him only with the edges of her lips.

"How does that concern me?"

"In no way. I did not say it did. But you might choose to sail a week or two later. Alone, of course. It would be Paris, with me. You have told me that you wanted very much to see Paris."

She turned and faced him, then, more agitated than angry.

"You speak of my husband having insulted me. What are you doing now?"

"I am trying to save you."

"Good Heavens! from what?"

"From him. Listen. I did not mean for you to go directly to Paris. You would travel. But at a certain date I could meet you there. I could meet you with--well, with a doc.u.ment of importance."

"Explain. I don't understand you at all."

"Suppose I put the case in certain legal hands here. Suppose they worked it up with skill and shrewdness. Suppose they gained it. Suppose they secured a divorce between you and him on--grounds" ...