The Moving Finger Part 41

CHAPTER x.x.xI

BETWEEN LOVE AND DUTY

Rochester's hansom set him down in Cadogan Street just as a new and very handsome motor-car moved slowly away from the door. His face darkened as he recognised Saton leaning back inside, and he ignored the other's somewhat exaggerated and half ironical greeting.

"Lady Marrabel is 'at home'?" he asked the butler, who knew him well.

The man hesitated.

"She will see you, no doubt, sir," he remarked. "We had our orders that she was not 'at home' this afternoon."

"The gentleman who has just left--" Rochester began.

"Mr. Saton," the butler interrupted. "He has been with Lady Marrabel for some time."

Rochester found himself face to face with Pauline, but it was a somewhat grim smile with which he welcomed her.

"Still fascinated, I see, by the new science, my dear Pauline," he said. "I met your professor outside. He has a fine new motor-car. I imagine that after all he has discovered the way to extract money from science."

Pauline shrugged her shoulders.

"Those are matters which do not concern me," she said--"I might add, do not interest me. You are the only man I know who disputes Mr.

Saton's position, and you are wrong. He is wonderfully, marvelously gifted."

Rochester bowed slightly.

"Perhaps," he said, "I judge the man, and not his attainments."

"You are very provincial," she declared. "But come, don't let us quarrel. You did not come here to talk about Mr. Saton."

"No!" Rochester answered. "I had something else to say to you."

His tone excited her curiosity. She looked at him more closely, and realized that he had indeed come upon some mission.

"Well," she said, "what has happened? Is it----"

She broke off in her sentence. Rochester stood quite still, as though pa.s.sionately anxious to understand the meaning of that interrupted thought.

"It is about Mary," he said.

"Yes?" Pauline whispered. "Go on. Go on, please."

"It is something quite unexpected," Rochester said slowly--"something which I can a.s.sure you that her conduct has never at any time in any way suggested."

"She wants to leave you?" Pauline asked, breathlessly.

"On the contrary," Rochester said, "she wants what she has never asked for or expected--something, in fact, which was not in our marriage bond. She has been going to this man Father Cresswell's meetings. She is talking about our duty, about making the best of one another."

Pauline was amazed. Certainly no thought of this kind had ever entered into her head.

"Do you mean," she said, "that Mary wants to give up her silly little flirtations, and turn serious?"

"That is exactly what she says," Rochester answered. "I don't believe she has the least idea that what she proposes comes so near to tragedy."

"What have you answered?" Pauline asked.

"We have established a probationary period," he said. "We have agreed to see a little more of one another. I drove her down to Ranelagh yesterday afternoon, and we are going to dine together to-night. What am I to do, Pauline? I have come to ask you. We must decide it together, you and I."

She leaned a little forward in her chair. Her hands were clasped together. Her eyes were fixed on vacancy.

"It is a thunderbolt," she murmured.

"It is amazing."

"You must go back to her."

Rochester drew a little breath between his teeth.

"Do you know what this means?" he asked.

"Yes, I know!" she answered. "And yet it is inevitable. What have you and I to look forward to? Sometimes I think that it is weakness to see so much of one another."

"I am afraid," Rochester said slowly, "that I would sooner have you for my dear friend, than be married to any woman who ever lived."

"I wonder," she said softly. "I wonder. You yourself," she continued, "have always held that there is a certain vulgarity, a certain loss of fine feeling in the consummation of any attachment. The very barrier between us makes our intercourse seem sweeter and more desirable."

"And yet," he declared, leaning a little toward her, "there are times when nature will be heard--when one realizes the great call."

"You are right," she answered softly. "That is the terrible part of it all. You and I may never listen to it. We have to close our ears, to beat our hands and hide, when the time comes."

"And is it worth while, I wonder?" he asked. "What do we gain----"

She held out her hand.

"Don't, Henry," she said--"don't, especially now. Be thankful, rather, that there has been nothing in our great friendship which need keep you from your duty."

"You mean that?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"You know that I mean it," she answered. "You know that it must be."

He rose to his feet and walked to the window. He remained there standing alone, for several minutes. When he came back, something had gone from his face. He moved heavily. He had the air of an older man.

"Pauline," he said, "you send me away easily. Let me tell you one of the hard thoughts I have in my mind--one of the things that has tortured me. I have fancied--I may be wrong--but I have fancied that during the last few months you have been slipping away from me. I have felt it, somehow. There has been nothing tangible, and yet I have felt it. Answer me, honestly. Is this true? Is what I have told you, after all, something of a relief?"

She answered him volubly, almost hysterically. Her manner was absolutely foreign. He listened to her protestations almost in bewilderment.