Tante Part 36

"Mrs. Forrester came to tell me," said Karen, "that you had seen her this morning."

"Yes. Well?"

"And she told me," Karen went on, "that you had a great deal to say to her about my guardian--things that you have never dared to say to me."

He turned to her now and her eyes from across the room fixed themselves upon him.

"I will say them to you if you like," said Gregory, after a moment. He leaned against the side of the window and folded his arms. And he examined his wife with, apparently, the cold attention that he would have given to a strange witness in the box. And indeed she was strange to him. Over his aching and dispossessed heart he steeled himself in an impartial scrutiny.

"It is true, then," said Karen, "that you believe her tyrannous and dangerous and unscrupulous, and that you think her devoured by egotism, and hypocritical in her feeling for me, and that you hope that I may never see her again?"

She catalogued the morning's declarations accurately, like the witness giving unimpeachable testimony. But it was rather absurd to see her as the witness, when, so unmistakably, she considered herself the judge and him the criminal in the dock. There was relief in pleading guilty to everything. "Yes: it's perfectly true," he said.

She looked at him and he could discover no emotion on her face.

"Why did you not tell me this when you asked me to marry you?" she questioned.

"Oh--I wasn't so sure of it then," said Gregory. "And I loved you and hoped it would never come out. I didn't want to give you pain. That's why I never dared tell you, as you put it."

"You wanted to marry me and you knew that if you told me the truth I would not marry you; that is the reason you did not dare," said Karen.

"Well, there's probably truth in that," Gregory a.s.sented, smiling; "I'm afraid I was an infatuated creature, perhaps a dishonest one. I can't expect you to make allowances for my condition, I know."

She lowered her eyes and sat for so long in silence that presently, rather ashamed of the bitterness of his last words, he went on in a kinder tone: "I know that I can never make you understand. You have your infatuation and it blinds you. You've been blind to the way in which, from the very beginning, she has tracked me down. You've been blind to the fact that the thing that has moved her hasn't been love for you but spite, malicious spite, against me for not giving her the sort of admiration she's accustomed to. If I've come to hate her--I didn't in the least at first, of course--it's only fair to say that she hates me ten times worse. I only asked that she should let me alone."

"And let me alone," said Karen, who had listened without a movement.

"Oh no," Gregory said, "that's not at all true. You surely will be fair enough to own that it's not; that I did everything I could to give you both complete liberty."

"As when you applauded and upheld Betty for her insolent interference; as when you complained to me of my guardian because she asked that I should have a wider life; as when you hoped to have Mrs. Talcott here so that my guardian might be kept out."

"Did she suggest that?"

"She showed it to me. I had not seen it even then. Do you deny it?"

"No; I don't suppose I can, though it was nothing so definite. But I certainly hoped that Madame von Marwitz would not come here."

"And yet you can tell me that you have not tried to come between us."

"Yes; I can. I never tried to come between you. I tried to keep away.

It's been she, as I say, who has tracked me down. That was what I was afraid of if she came here; that she'd force me to show my dislike. Can you deny, Karen, I ask you this, that from the beginning she has made capital to you out of my dislike, and pointed it out to you?"

"I will not discuss that with you," said Karen; "I know that you can twist all her words and actions."

"I don't want to do that. I can see a certain justice in her malice. It was hard for her, of course, to find that you'd married a man she didn't take to and who didn't take to her; but why couldn't she have left it at that?"

"It couldn't be left at that. It wasn't only that," said Karen. "If she had liked you, you would never have liked her; and if you had liked her she would have liked you."

The steadiness of her voice as she thus placed the heart of the matter before him brought him a certain relief. Perhaps, in spite of his cold realizations and the death of all illusion as to Karen's love for him, they could really, now, come to an understanding, an accepted compromise. His heart ached and would go on aching until time had blunted its hurts, and a compromise was all he had to hope for. He had nothing to expect from Karen but acceptance of fact and faithful domesticity. But, after all the uncertainties and turmoils, this bitter peace had its balms. He took up her last words.

"Ah, well, she'd have liked my liking," he a.n.a.lysed it. "I don't know that she'd have liked me;--unless I could have managed to give her actual worship, as you and her friends do. But I'm not going to say anything more against her. She has forced the truth from me, and now we may bury it. You shall see her, of course, whenever you want to. But I hope that I shall never have to speak of her to you again."

The talk seemed to have been brought to an end. Karen, had risen and Barker, entering at the moment, announced dinner.

"By Jove, is it as late as that," Gregory muttered, nodding to him. He turned to Karen when Barker was gone and, the pink electric lights falling upon her face, he saw as he had not seen before how grey and sunken it was. She had made no movement towards the door.

"Gregory," she said, fixing her eyes upon him, and he then saw that he had misinterpreted her quiet, "I tell you that these things are not true. They are not true. Will you believe me?"

"What things?" he asked. But he was temporizing. He saw that the end had not come.

"The things you believe of Tante. That she is a heartless woman, using those who love her--feeding on their love. I say it is not true. Will you believe me?"

She stood on the other side of the room, her arms hanging at her sides, her hands hanging open, all her being concentrated in the ultimate demand of her compelling gaze.

"Karen," he said, "I know that she must be lovable; I know, of course, that she has power, and charm, and tenderness. I think I can understand why you feel for her as you do. But I don't think that there is any chance that I shall change my opinion of her; not for anything you say.

I believe that she takes you in completely."

Karen gazed at him. "You will still believe that she is tyrannous, and dangerous, and false, whatever I may say?"

"Yes, Karen. I know it sounds horrible to you. You must try to forgive me for it. We won't speak of it again; I promise you."

She turned from him, looking before her at the Bouddha, but not as if she saw it. "We shall never speak of it again," she said. "I am going to leave you, Gregory."

For a moment he stared at her. Then he smiled. "You mustn't punish me for telling you the truth, Karen, by silly threats."

"I do not punish you. You have done rightly to tell me the truth. But I cannot live with a man who believes these things."

She still gazed at the Bouddha and again Gregory stared at her. His face hardened. "Don't be absurd, Karen. You cannot mean what you say."

"I am going to-night. Now," said Karen.

"Going? Where?"

"To Cornwall, back to my guardian. She will take care of me again. I will not live with you."

"If you really mean what you say," said Gregory, after a moment, "you are telling me that you don't love me. I've suspected it for some time."

"I feel as if that were true," said Karen, looking now down upon the ground. "I think I have no more love for you. I find you a petty man."

It was impossible to hope that she was speaking recklessly or pa.s.sionately. She had come to the conclusion with deliberation; she had been thinking of it since last night. She was willing to cast him off because he could not love where she loved. How deeply the roots of hope still knotted themselves in him he was now to realize. He felt his heart and mind rock with the reverberation of the shattering, the pulverizing explosion, and he saw his life lying in a wilderness of dust about him.

Yet the words he found were not the words of his despair. "Even if you feel like this, Karen," he said, "there is no necessity for behaving like a lunatic. Go and stay with your guardian, by all means, and whenever you like. Start to-morrow morning. Spend most of your time with her. I shall not put the smallest difficulty in your way. But--if only for your own sake--have some common-sense and keep up appearances. You must remain my wife in name and the mistress of my house."

"Thank you, you mean to be kind, I know," said Karen, who had not looked at him since her declaration; "But I am not a conventional woman and I do not wish to live with a man who is no longer my husband. I do not wish to keep up appearances. I do not wish it to be said--by those who know my guardian and what she has done for me and been to me--that I keep up the appearance of regard for a man who hates her. I made a mistake in marrying you; you allowed me to make it. Now, as far as I can, I undo it by leaving you. Perhaps," she added, "you could divorce me. That would set you free."

The remark in its childishness, callousness, and considerateness struck him as one of the most revealing she had made. He laughed icily. "Our laws only allow of divorce for one cause and I advise you not to seek freedom for yourself--or for me--by disgracing yourself. It's not worth it. The conventions you scorn have their solid value."

She had now turned her head and was looking at him. "I think you are insulting me," she said.

For the first time he observed a trembling in her voice and interpreted it as anger. It gave him a hurting satisfaction to have made her angry.