Double Harness Part 25

John was losing patience; he saw that some plain speaking would be necessary, but his want of patience made it hard for him to do the plain speaking wisely.

"Well, yes, I do," he said. "In the beginning, you know. Tom's a good-natured fellow, and he was very fond of you. But you--well, you didn't make his home pleasant to him; and if a man's home isn't pleasant, you know what's likely to happen."

"And you're the friend I meant to send for!"

"I am your friend--that's why I venture to speak to you freely. There's no hope unless you both realise where you've been wrong. Tom acknowledges his fault and is ready to change his ways. But you must acknowledge yours and change too."

"What is my fault?"

John took a turn up and down the room.

"I must let her have it," he decided, as he came back to the hearthrug.

"You make everybody afraid of you with your lamentable fits of temper,"

he told her. "Tom's afraid of you, and afraid of what you might drive him into. Your children are afraid of you. Everybody's afraid of you.

You make the house impossible to live in. You're even violent sometimes, I'm afraid, Lady Harriet."

If breaking a paper-knife in two be violence, she was violent then. She threw the pieces down on the table angrily.

"How dare you come to me and talk like this? I've done nothing; I've nothing to blame myself with. What I've had to put up with would have spoilt anybody's temper! Express regret? I shall do nothing of the kind.

If that's what you came to ask, you can take your answer and go."

She was working herself up to the full tide of her rage. John's undertaking was quite hopeless now, but he would not recognise it yet; he determined to "let her have it" a little more still.

"Look at that!" he said, pointing to the broken paper-knife. "Just try to think what that--that sort of thing--means! What man can be expected to stand that? The state of things which has arisen is your fault.

You've made no effort to govern your temper. You're reaping the fruit of what you've sown. If poor Tom had shown more firmness it might have been better."

"You'd have shown more firmness, I suppose?"

"Yes, I should; and I believe it would have done some good. You may suppose it gives me great pain to speak like this, but really it's the only way. Unless you realise how greatly you've been to blame, unless you determine to conquer this deplorable failing, there's no hope of doing any good."

She sat quiet for a moment or two longer with shining eyes, while John, now confident again and very masculine, developed the subject of the real truth about her. Then she broke out.

"You fool!" she said. "You silly fool! You come to me with this nonsense! You tell me you'd have shown more firmness! You tell me it's my fault Tom's gone off after this creature! Much you know about it all!

Wonderfully wise you are! Leave other men's wives alone, and go back and look after your own, John."

"There's nothing that I'm aware of wrong in my house, Lady Harriet. We needn't bring that into the question."

"Oh, we needn't, needn't we? And there never was anything wrong, I suppose? I'm such a bad wife, am I? Other men have bad wives too."

"Do you attach any particular meaning to that?" he asked coldly, but rather uneasily.

"Do I attach----? Oh, what an idiot you are! You to come and lecture me as if I was a child! I may be anything you like, but I've never been what your wife was, John Fanshaw."

He turned on her quickly.

"What do you mean by that?"

"That's my affair."

"No, it isn't. You've dared to hint----"

"Oh, I hint nothing I don't know!"

"You shall give me an explanation of those words. I insist upon that."

"You'd better not," she laughed maliciously.

John was moved beyond self-control. He caught her by the wrist. She rose and stood facing him, her breath coming quick. She was in a fury that robbed her of all judgment and all mercy; but she had no fear of him.

"You shall withdraw those words or explain them!"

"Ask Christine to explain them!" she sneered. "What a fool you are!

Here's a man to give lectures on the management of wives, when his own wife----" She broke off, laughing again.

"You shall tell me what you mean!"

"Dear me, you can't guess? You've turned very dull, John. Never mind!

Don't make too much of it! Perhaps you were quick-tempered? Perhaps you didn't make her home pleasant? And if a woman's home isn't pleasant--well, you know what's likely to happen, don't you?"

Perspiration was on John Fanshaw's brow. He pressed her wrist hard.

"You she-devil!" he said. "Tell me what you mean, I say!"

"Oh, ask Christine! And if she won't tell you, I advise you to apply to Frank Caylesham, John."

"Is that true?"

"Yes, it is. Don't break my wrist."

"Caylesham!"

He held her wrist a moment longer, then dropped it, and looked aimlessly round the room.

She rubbed her wrist and glared at him with sullen eyes, her fury dying down into a malicious rancour.

"There, that's what you get from your meddling and your preaching!" she said. "I never meant to give Christine away, I never wanted to. It's your doing; you made me angry, and I hit out at you where I could. I wish to G.o.d you had never come here, John! Christine's one of the few women who are friendly to me, and now I've---- But you've yourself to thank for it."

He sank slowly into a chair; she heard him mutter "Caylesham!" again.

"If you know I've a quick temper, why do you exasperate me? You exasperate me, and then I do a thing like that! Oh, I'm not thinking of you; I'm thinking of poor Christine. I hate myself now, and that's your doing too!"

She flung herself into her chair and began to sob tempestuously. John stared past her to the wall.

"It's just what Tom's always done," she moaned through her sobs--"making me lose my temper, and say something, and then----" Her words became inarticulate.

Presently her sobs ceased; her face grew hard and set again.

"Well, are you going to sit there all day?" she asked. "Is it so pleasant that you want to stay? Do you still think you can teach me the error of my ways?"