The Odd Women Part 84

'Yes; I did.'

There was silence. Rhoda stood unmoving, the fire's glow upon her face, and Barfoot watched her.

'Perhaps,' he said at length, 'I was not quite serious when I--'

She turned sharply upon him, a flash of indignation in her eyes.

'Not quite serious? Yes, I have thought that. And were you quite serious in _anything_ you said?'

'I loved you,' he answered curtly, answering her steady look.

'Yet wanted to see whether--'

She could not finish the sentence; her throat quivered.

'I loved you, that's all. And I believe I still love you.'

Rhoda turned to the fire again.

'Will you marry me?' he asked, moving a step nearer.

'I think you are "not quite serious".'

'I have asked you twice. I ask for the third time.'

'I won't marry you with the forms of marriage,' Rhoda answered in an abrupt, harsh tone.

'Now it is you who play with a serious matter.'

'You said we had both changed. I see now that our "perfect day" was marred by my weakness at the end. If you wish to go back in imagination to that summer night, restore everything, only let _me_ be what I now am.'

Everard shook his head.

'Impossible. It must be then or now for both of us.'

'Legal marriage,' she said, glancing at him, 'has acquired some new sanction for you since then?'

'On the whole, perhaps it has.'

'Naturally. But I shall never marry, so we will speak no more of it.'

As if finally dismissing the subject she walked to the opposite side of the hearth, and there turned towards her companion with a cold smile.

'In other words, then, you have ceased to love me?'

'Yes, I no longer love you.'

'Yet, if I had been willing to revive that fantastic idealism--as you thought it--'

She interrupted him sternly.

'What _was_ it?'

'Oh, a kind of idealism undoubtedly. I was so bent on making sure that you loved me.'

She laughed.

'After all, the perfection of our day was half make-believe. You never loved me with entire sincerity. And you will never love any woman--even as well as you loved me.'

'Upon my soul, I believe it, Rhoda. And even now--'

'And even now it is just possible for us to say goodbye with something like friendliness. But not if you talk longer. Don't let us spoil it; things are so straight--and clear--'

A threatened sob made her break off, but she recovered herself and offered him her hand.

He walked all the way back to his hotel, and the cold, clammy night restored his equanimity. A fortnight later, sending a Christmas present, with greetings, to Mr. and Mrs. Micklethwaite, he wrote thus--

'I am about to do my duty--as you put it--that is, to marry. The name of my future wife is Miss Agnes Brissenden. It will be in March, I think. But I shall see you before then, and give you a fuller account of myself.'

CHAPTER x.x.xI

A NEW BEGINNING

Widdowson tried two or three lodgings; he settled at length in a small house at Hampstead; occupying two plain rooms. Here, at long intervals, his friend Newd.i.c.k came to see him, but no one else. He had brought with him a selection of solid books from his library, and over these the greater part of each day was spent. Not that he studied with any zeal; reading, and of a kind that demanded close attention, was his only resource against melancholia; he knew not how else to occupy himself. Adam Smith's cla.s.sical work, perused with laborious thoroughness, gave him employment for a couple of months; subsequently he plodded through all the volumes of Hallam.

His landlady, and the neighbours who were at leisure to observe him when he went out for his two hours' walk in the afternoon, took him for an old gentleman of sixty-five or so. He no longer held himself upright, and when out of doors seldom raised his eyes from the ground; grey streaks had begun to brindle his hair; his face grew yellower and more deeply furrowed. Of his personal appearance, even of cleanliness, he became neglectful, and occasionally it happened that he lay in bed all through the morning, reading, dozing, or in a state of mental vacuity.

It was long since he had seen his relative, the sprightly widow; but he had heard from her. On the point of leaving England for her summer holiday, Mrs. Luke sent him a few lines, urging him, in the language of the world, to live more sensibly, and let his wife 'have her head' now and then; it would be better for both of them. Then followed the time of woe, and for many weeks he gave no thought to Mrs. Luke. But close upon the end of the year he received one day a certain society journal, addressed in a hand he knew to the house at Herne Hill. In it was discoverable, marked with a red pencil, the following paragraph.

'Among the English who this year elected to take their repose and recreation at Trouville there was no more brilliant figure than Mrs.

Luke Widdowson. This lady is well known in the _monde_ where one never _s'ennuie_; where smart people are gathered together, there is the charming widow sure to be seen. We are able to announce that, before leaving Trouville, Mrs. Widdowson had consented to a private engagement with Capt. William Horrocks--no other, indeed, than "Captain Bill," the universal favourite, so beloved by hostesses as a sure dancing man. By the lamented death of his father, this best of good fellows has now become Sir William, and we understand that his marriage will be celebrated after the proper delays. Our congratulations!'

Subsequently arrived a newspaper with an account of the marriage. Mrs.

Luke was now Lady Horrocks: she had the t.i.tle desired of her heart.

Another two months went by, and there came a letter--re-addressed, like the other communications, at the post office--in which the baronet's wife declared herself anxious to hear of her friends. She found they had left Herne Hill; if this letter reached him, would not Edmund come and see her at her house in Wimpole Street?

Misery of solitude, desire for a woman's sympathy and counsel, impelled him to use this opportunity, little as it seemed to promise. He went to Wimpole Street and had a very long private talk with Lady Horrocks, who, in some way he could not understand, had changed from her old self. She began frivolously, but in rather a dull, make-believe way; and when she heard that Widdowson had parted from his wife, when a few vague, miserable words had suggested the domestic drama so familiar to her observation, she at once grew quiet, sober, sympathetic, as if really glad to have something serious to talk about.

'Now look here, Edmund. Tell the whole story from the first. You're the sort of man to make awful blunders in such a case as this. Just tell me all about it. I'm not a bad sort, you know, and I have troubles of my own--I don't mind telling you so much. Women make fools of themselves--well, never mind. Just tell me about the little girl, and see if we can't square things somehow.'

He had a struggle with himself, but at length narrated everything, often interrupted by shrewd questions.