Sparrows Part 122

Mavis began to wonder if it would ease the pain at her heart if she were to confess her duplicity to her husband.

Perigal continued:

"An act is judged by its results; it is considered either virtuous or vicious according as its results are harmful or helpful to the person affected."

"Indeed!" said Mavis absently.

"Once upon a time, there was no right and no wrong, till one man in the human tribe got more than his fair share of arrow-heads--then, his wish to keep them without fighting for them led to the begetting of vice and virtue as we know it."

"How was that?" asked Mavis, striving to escape from her distracting emotions by following what Perigal was saying.

"The man with the arrow-heads hired a chap with a gift of the gab to tell the others how wrong it was to want things someone else had collared. That was the first lesson in morality, and the preacher, seeing there was money in the game, started the first priesthood. Yes, morality owes its existence to the fact of the well-to-do requiring to be confirmed in their possessions without having to defend them by force."

Mavis was now paying no attention to Perigal's talk: mind and heart were in Pennington Churchyard. Perigal, thinking he was interesting Mavis, went on:

"You mayn't think it, but a bad egg like me does no end of a lot of good in the world, although downright criminals do more. If it weren't for people who interfered with others' belongings, the race would get slack and deteriorate. It's having to look after one's property which keeps people alert and up to the mark, and, therefore, those who're the cause of this fitness have their uses. No, my dear Mavis, evil is a necessary ingredient of the body politic, and if it were abolished to-morrow the race would go to 'pot.'"

Perigal said more to the same effect. Mavis was, presently, moved to remark:

"You take the loss of the money you expected very calmly."

"No wonder!"

"No wonder?" she queried, without expressing any surprise in her voice.

"To begin with, you have it. Then I've seen you."

Mavis thought for a moment before saying:

"I suppose, as I'm another man's wife, I ought to be angry at that remark."

"Aren't you?" he asked eagerly.

She did not reply directly; perhaps some recognition of the coldness with which she regarded him penetrated his understanding, for he added pleadingly:

"Don't say you don't mind because you're absolutely indifferent to me!"

"Why not?"

"Anything but that," he said, while a distressed look crept into his eyes. "But then, if you speak the truth, you couldn't say that after all that has--

"I'm going to speak the truth," she interrupted. "It doesn't interest me to say anything else."

"Well?" he exclaimed anxiously.

"I don't in the least mind what you said. And I'm not in the least offended, because, whatever you might ever say or do, it would never interest me."

He stared at her helplessly for a few moments before saying:

"Serve me jolly well right."

Mavis did not say any more, at which Perigal got up to leave her.

"I've been a precious fool," he muttered, after glancing at Mavis's face before moving away.

Devitt scarcely spoke whilst driving Mavis home; consequently, her thoughts had free play. It would certainly ease her mind, she reflected, if she made full confession to her husband of the reasons that impelled her to make his acquaintance and accept his offer of marriage; but it then occurred to her that this tranquillity of soul would be bought at the price, not only of his implicit faith in her, but of his happiness. Therefore, whatever pangs of remorse it was destined for her to suffer, he must never know; she being the offender, it was not meet that she should shift the burden of pain from her shoulders to his. Her sufferings were her punishment for her wrongdoing.

Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs were silent when they learned of Mavis's good fortune; they were torn between enhanced respect for Harold's wife and concern for Victoria, who had married a penniless man. Mavis could not gauge the effect of the news on Victoria, as she had gone back to London after Major Perigal's funeral, her husband remaining at Melkbridge for the reading of the will. Harold, alone among the Devitts, exhibited frank dismay at his wife's good fortune.

"Aren't you glad, dearest?" asked Mavis.

"For your sake."

"Why not for yours?"

"It's the thing most likely to separate us."

"Separate us!" she cried in amazement.

"Why not? This money will put you in the place in life you are ent.i.tled to fill."

Mavis stared at him in astonishment.

"With your appearance and talents you should be a great social success with the people who matter," he continued.

"Nonsense!"

"You undervalue your wonderful self. I should never have been so selfish as to marry you."

"You don't regret it?"

"For the great happiness it has brought me--no. But when I think how you might have made a great marriage and had a real home--"

"Aren't we going to have a real home?" she interrupted.

"Are we?"

"If it's love that makes the home, we have one whatever our condition,"

declared Mavis.

"Thank you for saying that. But what I meant was that children are wanted to make the perfect home."

Mavis's face fell.

"You, with your rare nature, must want to have a child," he continued.

"I don't know which must be worse: for a childless woman to long for a child or to have one and lose it."

Mavis grasped the arm of the chair for support.