The Crown of Life Part 42

"It interests me--your quiet a.s.sumption that my feelings count for nothing."

Irene reddened. She was conscious of having ignored that aspect of the matter, and dreaded to have to speak of it. For the revelation made to her of late taught her that, whatever Arnold Jacks' idea of love might be, it was not hers. Yet perhaps in his way, he loved her--the way which had found expression a few minutes ago.

"I can only repeat that I am ashamed."

"If you would grant me some explanation," Jacks resumed, with his most positive air, that of the born man of business. "Don't be afraid of hurting my sensibilities. Have I committed myself in any way?"

"It is a change in myself--I was too hasty--I reflected afterwards instead of before----"

"Forgive me if I make the most of that admission. Your hastiness was certainly not my fault. I did not unduly press you; there was no importunity. Such being the case, don't you think I may suggest that you ought to bear the consequences? I can't--I really can't think them so dreadful."

Irene kept silence, her face bent and averted.

"Many a girl has gone through what you feel now, but I doubt whether ever one before acted like this. They kept their word; it was a point of honour."

"I know; it is true." She forced herself to look at him. "And the result was lives of misery--dishonour--tragedies."

"Oh, come now----"

"You _dare_ not contradict me!" Her eyes flashed; she let her feeling have its way. "As a man of the world, you know the meaning of such marriages, and what they may, what they do often, come to. A girl hears of such facts--realises them too late. You smile. No, I don't want to talk for effect; it isn't my way. All I mean is that I, like so many girls who have never been in love, accepted an offer of marriage on the wrong grounds, and came to feel my mistake--who knows how?--not long after. What you are asking me to do, is to pay for the innocent error with my life. The price is too great. You speak of your feelings; they are not so strong as to justify such a demand--And there's another thought that surely must have entered your mind. Knowing that I feel it impossible to marry you, how can you still, with any shadow of self-respect, urge me to do so? Is your answer, again, fear of what people will say? That seems to me more than cowardice. How strange that an honourable man doesn't see it so!"

Jacks abandoned his easy posture, sat straight, and fixed upon her a look of masculine disdain.

"I simply don't believe in the impossibility of your becoming my wife."

"Then talk is useless. I can only tell you the truth, and reclaim my liberty."

"It's a question of time. You wouldn't--well, say you couldn't marry me to-morrow. A month hence you would be willing. Because you suffer from a pa.s.sing illusion, I am to unsettle all my arrangements, and face an intolerable humiliation. The thing is impossible."

With vast relief Irene heard him return upon this note, and strike it so violently. She felt no more compunction. The man was finally declared to her, and she could hold her own against him. Her headache had grown fierce; her mouth was dry; shudders of hot and cold ran through her. The struggle must end soon.

"I am forgetting hospitality," she said, with sudden return to her ordinary voice. "You would like tea."

Arnold waved his hand contemptuously.

"No?--Then let us understand each other in the fewest possible words."

"Good." He smiled, a smile which seemed to tighten every muscle of his face. "I decline to release you from your promise."

She could meet his gaze, and did so as she answered with cold collectedness:

"I am very sorry. I think it unworthy of you."

"I shall make no change whatever in my arrangements. Our marriage will take place on the day appointed."

"That can hardly be, Mr. Jacks, if the bride is not there."

"Miss Derwent, the bride will be there!"

He was not jesting. All the man's pride rose to a.s.sert dominion. The prime characteristic of his nation, that personal arrogance which is the root of English freedom, which accounts for everything best, and everything worst, in the growth of English power, possessed him to the exclusion of all less essential qualities. He was the subduer amazed by improbable defiance. He had never seen himself in such a situation it was as though a British admiral on his ironclad found himself mocked by some elusive little gunboat, newly invented by the condemned foreigner.

His intellect refused to acknowledge the possibility of discomfiture; his soul raged mightily against the hint of bafflement. Humour would not come to his aid; the lighter elements of race were ousted; he was solid insolence, wooden-headed self-will.

Irene had risen.

"I am not feeling quite myself. I have said all there is to be said, and I must beg you to excuse me."

"You should have begun by saying that. It is what I insisted upon."

"Shall we shake hands, Mr. Jacks?"

"To be sure!"

"It is good-bye. You understand me? If, after this, you imagine an engagement between us, you have only yourself to blame."

"I take the responsibility." He released her hand, and made a stiff bow. "In three days, I shall call."

"You will not see me."

"Perhaps not. Then, three days later. Nothing whatever is changed between us. A little discussion of this sort is all to the good.

Plainly, you have thought me a much weaker man than I am: when that error of judgment is removed, our relations will be better than ever."

The temptation to say one word more overcame Irene's finer sense of the becoming. Jacks had already taken his hat, and was again bowing, when she spoke.

"You are so sure that your will is stronger than mine?"

"Perfectly sure," he replied, with superb tranquillity.

No one had ever seen, no one again would ever see, that face of high disdainful beauty, pain-stricken on the fair brow, which Irene for a moment turned upon him. As he withdrew, the smile that lurked behind her scorn glimmered forth for an instant, and pa.s.sed in the falling of a tear.

She went to her room, and lay down. The sleep she had not dared to hope for fell upon her whilst she was trying to set her thoughts in order.

She slept until eight o'clock; her headache was gone.

Neither with her father, nor with Olga, did she speak of what had pa.s.sed.

Before going to bed, she packed carefully a large dress-basket and a travelling-bag, which a servant brought down for her from the box-room.

Again she slept, but only for an hour or two, and at seven in the morning she rose.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The breakfast hour was nine o'clock. Dr. Derwent, as usual, came down a few minutes before, and turned over the letters lying for him on the table. Among them he found an envelope addressed in a hand which looked very much like Irene's; it had not come by post. As he was reading the note it contained, Eustace and Olga Hannaford entered together, talking. He bade them good-morning, and all sat down to table.

"Irene's late," said Eustace presently, glancing at the clock.

The Doctor looked at him with an odd smile.

"She left Victoria ten minutes ago," he said, "by the Calais-boat express."