II

HE found Pauline Leicester in his dining-room upon his return to town. Little and serious, and always with the tiny smile about her lips, she was seated in his deep chair by the fireplace. He was happy and erect, with Katya’s kisses still upon his lips, and for all the world he felt a tenderness.

“I got your letter,” she said. “Miss Lascarides has come back; the child has spoken. I suppose you are very happy?”

He feared to detect jealousy in her tones; he found only a business-like precision.

“I was coming to dine with you,” he said. “Can’t you do with me?”

“Oh, we want you so much!” she said.

He had a sudden and black premonition.

“You’re not on bad terms with Dudley?” he asked.

“Tell me,” she said, “you were in town part of the time when Dudley was all alone? Mother died, you know, a week after you left for Athens.”

“Oh, poor child!” Grimshaw answered.

Her lips moved a little.

“She suffered so much, poor dear; she was so brave.” She looked up at him with a queer little smile. “I suppose were born to suffer. It’s up to us to be brave.”

“Oh, but Dudley hasn’t been giving you trouble?” he asked. “You aren’t on bad terms with him?”

“One could not be on bad terms with Dudley,” she answered. “But he’s giving me trouble.”

“The hound!” Grimshaw answered.

“Oh, it isn’t what he does, it’s what he is,” she said quickly. She rose and put her little hand upon his arm. “Tell me, Robert,” she said, “what has happened to him He’s very ill.”

Grimshaw made a step back.

“Not tuberculosis, really?” he asked.

“I am sure he’s very ill,” she said, “mentally; he’s quite altered. What’s to be done?”

“My poor girl,” Grimshaw voiced his tenderness and concern.

“Tell me,” she adjured him, “what happened to him? It’s something that’s happened. He couldn’t do anything. Tell me the truth!”

“How should I know?” he asked. “How should I know?”

“Sometimes he’s quite the same; sometimes he’s gay—he’s too gay. And then ...” She looked up. “He sits and thinks; he’ll sit silent for hours. He’s not spoken a word all the morning. And then suddenly ... he’ll shudder. And his eyes aren’t the same; they aren’t the same, you understand. It’s as if he were afraid. Afraid! He cowers into a corner. What is it, Robert? You know.”

Grimshaw was silent, pondering.

“Tell me!” she said. “You shall tell me; you know. Is it religious mania?”

Grimshaw shook his head.

“No, I don’t think it can be religious mania.” He added: “It might be hypochondria—sheer anxiety about his health. He was always like that.”

“No,” she said, “he hasn’t been near a doctor. It can’t be that.” She looked up at him with a little, birdlike gaze. “I know what it is,” she said, “it’s another woman.”

Robert Grimshaw threw up his hands that were still gloved.

“You aren’t surprised,” she said, and there was about her whole figure an air of a little and tender calmness. “It’s no good your feigning surprise. I am sure you know all about it. Oh, I know what men are, and women. I have been a nursery governess, you know. Isn’t it true that there was another woman?” and, at his hesitation, she pleaded: “Tell me the truth, there was!”

“Well, there was,” he said.

“And it was Etta Stackpole,” she accused him.

He saw her sit, looking down at the point of her umbrella.

“I’ve got to get him well,” she said. “Tell me the truth.”

“Yes, it was Lady Hudson,” he answered. “But you aren’t going to ...”

“Robert dear,” she said, with her little, clear, appealing voice. “You can’t make such a mistake as to think that I am going to hamper Dudley. It’s my task in life to keep him going. Think it out. I’m not really the girl to give ourselves away. I turned Dudley out of my mother’s house. I ought not to have done it, but mother could not bear him. Perhaps I valued mother more than Dudley—perhaps that was wrong. But I’ve heard you say: ‘Do what you want and take what you get for it.’ I’m taking what I get for it, and it’s easier to do it because I know what men are.”

“It wasn’t Dudley’s doing,” Grimshaw said. “We can’t even tell...”

“Robert, dear,” she repeated, “I have been a nursery-governess, you know.”

“Oh yes,” he answered, “but you’re a woman too.”

“Oh yes,” she imitated him, “but I’m a woman of our class. Don’t you see the two things I’ve learned? One is, that we can’t have what we want. I may have wanted ... Well, that does not matter. But if I couldn’t give, I could get—adoration. That’s all there is to it.”

Robert Grimshaw said suddenly: “Yes, you could make something out of poor Dudley.”

“I won’t say that it doesn’t hurt,” she took him up: “it does. Or, no, it doesn’t. Well, one can’t say.... Up in the nursery at the Brigstocks’ there were great big clumsy boys. They adored me, and it was my business to make men of them—at any rate, during the holidays. Well, they’d disobey me. Sometimes they’d even deceive me—rather meanly, in little things; and then they’d behave like Dudley. So that I’m used to it on a small scale. It’s saddening that a man can’t be quite true, even when he adores you; but he can’t. That’s all.”

She was buttoning up her little black gloves, and she stood up to go.

“Wouldn’t you like me,” Grimshaw asked, “to break it to him that you know? I suppose he’s got to know it?”

“Of course he’s got to know it,” she said. “He’ll never be himself as long as he’s trying to conceal it. But ... I think I’ll tell him myself. You see, he might not like you to know; it might make him shy. It’s best to drink one’s own black draughts.” But when she reached the door she turned to say: “You might come along soon—quite soon. I shan’t say more than three words to him. Your coming in might relieve any strain. It would carry us over till bedtime.”

“I’ll be there well before lunch,” he said. “It’s twelve now.”

As they stood on the doorstep, he taking his farewell, she brought out: “Mind, nobody’s to blame but me, from the beginning. If it hadn’t been for mother, I don’t suppose I should have married Dudley. I knew I could make a good wife for him; I know I can make a man of him, and I know he adores me. But that isn’t everything. I can put him into the sort of position he ought to occupy. But that’s only being a nursery governess on a larger scale. It’s a good piece of work.... But—but for mother ... oh, poor dear!”—she broke off, and the blue eyes that gazed down the empty street were filmed over for a moment—“much it has profited mother to have me off her hands. It’s five months now, and she’s been dead thirteen days. Well, so long.”

She waved her hand minutely to him from the pavement, and exclaimed: “Go in; you’ll take cold!” and then she seemed to be blown round the corner into Curzon Street.