The Irrational Knot Part 65

"Sholto, you hit us all very hard that Monday before Christmas. I know what I felt about my daughter. But I can only imagine what your mother must have felt about her son."

"I am not insensible to that. I has been rather my misfortune than my fault that I have caused you to suffer. If it will gratify you to know that I have suffered deeply myself, and am now, indeed, a broken man, I can a.s.sure you that such is the case."

"It is fortunate for us all that matters are not absolutely irremediable. I will so far take you into my confidence as to tell you that I have never felt any satisfaction in Marian's union with Mr.

Conolly. Though he is unquestionably a remarkable man, yet there was a certain degree of incongruity in the match--you will understand me--which placed Marian apart from her family whilst she was with him. I have never entered my daughter's house without a feeling that I was more or less a stranger there. Had she married you in the first instance, the case would have been different: I wish she had. However, that is past regretting now. What I wish to say is that I can still welcome you as Marian's husband, even though she will have a serious error to live down; and I shall be no less liberal to her than if her previous marriage had never taken place."

Douglas cleared his throat, but did not speak.

"Well?" said Mr. Lind after a pause, reddening.

"This is a very painful matter," said Douglas at last. "As a man of the world, Mr. Lind, you must be aware that I am not bound to your daughter in any way."

"I am not speaking to you as a man of the world. I am speaking as a father, and as a gentleman."

"Doubtless your position as a father is an unfortunate one. I can sympathize with your feelings. But as a gentleman----"

"Think of what you are going to say, Sholto. If you speak as a gentleman, you can have only one answer. If you have any other, you will speak as a scoundrel." The last sentence came irrepressibly to Mr.

Lind's lips; but the moment he had uttered it, he felt that he had been too precipitate.

"Sir!"

"I repeat, as a scoundrel--if you deny your duty in the matter."

"I decline to continue this conversation with you, Mr. Lind. You know as well as I do that no gentleman is expected or even permitted by society to take as his wife a woman who has lived with him as his mistress."

"No man who betrays a lady and refuses to make her all the reparation in his power can claim to be a gentleman."

"You are dreaming, Mr. Lind. Your daughter was the guardian of her own honor. I made her no promises. It is absurd to speak of a woman of her age and experience being betrayed, as though she were a child."

"I always understood that you prided yourself on acting up to a higher standard of honorable dealing than other men. If this is your boasted----"

"Mr. Lind," said Douglas, interrupting him with determination, "no more of this, if you please. Briefly, I will have nothing whatever to say to Mrs. Conolly in the future. If her reputation were as unstained as your own, I would still refuse to know her. I have suffered from her the utmost refinements of caprice and treachery, and the coa.r.s.est tirades of abuse. She left me of her own accord, in spite of my entreaties to her to stay--entreaties which I made her in response to an exhibition of temper which would have justified me in parting from her there and then.

It is true that I have moulded my life according to a higher standard of honor than ordinary men; and it is also true that that standard is never higher, never more fastidiously acted up to, than where a woman is concerned. I have only to add that I am perfectly satisfied as to the propriety of my behavior in Marian's case, and that I absolutely refuse to hear another accusation of unworthiness from you, much as I respect you and your sorrow."

Mr. Lind, though he saw that he must change his tone, found it hard to subdue his temper; for though not a strong man, he was unaccustomed to be thwarted. "Sholto," he said: "you are not serious. You are irritated by some lovers' quarrel."

"I am justly estranged from your daughter, and I am resolved never to give her a place in my thoughts again. I have madly wasted my youth on her. Let her be content with that and the other things I have sacrificed for her sake."

"But this is dreadful. Think of the life she must lead if you do not marry her. She will be an outcast. She will not even have a name."

"She would not be advised. She made her choice in defiance of an explicit warning of the inevitable results, and she must abide by it. I challenge the most searching inquiry into my conduct, Mr. Lind. It will be found, if the truth be told, that I spared her no luxury before she left me; and that, far from being the aggressor, it is I who have the right to complain of insult and desertion."

"Still, even granting that her unhappy position may have rendered her a little sore and impatient at times, do you not owe her some forbearance since she gave up her home and her friends for you?"

"Sacrifice for sacrifice, mine was the greater of the two. Like her, I have lost my friends and my position here--to some extent, at least.

Worse, I have let my youth slip by in fruitless pursuit of her. For the home which she hated, I offered her one ten times more splendid. I gave her the devotion of a gentleman to replace the indifference of a blacksmith. What have I not done for her? I freed her from her bondage; I carried her across the globe; I watched her, housed her, fed her, clothed her as a princess. I loved her with a love that taught her a meaning of the word she had never known before. And when I had served her turn--when I had rescued her from her husband and placed her beyond his reach--when she became surfeited with a wealth of chivalrous love which she could not comprehend, and when a new world opened before her a fresh field for intrigue, I was a.s.sailed with slanderous lies, and forsaken. Do you think, Mr. Lind, that in addition to this, I will endure the reproaches of any man--even were he my own father?"

"But she suffers more, being a woman. The world will be comparatively lenient toward you. If you and she were married and settled, with no consciousness of being in a false position, and no wearing fear of detection, you would get on together quite differently."

"It may be so, but I shall never put it to the test."

"Listen a moment, Sholto. Just consider the matter calmly and rationally. I am a rich man--at least, I can endow Marian better than you perhaps think. I see that you feel aggrieved, and that you fear being forced into a marriage which you have, as you say--I fully admit it, most fully--a perfect right to decline. But I am urging you to make Marian your legal wife solely because it is the best course for both of you. That, I a.s.sure you, is the feeling of society in the matter.

Everybody speaks to me of your becoming my son-in-law. The Earl says no other course is possible. I will give you ten thousand pounds down on her wedding-day. You will lose nothing: Conolly will not claim damages.

He has contradicted the report that he would. I will pay the costs of the divorce as well. Mind! I do not mean that I will settle the money on her. I will give it to her unconditionally. In other words, it will become your property the moment you become her husband."

"I understand," said Douglas contemptuously. "However, as it is merely a question of making your daughter an honest woman in consideration of so much cash, I have no doubt you will find plenty of poorer men who will be glad to close with you for half the money. You are much in the city now, I believe. Allow me to suggest that you will find a dealer there more easily than in St. James's."

Mr. Lind reddened again. "I do not think you see the matter in the proper light," he said. "You are asked to repair the disgrace you have brought on a lady and upon her family. I offer you a guarantee that you will not lose pecuniarily by doing so. Whatever other loss you may incur, you are bound to bear it as the penalty of your own act. I appeal to you, sir, as one gentleman appeals to another, to remove the dishonor you have brought upon my name."

"To transfer it to my own, you mean. Thank you, Mr. Lind. The public is more accustomed to a.s.sociate conjugal levity with the name of Lind than with that of Douglas."

"If you refuse me the justice you owe to my daughter, you need not couple that refusal with an insult."

"I have already explained that I owe your daughter nothing. You come here and offer me ten thousand pounds to marry her. I decline the bargain. You then take your stand upon the injury to your name. I merely remind you that your name was somewhat tarnished even before Mrs.

Conolly changed it for the less distinguished one which she has really dishonored."

"Douglas," said Mr. Lind, trembling, "I will make you repent this. I will have satisfaction."

"As you remarked when I declared my readiness to give satisfaction in the proper quarter, the practice you allude to is obsolete. Fortunately so, I think, in our case."

"You are a coward, sir." Douglas rang the bell. "I will expose you in every club in London."

"Shew this gentleman out," said Douglas to his servant.

"You have received that order because I told your master that he is a rascal," said Mr. Lind to the man. "I shall say the same thing to every man I meet between this house and the committee-room of his club."

The servant looked grave as Mr. Lind left the room. Soon after, Douglas, whose self-respect, annihilated by Conolly, had at first been thoroughly restored by Mr. Lind, felt upset again by the conclusion of the interview. Finding solitude and idleness intolerable, he went into the streets, though he no longer felt any desire to meet his acquaintances, and twice crossed the Haymarket to avoid them. As he strolled about, thinking of all that had been said to him that afternoon, he grew morose. Twice he calculated his expenditure on the American trip, and the difference that an increment of ten thousand pounds would make in his property. Suddenly, in turning out of Air Street into Piccadilly, he found himself face to face with Lord Carbury.

"How do you do?" said the latter pleasantly, but without the unceremonious fellowship that had formerly existed between them.

"Thank you," said Douglas, "I am quite well."

A pause followed, Jasper not knowing exactly what to say next.

"I am considering where I shall dine," said Douglas. "Have you dined yet?"

"No. I promised to dine at home this evening. My mother likes to have a family dinner occasionally."

Douglas knew that before the elopement he would have been asked to join the party. "I suppose people have been pleased to talk a good deal about me of late," he said.

"Yes, I fear so. However, I hope it will pa.s.s over."

"It shews no sign of pa.s.sing over as yet, then?"

"Well, it has become a little stale as a topic; but there is undeniably a good deal of feeling about it still. If you will excuse my saying so, I think that perhaps you would do well to keep out of the way a little longer."

"Presuming, of course, that popular feeling is a matter about which I am likely to concern myself."

"That is a question for you to decide. Excuse the hint."