God's Good Man Part 53

She found utterance quickly.

"I was not rude---" she began.

"Pardon me,--you were! Rude to me--and still more rude to yourself!

The last was the worst affront, in my opinion!"

"I do not understand you," she said, impatiently--"Your ideas of women are not those of the present day---"

"Thank G.o.d, they are not!" he replied--"I am glad to be in that respect, old-fashioned! You say you do not understand me. Now that is not true! You do understand! You know very well that if I was rude in my UNpremeditated speech, you were much more rude in your premeditated act!--that of deliberately spoiling your womanly self by doing what you know in your own heart was--will you forgive me the word?--unwomanly!"

Maryllia flushed red.

"There is no harm in smoking," she said, coldly;--"it is quite the usual thing nowadays for ladies to enjoy their cigarettes. Why should they not? It is nothing new. Spanish women have always smoked--Austrian and Italian women smoke freely without any adverse comment--in fact, the custom is almost universal. English women have been the last, certainly, to adopt it--but then, England is always behind every country in everything!"

She spoke with a hard flippancy,--and she knew it. Walden's eyes darkened into a deeper gravity.

"Miss Vancourt, this England of ours was once upon a time not behind, but BEFORE every nation in the whole world for the sweetness, purity and modesty of its women! That it has become one with less enlightened races in the deliberate uns.e.xing and degradation of womanhood does not now, and will not in the future, redound to its credit. But I am prolonging a discussion uselessly,-- " He waited a moment. "I shall trouble you no more with my opinions, believe me,--nor shall I ever again intrude my presence upon yourself or your guests,"--he continued, slowly,--"As I have already said, I am sorry to have offended YOU,--but I am not sorry to have spoken my mind! I do not care a jot what your friends from London think of me or say of me,--their criticism, good or bad, is to me a matter of absolute indifference--but I had thought--I had hoped---"

He paused,--his voice for the moment failing him. Maryllia looked at his pale, earnest face, and a sudden sense of shamed compunction smote her heart. Her anger was fast cooling down,--and with the swift change of mood which made her so variable and bewitching, she said, more gently:

"Well, Mr. Walden? You thought--you hoped?"

"That we might be friends,"--he answered, quietly--"But I see plainly that is impossible!"

She was silent. He stood very still,--his eyes wandering involuntarily to the painted beauty of 'Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt,' which he had admired and studied so often for many lonely years, and back again along the dimly lit gallery to that unveiled portrait of the young bride who never came home, the mother of the little proud creature who confronted him with such fairy-like stateliness and pretty a.s.sertion of her small self in combat against him, and upon whom his glance finally rested with a lingering sadness and pain. Then he said in a low tone:

"Good-night, Miss Vancourt--good-bye!"

At this a cloud of distress swept across her mobile features. "There now!" she said to herself--"He's going away and he'll never come to the Manor any more! I intended to make him quite ashamed of himself- -and he isn't a bit! So like a man! He'd rather die than own himself in the wrong--besides he ISN'T wrong,--oh dear!--he mustn't go away in a huff!"

And with a sudden yielding sweetness and grace of action of which she was quite unconscious, she extended her hands to him--

"Oh, no, Mr. Walden!" she said, earnestly--"I am not so angry as all that! Not good-bye!" Hardly knowing what he did, he took her offered hands and held them tenderly in his own.

"Not good-bye!" she said, trembling a little, and flushing rose-red with a certain embarra.s.sment--"I don't really want to quarrel--I don't indeed! We--we were getting on so nicely together--and it is so seldom one CAN get on with a clergyman!"--here she began to laugh--"But you know it was dreadful of you, wasn't it?--at any rate it sounded dreadful--when you said that English ladies never smoked- --"

"Neither they do,"--declared John resolutely, yet smilingly, "Except by way of defiance!"

She glanced up at him,--and the mirthful sparkle in his eyes was reflected in her own.

"You are very obstinate!" she said, as she drew her hands away from his--"But I suppose you really do think smoking is wrong for women?"

His heart was beating, his pulses thrilling under the influence of her touch, her appealing look and sudden change of manner,--but he was not to be moved from his convictions, though all the world should swim round him in a glamour of blue eyes and gold hair.

"I think so, most certainly!"

"But why?"

He hesitated.

"Well, the act of smoking in itself is not wrong--but the a.s.sociations of the habit are unfit for womanhood. I know very well that it has become usual in England for ladies to smoke,--most unfortunately--but there are many habits and customs in this country as well as in others, which, because they are habitual, are not the less, but rather the more, pernicious. I confess to a strong prejudice against smoking women."

"But men smoke--why should not women smoke also?" persisted Maryllia.

Walden heard this plea with smiling patience.

"Men,--a very large majority of them too--habitually get drunk. Do you think it justifiable for women to get drunk by way of following the men's example?"

"Why no, of course not!"--she answered quickly--"But drunkenness is a vice---"

"So is smoking! And it is quite as unhealthy as all vices are. There have been more addle-pated statesmen and politicians in England since smoking became a daily necessity with, them than were ever known before. I don't believe in any human being who turns his brain into a chimney. And.--pardon me!--when YOU deliberately put that cigarette in your mouth---"

"Well!" and a mischievous dimple appeared on each soft cheek as she looked up--"What did you think of me? Now be perfectly frank!"

"I will!" he said, slowly, with an earnest gravity darkening in his eyes--"I should not be your true friend if I were otherwise! But if I tell you what I thought--and what I may say I know from long experience all honest Englishmen think when they see a woman smoking--you must exonerate me in your mind and understand that my thoughts were only momentary. I knew that your better, sweeter self would soon rea.s.sert its sway!"

Her head drooped a little--she was quite silent.

"I thought,"--he went on, "when I saw you actually smoking, that something strange and unnatural had happened to you! That you had become, in some pitiful way, a different woman to the one that walked with me, not so long ago, and showed me her old French damask roses blossoming in the border!"--he paused an instant, his voice faltering a little,--then he resumed, quietly and firmly--"and that you had, against all nature's best intentions for you, descended to the level of Lady Beaulyon---"

She interrupted him by a quick gesture---

"Eva Beaulyon is my friend, Mr. Walden!"

"No--not your friend!"--he said steadily--"Forgive me! You asked me to speak frankly. She is a friend to none except those of her own particular cla.s.s and type---"

"To which I also belong,"--said Maryllia, with a sudden flash of returning rebellion--"You know I do!"

"I know you do NOT!" replied Walden, with some heat--"And I thank G.o.d for it! I know you are no more of her cla.s.s and type than the wood lily is like the rank and poisonous marsh weed! Oh, child!--why do you wrong yourself! If I am too blunt and plain in what I say to you, let me cease speaking--but if you ask ME as your friend--as your minister!"--and he emphasised the word--"to tell you honestly my opinion, have patience with my roughness!"

"You are not rough," she murmured,--and a little contraction in her throat warned her of the possible rising of tears--"But you are scarcely tolerant!"

"I cannot be tolerant of the demoralisation of womanhood!"--he said, pa.s.sionately--"I cannot look on with an easy smile when I see the s.e.x that SHOULD be the saving purity of the world, deliberately sinking itself by its own free will and choice into the mire of the vulgarest social vice, and parting with every redeeming grace, modesty and virtue that once made it sacred and beautiful! I am quite aware that there are many men who not only look on, but even encourage this world-wide debas.e.m.e.nt of women in order to bring them down on a par with themselves--but I am not one of these. I know that when women cease to be womanly, then the sorrows of the world, already heavy, will be doubled and trebled! When men come to be ashamed of their mothers--as many of them are to-day--there will be but little hope of good for future generations! And the fact that there are many women of t.i.tle and position like your guest, Lady Beaulyon, who deliberately drag their husband's honour through the dust and publicly glory in their own disgrace, does not make their crime the less, but rather the more criminal. You know this as well as I do! You are not of Lady Beaulyon's cla.s.s or type--if you were, I should not waste one moment of my time in your presence!"

She gazed at him speechlessly. And now from the drawing room came the sound of Cicely's voice, clear, powerful, and as sweet as legends tell us the voices of the angels are--

"Luna fedel, tu chiama Col raggio ed io col suon, La fulgida mia dama Sul gotico veron!"

"You know," he went on impetuously--"You know I told you before that I am not a society man. I said that if I came to dinner to meet your London friends, I should be very much in the way. You have found me so. A man of my age and of my settled habits and convictions ought to avoid society altogether. It is not possible for him to accommodate himself to it. For instance,--see how old-fashioned and strait-laced I am!--I wish I had been miles away from St. Rest before I had ever seen you smoking! It is a trifle, perhaps,--but it is one of those trifles which stick in the memory and embitter the mind!"

Around them the air seemed to break and divide into pulsations of melody as Cicely sang:

"Diro che sei d'argente D'opale, d'ambra e d'or, Diro che incanti il vento, E che innamori i fior!"

"You have seemed to me such an ideal of English womanhood!"--he went on dreamily, hardly aware how far his words were carrying him--"The sweet and fitting mistress of this dear old house, richly endowed as it is with n.o.blest memories of the n.o.ble dead! Their proud and tender spirit has looked out of your eyes--or so I have fancied;-- and you are naturally so kind and gentle--you have been so good to the people in the village,--they all love you--they all wish to think well of you;--for you have proved yourself practically as well as emotionally sympathetic to them. And, above all things, you have appeared so pre-eminently delicate and dainty in your tastes--so maidenly!--I should as soon have expected to see the Greek Psyche smoking as you!"

She took a swift step towards him, and laid her hand on his arm.