Chapter 16
"Oh, I can stand their opinions," he said; "I only meet the yellow sort occasionally; I don't herd with them."
"I do, thank you."
"How do you like them? What is your opinion of the yellow set? Here they sit all about you--the Phoenix Mottlys, Mrs. Delmour-Carnes yonder, the Draymores, the Orchils, the Vendenning lady, the Lawns of Westlawn--" he paused, then deliberately--"and the 'Jack' Ruthvens. I forgot, Alixe, that you are now perfectly equipped to carry aloft the golden hod."
"Go on," she said, drawing a deep breath, but the fixed smile never altered.
"No," he said; "I can't talk. I thought I could, but I can't. Take that boy away from Mrs. Fane as soon as you can."
"I can't yet. You must go on. I ask your aid to carry this thing through. I--I am afraid of their ridicule. Could you try to help me a little?"
"If you put it that way, of course." And, after a silence, "What am I to say? What in G.o.d's name shall I say to you, Alixe?"
"Anything bitter--as long as you control your voice and features. Try to smile at me when you speak, Philip."
"All right. I have no reason to be bitter, anyway," he said; "and every reason to be otherwise."
"That is not true. You tell me that I have ruined your career in the army. I did not know I was doing it. Can you believe me?"
And, as he made no response: "I did not dream you would have to resign.
Do you believe me?"
"There is no choice," he said coldly. "Drop the subject!"
"That is brutal. I never thought--" She forced a smile and drew her gla.s.s toward her. The straw-tinted wine slopped over and frothed on the white skin of her arm.
"Well," she breathed, "this ghastly dinner is nearly ended."
He nodded pleasantly.
"And--Phil?"--a bit tremulous.
"What?"
"Was it all my fault? I mean in the beginning? I've wanted to ask you that--to know your view of it. Was it?"
"No. It was mine, most of it."
"Not all--not half! We did not know how;
"And we could never have learned; that's the rest of the answer. But the fault is not there."
"I know; 'better to bear the ills we have.'"
"Yes; more respectable to bear them. Let us drop this in decency's name, Alixe!"
After a silence, she began: "One more thing--I must know it; and I am going to ask you--if I may. Shall I?"
He smiled cordially, and she laughed as though confiding a delightful bit of news to him:
"Do you regard me as sufficiently important to dislike me?"
"I do not--dislike you."
"Is it stronger than dislike, Phil?"
"Y-es."
"Contempt?"
"No."
"What is it?"
"It is that--I have not yet--become--reconciled."
"To my--folly?"
"To mine."
She strove to laugh lightly, and failing, raised her gla.s.s to her lips again.
"Now you know," he said, pitching his tones still lower. "I am glad after all that we have had this plain understanding. I have never felt unkindly toward you. I can't. What you did I might have prevented had I known enough; but I cannot help it now; nor can you if you would."
"If I would," she repeated gaily--for the people opposite were staring.
"We are done for," he said, nodding carelessly to a servant to refill his gla.s.s; "and I abide by conditions because I choose to; not," he added contemptuously, "because a complacent law has tethered you to--to the thing that has crawled up on your knees to have its ears rubbed."
The level insult to her husband stunned her; she sat there, upright, the white smile stamped on her stiffened lips, fingers tightening about the stem of her wine-gla.s.s.
He began to toss bread crumbs to the scarlet fish, laughing to himself in an ugly way. "_I_ wish to punish you? Why, Alixe, only look at _him_!--Look at his gold wristlets; listen to his simper, his lisp.
Little girl--oh, little girl, what have you done to yourself?--for you have done nothing to me, child, that can match it in sheer atrocity!"
Her colour was long in returning.
"Philip," she said unsteadily, "I don't think I can stand this--"
"Yes, you can."
"I am too close to the wall. I--"
"Talk to Scott Innis. Take him away from Rosamund Fane; that will tide you over. Or feed those fool fish; like this! Look how they rush and flap and spatter! That's amusing, isn't it--for people with the intellects of canaries.... Will you please try to say something? Mrs.
T. West is exhibiting the restless symptoms of a hen turkey at sundown and we'll all go to roost in another minute.... Don't s.h.i.+ver that way!"
"I c-can't control it; I will in a moment.... Give me a chance; talk to me, Phil."
"Certainly. The season has been unusually gay and the opera most stupidly brilliant; stocks continue to fluctuate; another old woman was tossed and gored by a mad motor this morning.... More time, Alixe?... With pleasure; Mrs. Vendenning has bought a third-rate castle in Wales; a man was found dead with a copy of the _Tribune_ in his pocket--the verdict being in accordance with fact; the Panama Ca.n.a.l--"