Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 28

"You may call it what you like," Archie rejoined. "That is to say, anything honourable. I was hard hit three years ago, and it lasted off and on till her marriage to you. But she never cared for me in the same way. That I know now. I proposed to her twice, and she refused me."

"You weren't made of money, you see," sneered Wingarde.

Archie's fingers gripped each other. He had never before longed so fiercely to hurl a blow in a man's face.

"If I had been," he said, "I am not sure that I should have made the running with you in the field. That brings me to what I have to say to you. I wondered for a long time how she brought herself to marry you.

When you came back from your honeymoon I began to understand. She married you for your money; but if you had chosen, she would have married you for love."

He blurted out the words hastily, as though he could not trust himself to pause lest he should not say them.

Wingarde stood up suddenly to his full height. For once he was taken totally by surprise and showed it. He did not speak, however, and Archie blundered on:

"I am not your friend. I don't say this in any way for your sake. But--I am her's--- her friend, mind you. I don't say I haven't ever flirted with her. I have. But I have never said to her a single word that I should be ashamed to repeat to you--not one word. You've got to believe that whether you want to or not."

He paused momentarily. The frown had died away from Wingarde's face, but his eyes were stern. He waited silently for more. Archie proceeded with more steadiness, more self-a.s.surance, less self-restraint.

"You've treated her abominably," he said, going straight to the point.

"I don't care what you think of me for saying so. It's the truth. You've deceived her, neglected her, bullied her. Deny it if you can! Oh, no, this isn't what she has told me. It has been as plain as daylight. I couldn't have avoided knowing it. You made her your wife, Heaven knows why. You probably cared for her in your own brutal fashion. But you have never taken the trouble to make her care for you. You never go out with her. You never consider her in any way. You see her wretched, ill almost, under your eyes; and instead of putting it down to your own confounded churlishness, you turn round and insult me for behaving decently to her. There! I have done. You can kick me out of the house as soon as you like. But you won't find it so easy to forget what I've said. You know in your heart that it's the truth."

Archie ended his vigorous speech with the full expectation of being made to pay the penalty by means of a damaged skin.

Wingarde's face was uncompromising. It told nothing of his mood during the heavy silence that followed. It was, therefore, a considerable shock when he abruptly surrendered the citadel without striking a single blow.

"I am much obliged to you, Neville," he said very quietly. "And I beg to apologize for a most unworthy suspicion. Will you shake hands?"

Archie tumbled off his high horse with more speed than elegance. He thrust out his hand with an inarticulate murmur of a.s.sent. Perhaps after all the fellow had been no worse than an unmannerly bear. The next minute he was discussing politics with the monster he had dared to beard in his own den.

When Nina saw her husband again he treated her with a courtesy so scrupulous that she felt the miserable scourge of her uncertainty at work again. She would have given much to have possessed the key to his real feelings. With regard to his establishment of the Wade Home, he gave her the briefest explanation. He had been originally intended for a doctor, he said, had pa.s.sed his medical examinations, and been qualified to practise. Then, at the last minute, a chance opening had presented itself, and he had gone into finance instead.

"After that," he somewhat sarcastically said, "I gave myself up to the all absorbing business of money-making. And doctoring became merely my fad, my amus.e.m.e.nt, my recreation--whatever you please to call it."

"I wish you had told me," Nina said, in a low voice.

At which remark he merely shrugged his shoulders, making no rejoinder.

She felt hurt by his manner and said no more. Only later there came to her the memory of the man she feared, standing in the doorway of the matron's room with a little child in his arms. Somehow that picture was very vividly impressed upon her mind.

XI

MONEY'S NOT EVERYTHING

"What! You are coming too?"

Nina stopped short on her way to the car and gazed at her husband in amazement.

He had returned early from the City, and she now met him dressed to attend a garden-party whither she herself was going.

He bent his head in answer to her surprised question.

"I shall give myself the pleasure of accompanying you," he said, with much formality.

She coloured and bit her lip. Swift as evil came the thought that he resented her intimacy with Archie and was determined to frustrate any attempt on their part to secure a _tete-a-tete_.

"You take great care of me," she said, with a bitter little smile.

Wingarde made no response; his face was quite inscrutable.

They scarcely spoke during the drive, and she kept her face averted.

Only when he held out his hand to a.s.sist her to alight she met his eye for an instant and wondered vaguely at the look he gave her.

The party was a large one; the lawns were crowded. Nina took the first opportunity that offered to slip away from him, for she felt hopelessly ill at ease in his company. The sensation of being watched that had oppressed her during her brief honeymoon had reawakened.

Archie presently joined her.

"Did I see the hero of the Crawley gold field just now?" he asked. "Or was it hallucination?"

Nina looked at him with a very bored expression.

"Oh, yes, my husband is here," she said. "I suppose you had better not stay with me or he will come up and be rude to you."

Archie chuckled.

"Not he! We understand one another," he said lightly. "But, I say, what an impostor the fellow is! Everyone knows about Dr. Wade, but no one connects him in the smallest degree with Hereford Wingarde. It shouldn't be allowed to go on. You ought to tell the town-crier."

Nina tried to laugh, but it was a somewhat dismal effort.

"Come along!" said Archie cheerily. "There's my mother over there; she has been wondering where you were."

Nina went with him with a nervous wonder if Hereford were still watching her, but she saw nothing of him.

The afternoon wore away in music and gaiety. A great many of her acquaintances were present, and to Nina the time pa.s.sed quickly.

She was sitting in a big marquee drinking the tea that Archie had brought her when she next saw her husband. By chance she discovered him talking with a man she did not know, not ten yards from her. The tent was fairly full, and the buzz of conversation was continuous.

Nina glanced at him from time to time with a curious sense of uneasiness, and an unaccountable desire to detach him from his acquaintance grew gradually upon her.

The latter was a heavy-browed man with queer, furtive eyes. As Nina stealthily watched them she saw that this man was restless and agitated.

Her husband's face was turned from her, but his att.i.tude was one of careless ease, into which his big limbs dropped when he was at leisure.

Later she never knew by what impulse she acted. It was as if a voice suddenly cried aloud in her heart that Wingarde was in deadly danger.

She gave Archie her cup and rose.

"Just a moment!" she said hurriedly. "I see Hereford over there."