Mrs. Maxon Protests Part 36

"Lady Rosaline," said Cyril Maxon, as he put down his empty teacup, "last week saw the end of an episode in my life." (Mr. Attlebury would hardly have referred to it as an episode.) "The future is my concern now. I took the action I did take on the fullest consideration, and I'm glad to think, from what you said in Paris, that it had your approval."

He paused a moment. "I hope I'm not wrong in thinking that you understood why I took it, when once I had made up my mind that it was permissible?"

"Oh, you mustn't make too much of what I said in Paris. I'm no authority. I left it to you."

He smiled. "The question of permissibility--naturally. But the other altogether? Well, never mind that." He rose from his chair and stood by her. "You must know that it was for your sake that I took the step I did?"

She moved restlessly, neither affirming nor denying. She knew it very well.

"Before the world we must remain as we are for the present. But it would make a vast difference to me, during this time of waiting, to know that I--that I could rely on you, Rosaline. You can have no doubt of my feelings, though I have exercised self-restraint. I love you, and I want you to be my wife as soon as possible."

"Well, it's not possible at present, is it?"

"No. But there's no reason why we shouldn't have a perfect understanding between ourselves."

"Wouldn't it make gossip, and perhaps raise awkward questions, if we--well, if we arranged anything definitely now--before the time's up?"

"It would be quite between ourselves. There could be no questions. There would be no difference in our present relations--we should neither of us wish that. But the future would be secure."

"I can't see the good of being engaged now, if it's to make no difference," she murmured fretfully.

"It'll make an enormous difference in my feelings. I think you know that."

"It seems to me to set up rather a--rather a difficult state of things.

You know how much I like you--but why shouldn't we both be free till the time comes?" She took courage to raise her eyes to his on this suggestion.

"I have no desire to be free." His voice grew rather harsh. "I didn't know that you had. In Paris----"

She flared out suddenly; for her conscience was, in fact, not quite easy. "Well, what did I say in Paris after all? You never said in Paris what you're saying now! If you had--well, I should have told you that I wasn't at all ready to give a decision. And I'm not ready now. I want this time of waiting to make up my mind. You're trying to drive me into saying 'Yes' before I'm ready. What's the good of that, even to you?

Because what prevents me from changing my mind in the next six months--even if you make me say 'Yes' to you now?"

"I took an important--and to me a difficult--step in reliance on your feelings towards me. I seem to have been mistaken about them." His voice was sombre, even rather rancorous.

"Don't say that, Cyril. But why must I give up my liberty long before--well, long before I can get anything instead of it?" She smiled again, propitiating him. "Let me go abroad, anyhow. I'll try to tell you when I come back. There!"

"I confess to thinking that you had practically told me long ago. On the faith of that, I acted."

"You've not the smallest right to say that. I liked you and let you see it. I never pledged myself."

"Not in words, I allow."

"Cyril, your insinuation isn't justifiable. I resent it. Whatever I may have felt, I have said and done nothing that I mightn't have with anybody."

He had held his temper hard; it gave a kick now. "With Thrapston, for instance?" he sneered.

"Oh, how absurd! I've never so much as thought of Sir Axel in that way!"

As she spoke, she glanced at the clock. No, there was plenty of time.

She did not desire an encounter between the two this afternoon. She rose and stood by Maxon. "You're being rather exacting and--and tyrannical, my lord," she said. "I don't think I like you so much to-day. You almost bully me--indeed you do!"

He bent his eyes on hers, frowning heavily. "I did it for you."

"Oh, it's not fair to put that on me! Indeed it isn't. But, please, don't let's quarrel. It's really such a little thing I ask--not much more than a month to think it over--when nothing can happen for more than six! Indeed, I think a year would--well, would look better for both of us."

"Oh, make it two years--make it five!" he growled.

"Cyril, if you go on like this, I'll make it never--here, now, and for good!"

Even he saw that he had gone too far. He contrived to smooth brow and voice, and put in the man's usual plea to excuse his rough impatience.

"It's only because I love you."

"Yes, but you needn't be like a bear making love," she retorted pettishly. Yet, to a certain extent, she was appeased by the apology; and she by no means wanted to 'make it never' then and there. His rudeness and his apology together gave her a tactical advantage which she was not slow to use. "But if you do love me as you say, you won't refuse what I ask of you," she went on. Then she indulged him with a touch of sentiment. "If I say 'Yes,' I want to say it without any doubt--with my whole heart, Cyril. 'Yes' now wouldn't be what it ought to be between you and me."

She maintained her advantage to the end of the interview. She won her respite; nothing more was to be said till after her return from abroad.

Meanwhile they would correspond as friends--"As great friends as you like!" she threw in, smiling. As friends, too, they parted on this occasion; for when he offered to embrace her, she held out her hand gracefully, saying, "That'll do for to-day, I think, Cyril." His frown came again, but he submitted.

In fact, in the first encounter between them, Cyril Maxon was beaten.

She stood up against him, and had won her way. True, she was almost bound to; her position was so much the more favourable. Yet, however defeat came, Maxon was not accustomed to it, and did not like it. And he liked her the less for inflicting it--he used one or two hard words about her as he drove home from Hans Place--but he did not the less want to marry her. The masterful element in him became the more urgent to achieve that victory, to make up all the ground that he had lost to-day--and more. But, if he contrasted to-day's interview with his previous a.s.sumptions, it was plain that he had lost a lot of ground.

What had seemed the practically certain became merely the reasonably probable. Instead of being to all intents and purposes accepted, he was told that he was only a suitor, though, no doubt, a suitor who was ent.i.tled to entertain good hopes of success. Yes, very good hopes, if nothing intervened. But he hated the trip abroad, and he hated Sir Axel Thrapston--in spite of Lady Rosaline's disclaimer of any sentimental interest in that gentleman. The mere fact of her asking for a delay made every delay dangerous, and, while she doubted at all, any man much about her might make her more doubtful. "If she throws me over now----" he muttered angrily to himself; for always in his mind, as now and then on his lips, was that 'I did it for you.' She had accepted the sacrifice of his conscience; was she now to refuse to answer his prayer? In the new light of her possibly refusing, he almost admitted the sacrifice. At any rate, he a.s.serted, he had acted on a conclusion full of difficulty and not quite free from doubt. It was beyond question that the case of conscience might vary in aspect, according as Lady Rosaline Deering did or did not say 'Yes.'

If the vanquished combatant was decidedly savage, the victorious was rather exhausted. Lady Rosaline lay p.r.o.ne in a luxurious arm-chair before the fire, doing nothing, feeling very tired. She had won, but a succession of such victories--a perpetual need of such victories--would be Pyrrhic in its effect on her nerves. The room seemed suddenly filled with an atmosphere of peace. She gave a little stretch, a little yawn, and nestled down farther into her big chair.

Thus Sir Axel Thrapston, punctual to his half-past five and missing Cyril Maxon by some ten minutes, found her. His arrival did not disturb her sense of repose and, perhaps, rather accentuated it; for with him she had no quarrel, and about him no complication of feelings difficult to unravel. Moreover, he was an essentially peaceful person, a live-and-let-live man. She received him graciously, but without rising from the big chair.

"Forgive my not getting up; I'm rather tired. You take the little chair, and draw it up."

He did as he was bid. "Been doing too much?" he asked.

"Oh, not particularly, but I am tired. But you'll rest me, if you'll sit there, and not mind if I don't talk much." However, she went on talking.

"There are some people whom one likes and admires tremendously, and yet who are rather--well, exacting, aren't there?"

Sir Axel would have been dull not to surmise that his friend had had recent experience of some such person as she described.

"No, exacting isn't quite the word I want. I mean, they take their own point of view so strongly that it's really a struggle--a downright struggle--to make them see that there may be another."

"I know the sort of fellow. My Scotch gardener's one of 'em."

"Well, I don't know your Scotch gardener, but I do know one or two men of the sort."

"I should think you could stand up for yourself!"

His glance was one of friendly appreciation of her--and of her appearance. She certainly looked well in the firelight.

"Oh, I think I can, but one doesn't want always to be having to do it."

"Not good enough to live with people like that, Lady Rosaline!"

He meant no personal reference, but his companion had little difficulty in finding a personal application. Her eyes wandered from the fire and settled on his face in a meditative gaze.

"Unless, I mean, you were quite sure of coming out on top. And even then--well, I hate rows, anyhow."