Studies in Wives Part 11

But still Bella said nothing. Her free hand was toying with the fringe of her blue sash. She had become very pale, a sickly yellow colour which made her violet eyes seem blue,--for one terrible moment Oliver thought she was going to faint.

"Why should I tell you?" she muttered at last, "you can't force me to tell you. It's a matter personal to myself. It's no business of yours.

I've never spent any of the money on you,"--she unfortunately added, "at least hardly any."

Germaine took his hand from her arm. "My G.o.d!" he said, "my G.o.d!"

Did a dim gleam of what he was feeling penetrate Bella's brain?

"I don't know why you should trouble to ask me," she said defiantly.

"Surely you must know well enough."

"I daresay I'm stupid, but I find it very difficult to guess which of the two, Joliffe or--or Uvedale, is your lover."

"My lover? Joliffe--Uvedale?" Bella started to her feet, the colour rushed back into her face. She was shaking with anger and indignation.

"How dare you insult me so?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have dared to say such a thing if my father had been alive! How dare you say, how dare you _think_, I have a lover?" and then with quivering pain she gave a little cry, "Oh, Oliver!"

Germaine looked at her grimly enough. What a fool--what an abject fool he had been! It fed his anger to see that Bella had so poor an opinion of his intelligence as to suppose that he would believe her denial.

"I know you are lying," he said briefly. "I _know_ it is either Joliffe or Uvedale."

"But, Oliver--indeed it isn't!"

She was looking at him with a very curious expression; the fear, the real terror, there had been in her face, had left it. She was staring at her husband as if she were seeking to find on his face some indication of a distraught, unhinged mind.

But he looked cool, collected, stern,--and anger again surged up in Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never--never forgive him his vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone so straight--never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all the admiration lavished on her?

There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before, when she had often rehea.r.s.ed this scene, when she had been so haunted by the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare.

But never had she imagined the conversation between Oliver and herself taking the turn it now had. Never, in her most anguished dreams, had Oliver accused her of having--a lover. But she had known, only too well, with what anger and amazement he would learn the lesser truth.

"Peter Joliffe?" she said, with a certain scorn. "How little you know Peter, Oliver, if you think he would be any married woman's lover, let alone mine! Why, Peter's a regular old maid!" She laughed a little hysterically at her simile, and, to her husband, the merriment, which he felt to be genuine, lowered the discussion to a level which was hateful--sordid.

"Then it's Uvedale," he said, heavily; and this time, so he was quick to notice, Bella did not take the trouble to utter a direct denial.

"Bob Uvedale? Are you quite mad? Bob Uvedale is really fond of you, Oliver,--do you honestly think he would make love to me?"

She was actually arguing with him; he shrugged his shoulders with a hopeless gesture.

Then Bella Germaine came quite close up to her husband. She looked at him straight in the eyes.

"I'll tell you," she said. "I see you really don't know. It's--it's----"

she hesitated, again a look of shame,--more, of fear,--came into her face, "The person who has been giving me money, Oliver, is Rabbit."

"Rabbit? I don't believe you!"

"You don't believe me?"

Bella drew a long breath. The worst, from her point of view, was now over. She had told the truth,--and Oliver had brushed the truth aside, so possessed by insane jealousy of Peter Joliffe and Bob Uvedale, that he had apparently no room in his heart for anything else.

Bella gave a little sigh of relief. Perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake in being so frightened; men are so queer--perhaps Oliver would feel, as she had now felt for so long, that poor old Rabbit could not find a better use for his money than in making her happy.

She walked over to her pretty desk, and frowned a little as she saw its condition of disarray; the receipted bills which she had found her husband looking over were scattered, even the tradesmen's books had not been put back in their place on the little shelf.

She touched the spring of a rather obvious secret drawer. There had been a time when Bella Germaine had hidden very carefully what she was now about to show Oliver as the certain, triumphant proof that his revolting suspicions were false. But of late she had grown careless.

"If you don't believe me," she said coldly, "look at this, Oliver. I think it will convince you that I told the truth just now."

Bella knew she had a right to be bitterly indignant at her husband's preposterous accusation. But she told herself that now was not the time to show it; she would punish Oliver later on.

She waited a moment and then cried, "Catch!"

Oliver instinctively held out his hands. A bulky envelope fell into them. It was addressed in a handwriting he knew well,--the unformed, and yet meticulous handwriting of Henry Buck. On it was written:

"Mrs. Oliver Germaine, "19, West Chapel Street, "Mayfair."

In the corner were added the words:

"Any one finding this, and taking it to the above address, will be handsomely rewarded."

"Open it!" she said imperiously. "Open it, and see what is inside,--he only brought it to-day."

Oliver opened the envelope. Folded in two pieces of paper was a packet of bank-notes held together with an elastic band.

Germaine looked up questioningly at his wife.

Bella hung her head. She had the grace to feel embarra.s.sed, ashamed in this moment that she believed to be the moment of her exculpation. Her pretty little hands, laden with rings, each one of which had been given her by her husband, were again toying with the fringe of her blue sash.

The silence grew intolerable.

"I know I've been a beast,"--her voice faltered, broke into tears. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but--but you know, Oliver, Rabbit isn't like an ordinary man."

"When did he begin to give you money?" asked Oliver, in a low voice.

"A long time ago," she answered, vaguely.

"He came in one day when I was awfully upset about a bill--a bill of that old devil, Bliss,--and he was so kind, Oliver. He explained how awfully fond he was of us both. He said we were his only friends--I always _have_ been nice to him, you know. He said he couldn't spend the money he'd got----"

"How much have you had from him?"

"I can tell you exactly," she said eagerly, and again she moved towards her bureau.

Bella felt utterly dejected; somehow she had not expected Oliver to take the news quite in this way; he looked dreadful--not relieved, as she had thought he would do.

It was with slow lagging steps that she walked back to where her husband was still standing with the envelope and its contents crushed in his right hand.

Bella's love of tidiness and method had stood her in fatally good stead.

She had put down all the sums she had received from Henry Buck, but in such a fashion that any one else looking at the figures would not have known money was in question.