■MOTSBBMI THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES CONRAD BAILEY d ^ Rare & Fine Books. PC- Box 85, BLACK ROCK Victoria. Australia 3193 Paul's Wife : or ' The Ostriches A Romance of the Awakening of Britain Paul s Wife : or "The Ostriches A Romance of the Awakening of Britain By DoUglaS Sladen, Author of " Fair Inez," 'The Tragedy of the Pyramids," "Grace Lorraine," "His German Wife," " The Shadow of a Great Light," " The Douglas Romance," etc., etc. LONDON: HUTCHINSON political fortunes in the Old Country were made. Lord Vanstry was in the Upper House ; he would have to lead the attack in the House of Commons on the greatest issue which had ever come up before the British Parlia- ment—the abolition of Party Government. The ball was at his feet. Then there was his position as a decent, respectable member of society to be considered. LTntil that letter arrived a few minutes ago, no idea of joining the band of social outlaws had ever entered his head. Rhoda St. Ives was the love of his life, but he had never contemplated her entering more into his life than a good friend might enter. The strained position of the last few months had been brought about by injudicious inter- ference and a high-spirited girl's resentment of it. He had no desire to " carry on," to use the pretty house- maid's expression, with the daughter of a friend ; he merely wished to enjoy the society of a very charming and clever girl as much as he could without causing un- pleasantness. He had never taken any liberty with her, or wished to do so. It was much ado about a mistake, and it was obvious that it had not caused his wife any pain, because she had shown a distinct liking for the girl and always welcomed her presence. His wife — that was another question. He owed much to Vivien for marrying him, and nothing at all for the way in which she had behaved during most of the time since they had been married. He told himself that she had not sullied his name as he was asked to sully hers. That was true. But it was many years since she had given him the least wifely affection, and it was idle to suppose that 165 PAUL'S WTFE it would make any difference to her happiness if he left her. The extent of her private fortune eliminated money from the consideration. With Vicky it was different ; she undoubtedly would feel it very keenly, but he had settled a handsome income on her. Was he bound to place his sister's happiness above his own ? In this matter, her happiness and his were not on the same plane. That it was wrong in the ordinary acceptance of the word was quite plain, but Paul was not a religious man ; that it meant ecstatic happiness for him was equally plain. To a man who did not believe in any future state. could there ever be anything to make up for the loss of so much delight ? Then he came to the real crux of the matter. Lord and Lady Lyonesse had been good to him, and he would be robbing them of their only child. This was breaking the Eighth Commandment as well as the Seventh, and he had always considered that the Eighth formed the most important part of the Seventh. But the devil reminded him that if he did not go away with Rhoda, Rhocla had said that she would kill herself. And as Rhoda had written Mizpah, she would do it. If Death robbed them of their daughter, the treasure could never be recovered, but if it was only he, Paul Went- worth, who carried off the treasure, they might some day in some way receive back the enjoyment of it, even with- out his having to relinquish it. . . . He persuaded him- self that her elopement with him was much the less of the two evils. But still he hesitated. Suddenly the door opened, and the maid — the house- hold still adhered to maid-servants — announced Lord Vanstry. Lord Vanstry came to urge his acceptance. Paul did not know the part Lord Vanstry had taken in ousting him from the Universal Service League, but the peer showed too clearly that he meant to force him into acceptance. And he was too much the patron. He could not realize that Paul was a bigger man than him- self by a great deal. In his own mind he was a little god — a regular member of Conservative Cabinets, and Paul was a Colonial politician in quest of an English career. Paul was polite, because he recognized how grand and unusual the offer must seem to Lord Vanstry, but he 166 RHODA'S HEGIRA declined it with a firmness and an absence of hesitation which paralysed the peer. For to Paul's mind now it seemed like choosing between Rhoda and Lord Vanstry. The other personages in the case had dropped out. And Lord Vanstry was falling into the pitfall which he had dug for another. One thing Paul could not have sacrificed for Rhoda, and that was the work he had built up at the Universal Service League. But this Lord Vanstry's intrigue had rooted up and flung on the dust- heap. It was Lord Vanstry's own action which had left Paul free. Lord Vanstry was very tenacious ; he would not take no for an answer ; he stayed on and on, until at last Paul said, " I have business with my bankers which I must transact this afternoon, so I must beg you to excuse me. My bank is in the City, and it closes at four. Please don't think me rude." Lord Vanstry took it as an excuse, and shaking hands very cordially, bowed himself out. He did not confess himself beaten yet. But Paul went into the City and drew out gold and circular notes for five hundred pounds. He also, under pledge of secrecy, told his banker that he might be away for some time on an affair of very great importance — which the banker took to be political — arranged for the cheques for housekeeping to bo paid to his sister as usual, and for the banker to advance Vicky any unforeseen sums which she might require, and said that he would send him from Paris the address to which his letters were to be forwarded. His Australian cor- respondence came through the bank. Lord Vanstry had cast the die by talking on and on while Paul should have been reflecting, and by awakening the antagonistic spirit in Paul. When Paul got back only Vicky was at home. He told her concisely what had happened about Lord Vanstry's offer ; he had already fully discussed the split at the U.S.L. with her. He declared that he should not think of joining him in the face of his attitude towards Universal Service, and that Lord Vanstry was plaguing him so that he should take a trip on the Continent to get away from him and to get over his "disappointment about Universal Service. He 167 PAUL'S WIFE should start by the night- train. Would Vicky have his trunk packed — a blue serge suit, a tweed suit, and his dress-clothes, and enough linen and underclothing to last him a week ? He did not know what his address would be until he got to Paris, and he did not want any- one to see him off. He did not wish his departure to be noticed. Vicky received his instructions without com- ment, except that, observing that he had on a frock-coat, slu- asked if he would not need a hat-box. ' No, I'm going to change into tweeds before I go." Vivien had not come in yet, and in any case he knew that she would not see him off — even if he asked her to. Later on a telephone arrived that she and Freddy were dining in town and going on to a theatre. So Paul and Vicky had an early dinner alone. " You look worried, Paul. I don't much like your going off alone in this way. You're sure you won't have a break-down ? " " Of course not. Besides . . . I'm going with a friend." " Another victim of Universal Service ? " " Yes." " Where are you going to meet him ? At the station ? ' " Yes." Paul had to indulge himself in the untruth. " Oh, that's all right then," said Vicky, quite relieved. She did not ask the friend's name — the attitude of the model sister ; Paul would have volunteered it if he had wished to. " Shall you be back in a week, Paul ? ' " No, I don't think I shall. But I'll let you know from Paris when I have talked it over with my friend." " What fun you'll have ! I think I'm rather glad you're going, though I shall miss you. You haven't had a real holiday for ever such a time, and it's so giddy of you, going off en gargon in this way." " I feel frightfully giddy ! " said Paul, rousing himself. " Oh, by the way, I asked the bank to send you your housekeeping cheque every Monday morning while I am away, and told them to let you have any money you want." " It's just like you, Paul — as careful for my wants as if you were going to be away tor six months." 168 HHODA'S HEGIRA ' Little sister, we've been alone and the biggest friends ever since we were children." ' And we always shall be, Paul. Nothing could ever separate us." " I wonder ? " he said to himself. Just before he got up from dinner he ordered a small bottle of champagne— his favourite brand of Bollinger — to be opened. He held up his glass for Vicky to clink hers against it. " Little sister," he said, " here's to our next merry meeting ! ' '' And it will be a merry meeting. I expect you to come back as brown as you used to be in Australia." " I expect I shall be ! " he said gaily, for suddenly the wave of excitement caught him. In ever such a little time — between half-an-hour and an hour — the newer and fuller life for which he thought the world well lost was to begin for him. Even now she must be thinking of start- ing, as he was. Then he had to wonder what Vicky would say when she heard, and he said to her, " Will you pro- mise me never to think anv worse of me. whatever you hear, Vicky ? " ' You will always be the hero of my life, Paul." ' Well, remember that — it's almost time to say good- bye." Few of the people who were streaming into the Clara Butt concert at the Albert Hall on that side could have noticed the tall, dark man stooping to kiss the beautiful fair girl as he stepped into his motor, and of those, per- haps everyone would have taken the parting for some- thing more romantic than a brother's ordinary good-bye to a sister. And it was, though the parting was lightly taken. When he reached the platform a very neat lady's maid came up to him. " What orders have you for me, sir ? ' He could not help starting at hearing those words in that voice, but no one was near enough to notice. On a roughish night in winter there are not many Channel passengers. " Here is your ticket. You will find a composite corridor carriage, half first, half second, at the back of the train. Take your seat in that. Your mistress and I will be in another compartment of the same carriage, in case you want anything. You will share a 169 PAUL'S WIFE cabin with your mistress on the boat, and your seat in the train at Calais is numbered, the same number as your ticket. Is that your bag ? " " Yes, sir. I have registered my box through to Paris." ' I think you had better go and get into your carriage now — there is nothing more for you to do until your mistress comes," he said, in case anyone should over- hear ; but there was no one near enough. " It is the last carriage." " Yes, sir." £He had left his own things — bag, rugs and trunk — with a porter in the weighing-room, and went back to register the trunk. No one recognized either of them, and their journey was an uneventful one. Paul hoped against hope that there might be no other passengers in the composite corridor carriage. There was only one, and he came in at the last minute — an innocent-looking old foreigner. But Paul determined to run not one unnecessary risk, so he did not go into Rhoda's com- partment until they were sufficiently near Dover for it to be natural that he should be giving her directions, and even then he contemplated seeing the other passenger peeping through the door — a detective in disguise — so he said nothing beyond the directions, and Rhoda did not lift her veil. But he handed her the love-letter which he had been writing all the way from London, the loveliest letter she had ever received, taken up not with protesta- tions of passion, but with deep thankfulness and plans for the perfect life. Rhoda read it in her bunk, as the boat tossed its way across the Channel, and thanked God for the strength it gave her. Before the boat got in she wrote him an answer. There were some loverisms in her letter, and a most important suggestion — that they should take the early morning train for Italy, which would land them in Turin before midnight. Paris would perhaps be the first place her father would think of when he missed her in the morning, and he would be sure to set the police in motion. But if they took this train they would be well on their way before he began to do anything. This was flat common sense, so when Paul had read the letter, he turned up the train 170 RHODA'S HEOIRA in his Cook's Handbook, and wrote out the directions as to what she should do when they reached Paris. There was fortunately a Turin carriage, with first and second and sleeping compartments, on their train. He took a two-berth sleeping compartment for her from its attendant, though they would be at Turin before bed- time, and he told the man to make up the bed, as the lady would be very tired after her night journey. He wished her to have all the rest she could, and it was the easiest way of escaping observation. He himself would be too excited to sleep. He had to guard against sur- prises, and he seemed to have the thinking of a year to do in one day. When he had found a porter to carry her bag for her to the Italian carriage — he longed to carry it himself to do her a service, but was afraid it might attract attention — he got another porter to transfer his own hand-packages to the first-class compartment adjoining the sleeping com- partment, and directed her to look after them in the most matter-of-fact tone. Then he went off to the baggage- office to hand in the checks for their trunks and re-register them for Turin. There was plenty of time. The through- carriage did not start its wanderings round the Ceinturr railway to the Gare du Lyon for nearly half-an-hour. It required strong self-restraint to prevent his going and talking to her, as the suburban train, with the Italian carriage attached, dragged its slow course round Paris. But politics had taught him self-restraint, and he was practical. If they were going to be together all their lives, as he hoped and trusted they were, why imperil the result for less than one day ? He did not go as far as the door of her compartment either on the Ceinture or at the Gare du Lyon, and when they steamed out of the Gare du Lyon and resumed their journey southwards, he took his meals on the zvagon-lit restaurant after she had finished hers. He hardly noticed externals, though the train flew past such sights as the glorious Gothic cathedral of Sens ; the rich slopes of the C6tes d'Or hills, on which the finest wines of Burgundy are grown ; Dijon, with the roofs of three centuries vying with each other in picturesqueness ; I/7I PAUL'S WIFE the lake of Aix and the mountain-girdled valleys of the South ; the distant peaks of Savoy. His mind kept harking back over his whole political career now that there was no forward vision, and this backward vista included the political career which he had imagined for himself in England. As the train began to climb the Alps the darkness closed on it. At Modane all sorts of unlikely people began to talk to each other ; a troublesome customs' house can make any two people friends or enemies. It was nothing for Paul to be helping an unprotected Englishwoman, especially of the servant class, and therefore, perhaps, unable to speak French, to clear her baggage. As a matter of fact it was she who spoke French, not he. And when they were in the train again, it was natural for him to go on talking to her, as they were both alone. But he was still careful. He only spoke to her through the open door of her compartment, standing with his own back against the corridor window facing it, so that he could see anybody coming into the car from either end. or out of one of the other compartments. And he only conversed on detached and ordinary subjects, natural with a fellow-passenger. It was sufficient that he could feast his eyes on her disguised form and tell himself that she was his. " Do you know anything about Turin hotels ? "' he asked. " There are a lot of big hotels round the station, but there isn't much quiet or privacy about them." " Do you know any other ? " " Once when we were in Turin we went to see the pictures of an artist who Avas staying at the Castello. the funniest old place, in a courtyard off the Piazza Castello. It had large, cool rooms, and a lot of Empire furniture, and there seemed to be only about two people staying in the whole place." " I want a quiet place." " Well, try that." This was a type of their conversations, and Rhoda kept her veil down. Veiled so closely and in her maid's hat and long travelling coat, scarcely any of the familiar lineaments were recognizable, even to the eyes of affee- 1-2 MARRIED IN SIGHT OF GOD tion. To the ordinary eye her identity was completely concealed. And so, about midnight, they came to royal Turin, deserted of its dynasty, and, as soon as their baggage was '' cleared," drove off to the Albergo del Castello, concerning whose whereabouts the cabman had to consult with his fellows. CHAPTER XXII MARRIED IN SIGHT OF GOD The Piazzas of Turin looked very stately and restful in the moonlight as they drove through the quiet street at the back of the Piazza del Castello, which contained the entrance to the hotel. But the Via Roma was almost deserted, so there was little to excite their comment. They fell to natural small talk ; by mutual but un- expressed consent, they waited for the great talk until they should be alone and undisturbed. " How did you manage to get your trunk out of the house ? " " It was a trunk that belonged to my maid, and I was supposed to have given her the things which were packed in it. As she was sent away for bringing me your letters, she bore my mother no love, and I had given her twenty pounds to compensate her for the loss of her place." "" Did you take her into your confidence ? " " I had to. I had to get the hat and coat and veil from her, and instruct her to be seen coming back to the house just before I left, and to stay in my room with the door locked until nine o'clock this morning, when she was to come out and tell my father and mother that I had run away." " With me?" " No, I told her to say that she did not know where I had gone, or if I had gone with anybody." " And she packed your trunk for you and got it out of the house ? " " Yes. That was her idea. It's not one of my trunks, but one that mother gave her because she took a dislike to it." *73 PAULS WIFE ' Have you got enough things in it ? ' ' Enough things in it ? What a lovely expression, dear Paul ! Yes, I've got enough things in it to carry me on until I buy some more ready-made, if I get them directly we arrive at . . . Where are we going ? " " I don't know. I was going to settle when we got to Paris, but we rushed on to Turin." " Oh, well, we won't settle that now. Hats I can buy in Turin — Italy always buys its hats in Turin." Paul thought that they might have some difficulty in gaining admission at that hour, but the hotel had a cafe which spread its chairs far out into the Piazza in summer, and even in winter had its patrons late into the night in its salonc. So the landlord came forward at once. As Paul knew not a word of any language but his own, and Rhoda spoke Italian glibly, the arrange- ments with the landlord were left to her. She ordered bedrooms leading off each other, and supper in twenty minutes' time in a private sitting-room as near the bedrooms as possible. There was one en suite. In twenty minutes she emerged, much scrubbed, looking as neat as a new pin, in a fascinating tea-robe. Shortly afterwards she was joined by Paul, who had had a cold bath, and bore obvious traces of having hurried into a suit crumpled with packing — that is the difference between man and woman. She also wished to get the maid's costume in Avhich she had arrived out of the memories of the hotel people ; they were to think that it was merely due to the plainness of the English taste in travelling. Directly Paul came into the room she held out her arms to him. She imagined that the waiter would be late ; and she was willing to chance being caught by him. From henceforth no concealment was necessary. She meant to live with Paul openly before God and man. It was their first kiss. He folded her to his heart, and kissed her as he had never kissed Vivien, beautiful though Vivien was ! They hardly spoke. Each knew what the other meant to say. The waiter was discreetly noisy in the passage. When he came in, Rhoda said, " We ought by rights to drink 174 MARRIED IN SIGHT OF GOD champagne, but you couldn't swallow the execrable stuff they would have here. But they might have a good bottle of foaming Barbera. I'll ask them to bring their very best." The waiter brought an admirable bottle, with the stimulus of champagne, the softness and generousness of Burgundy, and in that they christened their union. The window of the sitting-room looked out on the old Castle of Madama, which gives the Piazza its name. It looked exquisitely romantic in the soft white light, with its two great mediaeval towers, plain almost to ugliness as it is by day. To the landlord the castle was always fine, so there was a sofa a few feet from the window, commanding the view. They sat down on it for a short while to realize that they were in Italy, and to be able, as they said, to admire the view to the land- lord. But each had something to say to the other that would not brook delay. Paul was willing that Rhoda should lock her door to him until he was divorced and could marry her. He had come away with her without any idea of claiming that she should be his mistress de facto, though the world was bound to place its own interpretation on their relationship. He was even willing to live with her platonically for all time. Rhoda, in running away with him, had been quite devoid of passion. She had done it because life was intolerable to her without his daily companionship. She was a girl who had remained unusually innocent of sexual feelings. But she thought it neither logical nor fair to suggest that they should remain single when they were living together. She told him so frankly. And when his chivalrousness made him still hesitate, she said, " It must be to-night, Paul. If they catch us and try to separate us, it is all-important that this should have ' happened. Then they will not want to take me away from you ; I could not bear to live without you." He was still unconvinced. " Don't you see that my father may be only a few hours behind us, and that I must be yours before he finds us ? " " Do you really mean it, Rhoda ? " " Of course I do, my husband." 175 PAULS WIFE CHAPTER XX11I Paul's wife The next morning broke into one of those beautiful days which you get in early winter in Italy. The sky was blue ; the day was mild ; the sun glittered gaily. It might have been spring that was advancing against winter. And there was spring in Rhoda's heart. She knew that what she had done was for her happiness. So long as she had Paul with her — and he must be steadfast ; he had stood Vivien's vagaries for twenty years with unruffled good-nature — the heavens might fall. Whatever her father and mother wrote or did, she would know that she had acted for the best. If none of her friends ever spoke to her again, she Avould not waste a reflection on them. She had Paul and she had Italy, inexhaustible Italy. Italy could supply her with fresh charms to enjoy with Paul for half a century, if Paul had not been sufficient in himself to interest her for an infinite period of time. No intellectual woman had ever explored Paul. His heart was full of virgin country. It was like his native continent, which has only a fringe round, its sea-coast inhabited. Far from feeling humiliated or regretful over the night, Rhoda felt exactly as if she was an impeccably- married wife on the first morning of her newly-found happiness. She was married to Paul in her own eyes, though he had another wife living and undivorced. For this condition of her mind her father was chiefly to blame. He had given her her political education, and her political education had been that all existing institutions were bad, having been made by the leading men of their time : that it was proper for any of them to be abrogated in any direction by anyone — any demoli- tion of anything being a sacrifice on the altar of Liberty and. the People. She had been taught that nothing was sacred in politics, except the right of the tail to wag the dog and she might be excused if she regarded 176 PAULS WIFE the marriage laws as being as antiquated as other rights of Property. These were always spoken of as indefensible at the political receptions of Lord Lyonesse, the greatest property-holder in the county of Cornwall. Lord Lyonesse had been made a lord for the services which he had done to the Party of Revolution, and the curse he had pro- mulgated had come home to roost. For evermore the ghost of Rhoda in the red cap of Liberty must haunt Lyonesse House. Paul was standing in the window, looking out at the Castello di Madama, and the throng of people going to their work, chiefly artisans, when Rhoda came into the room, dressed rather simply, but with special care, and walked across to give him a wife's good-morning kiss. ' This day is the beginning of life for me, Paul ! ' She had used almost the identical words when she had given herself to him the night before ; but that was a broken dav. To-dav she was beginning the serene round of life which she meant to continue until she died. She was rather uneasy about Paul's breakfast ; Italians in small native hotels don't understand break- fasts. But she managed to get him a well-cooked steak and an omelette. She crowed over her success to him. ' You won't have to worry over my meals, dearest. I can eat anything or go without anything. A dozen or so of these rolls and butter, and as many as I could eat of these things " — he was munching the bread- sticks which are Turin's speciality — " would have done me perfectly, so long as I had coffee ad lib." " Even coffee ad lib., with milk, is not always easy, Paul." ' But the knowledge that you will always be at my breakfast-table will make up for anything." Rhoda gave him a bride's look. All breakfast was a flirtation ; they had arrears to make up ; they had done no flirting in the days when Rhoda was getting into hotter and hotter water because she could not do without his companionship. When it was over and they were back at the window, having their cigarettes, Rhoda sketched out the programme of their stay. First she 177 12 PAUL'S WIFE must telegraph to her father to tell him where she was. She had written him a long letter in the train between London and Dover, and posted it just before she stepped on board the boat, and had kept a copy of it to show to Paul. ' And I must telegraph to my bankers ; they are holding my letters." ' Secondly, we must go and buy hats, and a box for them to live in until we are settled in our home." " All right." ' No ! Secondly, we must go to Cook's and get our tickets for Rome and our sleepers. Our train starts at three." ' Don't you want to stay any longer in Turin ? ' ' Oh, Paul, do you think I'm going to run the risk of letting my husband be bored before we have been married a day ? " He accepted her definition of their union gladly. It was so good for Rhoda to feel that she was his wife, though there were lengthy formalities of divorce to be got through before the law would accept her as such, even if Vivien put them in motion at once. And he was not sure that she would. Marriage made so little difference to her, and it might amuse her to play him like a fish. In any case, he did not care now, when Rhoda had gone through the ordeal unsullied in her mind and felt that she was his wife, with or without the sanction of the Registrar. " And thirdly, we'll buy my hats." • We've settled that. It's fourthly . . . ? " " And fourthly — oh, Paul, we can't go to-day ! I forgot the picture-gallery and the Egyptian Museum and the Armoury and the imitation Mediaeval castle. And why should we hurry when we have all our lives before us ? " " Why should we?" ' We must leave ourselves something to do," she said, suddenly turning grave, " because you won't be able to go into politics any more, my poor Paul ! We have committed the only crime which signifies in the career of a British politician." She adverted to it and 178 PAUL'S WIFE played with it, because she saw from the utter content, ment of his expression that he regretted nothing, and she meant to look facts in the face from the beginning. She thought that it would be so much better for both of them. " Don't let's hurry," he said, with the indolent happiness which is the anodyne of a strenuous life. " We shall feel so foolish at having spent a day like this in the train if it is a wet day to-morrow." " Oh, it won't be wet to-morrow. The weather doesn't change so suddenly as that in Italy, except for one little bit in the spring and the autumn." ' Then thank heaven for Italy ! An Australian expects sunshine." ' Well, now for the telegram. One won't need a hat or one's walking-shoes to run across to the post- office in Italy — for the climate or the other thing." " I think I'll have a hat," said Paul. She wrote out the telegram, printing the letters so that there should be no mistake. " Lord Lyonesse, Park Lane, London. Leaving for Rome to-morrow. Will send Roman address. Rhoda Wentworth, Albergo del Castello, Turin." She handed it to Paul, who had telegraphed to his bankers to address him : "c/o Thomas Cook & Son, Rome," to read. " Rhoda Wentworth ! " he said, with gladness in his voice. ' Yes. I shall always sign myself Rhoda Wentworth.'''' ' It will only be a matter of months before you have a legal right to the name. — Pace Vivien ! " he added to himself. With a woman's intuition she divined his thoughts. " That depends on Vivien. I am prepared for her to refuse." " You have written that telegram to make your father follow us and have it out ? " " Yes." " I wish that too, dear. There is nothing to be gained by leaving things in suspense." " And now for hats ! " said Rhoda, in a tone which suggested that the prospect of meeting her outraged 179 12* PAULS WIFE father did not weigh on her spirits. Indeed, she felt so happy that nothing could depress her. She examined various palatial hat-shops — they occupy the ground- floors of palaces in Turin — and finally selected one. Before she went in, she said, " I hope you're prepared to lend me lots of money, Paul ! " " I'm not prepared to lend you anything, Rhoda. But I am prepared to pay any price for my wife's hats." " I am glad that you remembered to say ' For my wife's hats.' I expect you always to speak of me as your wife in Italy. I am your Italian wife, and England belongs to a back number." " You are my wife, Rhoda." The pavement in front of a Turin hat-shop was a strange place to settle so large a question. But the passers-by did not think them madder than other English people. Besides, it was a very old problem this — Madame setting her heart on a very expensive hat and Monsieur inquiring if such an ex- pensive one is necessary. But this happened not to be the problem. It was the question of whether a wife with a private income would allow her husband to pay for her. And it was left in abeyance, the immediate necessity being a sufficiently consequential hat to replace the maid's travelling hat which Rhoda had worn on her flight from London. As an adviser on hats Paul was a hopeless failure, but he experienced a tingle of pleasure at being allowed to pay for an article of Rhoda's attire. It gave him such a proprietary feeling. And he enjoyed still more the sensation of taking their joint compart- ment in the wagon-lit for Rome. Rhoda was his wife, his wife ! Having bought three hats, none of them modest in proportions or price, Rhoda had to select a very large hat-box in the Via Roma. When railway-tickets, hats and hat-box were bought, it was twelve o'clock, and Rhoda insisted that Paul should try the Gourmets' Restaurant, where they had typical Italian food of the very best — thrown away on Paul, who only enjoyed the grills, but appropriate to the occasion. Then, after an hour of siesta at their hotel, they went over the famous armoury of the Kings of Italy. 1 80 PAUL'S WIFE Rhoda was interested in armour, for they had a good deal at their Cornish castle, inherited from knightly- ancestors, and Paul, while he was listening to her en- thusiasms over the splendid pieces in this museum, felt the pathos of the situation — that a woman of such ancestry should have given herself to him, the son of a Melbourne artisan, who could not even make her his wife until the humiliations of a divorce court had been experienced. Also, he wondered who would have the castle and armour of the St. Ives', now that Rhoda had forfeited them by her relations with him. He could not help feeling sad for Rhoda. But no such suggestions seemed to cross her own line of thought. For when the bell rang to announce that closing time had come, she said, " Now we'll taxi across and see the copy of a mediaeval castle in the Park. It's awfully well done." He was struck with the beauty of the building, as it rose above the rushing river. And as they wandered through its counterfeited halls, he asked, " Is Carbis anything like this ? " " No, Carbis is not so exaggeratedly mediaeval. The chateaux of Piedmont have a sort of chalet element about them, from their being in a land of deep winter snows, which makes them very fantastic and picturesque. Carbis is a much larger place, with plainer lines, though some of it is very old." " I should love to take a place like this for the summer." " It's perfectly easy to find one to let furnished, though not quite so simple as in Germany. I know of one near Florence, and one near Siena — Tuscan style, of course, but it would suit our purpose as well." " I don't think I should know the difference until you had coached me." Rhoda had rather dreaded the time between dark and dinner, but when they reached the tea-place which their hotel-keeper had recommended, her doubts were relieved. It was very large and brilliantly lighted. A band was playing " The Chocolate Soldier," which was modern for Italy, and nearly every table was occupied by smart 181 PAULS WIFE Italians. The Torinese are the best dressed people in Italy — possibly because they are the nearest to Paris, geographically, with an excellent train-service. And there were officers innumerable of all arms of the service — Cavalleria, Fanteria, Artiglieria, not to mention the bold Bersaglieri, with their drooping plumes, and the Alpine Corps, with their stiff eagle-feathers. For Turin is the chief fortress of Italy, guarding the passes of the Alps. One of the officers, who was sitting at a little table by himself, for luck perhaps, gallantly got up and joined a group of his fellows a few yards away. They all devoured Rhoda with their eyes when neither she nor Paul was looking at them. For not only was she beautiful and very well-dressed, but she was ob- viously absorbed in the tall, slim, sunburnt man, who did not seem to be quite of her class socially, but yet wore the air of a man accustomed to command. Tea was ordered, not coffee. Therefore they were English. And she had to ask him if he took sugar, and had therefore not been long married, if she was his wife. No one guessed what an interesting line of inquiry was being opened up here. For the same reason she could not be his daughter. It must therefore be a honeymoon. It was decided that the bridegroom was very rich — a man who had made a fortune in one of the ways in which the English do make a fortune in a tropical country, and that the } r oung wife had married him for his money. In point of fact, Paul had accumulated over twenty thousand a year by his skill in speculations, but Rhoda would have some day inherited much more, if she had not forfeited her birthright. Of one thing there could be no doubt — that the beautiful young bride had a healthy appetite, for she made Paul go with her to the counter and choose a pile of the adorable Italian pastry and cakes. For himself he picked out the plainest. The officers questioned the waiter. lie could only tell them that she spoke Italian like an Italian, which mystified things further. They began to make eyes at her, which were lost on her, for she was bent on amusing Paul, lest he should have one dull minute in their first day. He was very entertained, for she pointed out the tricks 182 PAULS WIFE — which arc many — that Italian men and women have at restaurants, and there was a constant come and go. But nothing entertained him so much as Rhoda's appetite and bubbling happiness. It would have made little difference to him if the restaurant had been empty, except that the presence of the crowd kept him from straying into sentiment. The place grew hotter and hotter ; the chatter grew louder and louder ; the music tried to assert itself. It was the Italian's ideal " five o'clock." Presently some English people came in, who knew both Rhoda and Paul. But the affair had not got into the newspapers yet, and they supposed that Lord and Lady Lyonesse and Vicky Went worth were somewhere in Turin, together very likely taking an orthodox English tea at the hotel. At any rate, Rhoda and Wentworth were alone because they wanted to be alone. So they greeted the lovers cordially and passed on, making some remark on Rhoda's defiance of chaperonage. When they found an empty table and sat down, they wondered out aloud to each other what Lady Lyonesse could be doing to give a girl of Rhoda" s position and prospects and beauty so much licence. But they meant to be just as cordial in their greeting if Rhoda and Paul were still sitting there when they passed out. Had Rhoda not made up her mind to meet her father in the open and fight the battle out, the rencontre might have made her anxious. For people in England in her set would certainly hear of it. But as she had sent the telegram to bring her father to Italy, the rencontre meant no mere to her than it would have meant if her mother had been at the hotel. They stayed on at the restaurant until it was time to go back and dress for dinner. For dinner, Rhoda, still thinking of keeping Paul amused, suggested another gay restaurant, though she did not mean to let him go to the theatre, knowing the depressing effect that an Italian theatre has on an English- man who does not understand the language. But Paul was for dinner in their own hotel. He thought that Rhoda had done quite enough, and for himself he would rather dine with her quietly in their sitting-room than in 183 PAUL'S WIFE the grandest, restaurant in the world. So Rhoda, seeing that it was for his pleasure, gave in, though she was rather afraid of the dinner. She did not wish him to make the acquaintance of the nakedness of the land prematurely. For herself she did not care so long as she was with him. But if she had gone down into the dining-room at eight o'clock she Mould have known no fears, for it was full of officers, who are fond of their food, and had many little parties of well-dressed people. Any of them could have told her that the restaurant at the Castello was renowned. The prices were not high, but the food was as good as anywhere in Turin — that city of gourmands — the Dijon of Italy. She allowed the landlord to send up the table d'hote dinner. He was very anxious for them to try it, and it saved her the trouble of ordering. They said that they would dine at seven-thirty, but only she and Paul were ready at the hour appointed. They sat down on the sofa by the window. Turin is too near the Alps for the win- dow to be left open in winter, but the shutters were not Hosed, and the Piazza was, after the manner of Italian Piazzas, such a blaze of electric light that everything was as plain as daylight. If anyone noticed them at the window, they would have excited inquisitive Italy's furiosity. For to dine in a private room at the Castello was the dernier cri, and Rhoda looked so beautiful, so distinguished, though the wardrobe which she had brought with her was restricted. The hotel chambermaid who helped her to dress with Italian adaptiveness, was in ecstasies over her underclothing. Rhoda St. Ives had been a very extravagantly brought-up young woman, in spite of all the socialistic sentiments which she rattled off her tongue at the Lyonesse House receptions, spoken of as " Lady Lyonesse's salon" to that Tory heart's disgust. It did not signify how long the waiter kept them. Kisses, of the discreet order which do not disarrange the hair, are an excellent substitute for cocktails. And when the dinner came, it excelled all possible anticipations. The ideas were original, the materials good, the cooking admirable. The food was actually better than they 184 LADY LYONESSE CALLS ON VIVIEN Mould have had at the much-lauded restaurant ; and there was that Barbera they knew to wash it down. The waiter brought in the courses and vanished ; there was a pear-bell hanging from the electric light over the table which, he said, would bring him in one minute with the next course. The next courses seemed innumerable to Paul, who wanted dinner to be over, so that he could talk without being disturbed. Long dinners were not in his line. A quarter of an hour had been his usual limit in the days of political stress. But he was not impatient, for his eyes could rest on Rhoda, who was looking lovelier than he ever remembered her. Is there any such beauti- fier as crowned love ? CHAPTER XXIV LADY LYONESSE CALLS ON VIVIEN Lord Lyoxesse's yacht, The Tristram of Lyonesse, the finest ocean-going sailing-yacht in England, was lying at Tilbury, fully provisioned and equipped, under orders Tor Java. In less than twenty-four hours her owner, with his family and friends, would be on board, and the tug would be towing her down the river. The crew were in high spirits, for The Tristram spent most of her time anchored at Falmouth, a not very exciting port. But before the hour of departure, a telegram arrived for the Captain, postponing the sailing until further orders. For the Honourable Rhoda, in whose dishonour the whole expedition had been planned, was not to be found. The sentries — footmen and maids — who kept her imprisoned in Lyonesse House had been bribed or outwitted ; the bird had flown — whither no one knew. It must be caught before it could be transported to Java. The actual instrument of the flight was easy to trace, because Marianne, Rhoda's maid, recently discharged by her mother, was in Rhoda's room and had passed the night in Rhoda's bed, borrowing Rhoda's best nightgown for the purpose. The servants who admitted her could be traced perhaps, but less easily ; the only person whose responsibility was not divided was the housekeeper, and it had been done while she was at the theatre. Marianne 185 PAUL'S WIFE was questioned and offered substantial rewards, which she accepted, for describing a modus operandi which in- criminated no one. No orders had been given to refuse her admission to the house or to Rhoda's room, and, once in the house, it was natural for her to wish to go and see the imprisoned Rhoda, which she did so effectively. As to where Rhoda had gone, she was ignorant or incorrup- tible, and that, after all, was the rub. They did not suspect Rhoda of being disguised in Marianne's clothes, because none of her fellow-servants revealed that the clothes of Rhoda which she was wearing, and which she truly said that Rhoda had given her, were not the clothes in which she had come to the house. She allowed an envelope to be found on which she had written : ' The Hon. Rhoda St. Ives, c/o Mrs. Mullion, Carbis, St. Ives " — Mullion was a discharged employee, established by a trade-union at Carbis to disturb the workers on Lord Lyonesse's estate. When the land-agent at Carbis went to see them, the Mullions knew, or would disclose, nothing. Valuable time had been lost. No one kept any Avatch on Paul's movements. He was not suspected. Freddy could have told them that he had gone, but Freddy, for reasons of his own, wanted him to be gone, and had he been consulted, would have done nothing which might bring him back. He was trying to marry Paul's sister, and thought that Paul would oppose it if he knew all the objections. He hoped to book Vicky securely while Paul was away. The first intimation which they had of the elopement was Rhoda's telegram to her father to announce it, and give him her Turin address in ful), promising their address in Rome when they got there. What Rhoda had done was unmistakable. Lady Lyoncsse washed her hands of her for ever. Lord Lyoncsse thought it would be better to try and get her back, and left for Turin by the 11 a.m. on the next day. If Rhoda had left the Albergo del Castello when he got there, he meant to stay there until her Roman address was telegraphed to him from England, or the Turin padrone received it. Turin was a day nearer than London to Rome. At the Albergo the English Milord said that the Signor Went worth was his son-in- 186 LADY LYONESSE CALLS ON VIVIEN law, who had gone on to engage a villa for him. The telegram was to be addressed to the padrone. His courier inquired from time to time if it had arrived. No one knew of the scandal so far, except the Lyon- esses themselves. Their friends supposed that Rhoda was more rigorously confined. Those who knew that she was going to be deported to Java might have supposed that her entreaties or protests had delayed the sailing. The divulgence might have been delayed indefinitely, unless not one, but two unsilenceable people had been concerned — Lady Lyonesse and Vivien. In a fatuous and reckless moment after her husband's departure, Lady Lyonesse thought that she ought to inform Vivien. She got Freddy to fix an appointment at the flat. When she arrived, she broke her news without any preparation. " Your husband has bolted with my daughter." " He'll be good to her," said Vivien. " He's very honourable." " Do you call that honour ? " ' There's honour in that, as in other things. There isn't anything in which it's much more necessary." Lady Lyonesse was almost stunned by the way in which she took it. Vivien waited for her to pull herself to- gether. Though she did not show it, she was tickled to death by the situation. She would not have believed it of the sober-sided Paul. It reawoke her interest in him. If he had come back at that moment, he would have found her unusually affectionate. Lady Lyonesse was revived by a suspicion. " Did you know anything about it ? " ' I ? No. Paul never makes me his confidante. I shouldn't think that he would have told Vicky this, either." " I shouldn't think he would ! " said the peeress grimly. ' Or she must be a curious young lady." ' She isn't. She would do for a bishop, if they had such things as lady-bishops." " What shall you do ? " ' Do ? Nothing. Paul is sure to have arranged for the upkeep of the household. I have plenty of money of my own, in any case." 187 PAUL'S WIFE .. I'm not talking about your housekeeping, Mrs. Wentworth," said Lady Lyonesse impatiently. "I'm talking about the elopement." " Oh, that ! It doesn't concern me. Paul hasn't been anything to me for a long time, except my best friend, and that he will always be." • After this ? " k Yes. It won't make him horrid to me. Nothing could affect his kindness or his sense of duty." ' His sense of duty ! " shrieked Lady Lyonesse. " His sense of duty. He Avon't change to me a bit, unless I make him, and I certainly shan't." ' Have you no sense of . . ." she was going to say "' decency," but reflecting on Vivien's nature, she sub- stituted, " vengeance ? " " Vengeance ? I don't feel like that. He hasn't done me any injury." ' Hasn't done you any injury ? What do you mean, my dear Mrs. Wentworth ? " ' What I mean is that we did not live like husband and wife, and if I know anything of Paul, he feels kindlier to me at this moment than at any moment since he arrived in England." " I don't understand you," said Lady Lyonesse coldly. 1 I mean that he will be ashamed of himself and sorry for me, and, so, anxious to be a ' sport.' " ' I'm afraid I can't follow you, either in your language or your ideas." ' I didn't expect you to, and you needn't expect me to follow you. I can see red as ruddy as most people when I'm mad. I don't suppose that you're a patch on me, though you could do pretty well in your own line. But I don't see anything to be mad about here, and if I had to be mad with anyone, it would be with you, for making my husband leave me when he would have gone on being a good innocent friend to us all till the end of the chapter." " Well, if it isn't madness, it's the most extraordinary piece of altruism that ever came to my notice." " I can't say that it isn't ' altruism,' because I don't ow what ' altruism ' means. If you want to put it into four words, it's ' Jive and let live.' 188 55 LADY LYONESSE CALLS ON VIVIEN " Surely that isn't your notion of life, Mrs. Went- worth ? " " My notion of life is that I've got singularly little out of it for a woman who was born with so much ' looks ' and so much money." " I don't see how you can say that, considering that you married the greatest man in your country. I don't deny his greatness, though he stole my daughter's affections. "' " I know I married him, but I didn't appreciate him, so what good did it do me ? It's better to be born grateful than to be born lucky." By a great effort Lady Lyonesse kept her temper. The possible value of Vivien as an ally was too great for her to run any risks. " I don't mind confessing, Mrs. Wentworth," she said, " that I am staggered by the way you look at it, but we may agree as to the action which is to be taken, though we are unable to agree in our judg- ment of the case." " I shall divorce him," said the downright Vivien. ' Divorce him, when you condone his conduct and deplore his departure ? " She was hoping to get her daughter back from Paul by Vivien's recapturing her husband. " Yes, poor dear ! He'll want his liberty, and he deserves it. And we shall be better friends." " My goodness, what a woman you are ! I've no patience with you ! " ' Would it relieve your feelings to get into a temper with me ? If it would, say what you like. I shan't bear you any ill-feeling for it. I shall think it only natural." " No, it wouldn't," said Lady Lyonesse, her sense of humour coming to her rescue. " Your nonchalance is incredible, but your honesty makes me value your friendship. I should be sorry to lose the only person I ever met who did not pretend at all. I see that I cannot rely on your help in trying to get them back again." " I should love to have Paul back, but there's only one wav to do it." " And that is ? " " To welcome him as Rhoda's husband when the law has taken its course." 189 PAUL'S WIFE CHAPTER XXV WHAT THEY DID AT ROME Rhoda had chosen Rome for their home because there were so many features about it to interest Paul, and be- cause the English in Rome mind their own business more than they do in Florence. On that second evening in Turin, after they had confessed until quite late the beginnings of their mutual attraction, they spoke about where they should go in Rome. And then Rhoda directed the conversation to the delights of Rome, for she could see that Paul was beginning to look troubled. Nor was it unnatural, for Lord Lyonesse's arrival could not be delayed long after their own arrival in Rome, and whatever palliating or encouraging features there may be in the case, it is never easy to meet the father of the woman with whom you have eloped, especially where the woman is a pure and beautiful girl, with brilliant matrimonial prospects. It would have been unlike Paul not to be willing to " face the music," as they say in pugilistic circles. He had faced it a hundred times in politics. But the situa- tion was one repugnant alike to his dignity and to his feelings. Rhoda would have liked to spare him the ordeal altogether, but he would not hear of that. All that he would concede was that she should see her father first. But when they woke up next morning to another perfect winter day, Rhoda looked so fresh and lovely that Paul was conscious of having the best thing in life, whatever storms had to be passed-through. They spent the morning at the Picture Gallery and among the wonders of the Egyptian Museum. Turin was swept and garnished by the monk who rebuilt it too much to have any interesting churches left in it. Then they lunched and took the train for the dull journey via Genoa to Rome. When they had crossed the uninspired 190 WHAT THEY DID AT ROME plains of Piedmont and the uncitied mountains of Liguria to Genoa, the darkness mercifully fell, sparing them the irritating tunnels, diversified by peeps of paradise, which thread the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts. Dinner took up the first hour of the stretch between Genoa and Pisa, and very early they had their berths made up and retired to bed, so as to be up at daylight for the approach to Rome. The last shades of night veiled from them Corneto's long line of Lombard towers, and the plateaux pitted by the Etruscan tombs of the two great cities of the Tarquins, Tarquinii and Caere ; the sun rose over the Campagna of Rome. At first it revealed nothing but flat stretches of lazy, pearly sea, green hillsides, and here the loggia of a farm, there the prostrate skeleton of some building of ancient Rome. But suddenly the dome of St. Peter's rose like a hill of opal on the horizon, and soon the train was chasing round the walls of Rome, as if it was trying to find an opening. St. Peter's had no special thrill for Paul, but he was enchanted by the nobility of these walls, built by one of the later Csesars. And when the train circled to the south and showed the great aqueducts, spreading in the grandest vertebrae of arches which the world can show, from the mountains of the Sabines to the Imperial City, his enthusiasm knew no bounds. His touches on Rhoda's shoulder to force her co-inspection were like the tap, tap of a telegraph instrument. They had arranged to go to the new Hotel Latcran — the old Villa Wolkonsky — because they naturally could not go to the Grand Hotel, where the Lyonesses always stayed ; there was less chance of Rhoda being recognized at a new hotel. She did not wish the hotel-keepers who knew her to discover her travelling with a man to whom she was not married, as his wife, however much she gloried in the relation. When they got there she was gratified to find that not only was it out of the beaten track, but occupied almost entirely by Americans, on account of some new heating system. The garden, of course, was delightful, and she was sitting in the garden when the German hotel-porter, with a profound bow, brought her a card : 191 PAUL'S WIFE For Mrs. Wentworth. Lord Lyonesse, 133, Park Lane, W. Carbis Castle, St. Ives. saying that my lord was waiting for her in her private sitting-room. She noted that her father had written on the top left-hand corner of his card : " For Mrs. Went- worth." It showed that he did not mean to betrav her to the hotel-keeper, at any rate. She said to the porter in Italian, " Tell Signor Wentworth that my father is here, and that I will send for him presently to join us." He bowed more profoundly. So the beautiful English lady was the daughter of a My-Lord ? He had told himself that he was sure she was a somebody when she arrived. Somebody had a particular meaning for him. " You needn't come up to my room," she said. " I know the way." She certainly did not desire a witness for what must be a delicate meeting, though she was so sure of her own position. She went into the room, looking so well and handsome and happy, that one load was taken off Lord Lyonesse's mind. There was no question of her being engulfed in a tragedy which threat- ened to overwhelm a young life full of promise. She was merely a truant, and after all that had passed, had no fear of him. She flew to him the moment she entered the room, and he did not refuse her. But he said, when they sat down, " Well, Rhoda, we did not deserve this of you ! ' " I think you did, father. I only thought of Paul's companionship. I did not want anything more. And you would not let me have that. The harder I fought for it, the closer you confined me. I did not sulk ; I was an affectionate daughter to you all the time. All that I did was to have the communication with Paul which was more than meat and drink to me. It was only when you made arrangements to take me off in a yacht to the other side of the world, so that I might never see him again, or at all events not for many months, that I ran away." " Well, I suppose there is something in that." Lord IQ2 WHAT THEY DID AT ROME Lyonesse was a just man. " But you must come back with me now, Rhoda. And if you give me your word that your friendship for Paul Wentworth shall be purely platonic, I promise you that you shall not be deprived of it." " It is too late now, father. I might come back with you if you arranged everything as I wished. But our friendship can no longer be platonic, for ever since we got to Turin I have been a wife to Paul." Lord Lyonesse did not dispute the application of the word. He recognized its meaning, and bowed his head in shame. " Then he is a villain ! " he said, in low, furious tones. " But he is not a villain, for he begged me to let our companionship remain platonic — even if Vivien Went- worth claimed a divorce." " Will you swear this, Rhoda ? " " I will." " Then how did it happen ? " " I made him." " You made him ? Rhoda, this is the crowning shame ! " " You are mistaken, dear," she said calmly, but with the affection of a mother trying to persuade a fallen child that he has not been hurt. " It would not have been fair to Paul, for no one would have believed it, and yet it might have been asking a man to refrain beyond natural endurance." " I think you might have tried the experiment, as he was gentleman enough to be willing." " That was not the chief reason, father." " What was it, then ? " " I knew that you would follow me, and I knew that you would urge me to go back with you, and if I had been free it would have been so almost impossible to refuse you. But when I had once been a wife to Paul, I knew that you could not ask me to leave him. And I never will leave him while we are both alive." " You wished to make it irrevocable ? " " I wished to make it irrevocable," she said, raising her eyes and looking him straight in the face. 193 13 PAUL'S WIFE ' Oh, Rhoda ! Have you passed by so many brilliant matches only to come to this ? " " Only to come to this ! What man has ever wanted to marry me who could be compared to Paul Went- worth ? " " Lord Oxford." " Lord Oxford ? " ' Well, who could be more eligible than Lord Oxford ? — the head of the historic Veres ? He's a good-looking chap, and as nice as he looks, not devoid of brains, and the finest polo-player in the whole peerage. He keeps goal for the Old Etonians." ' Lord Oxford's a darling, and he isn't a fool, but, father dear, he wouldn't keep me interested. I should only be the mother of his children — and they'd be darlings, too. But think of Lord Oxford compared to Paul ! " " But, hang it all," he said, " Paul's married ! " '* 1 don't care if he's fifty times married, and will never be set free. Paul Wentworth is a man among men — the leader who is going to make the Empire ring true, as he made Australia ring true." " But he didn't last in Australia. He's a cipher to-day." " Nothing can last in politics, father, until the Liberals of the world recognize that their duty is to liberalize the Conservatives, not to be the dupes of the Socialists." Lord Lyonesse did not reply. This was a truth which had gradually been forcing itself on him for months past. Besides, he was discussing Paul, not politics. " Then I am to understand, Rhoda, that Paul Wentworth is vir- tually your husband, and that you mean to go on living with him ? " " Yes, father dear." ' Putting the best complexion on it, Rhoda, it's a terrible business for us. We cannot expect our friends to understand the lofty plane on which you place it — from which I do not say that I disagree," he hastened to add ; Rhoda looked at him gratefully. " But the fact remains that our only child, the heiress of our ancient name . . ." " Not to mention the litl<- ! " said Rhoda rebelliously. 194 WHAT THEY DID AT ROME Her father took no notice of the interruption, but continued : "... has chosen to ally herself with a man in a union which is recognized neither by the Church, nor by the Law, nor by Society." ' I am very sorry, father, but it is my life, not anybody else's, that I am disposing of." He looked at her narrowly. " In a way, I don't deny that you are right, Rhoda. But if you do not owe a duty to the parents who brought you into the world for their gratification, you owe a duty to the ancient name which you have the honour to bear." He saw the reproachful look on Rhoda's face, and altered the phrase. " Which you had the honour to have inherited." ' What greater honour could I have paid my ancestors than to bring a man like Paul Wentworth, the greatest man in the Empire, into our family ? " ' If he had been your husband, none, dear." " But he is my husband in everything else but law, already, and he will be my husband in law, too, when his; other wife takes proceedings to divorce him." " But will she take proceedings ? " Rhoda's face dropped. " I confess that I don't know," she said. " She has always been very good to us in our friendship. But no man could ever prophesy what Vivien Wentworth would do, and she has been no wife to Paul, or you and I would not be here now." '' 1 was coming to that. What of the wife you have wronged ? " ' She was no wife to him. She got tired of her marriage as quickly as a spoilt child with many toys tires of a new doll. And though she went on living under his roof, and though they may have continued to be man and wife in the Prayer Book sense of the word, in every other sense she has led an entirely separate existence, not displaying the slightest interest in any of his concerns, occupied altogether with her own selfish and useless amusements. Freddy has told me what a barren life she has been leading and how barren she has kept poor Paul's home life." " Has he told vou ? " " Yes." u Why did he tell you ? "" 195 13* PAUL'S WIFE " Because I could not help asking him." " Why did you ask him ? " " Because I wished to know if I was breaking the Eighth Commandment. Have you anything more to ask me, father ? " " Not until I have seen ..." " Paul ? ' He nodded. " He wishes to see you, too. But what is there to be gained by it ? Either of you may say things which years cannot heal. Is it wise for you to see him, father ? " " Rhoda, I did not come all this way, to return to London without seeing the man who has done me such an injury." " And is that what you are going to say to him ? " " I am going to see him. Man to man, we have an account to settle," he answered resolutely. " You are going to quarrel with him. Oh, father, I have tried to prevent this. I will answer any questions. I will consider any promises, if vou don't quarrel with Paul." " I have no wish to quarrel with him. But there are certain things which must be said." " Give me your hand, father." Lord Lyonesse gave it so frankly that she felt a little comforted. But with what misgivings she went to summon Paul ! When she brought him, her father said, " Leave us, please, Rhoda." She hesitated, until she saw him hold out his hand to Paul. When she had gone, after an awkward pause, her father began : ' This is a bad business ! " " I think so, too," said Paul, " in a way, but it is the best business I ever did in my life." " Do you think so ? " said Rhoda's father, softening .vith parental pride. \ " There's no woman like Rhoda in all the world ! ' uried Paul enthusiastically. " And she has given me her society, her companionship until she dies ! " " I wish it was only that ! " groaned Lord Lyonesse. " I was perfectly willing that it should be. We should never have run away unless you had forced our hands by that yacht-tour." 196 WHAT THEY DID AT ROME " And you offered my daughter to leave her single until you were free to marry her, I think ? " " Did she tell you so ? " " She did." " That was my idea. It seemed too great a sacrifice for her to make. I did not feel worthy of it. Though it has been the most beautiful thing in my life, I still feel that it was too much to give me." " But she did give it to you. and it cannot be revoked ! " " Thank God that it cannot ! " " You can hardly expect me to echo those words." ' Xot yet," said Paul bravely. Lord Lyonesse paused. Logically, as a Liberal — and he was still a Liberal at heart, though his Party had been found so wanting in the care of the National defences that he could no longer follow them — it was his inclina- tion to untie every knot with which the Constitution is secured. If the Socialist tail had forced the Liberal Party to bring forward a measure making marriage — or, as they would call it, the hire of a wife — terminable, like the hire of a cook, by either party giving a certain notice, Lord Lyonesse would have felt bound to support the measure. If such a measure were passed, a case like the present could not arise, because Paul, having legally terminated the earlier contract, would be fully at liberty to present himself as a husband for Rhoda. Lord Lyon- esse had before him a steady love-match, which had begun in a flagitious breach of conventionalities. He was not sure if he would have condemned it if it had been a case which did not concern himself, brought before his notice in the confiding columns of an evening paper. And there was the comforting feature in the ease that Paul could not be dreaded as an adventurer, attracted solely by Rhoda's inheritance, for though he lived so quietly, his wealth was a matter of common knowledge, and arising as it did from private securities in which the individual pays the income-tax direct, its amount could easily be verified from Government sources, by a man who was so close a personal friend of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as Lord Lyonesse was. Public opinion was the feature 197 PAULS WIFE of the case which he dreaded ; it was one of the few matters in which he cared for Public — meaning Social — opinion. Things looked so bad for Paul to everyone except his sister and the woman with whom he had eloped and the worthless Freddy. Here was a man who had a wife still in the prime of her uncommon beauty, who suddenly, for no reason at all, left her to corrupt and run- away- with a girl who had kept herself free from the mildest flirtation — the daughter of a friend, to whose kindness he owed much, a girl with the highest prospects. At this juncture Lord Lyonesse showed himself a great man. He disregarded the appearances of the case. He came straight to the point of his daughter's happiness. He asked himself whether he ought to have given his consent if Paul Wentworth had been an unmarried man, and had come to him to ask for his daughter's hand. Was the marriage likely to give her complete and per- manent happiness ? Was this the right man ? He was convinced that he was. He asked himself why should he wreck his daughter's happiness because Paul had to be divorced before he could marry her, following the same procedure in essence as the manager of his smelting works would have to follow if he were offered and accepted the position of manager of the smelting works of Lord Swan- sea or Lord Wimborne. He would not, if he could, pre- vent iiis manager doing this. Why should he object to His daughter's receiving her happiness by a similar change in Paul's service ? The point for him to decide, dis- regarding Social opinion, was, convinced or not convinced. And he knew that he was convinced. Rhoda, while her father was talking over these matters of life and death interest to Paul, sat in her bedroom, awaiting the result without anxiety. Paul, she knew, would never leave her. She would never leave him, and her father had promised not to quarrel with him. The unravelling of the skein was, therefore, a matter of patience, and she felt that she could afford infinite patience for Paul's sake. For Paul, when Lord Lyonesse asked to see his daughter alone once more, it was different. Of course he meant to make a final appeal to her to return to England with 198 WHAT THEY DID AT ROME him ! And the temptation was overwhelming, Rhoda would get her father and mother back instead of losing them, and Society would in time forgive youth, beauty and wealth. On the other side, what was there ? Life with him in exile ; life, at her age, with no prizes but the love of a man of fifty and the distractions of travel. But the loss to him if she went back ! It would be too ter- rible to have enjoyed, though he had not enjoyed one full week of it yet, the awakening to the passion of love in a woman like Rhoda, a woman of such physical and intel- lectual perfections, in the very pride of her youth, with the ardour of romance, the glamour of sacrifice thrown in, only to lose her ! It was a privilege that could come to but one man in a million, and it had come to him after twenty years of married life as sterile as a desert, in which he had not once raised his eyes to note the pleasant gardens, watered by the River of Life, in which other husbands and wives reposed, like the Egyptians on the banks of the fostering Nile. It had come in a dream, and it might go in a dream, with the gems turned back to dead lca\ es, like the treasures in the legend of the Alham- bra. Paul, who had known for such a brief respite the one-and-all-sufficient happiness which man and woman knew before their fall ; Paul, who had but now eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, felt that the gates of Eden were about to be closed on him, guarded night and day by the Angel of Regret, holding a fiery sword, whose flame would not suffer memory to sleep. He could feel anxiety gnawing under his heart, while Rhoda, weak, being a woman, bore the assault of all her father's forces — Horse, Foot, and Artillery. How could the result be in doubt, with the springs of natural affection supporting her father ? And their parting — that, too, might be abrupt. He could picture her father saying : " My daughter . . . : —no, he might call her " Rhoda," now that he had won — " Rhoda has decided to go with me. She thinks she had better not see you again : it would only be painful to both of you. We shall leave Rome to-night, and I must trust to your honour never to attempt to see my daughter again." What father and daughter said in their talk did not 199 PAUL'S WIFE transpire. But when it was over, Rhoda came and fetched Paul, and walked him into her father with her arm round him, and Lord Lyonesse said, " Paul, I am going to give you Rhoda, as I had hoped to give her away at the altar. I pray that you may always cherish the sacred trust of her happiness." " I Will, indeed I will ! " ' Paul, I am going to stay with you here for a few days. I know that I shall be called a dotard, a person without dignity or decency, but I have a double purpose to serve. I wish to assure myself of Rhoda's happiness, which is my reason for accepting this extraordinary situation, and I wish to show the courage of my convictions. If I condone your theft of my daughter, it is for a sufficient reason. And if I lend my countenance, it is best for me to lend it in the face of all the world, to show that I am your friend, that I accept the new order of things in which human happiness is placed before Social conventions. Having said this much to reassure you, I must warn you that Rhoda's mother's attitude is one of uncompro- mising hostility." Paul could well believe this. He had heard Lady Lyonesse deliver herself of diatribes upon Rhoda's cheap- ening herself at the political receptions, ancf of anathemas on anyone who was led by observing Rhoda's attitude at the receptions to misunderstand the intentions she had formed for Rhoda Socially. If Lady Lyonesse had never addressed any of her insulting warnings to him personally, it was because he was married, and therefore out of the running, and because, until the serious condition of things began which led to the rupture, his behaviour was very detached. ' I will not be any tie to you," said Lord Lyonesse. ' Your table only holds two, and I don't want to disturb you. A seat at the long table will suit me quite well, and in a day or two I shall slip back to England, without letting you know." He was not speaking sine proposito. If he did not sit with them, but opposite them, and joining in the general conversation,' he could watch them to see how far he was justified in giving them his countenance, much better than if he sat beside them. 200 WHAT THEY DID AT ROME But he always left the room with them after lunch and after dinner, to take coffee and cigarettes together in the winter-garden. In the days he spent in Rome with them, Lord Lyonesse felt reason to be satisfied with Paul's attitude. There was never the slightest atmo- sphere of elopement about his relations with Rhoda. They were more like a childless couple who have been married for years, and have learned to regard marriage ;is the most delightful of all companionships. They were such complete friends, and Paul took a child's pleasure in learning the A B C of Art-worship in Italy. Lord Lyonesse was all for their taking a house in Rome. Paul had given him a minute statement of his financial position, which showed that expense need not stand in the way of their plans. " You had better take a house," he said, " because it will save you many unpleasantnesses when your story becomes known and you are recognized. At present your names mean nothing to anybody in the hotel, but that state of things can't last. Soon people will begin to discuss whether they can know you or not. You would not want to know such people, but you want to be in a place where you are independent of their opinion. I should take a villa outside Rome. A few miles is only a matter of a few minutes in a car, and you will have your garden. Those of Rhoda's friends who want to see something of her will hunt her up, and the rest will have an excuse for not coming." " Yes, let's take a villa, Paul. I think it's an excellent idea ! " " Besides," continued her father, " hotels are apt to pall after a bit, and you'll have to be here, or, at any rate, somewhere out of England for a good many months, because you can't come back until Paul has been divorced and you are married, and I think it would be wiser not to come for some time after that. I can come and join you abroad from time to time." " I feel as if I never wanted to go back to England," said Paul, in whose breast the wrecking of the Universal Service League still rankled. " Never is a long time," said Lord Lyonesse. '* But, 201 PAULS WIFE at all events, you will want a house, and I should rather like to see the house you choose before I return home." " You had better help Rhoda choose it, if you will — I shall know if I am satisfied with the aspect and accommodation, but as far as aesthetic and scenic qualities are concerned, my opinion is worth nothing," said the ex-Prime Minister of Australia. ' You must come, too, Paul," said Rhoda, rather disappointed. ' I shouldn't like choosing without you." ' Certainly, dear, but you two do the talking." Lord Lyonesse would not go to his own bankers, for obvious reasons, and, indeed, he considered Sebasti and Reali, who did not know him by sight, preferable for taking a house. They at once suggested the Villa Celimontana, as being within the city limits and as having the finest garden and views of any villa within a reason- able distance. They mentioned the rent, which was considerable, but not serious for a man of Paul's means, and on learning his name, professed themselves anxious to be of any service to him, and ready to waive the matter of a reference. But he prefered to open an account, of sufficient magnitude to be in itself a reference, in their bank, and they promised to send an order for the inspec- tion of the villa in an hour or two. ' I have never been in the house," said Lord Lyonesse, ' but judging from the glimpses one gets in seeing over the garden, I should think it would be all right. You couldn't have a more ideal position, and would hardly find a better garden ' to-let.' " The order arrived after lunch, in time for them to drive out and see the villa. It came a couple of hours later than the bankers had hoped, but one gets accus- tomed to that in Italy. Paul was more satisfied than Rhoda with the house, being guided by more material considerations. All of them were quite carried away by the views of the Seven Hills and the monuments of ancient Roma in the low rays of the winter sunset. They decided to take the house, subject to certain ordinary conditions. And so Paul and Rhocla entered on their first home. Lord Lyonesse waited to see them installed, and spent 202 WHAT THEY SAID AT HOME a few days with them. This he did partly to show his attitude, and partly so that Rhoda might settle with him which of her household gods should be sent to her by the courier who was to bring her clothes and jewellery from Lyonesse House to the Villa Celimontana. CHAPTER XXVI WHAT THEY SAID AT HOME Lady Lyonesse had refused to say much about the subject before her husband went to Rome, but what little she did say was bitterer than gall. Her bitterness was a cloak for savage regret. She held herself to blame, and in more ways than one. She had done too little and too much. She had let Rhoda's infatuation grow up under her very eyes, while if the letter which Rhoda wrote to her parents in the train between London and Dover told the truth — and it had the ring of truth — she had used constraint when it was too late to do any- thing but harm, and converted the worship for a great man and a yearning to be constantly in his presence into reasons for a vulgar elopement. Rhoda, if she had taken her in hand in time, might never have made a personal friend of Paul — so Lady Lyonesse believed. But if Rhoda was desperately anxious for his company, he might have been given a footing in the house as a sort of uncle. She did not tell her husband this, though she cursed herself for her blindness at the beginning. Few people dared to open the subject with the terrible old lady. She gathered her knowledge of what people were saying from the newspapers. The manager of the Press-Cutting Agency, which served Lord Lyonesse with the clippings from the newspapers about his sayings and doings, wrote a letter which moved Lady Lyonesse to laughter, in the midst of her troubles, inquiring, with absurd circumlocution and apologies, if he would care to have cuttings relative to his " recent bereavement." Lord Lyonesse handed it to his wife, who ordered every scrap connected with the subject to be sent to her, no 203 PAUL'S WIFE matter how distressing its gossip or its sarcasms might be. She was curious to know what people were saying, and the newspapers could not see her face while she was reading their comments. The Press, as might have been expected, behaved uncommonly well. Certain of the Radical dailies could not resist a dig at their arch-enemy, Paul, and threw stones at the fallen Rhoda, who had committed the unpardonable crime of following him into the opposite camp. But they only sneered at her as a feather-brained young lady, who might commit any foolishness without surprising them. It was foolishness which they laid at her door, not sin. Some of the penny Society weeklies which were in Radical hands behaved much worse. They invented previous scandals in Rhoda's life, to account for the present disgraceful incident, and assaulted her and Paul — and Lady Lyonesse — with vituperation and innuendo. But the general attitude of the Press was to express sympathy with the relations of both parties, and to refer to the incident as a highly regrettable one, about wiiich the least said the better. This did not, however, prevent the halfpenny papers from indulg- ing their passion for headlines : "FLIGHT OF A PEER'S DAUGHTER WITH A MEMBER OF HIS MAJESTY'S PRIVY COUNCIL." • ELOPEMENT OF THE HON. RHODA ST. IVES ! " and The Daily Rad went so far as : ABDUCTION OF A LIBERAL STATESMAN'S DAUGHTER BY A RENEGADE FROM THE PARTY." But as the Press of one side wished to hush the matter up for Paul's and Rhoda's sakes, and the Press of the other side for Lord Lyonesse's sake, the matter was hushed up in the decent papers, as far as the public desire for news on the subject would allow it to be. The effect of the blow on Paul's own household was 204 WHAT THEY SAID AT HOME more complex. Vicky, to whom Paul's parting words came back with excruciating emphasis, was prostrated by her idol's extinguishing himself in politics, and felt the disgrace horribly. To her it seemed that Paul had stolen the daughter of their best friends. Freddy, who was unremitting in his kindness, and showed a charming taste in trying to heal her wounds, assured her that some explanation would be forthcoming, which would place a better complexion on events. But she refused to be comforted. She could not understand Vivien's attitude. The first thing Vivien said when she heard of it was, " Poor old Paul ! They'll say such hard things about him, and he's such a good sort. I'm sure he isn't to blame — he never looked at a woman, unless she made him by main force ! I married him ; he didn't marry me. He hasn't got that to blame himself for." " Oh, Vivien, how can you talk so hatefully ? " sobbed Vicky. " I don't see where the hatefully comes in. I'm right down sorry for him. And I hope it turns out well ! ' " Vivien ! " Vicky stamped her foot. " Well, I hope it does. He must have been very tired of me." " Woman, don't you feel the disgrace ? " " I can't say that I do. If the law had had the sense to let people who never ought to have married each other have the right of annulling the sacred contract, I'd have insisted on his taking his freedom long ago." Vicky knew that Vivien was talking common sense which could not be contradicted, but it did not prevent a fresh outburst. This gave Vivien a perverse pleasure. She was nothing if not perverse, and she loved to work another person up into a temper almost as well as getting into a temper herself. She insinuated that Vicky had lost her temper by saying, " I hope his Rhoda hasn't such a beast of a temper as I have. He deserves better luck this time." " Have you no decency, woman ? " screamed Vicky. " Truth is more important than decency." answered Vivien sententiously, though she had no objection to telling a decent lie if it suited her. 205 PAUL'S WIFE H You of all people ought to feel outraged ! ' I ? Why should I ? I've never done anything for him. except pay the bills while he was poor." " You're his wife ! " " His wife ? A fine sort of wife I've been ! I never eared what he did, so long as he didn't bother me." Freddy got up and left the room. ' You see, even Freddy can't stand the disgraceful way in which you are talking, and he's none too squeamish." " Freddy ! " Vivien roared with laughter. " Please don't, Vivien ! " entreated Vicky, bursting into tears. Vivien was genuinely fond of Vicky, whose tears generally had an instant effect on her, but this time she persisted. " I won't have anything said against Paul. He's a good sort, if ever there was one. And I like her ; she deserves him much more than I do." " Oh, please, Vivien ! " ' I tell you she does, and if they can be happy, they have my goodwill." ' I never heard such a disgraceful thing from a married woman ! " " I am disgraceful, I suppose. But I don't see why I should pretend to be angry with Paul when I am only sorry for him." " But you must be angry." " Why ? For his trying to mend his life ? He'll only have one." ' Well, I'm Paul's sister, but I hate hearing you talk like this." " Aren't you sorry for him ? " " Of course I am. And if he ever needs me, he'll find me true. But I can never forget how wicked he's been about this." ' Oh, chuck it, Vicky ! Paul isn't as bad as half the people you meet." " Do you mean to say that you won't take any steps to divorce him ? " ' Of course I shall, in double quick time. The least I can do is to give him the chance of marrying her." 206 WHAT THEY SAID AT HOME ' Oh, Vivien," said Vicky, half-smiling in spite of her tears, " you are incorrigible ! " " I mean to be. What is the good of blinking at the fact that Paul and I have led a cat and dog life for years past ? And now that he's taken his courage in both hands at last — why should I be the one to throw stones at him ? " ' Well, I think it's very high-minded of you." ' No, I was never high-minded. But once in a way I'm a ' sport.' And this is an occasion on which I mean to be a ' sport.' Your good health, Paul and Rhoda ! " '* I can't follow you, Vivien. But I'm glad that there's somebody who believes in Paul." When Vivien went to see Sir George Salmon, and announced that she had come to consult him about getting a divorce, he was a good deal interested. He could not but acknowledge her striking beauty, and she was in the best of humours with herself, for she meant to act like a sportsman, and also to take the credit for it. When he heard that it was the famous St. Ives case, his interest deepened decidedly, but he did not feel sure if he wanted to be employed against his old friends, Lord Lyonesse and Rhoda. For he could not but expect that the proceedings from this beautiful young woman, who had temper and recklessness written so large over her face, would be unusually rancorous. ' I must tell you," he said, " that the Honourable Rhoda St. Ives, who is co-respondent in the case, and her father are among my most esteemed friends, and I think I should like to know the line you are going to take up before I accept the case." The first part of her reply brought a genial smile to his face, but as she proceeded, his brows knitted. " What you say," he explained, " is most generous and honour- able to yourself, but its effect would be to take away the power of the judge to grant a divorce. So your husband could not afford to accept your offer. That the law should take such a view shows a rotten state of affairs, but it is 207 PAUL'S WIFE the law. What you say shows that you want to help your husband." " I do, indeed, and if I cannot be allowed to do this, I want the proceedings to be as little contentious as possible. My sole desire is to have the marriage dissolved with as little fuss and bad blood as can be managed. I bear my husband no grudge, and you can arrange for me to take whatever steps you think best." "That will be all right, Mrs. Wentworth," said Sir George, much relieved. " We shall have to get you to put us in possession of certain facts, sufficient to prove what is necessary, and if the case is undefended, as I suppose it will be, and heard without a jury, I think the whole thing will be put through very quietly. The judge will, of course, wish to create as little scandal as possible where such eminent persons are concerned. I must congratulate you on the very proper spirit you are showing in the matter. We will brief Mr. Valerian, K.C.; there is no one like him for showing good feeling. And may I give you one word of advice, Mrs. Wentworth ? " " I came to you for advice, Sir George." " When you appear before the judge, don't dress for the part." " Not even half mourning ? " she said ironically. " Black, if you like, but no widow's weeds, and not too large a hat." CHAPTER XXVII VICKY WENTWORTH'S ENGAGEMENT Vicky Wentworth had her love-troubles, too. On the face of things, she was a fortunate woman, for she and Freddy Fenwick were equally devoted to each other. Whenever Vivien had not needed him, he had been a preux chevalier, and since Paul's elopement he had been a treasure, loyal to Paul and fertile in expedients to save the Wentworth women from embarrassments. But her friends saw nothing in front of her but disaster if she persisted in marrying him. For his income from 208 VICKY WENTWORTH'S ENGAGEMENT Paul, which was his sole income, had always been temporary, and now seemed to be doomed. And Paul's allowance of five hundred a year to Vicky — a pittance to the extravagant Freddy — though it made her a very well-off young woman, would be all she had to rely on. Further, they looked upon Freddy as a butterfly and a ne'er-do-well and a dissipated person, who could not possibly keep a decent woman happy. The most insistive — and he had the most right to be —was David Shand, the wealthy Australian merchant who had been a suitor for her hand ever since she could remember. Vicky often thought that she ought to marry him. He was good and good-natured, pleasant- looking and worthy. The objection to him was that he was so uninteresting, that after the public life which Vicky had led as a Prime Minister's sister, she could not contemplate him as her husband. There would be trouble, of course, with Vivien, who regarded Freddy as her property, specially hired by the erring Paul to escort her, to carry out her behests and to entertain her generally. He had to spend a great deal of his time in entertaining her. Vivien was not backward in demand- ing his services. It would not suit her book at all, Vicky thought, to lose her tame cavalier. But she did not intend to let that count. She had given up quite enough for Vivien in her life. To bring matters to a crisis, she persuaded him to accept a position which Lord Lyonesse offered him, to take charge of his agency in a Yorkshire manufacturing town, from whose rents he drew a large income. It was a nice old town from the tourist's point of view, but from Freddy's it was anathema — a place in which he would not get one of his favourite amusements, except a little shooting and fishing from neighbours. There was a decent, rent-free house built into the ruins of the castle, for the agent's residence, and a fair income from the commission on the rents. This, united to her five hun- dred a year, would give them enough to live on, if Freddy was removed from the extravagances of London. Freddy loved her sufficiently to consent to go there, though his only solace was that it was near Doncaster. The sequel 209 14 PAUL'S WIFE was that, to David Shand's despair, they became formally engaged. When Freddy handed to Vicky, on behalf of her brother, his resignation of his secretaryship to Paul Wentworth, Vivien thought that things were getting serious, and determined to put her spoke into Vicky's wheel. The opportunity did not arise immediately. Freddy had come to the flat to answer the letters, and attend Vicky in giving orders for the household week after week ; had dusted many chairs in the Park with beautiful pocket-handkerchiefs for her, and taken her to picture-galleries and Christie sales, returning to lunch to be at Vivien's disposal for the afternoon — which meant, as the season advanced, racing, if there was any, or polo at Hurlingham or Ranelagh. And if she wanted to be taken anywhere in the evening, he took her. She and Vicky were going to very few parties just now, except where people knew of the elopement and pressed them in spite of it, which Lady Lyonesse, for one, made a special point of doing. She entertained as if nothing had happened, ignoring the existence of Rhoda. Vicky, indeed, though she was engaged to Lady Lyonesse's nephew and her fiance had, since the elopement, received an important appointment from Lord Lyonesse, felt shamefaced about accepting, but Vivien was insouciante as ever. No one could suspect her pride of having received a deadly wound. It was not long before hostesses, as well as Vicky, were aware that the rich and beautiful Mrs. Wentworth refused invitations not because she was ashamed, but because she was bored, which brought a fresh shower of them. She accepted them out of perversity, and went with Freddy alone, because Vicky felt unable to face them. Upon one point, however, Freddy was firm — he would not come into the flat when he took her home, however much Vivien urged him. And this increased her inclina- tion to mischief, which was seldom far below the surface. She owed Vicky one for making Freddy engage himself to her. 210 VIVIEN DECLARES CHAPTER XXVIII VIVIEN DECLARES Vivien was a creature of impulses which she made no attempt to restrain. As they swept over her she played with the lives of Vicky and Freddy as a cat lets a mouse go to catch it again. She did not know for two days to- gether what she desired, and cruelty, tempered by occa- sional remorse, was a passion with her. Deep down in her savage little heart she hated Freddy for prefering Vicky to her, and resented Vicky's having imposed sanity on her for so many years. Hardly less deep in her heart she loved Vicky, whose cool common sense had been the harbour of refuge for her storm-tossed life in so many tempests. Now she was going to have a master scene, in which s!k> would humiliate Vicky to the dust, and yet repay her benefactor and save her from the destruction to which she was consigned. She had sent for Vicky, as she often did send for her when she was, to use Freddy's concise definition, raising hell in the house. Vicky loathed and dreaded these encounters, but she generally came out victor in the end, and she went through them for Paul's sake. A sickening presentiment almost overcame her. She did not yield to it. She had felt it before, and a Divinity had shaped her ends. So she knocked at the door of the sitting-room next to her sister-in-law's bed- room, in which Vivien spent so much of her time doing nothing. The spirit of mischief was obvious everywhere. Nearly every costly piece of furniture had been robbed of its value by some ignorant or idiotic alteration to suit the whim of the moment. On the largest table, pulled to pieces, lay two or three of Vivien's most expensive hats, out of which Vivien imagined that she was going to form fresh combinations ; a half-open drawer showed itself full of costly trifles crushed in anyhow. Vivien was in her petticoats. Vicky felt that the elaborate afternoon gown which she had taken off was doubtless an op- 211 14* PAUL'S WIFE pressive one to wear, but that this was hardly a sufficient reason for tearing it off and flinging it in a heap on a sofa. Vivien looked perfectly lovely. Her chemise was very decolletee, and she spent a small fortune on her under- clothes. She was not in the passion which experience had taught Vicky to expect. She looked smiling and childish, as if she was on her best behaviour, but she unmasked her batteries at once. ' Vicky dear, I sent for you to tell you that it is im- possible for you to marry Freddy." " I wish you'd mind your own business, Vivy. I've heard it all before so many times from David Shand and your guardian and Lord Lyonesse." " Then they know more than I gave them credit for ! ' said Vivien grimly. " I don't understand you." " I didn't think you would ! " " What are you driving at, Vivien ? " cried Vicky impatiently. Vivien was in no haste to come to the point. One moment she wanted to spare Vicky, the next she gloated over torturing her. She loved kissing Vicky's soft cheeks. She came over and kissed her now, and as she kissed her the desire to spare her grew strong. But Vicky pushed her away. ' Oh, stop these Judas kisses if you have anything horrible to say ! " ' It's far better that I shouldn't say anything, and that you should take my word for it. I tell you on oath, the most solemn oath you choose to impose on me, that there is an insuperable bar to your marriage with Freddy. It has nothing whatever to do with the reasons which have been dinned into your ears. They are true enough, but I have never suggested them as obstacles. I should be the first to disregard them myself, if I wished to marry a man. Why won't you take my word for it ? " " Why won't I take your word for it ? Why in the face of heaven should I let you destroy my happiness without deigning a word of explanation ? I mean to marry Freddy whatever people may say." " I don't think you will." 212 VIVIEN DECLARES " I shall." ' Look at me ! " she said, smiling like an angel. Vicky looked at her sullenly. " Do you see any change in me ? " 1 Vivien, I could almost damn you ! First you tell me that there is some horrible new reason why I am not to marry the man I love, and then in the middle of it all, you ask me how you are looking. I have often felt inclined to wring your neck like a parrot's when you have exasperated me with your parrot's cry, in season and out of season, ' How am I looking ? ' But I never felt so inclined to wring it as I do at this present moment." " Well, how am I looking ? Do give me your opinion, because everything depends on it." ' I suppose you are going to tell me that Freddy cares more for you than he cares for me ! " " Do I look like it ? " Vicky scrutinized her, to try and find a clue. Certainly Vivien did look unusually lovely. Her face was really softer ; the lean leopard touch about it was disappearing. There was a new look in the eyes. ' You're in love with Freddy yourself, that is your new obstacle ! " cried Vicky wrathfully. " I tell you that that's no obstacle at all ! You may be in love with Freddy, but Freddy's in love with me — honestly, over head and ears, beyond recall by your lures, Paul's wife." ' Paul's wife ! ' echoed Vivien sweetly. " A nice husband I've got, living with another woman as his wife in rapture at Rome ! " ' Well, if he is, you've made him do it with the life you've led him." ' I know. I couldn't help it. We were born different. Paul was a darling to me. But I couldn't stand him. He bored me. I should have liked him for a father, and broken his heart by my disobedience. I love Paul. He's a man, but he's a poor sort of husband." ' Oh, stop your senseless rattle, Vivien, and tell me what you mean ! " Vivien was not to be ruffled. She was enjoying the excitement too much. " If I can prove that Freddy loves me more than you, will you give him up ? " 213 PAUL'S WIFE Vicky felt as if she had been shot, but her pride came to her rescue. " If Freddy has been false to me," she declared, " I'll renounce him from this minute." " Then see for yourself ! " said Vivien, placing herself in profile between Vicky and the light. Vicky scru- tinized her again from head to foot, and then, it came to her in a flash why Vivien had thrown off her dress, for standing only in her underclothes, profiled against the light, Vivien betrayed her approaching maternity. ' It's Freddy's," she said. " And if you knew how I had longed for it, you'd forgive me. Things might have been different if I had borne Paul a child." But Vicky heard nothing after the fatal words " It's Freddy's." Instinct convinced her that Vivien was telling the truth, and she was stunned. Mechanically she left the room and made her way to Paul's study, the room where Freddy and she had worked together and grown to love each other. As her reasoning powers came back to her, her common-sense, broad-minded view of life told her that it did not prove that Freddy had been false to her. For it was only during the past three or four months that the great affection had sprung up be- tween them, and there was nothing yet to prove that his thoughts had once strayed from her since their courtship began. Certainly she had not one day's negligence to reproach him with. CHAPTER XXIX A CONSERVATIVE PARTY Vicky had written the day before to tell Freddy that she would be at the St. Barbes' garden-party. The St. Barbes had a charming garden, which had once been an apple orchard, and now was a lawn shaded by old apple trees which had a fair show of apple blossom in the spring, though they were not good performers with fruit. It was crossed by mossy flagged paths, leading to old Italian stone seats and fountains. Here in June and July they gave garden-parties, which were among the principal gatherings of the Conservative Party. 214 A CONSERVATIVE PARTY As Paul and Rhoda had been so much ;it the St. Barbes' in the period before their elopement, the St. Barbes had been pressing in their invitations to Vivien and Vicky. No one knew the meaning of noblesse oblige better than John St. Barbc. Vicky knew that Freddy would be invited, because he was a connection of Mrs. St. Barbe's. Freddy was looking forward especially to the occasion, because he hoped to get Vicky to fix the day soon, and wished to introduce her as his future wife to a number of important people. Vicky had told him at Ascot that she liked him better in his pale grey racing suit and grey top hat than in anything else, so he- had put them on, and was wearing a bud of her favourite rose in his button-hole. The Blue Hungarian Band had just been playing " The Count of Luxem- burg " waltz until his blood tingled, and he was in a simmer of pleasurable excitement as he waited for the beloved to appear. Suddenly he saw Vicky coming down one of the stone alleys towards him, dressed not in the delicate and pale- coloured summery fabrics which became her best, and which she was m> fond of wearing, but in black from head to foot, as if she were in mourning, an impression that was heightened by the sadness of her face and the traces of weeping. He hurried to meet her. There was heart- yearning in the way she gave her hand, and tears were standing in her eyes. " Why, Vic," he cried, " what is the matter ? " ' I can't tell you now, dear, but I've got to talk it out with you, so come in after dinner to-night." It came as a blow to him that she did not with her usual frank hospitality ask him in to dinner if she wanted to talk to him afterwards. But he dismissed the thought as unworthy ; she had something very particular to talk about- — that was plain — and it might not be easy to get rid of Vivien quickly if he was dining there, while if the man she was engaged-to came to call on Vicky by appoint- ment, Vivien naturally would not come in until they rang for the farewell whiskey and soda. ' Freddy," said Vicky, after a pause, as they paced up the path side by side, " promise me not to allude 215 PAULS WIFE to this again until we meet to-night, will you, dear ? I don't want to spoil this afternoon." ' Why, of course ! ' It needed no promise for Freddy to put off an evil day. They strolled on up the causeway to where it ended in a paved circle, with a bench running all round the wall at the back, and a fountain from some Cardinal's villa — a Triton so mossy that the water would hardly pour from his horn — in the centre. Here they sat down, watching the intermittent jets of the fountain, and Freddy rattled on, to dispel Vicky's " blues." He pointed out the celebrities — the cream of the Conservative Party was on that apple-shaded lawn. He told her the humours of his reformed life ; he was really trying to settle down, and the cohort of money-lenders, book- makers and fancy trades of various descriptions who had found in him a light-hearted client, seemed to have been assiduous in their efforts to arrest such senile decay. They were an amusing crowd, and Freddy could tell a story very well. But the stories only served to sadden her, though she sometimes smiled in spite of herself. Presently John St. Barbe came in search of her, with Lord Vanstry, who had exhausted the arts of persuasion in the vain effort to make Paul join him. Failing to persuade Paul, he had postponed his crusade against Party Government. He had not met Miss Wentworth, and was glad to pay her the compliment of asking to be introduced to her. He was not prepared to meet such a beautiful creature, and so sad. But the sadness he put down to a wrong cause. He could understand Paul's flight being a blow, but now, weeks afterwards, his sister seemed still prostrated. What a pity that Paul had not this fine moral sense ! Lord Vanstrv carried Vicky off to meet some of his colleagues in the last Con- servative Cabinet. Freddy fluttered about like a butter- fly in search of a suitable flower. The ladies of his acquaintance, especially the best-looking of the young married women — the expectation class of his salad days — lured him up to say " How do you do ? ' by the graciousness of their smiles when they nodded. And if he thought that they would be pleasant friends for Vicky, 216 THE WAGES OF SIN he was politic, and if he thought that they were '* frictious," he was merely polite. Vicky's eyes often rested on him as she was enjoying the weighty honour of listening to the prosings of bearded ex-Ministers of the Crown — men some of whom become Ministers at the age when they would be superannuated from any other employment — peers and lords of many acres, or em- ployers of thousands of artisans. Freddy was honour- ably inconstant to his former friends. Whenever she looked again, he was talking to someone fresh — always welcome, always that fascinating figure, the man of the world in the outward shape of the fighting soldier, per- fectly dressed for the victories of Peace. John St. Barbe, an admirable host, presently came to her rescue, bringing up what he called the frigate- captains — the dashing men in their forties, of both Houses, who go about the country making fighting speeches at election times and dominate Society. They had a way with them, and interested Vicky, in spite of herself, just as they were interested in the forlorn, pretty sister of the erring Paul. But Vicky was glad when the time e*me for her to go and take possession of Freddy to see her home. Vivien had gone long before, frankly bored, and sent the car back for them. Vicky was silent as they drove home, but kept a hand on Freddy's arm. CHAPTER XXX THE WAGES OF SIN Vicky was right in surmising that Vivien would let them have a tete-d-tete undisturbed. She would even have gone out, if Vicky had asked, so anxious was she for the seed which she had sown to sprout. Generous, even in her misery, Vicky was torn by the injury which Vivien had done to Paul. She must have been unfaithful to Paul for months before he was unfaithful to her. Why could she not have let him know, have let him divorce her and be in a position to offer marriage, instead of an elope- ment, to Rhoda ? There would have been something approaching magnanimity in her liaison with Freddy if she had entered into it to give Paul his freedom, when he 217 PAUL'S WIFE so plainly could have Rhoda's love. But no ! As it seemed, she had deliberately waited for Paul to mess up his life, too, before she divulged her guilt. Vicky could never forgive her that. As for Freddy, she gave him full credit for fidelity to herself. She was ready to believe that his liaison with Vivien had happened before he fell in love with herself. In allowing herself to return his affection, she had taken for granted that he had had affairs. How could a man like Freddy, who denied himself nothing and was the idol of women, have escaped them ? That he should be only hers in the present and the future was all that she had asked, and that she could not doubt, for she knew how he had repulsed temptations like being asked in when he brought Vivien back from a theatre or an evening-party. But now her house of cards had fallen, unless . . . These thoughts were passing through her mind when Freddy was announced. She knew by the look on his face that he was true to her, and threw herself into his arms. It was long before either of them spoke. Never had she given herself up to the moment with such abandon. At last she shook herself free and rang for coffee. When they had taken it, Freddy advanced towards her. 1 No, Freddy, sit down. We have the greatest thing in the world to talk about, the conflict between love and duty." " What do you mean, Vicky ? " ' I mean that I know about you and Vivien." " You know what ? " ' I think I know more than you, Freddy. Has Vivien told you that she is going to be a mother ? " ' Good God, no ! Is that true ? You would not tell a lie, Vicky, I know you would not tell a lie." " It's as true as I'm sitting here." Freddy made no attempt to deny his guilt. He could not tell a lie to Vicky, to anyone so sincere and generous as Vicky. He waited for her to proceed. He wanted to discover what ray of hope there was for him with the woman he adored. But she was turning the matter over in her mind and was silent. So at length he said, " Vicky dear, what is^going to happen ? " 218 THE WAGES OF SIN She did not seem to hear him, for she eried passion- ately, " You have robbed me of all I value most in life ! ' ' Not that, Vicky. I know I've been an awful cad, but honour bright, I haven't been unfaithful to you." " How can you say that ? " she cried. ' Because it's true. All this happened before I fell in love with you. I can swear that I have hardly looked at Vivien since." " But that is unfaithfulness to her." ' No, not really. For it was in a fit of remorse and emptiness, when she had tired of me, that I first under- stood the pcrfectness of your womanhood." " Would to God you hadn't ! " " Why do you say that, Vicky ? " " Because then I should not love you." ' But if you love me and I love you, what does it signify ? Two people make the world." ' There is always the life beyond — even if Paul had not fallen like the Morning Star." ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." ' Yes, Freddy. We have done sufficient evil in our day." ' I may have, but I'll swear that you haven't." '* Oh, how can you say that, when I've taken you away from Vivien, after she has given you so much ? " ' You did not take me away ! " he cried hotly. " I told you that she had grown tired of me before ..." " Before ? " ' Before I came to you. . . . You believe me, Vicky, don't you ? " " Yes, I believe you." ' Then it won't make any difference, this discovery ? " It made no difference to Vicky's love. When she gave her love, she gave it without reserve. And she did not deny this to herself, but duty played the chief string in Vicky's nature, soft, merry creature though she was. And Duty left her no doubts. When she spoke she begged the question of her own marriage with Freddy by a corollary. ' You must marry Vivien as soon as the divorce can be arranged." ' But Vivien does not want to marry me, and it would 219 PAUL'S WIFE be hell to mc to marry Vivien and feel that I was cut off from you for ever." But Vicky was not to be shaken. She had given her word to renounce him if a certain thing was proved, and even if this had not happened Freddy's duty would have been only too plain to her. But her loss was none the less because she decided so swiftly. She felt as if all the flowers had suddenly disappeared from the earth, as if the sun had left the sky for an Arctic winter. " Freddy, you must go away." " Go away to-night and never see you again ? " ' Of course you'll see me often, when you and Vivien are married." He could not see the dagger which she was driving into her heart. " I don't mean then, but now," he pleaded miserably. " No," said the practical Vicky, " you can't go for some days. Things must be settled." " And may I see you ? " " You will have to see me a great deal, but don't kiss me, Freddy." The look on his face made her add, " Not after to-day. You love me and I love you, but you don't belong to me." " But if Vivien won't marry me ? " " Vivien must marry you." Freddy said his lingering good-night. Vicky was an incomparable lover. Looking back on it, Freddy could not judge if it was cruelty or kindness. It was the first time that he had paid Sin its Wages. Vivien was responsible for all Vicky's dull load of misery. For the whole episode between Freddy and Vicky had been the work of one of her impish freaks. When she grew tired of him, Satan suggested as a bit of mischief to her idle hands that they should make the wise and unerring Vicky fall in love with the discarded Freddy. She showed diabolical ingenuity in emphasizing their good points to each other, without appearing to move a single wire, and when they began to like each other she behaved like an angel. It might have struck Vicky as 220 THE WAGES OF SIN suspicious that Vivien — an cnjante terrible if ever there was one — had not played one jade's trick on them, had never broken in on a tete-d-tete in her malicious way — even more, had been really good-natured and accommo- dating. It had all been so easy and pleasant that she had taken it for granted. The affair was begun and fostered by malice. Then when Freddy's and Vicky's affection for each other was fairly rooted, wayward Vivien's mood changed, and she was so pleased with their happiness that she continued her good behaviour. But such a mood was never permanent with Vivien, and the desire to triumph over Vicky grew stronger and stronger, until she could withstand it no longer. When she had success- fully wrecked Vicky's happiness she did not know what more she wanted. She flouted the idea of marrying Freddy. " But what will the world think ? " " I don't care what the world thinks. I never have cared what the world thinks." " But you have to care." " Why should I ? I have money enough to do what I like. And I can always have a lover — a fine lover — whenever I choose to whistle for one, wherever I am." " Men, yes ! " said Vicky. " You know that I can never retain the good opinion of a woman." This was true, but Vicky was not going to let it stand as an argument. ' It's your duty to Paul to marry Freddy." " I don't see why," said Vivien. " You know that it could not be Paul's child, but nobody else could know that it wasn't, and in the eye of the law it will be his child. I drew your attention to the facts because you were going to marry Freddy. And, if you're so fond of him as it appears, I don't see why you shouldn't marry him." " You don't see why I shouldn't marry him ? ' " No. If I was in love, I'd forgive a man anything. I love Paul well enough to forgive him freely." " You know very well that he has much more to for- give you than you have to forgive him," retorted Vicky wrathfully. 221 PAUL'S WIFE cc Of course I do. But it wouldn't prevent my hating him if I didn't love him. Do you love Paul, Vicky ? " " How can you ask ? " ' Because I am going to put your love to the proof." " How ? " ' By making you promise that you will never disclose to anyone else that the child is not his. It's my secret." " I have told Freddy already." ' Freddy doesn't matter. He'll keep the secret for both our sakes when he understands." " When he understands what ? " Vivien was for once in her life taken aback. She could not find an answer at first. Then she said, " When I tell him why his name has to be kept out of the court." " And have I not a right to know ? " " Not if you love Paul." Certain as she felt that it would not injure Paul if she knew why, Vicky said, " I'll promise without your telling me if you'll promise to marry Freddy." " If I'll promise to marry Freddy, Avhen you want to marry him yourself ? It's a funny old world, isn't it ? But I'll do anything to oblige. Only what price Freddy ? Isn't he to have any say in the matter ? " " No," replied Vicky. " He's to marry you." " I'm quite agreeable," she said, with a levity incom- prehensible to her sister-in-law. " I was tired of him as a lover, but I don't think I should get tired of him as a husband. You needn't see so much of a husband. Be- sides, he would make me jealous, and that would give me an interest in life." As she was leaving the room she con Id not resist a Parthian shot. " Are you quite sure that you can spare him, Vicky ? " CHAPTER XXXI PAUL RE-ENTERS THE ARENA Pail and his Virginia were absent from England for three years, leading the life of the gods, remote from human cares and human triumphs, mortal only in the love which illuminated their ambrosial existence. The people who 222 PAUL RE-ENTERS THE ARENA met them in their dahabeah, moored on the Nile between the ruins of Karnak and the ruins of Thebes, or living in romantic villas outside Athens or Syracuse or their own Rome, were attracted by Rhoda's loveliness, and t heir being so much in love with each other, before chance betrayed that she had been the most famous woman in British politics and he the Prime Minister of Australia. A lying spirit suggested that they had sacri- ficed these great positions for their elopement, whereas the elopement was subsequent to her leaving the Liberal Party and some years after he had retired from the Australian Premiership. In any case, travellers' morals are accustomed to take the same liberties as travellers' talcs when they meet a beautiful and well-born woman, living in delightful surroundings with a famous man, who is willing to admit them into her charmed circle. They do not ask what business she has to be there ; they humour her to the top of her bent, though they may spice their tales with her afterwards. And since Vivien was sympathetically expeditious in " putting her divorce through," as she phrased it, in a good deal less than a year they rectified their position by marriage at an English Consulate. Rhoda, who had been schooled in the beauties of ancient and mediaeval cities by great scholars and art- critics ever since she was a child, was teaching her brilliant husband to love painting and sculpture and architecture, the last above all, almost as he loved herself. Love and aesthetics filled them with the wine of life. They felt as if they had never been anything but lotus-caters, so all- sufficing was their hedonism. They might have gone on to the end of their lives pursuing the spirit of beauty in the kingdoms of the sun, but for that dread cataclysm which overtook the world in the first days of August, 1914. There was no need for them to hurry back to England with their two beautiful boys, to avoid imprisonment ; the land they were in did not draw the sword for months after the outbreak. But Paul longed to be back in Eng- land, to fight the danger against which he had warned the sleepy Ostriches in vain, and Rhoda longed to have him in the lists again. 223 PAUL'S WIFE He received no mandate from the Prime Minister. The arch-opportunist was afraid of the burning zeal, the un- compromising patriotism of the Australian, and did not relish the presence of an outspoken ex-Prime Minister. But Paul soon found his niche in frustrating the con- spiracy of the Cabinet against the Press, a conspiracy which pretended to conceal the high policy of our rulers from the Germans, but was devised to conceal their incapacity from the public. So stern was the censorship of the Press that the enslavement of the nation was almost complete. Only one newspaper proprietor defied the censor, and he was crippled at every turn until he thought of Paul Wentworth and offered to supply him with facts if Paul would make himself a living newspaper and trumpet the truth daily at some great public meeting. So strict was the censorship of letters that he went in person to Italy to ask Paul. Paul agreed, and suddenly found himself the voice of the nation, for which his dauntless courage, his uncompromisingness, and his blazing eloquence made him singularly fit. In the Social battle they found an unexpected and inconsistent ally in Lady Lyonesse. She was mad with them for what they had done, and except on political business, never opened her lips to them in private. Domestically, in spite of the political truce, she kept a wall of hatred between them. But since, in the years before the war, her chief object in life, as the rebellious wife of a Liberal leader, had been to tear down the shams with which England was being betrayed to Germany, and since the Press censorship was being used to per- petuate these shams, and her son-in-law was the Samson who could throw down the walls of the Philistine temple, she felt it her duty to lock up her private wrongs in her heart and do her bit in demolishing the secret Star Chamber of the Press Censor. She defined her attitude to her daughter soon after the Wentworths had returned to England. They were staying in a little house in Cowley Street, Westminster, which John St. Barbe, living at Richmond, kept as a con- venience for Parliamentary work. She wrote to her daughter : 224 PAUL RE-ENTERS THE ARENA " Dear Mrs. Wentworth, " I don't wish my private animosities to stand in the way of the salvation of our country. I regard Mr. Wentworth as the person best qualified to save it and therefore entitled to my support. It is plain that the best way I can give it is by appearing to forgive you, as your weak-minded father has done. This I am willing to do. You and your husband can come to our houses as much as you like. You can even establish yourselves in Lyonesse House, if our country has anything to gain by it. I will go about Avith you, so as to strengthen your Social position, and when we are before the public, our relations shall appear to be exactly what they have always been. " But all this is on one condition — that our reconcilia- tion shall be a whited sepulchre. I haven't forgiven you and never shall forgive you for the way in which you have disgraced me, and you must promise me — both you and your husband — when you happen to be with me alone, to maintain absolute silence on all subjects except politics. I mean to cut you dead in private. " Let me know in as few- words as possible if you agree. " Yours truly, " C. Lyonesse." To which Rhoda, after consulting with Paul, tele- graphed her reply : " Agreed, if I may tell the St. Barbes. — R. Went- worth." Lady Lyonesse telegraphed back : " In confidence, yes. — C. Lyonesse." John St. Barbe had almost a personal grievance in the matter, because Rhoda was a connection of his wife's and his whole training and instincts condemned what Rhoda and Paul had done. But he saw that their sin must be forgiven, or the influence of Paul, his old brother-in-arms in the Universal Service League, so great an asset to the country, must suffer. Therefore 225 15 PAUL'S WIFE he, who disapproved of divorce even for the innocent party, led the way in accepting the Wentworths socially, by lending them his Westminster house. Most Con- servative politicians followed him in condoning their past. In such a matter no one's lead could be better than John St. Barbe's. Since Rhoda was as much a politician as her husband, he saw them both daily in the library of the Cowley Street house, which had suddenly become a focus for the dissemination of news, like a newspaper-office. He was glad that patriotism had made him accept their marriage ; for when he saw Rhoda's unbroken pride and innocence and their romantic affection for each other, his antipathy to divorce was shaken. Conservative hostesses, too, on the whole kept their compact. Rhoda was besieged by callers who, whatever they said behind her back, welcomed her to the Party household as the Prodigal Son's wife. Her personal value was not small. As an ex-organizer of the " Os- triches," she would, they thought, make a good point oVapjpui for the numerous deserters. But when Rhoda was established in a house of her own and had to begin the concentration systematically, she found it uphill work. It was not so easy for the " cave " of important and wealthy people who had finished with " Ostrich ' : Liberalism, like herself, to come to her house as it was for the Conservatives. A revengeful little reptile, like Matthew Purdy, could scare them with the venomous epigram that Rhoda's defection was " adultery coupled with desertion." The younger Liberals, who had been more Rhoda's personal friends than her father's, had not abandoned '' Ostrichism " to the same degree. They had their careers before them, and were rather fascinated with the idea of being terrible fellows. Mr. and Mrs. Robespierre Bullion — Mr. and Mrs. Cassius De Beers — ■ that was how they appeared to themselves. It was convenient for them to think Rhoda a wicked woman. She knew what sybarites these tribunes from Portland Place were, and how slender were their claims — beyond the possession of wealth — to take part in the administra- tion of their country. They tried to keep up the social 226 UNRELENTING barrier against her. And now she cared — not for the sake of her home-life ; there Paul and her children were all-sufficient for her and the opinion of the world nothing, at any rate since the Conservative hostesses had taken upon themselves to accept her — but because her political energies were reawakened. She wanted to wield the influence which she had once wielded, for Paul, and for England as Paul saw it. And she was determined to organize the War Liberals who, with few exceptions, chiefly Welsh, were drifting about in a rudder- less way, having got up only sufficient steam to scrap their shibboleths. The Conservative ladies continued their attentions. Paul was in the inmost councils of the Party. But the revolters of Lyonesse House had shown no signs of making a focus of Catesby House, the Elizabethan mansion stranded in Westminster to which the Went- worths removed from Cowley Street. Paul and his wife had a good deal of time to themselves still. Rhoda did not know whether to be grateful for this or not. She loved Paul better every day, but from the hour that the Conservatives had agitated for his return to politics, she had set her heart on seeing him in the inner circle of the Cabinet, and this meant work, work, work. She determined to disregard the risk of social snubs and to start her task of concentrating the War-Liberals into a powerful organization by personal canvassing. CHAPTER XXXII UNRELENTING She was to meet with something Worse than Social snubs. Lady Lyonesse's indignation with the culprits knew no bounds, though she had been so fond of Paul as well as Rhoda. Nor was it unnatural, seeing that Paul had run away with the daughter whom she had expected to capture a Duke, or something very like it. Prior to this, she would not have believed that anything would have made her disagree with " the gentleman of the House of Commons." But when he said to her, " Paul Wentworth 227 15* PAUL'S WIFE is the greatest man in the Empire — bar the combatants — ■ can't you forgive him, Caroline ? " she said, " No, Saint, 1 can't, and I don't understand your asking me to." " I'm truly sorry, Caroline. Even if you can't do that, can you harden your heart against Roe ? " " Yes, Saint, I can. I can hate as well as any woman in England, but the public shan't know it. I'm a Fenwick ; I'm game, if I'm nothing else." If it had not been for Paul's sake, Rhoda would have repaid her mother in her own coin, for her easy-going father, the parent to whom she was far more closely attached, when he found how chivalrous Paul was to his daughter, and what a commanding position he had among politicians, proceeded along the lines of easiest resistance — frankly constituting himself his son-in-law's political henchman, which presented no difficulties, since Paul had become an out-and-out Lloyd-Georgeite. How was the public to guess that Lady Lyonesse, when she accompanied her daughter on to the platform, which she had never done in Rhoda's orthodox days, and annotated her approval of the fiery cross of Paul's eloquence by smiles and glances to his wife, was acting a part, and in her heart was cursing the beautiful and brilliant girl who was the only child that had ever sucked at her breast ? Paul would have no truce. He was not as solicitous lor his advancement as Rhoda was, and if his mother- in-law would not forgive his wife, he would have none of iier ; whereas of Lord Lyonesse, because he was magnani- mous to Rhoda, he made the greatest confidant of all in his lonely political greatness — a situation made easier by the fact that Paul himself was too wealthy to be affected by Lord Lyonesse's money. As Paul Wentworth's recognized intermediary, the ex-Liberal host was a more real force in politics than in the palmiest days of Lyonesse House. The connection brought father and daughter as close together as ever they had been, and Rhoda, having been forgiven so much, idolized the sunny-tempered mediocrity almost as much as her leonine husband, and was proportionately happy, except when she remembered h< r self-torturing mother, who would have made such a good mother for Paul. She had little opportunity of 228 UNRELENTING forgetting it. For from afternoon meetings, they often had to drive away together, and then the contrast was shrivelling. As they passed from the platform on which Paul had been the voice of the Empire, Hinging defiance at the Hun, there would generally be one or other of the Conservative chiefs escorting Paul's wife and her mother to the car, pouring out eloquent tributes to his greatness — a homage from one of the most honoured names in England. A minute afterwards, as the car was spinning along to Lyonesse House, her ladyship would be sitting up with a mouth drawn like a shark's, stonily silent. Her Junius Brutus attitude brought deep distress to Rhoda, who loved her mother ardently, and had always admired the way in which she had refused to bow the knee when their house was the Liberal Party's House of Rimmon ; but it did not bring repentance : Rhoda was conscious that she " would live the same life over if she had to live again." When they reached the house, the same grim comedv would be played. To the chauffeur and the footmen mother and daughter seemed to be on the natural terms of affection, just as they would have been if nothing had happened. But when the servants left them to their tea. Nemesis threw her cold shadow between them ; Rhoda rested in the disgrace which she deserved. If Lord Lyonesse came in, Lady Lyonesse left the room, whether she had finished her tea or not ; she would not be a witness to his weakness. This caused him to feel that he had to make up to Rhoda for her mother's coldness. It was killing three birds with one stone for him to yield to his inclinations, have the sensation of magnanimity, and serve his country's interests. It did not quite make up to Rhoda for the defection of the sterner parent, though it was true that she expected less quarter than she had received in that direction. Once, when they had returned from one of Paul's triumphs, Lady Lyonesse forgot her stipulation that they should only converse about politics, and her indignation displayed itself in words. " Only think how proud we should have been to-day, Rhoda, if you hadn't spoilt it by doing that ! " 229 PAUL'S WIFE tt Mother dear, we shouldn't have been there. You had washed Paul out of my life." Lady Lyonesse took no heed of the defence ; nor was she more topical in the attack. " I never thought that a child of mine would forget that she was a lady. I could have forgiven anything else. But to dress up in your maid's clothes and run away with a married man, when you were all that we had to carry on the family, and had been made heir to your father's honours. ... ! ' 1 I feel all this," said Rhoda, " as deeply as you do, and I should never have done it if you had not forced me." " How did I force you ? " 1 You separated me from him ; you neither let me see him nor write to him ; you shut me up like a prisoner, though I was six-and-twenty, and accustomed to exceptional liberty." " Well, I had to stop your meeting somehow." " And not content with that, you were going to make the sea sever us by taking me to Java on the yacht, so that meetings should be absolutely impossible." ' Why not ? It was wrong for you to meet." Why not ? Because meeting Paul was my life to me." ' Life, indeed ? You were better dead ! ' " Why couldn't you trust me, mother ? Until you put your spoke in, our meetings had been entirely innocent. I had only a platonic love for Paul. I put him on a pedestal and worshipped him. But I had no more idea of giving him any personal attachment than I had of giving it to Mr. Lloyd George, when I was delirious with enthusiasm over his National Insurance scheme." " I wonder what his wife thought of it all ? ' " She liked me as much as he did. She told me so. She is very candid about her dislikes." " She might have liked you personally, without wishing you to see quite so much of her husband." " I had her assurance to the contrary. She said more than once, ' The more you see of him the better — it makes him less like a sore with a bare head.' " "She had an elegant way of expressing herself." " Candour and slang go hand-in-hand. If she had 230 * HOW RHODA FOUND VIVIEN WITH PAUL wished to be hypocritical, she would have clothed it in decent language." " It would have been difficult to import any decency into it. The whole affair was disgraceful ! " " I must admit that, but it was, as I have proved, entirely your fault." " You had no business to take the law into your own hands." " What did you want me to do ? To get Paul to apply lor a writ of habeas corpus ? " Neither she nor her mother saw the unintentional play on words. To her mother the phrase meant absolutely nothing ; she had never heard of the Habeas Corpus Act. " I wanted you to keep the Fifth Commandment, to honour your father and mother." Rhoda had desired more fervently that her mother should keep the Eighth Commandment, by not trying to steal her happiness, but she did not say so. She wished the unpleasant dialogue to die down, so she put on a conciliatory expression and held her peace. Which her mother interpreted as Rhoda's acknowledgment of defeat. So Rhoda rose to go. In those days they did not even shake hands, except in public. CHAPTER XXXIII HOW RHODA FOUND VIVIEN WITH PAUL Rhoda had had a long day at it, and had arrived home for tea dead tired. How she hoped that Paul would be in the quiet little room overlooking the garden — their ' Privy Council " room, to which strangers were never admitted. " Is your master in, Jevons ? " she asked the smart parlour-maid — Paul still insisted on all women servants, moderate in number. ' Yes, ma'am. He is in the little room with a lady." " What lady ? " " She wouldn't give any name, ma'am. But she must be a very old friend, ma'am." The girl's words, spoken with perfect civility and apparently without arriire-pensee, smote Rhoda's heart heavily. Paul need not have allowed her into that room, 231 PAUL'S WIFE however old a friend she was. And who was this old friend who was so intimate ? There was no friend Paul had talked about who seemed to fit the situation. As she neared the door, she partly shook off her depression in the happiness of getting back to Paul. But when she opened the door, she could have fainted, if she had known how, for there, pouring out her heart to Paul, was Vivien — Paul's first wife. Both came forward to meet her. Vivien held out her hand cordially. Paul kissed her, and putting his arm round her, led her to the arm-chair in which he had been sitting, and seating her in it, sat himself down on the arm, with a hand on her shoulder. It was only then that Rhoda noticed Vivien's widow's weeds — very fashion- able weeds, with their black and white crepe particularly becoming to Vivien's red eyes and hair and transparent complexion. Rhoda began, without the irony of the question striking her : " Have you lost your husband, Mrs. Fen wick ? " " Mayn't it be Vivien ? " " May it ? It is for you to say." " Vivien, please. Yes, poor Freddy's gone, just before the War. He died like the sport that he was." In cold print this slangy summary of her husband's death may look brutal, yet it suited the man and his widow as no other euthanasia could have done. One thing was clear, that unless Vivien was the most consummate hypocrite, she meant them no harm. Her voice told that without putting it into words. ' It's lucky that you didn't come in five minutes earlier, Rhoda," said the enjante terrible. " Why ? " asked Rhoda, with a little shudder, for she knew that she must be prepared for a shock. ' Because you would have found me in Paul's arms." Rhoda was confident of Paul ; she was not indignant. But she was flustered, and both of them noticed it. She waited for Vivien to explain. ' I was being forgiven," said Vivien, and Paul said, " I'm not evading, but I'll wait until Vivien has finished." 1 Forgi'^n for what ? " asked the puzzled Rhoda. ' For divorcing Paul instead of his divorcing me." How could he ? " 232 HOW RHODA FOUND VIVIEN WITH PAUL " Well, he could have before . . ." " I understand, but I'm afraid that he did not know it," said the equally candid Rhoda. kt That doesn't matter," replied Vivien. " Paul will tell you why I did not take the blame until this afternoon." The mystified expression on Rhoda's face showed that she had not seen the afternoon's papers. Vivien handed them to her as she might have passed her the salt at lunch. Rhoda read the top one, with a little catch in her throat at the thought of having robbed this woman of her husband. When she had read the top one she laid the bundle down. " I see," she said. " He was loving you for being so generous." Vivien was touched by Rhoda's consideration in using the word " loving " instead of " kissing " or " embracing." " I suppose it was that," she said humbly. Rhoda was as touched by this humility as Vivien had been by her consideration. It was so unlike Vivien. " May I kiss you, too ? " she asked. " Don't get" up," said Vivien, stepping to where Rhoda sat and stooping for their lips to meet. " Then you didn't mind our kissing ? " asked Vivien. " No," said Rhoda. " I'm glad you didn't, for I'm sure I shall do it again. I love him so dearly as a friend, though I failed to love him as a husband." " I don't deserve to get off so cheaply as this," said Paul. " I kissed her because I could not resist it, and was thoroughly ashamed of myself. I was sure that I should be caught." " I don't think that it is natural for you not to do it, when you are feeling friendly. I shall expect you to. It's better for you to do it with my knowledge and ap- proval, than in the way which you did it just now, Paul dear. It is better for sensible human beings. If y45u do it as a matter of course, it will be a safety valve." " It will," said Vivien. " I only wanted it then as a reward for being good." Rhoda could not help smiling at Vivien's naivete. Naivete has its uses. Here it established a frank friend- ship. 233 PAUL'S WIFE* CHAPTER XXXIV Vivien's confession Paul had been in the little room, piled up in an arm-chair, absorbed in the materials of a coming speech — in the position which Vivien knew so well — when the maid had ushered her in an hour before, announced simply — by her own request — as " A lady to see you, sir." He began hastily to relieve himself of the newspapers, notebooks and pamphlets arranged in a heap on his knee, which looked like pure disorder but had their method. But Vivien glided swiftly across to him, and kissed him in her old way, crying, " Sit still, Paul — don't make a stranger of me." " What have you come for ? " he asked resolutely. " To see you, and . . ." " Rhoda." " And Rhoda, if she is in." " Rhoda is not in." " So much the better." " But it is simply impossible to be seeing you like this ! " he said, shooting all his papers on to the floor, in utter recklessness of the clues. Vivien gave one of her old smiles. " Nothing is im- possible — especially to you, Paul." " But. . . ." " Be sensible. This thing has got to be talked out. You'd better hear what I've got to say, anyhow." Paul, as a politician, had always been ready to hear what an adversary had to say. It weakened malice, and gave him points for his speeches. Fear of anyone's tongue was as unknown to him as fear of their fists. His habit had given him a rough quarter of an hour in one way or the other sometimes, but it had made coalition easier, and there had been a good deal of non-party legislation in the first days of the Australian Parliament. But it was not the habit of Australian political enemies to come with smooth faces and phrases to veil their 234 VIVIEN'S CONFESSION attack — that belonged to diplomacy, not politics, and few diplomats came to Australia, except Governors sent out from England to prevent friendly Australia from becoming a republic in form as well as in reality, or foreign commer- cial envoys, who came to claim the " most favoured nation " treatment. Political enemies began with bluster, and indignation was their stock-in-trade. Vivien, in this mood, would cajole him into security and then, when she had got behind his guard, would use a meta- phorical dagger. And he objected to having the inter- view at all, except in the presence of Rhoda. So he said quite sternly, " What do you want, Vivien ? " " I want to be your greatest friend — after your wife." The last three words rather disarmed him. It would have been more like Vivien to pour vitriol on the idea of his present union being a marriage at all, and she had used the words with perfect simplicity, as if there was no more to be said about it. So he mollified a little. " I'm very fond of you, Paul. I'm more in love with you now than I ever was, after I had got over my girl- hood's passion for you." She saw his face harden again. " Don't be frightened — I'm not going to try and run away with you." He did not like pleasantry on the subject. She could see that, and with the persistence in attaining an object desired which had always characterized her, she changed her methods. " Look here, Paul, I'm not up to any of my tricks. I've come here to discuss the situa- tion fairly and squarely. And I'm your friend. But you must hear what I've got to say." "Honour bright?" " Honest Injun." " Well ? " " I've an odd reason for falling in love with you again, but I suppose it isn't odd for me. I admire you for leaving me. I made life impossible, and it wasn't right for a man of your spirit to put up with it." His face grew troubled, but it lightened as she proceeded. " You got on my nerves ; you bored me ; I hated you. I must have bored you too. But you had other things to think about, and you always had a way of dismisr ing disagreeables from your thoughts while I sat in my room 235 PAUL'S WIFE distilling them. If you hadn't run away from me, I should have run away from you before long — I couldn't have stood it much longer." "Is it profitable, this conversation, Vivy ? " He was softened by the old familiar frankness of the wife of his youth — the " Vivy " told her that, and it helped her not to beat about the bush. ' I maj as well tell you at once that I had deceived you." " But, Vivy," he said, with his first smile, " you were always deceiving me. It was the only amusement you cared about." 4 " Not in that way, Paul." " What do you mean ? " " I never really cared about men until poor Freddy came along." " He's dead ! " interjected Paul. Big tears formed in Vivien's eyes. She gave a little nod and went on, " My passion for you was an intellectual one. It was pride in your achievements. Until I got bored with our marriage I liked its physical side in a quiet way, but I never cared for it. Indeed, I thought it a pity that men and women could not live together without it. I see now that this was the origin of our unhappiness. I should have been grateful to you when you began to drift away from me, if I had had anything to fill my life. Then Freddy came. I was impressed with him from the beginning. It was the first time that I had been thrown into constant contact with the dashing English type. His clothes struck me first ; he was always so perfectly- dressed, poor dear ! We don't get perfectly-dressed men in Australia, do we, Paul ? " ' Australia wouldn't stand them. But I. see their uses." ' I was even more impressed with his manners. For while he ' sir'd ' you because he was your adviser, as he used to ' sir ' his Colonel in the Army, and treated you with the deference he'd given to his Colonel, and Vicky and me one minute as the Colonel's relations and the next as attractive women, he was such a spoilt boy, with all the titled people he was connected-with by birth." 23l' time in the house to satisfy Mother Grundy, but never stayed to a meal unless I pressed him, and never made love to me in any way. And he always came perfectly turned out, and brought me violets." " Why are you telling me all this rigmarole, Vivien ? Are you trying to curry favour with me by demonstrating that you and Fenwick never lived together as man and wife after you were married — or what ? " " Oh, Paul, do wait and see. I really have something important on my mind." Paul was so incensed that he felt inclined to say, " I wish you would get it off on me as soon as possible ! ' But a quarter of a century of politics had given him some experience as a mind-reader, and he was sure that Vivien had something vital to say, if she could only 240 VIVIEN'S CONFESSION check her forensic propensities and get to the point, so he said to her, with the manner that had won him almost as many votes as his brains and his backbone, " I'm sure that you have something to tell me, Vivy, and I suppose I'd better let you do it in your own way." " You're certainly taking me at my word," he said, as she proceeded : " This went on I don't know how long. I was not feeling strong enough to do much, and the child was a new toy. But when I was thoroughly strong again, one day I said to Freddy, when he came round, ' Freddy, take me out somewhere to-night. I need a change.' He said, ' The very thing ! What shall we do ? We'll dim- out, of course. Shall it be at the Club or at a restaurant ? And then we'll go and see Hawtrey, and then we'll go back and have supper at the Club, because it has no early-closing like there is at an hotel, and then I'll see you to your door.' Paul, I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. Poor Freddy was adorable ; there was not a betUr-turned-out man in the room at the Club, and there must have been five hundred people in it. And you know what a baby I am about that ! " she added, suddenly realizing the reflection that what she was saying cast on Paul. " He did the thing superbly, though he couldn't afford it out of the allow- ance I was giving him. He was discretion itself during the dinner, and at the play and at supper after the play. He behaved as if he were still your secretary, instead of my husband. And when we got back to the flat and he opened the door with my latch-key, he took up his hat and ran downstairs. I ran to the landing and called after him, ' Freddy ! Freddy ! ' He came up again hesitatingly. ' You must come in and have a whiskey and soda,' I said. ' I can't let you go like this after you have given me such a jolly night ! ' " " I know the rest," said Paul dryly. " Yes, I think you know the rest," said Vivien, " that is, up to a certain point." " And afterwards ? " 241 16 PAUL'S WIFE 1 I gave him that latch-key." " And ? " ' I thought that it was the most delightful way that a husband and wife could live together. Freddy took me everywhere ; he was devoted, but he lived in his chambers and paid stolen visits to me." ' Oh, Vivien, what is the good of telling me all this ? Are you doing it to pain me, or from a sort of disease, because you can't help yourself ? " " Patience, Paul, patience ! We're not far from the end now. Well, this plan worked splendidly until I grew so fond of him that I could not bear his going away at all, and then he came and lived in the flat like any other good husband, and he turned out so well — consider- ing. No, I oughtn't to say considering. He really turned over a new leaf. For if he had nothing to do except enjoy himself and make me enjoy myself, he did that well. I never knew what it was to be bored." ' Fen wick was a genius ! " said Paul, thinking aloud more than addressing Vivien ; he was rather sore at Vivien's making him listen to all this ; he felt that it was undignified and his patience was nearly exhausted, when he remembered that Freddy was dead, and asked with feeling, " What was the end of it all, Vivy ? How did poor Fenwick die ? " " It was coming down the hill at Slapton, in Devon- shire. We were having the loveliest motoring tour. We were staying at the Slapton Hotel, where people go for fishing in the lake. I hate fishing, and it was out of the season, but we were all alone except for the hotel people, and so far from anything — I forget how far we were from Dartmouth ; perhaps it was ten miles — but I had run out of chocolates, and Freddy said he'd run into Dartmouth with the car and get them while I was having my siesta after lunch. When I woke up, I went to meet him at the bottom of the hill to get into the car. I was terrified at that hill ; it isn't safe for any vehicle to go down, and I'd sworn I'd go back to town by some other way. I heard the car's toot just when I got to within a stone's throw of the bottom of the hill. I knew the toot— it was my own car that we 242 VIVIEN'S CONFESSION were using. An instant afterwards it came charging down the hill. At that moment the pet lamb of the little child who lives in the public house at the bottom of the hill broke away from its string and ran into the road with the child after it. Freddy could have passed the child, but he would have run over the lamb, and the child was as fond of the lamb as he was of the child. He knew the danger of putting the brake on coming down a hill like that at the pace he was using — he was a first-rate driver, though he was so reckless — but rather than kill the child's lamb, he did it, and the next instant the car had turned a somersault. When his body was taken out, I shouldn't have recognized him, and the lamb hopped about bleating, with the child chasing it, until I could have killed them both." " And that is what you had to tell me ? " said Paul, much softened, for he had liked Freddy, in spite of all his faults. " The episode is over now. Isn't that so, Vivy ? " " No, I haven't come to it yet," she said, when her emotion allowed her to answer him. " But I am coming to it now. Paul, I have done you a great wrong." ' Well, you have confessed it, and I am not one to harbour malice." " But I haven't confessed it yet. And that is what weighs on my soul. You ought to have divorced me, not me you. I was Freddy's mistress before you thought of going off with Rhoda. If you had only known, you had all the right under heaven to get rid of me and marry her." 4 What you did does not alter what I did, Vivy," he said quietly. He forbore to add that as far as heaven was concerned he thought he had done quite right — that it was she who was concerned in the matter, not the Ten Commandments. He was not prepared for her reply, though he had always found her ready to brush away conventionalities in her own favour with ruthless clear-sightedness. Vivien had intuition ; she read his thoughts now. " You are too just to excuse yourself, and yet you feel that you did right. I think so too. You were 243 16* PAUL'S WIFE justified in beginning a new life. I spent my life in proving incompatibility of temper." ' Then you condone what I have done ? " ' I approve of it, dear. I have lost a husband whose good qualities I never could appreciate, and found a friend whom I love. But let me get on, Paul." He could not help laughing — the kind little laugh of sheer amusement, the laugh which had saved him more than once when things were at the breaking point in politics. ' You know I've tried to get you to the point all the afternoon, Vivy." 4 You always spoilt my stories, Paul, by wanting to reach the end like the non-stop train for Ealing." She said this without any intonation for Ealing in her voice. The idea of Ealing had not presented itself to her. " I suppose so." " But now, Paul, listen. I tried to do one good thing in my life, and I failed." She had gradually drawn nearer to him. He brushed the hair off her forehead gently — an old gesture of his. " When I heard that you had gone off with Rhoda I had to do something." " Yes." ' I went to see Sir George Salmon, the famous divorce lawyer, to instruct him to tell your lawyers that they were in a position to bring the proceedings for divorce against me, since I was unfaithful to you long before you left me." " What did he say ? " 4 He said it was very generous, reflected great honour on me, etc., etc., but simply couldn't be done, because its only effect would be to take away the power of the judge to grant the divorce. He admitted that it was a rotten state of affairs that the law should take such a view, but said that it was the law, so it couldn't be helped." " That was noble of you, Vivy." ' I'm not done yet, Paul. I said, ' Very well, then things must stand as they are. I'm not going to drag Paul into the Divorce Court.' He showed me that I must, that it would be best for you to have your freedom, and that this was the only way you could get it. So I let him put it through. Was I right, Paul ? " 244 VIVIEN'S CONFESSION ' Yes, of course you were, dear. It let me marry Rhoda, and I can tell you that there are plenty of wives who would have forfeited their own freedom to rob me of that satisfaction. But you were never a dog in the manger, Vivy." ' No, I don't think I was, in my very evillest mood. But you haven't got to the point yet." ' You are like the Princess in the ' Arabian Nights.' " " What did she do, Paul ? " asked Vivien, who never pretended. ' Always began a new story before she finished the last, so that the Caliph, wanting to hear the story, might let her live another day." She made no rejoinder ; she was too excited about her secret. Now that she had come to the point, her confi- dence failed her. There was a pause of painful hesita- tion before she handed him the bundle of the afternoon's papers which she had brought with her. He caught a tremendous headline on one, printed on a greenish paper : SOCIETY LADY AND THE DIVORCE COMMISSION. Underneath it ran these words : " Mrs. Frederick Tradescant Fenwick, who was, when they came to England a few years ago, the wife of Mr. Wentworth, the paradox ex-Premier of Australia, has written the following letter to the President of the Royal Commission upon the Divorce Laws now sitting. ..." underneath which was printed the letter signed " Vivien Fenwick." " Read it ! " she cried, seeing that he was chivalrously about to hand it back to her, instead of satisfying an unavoidable curiosity. As he read it, astonishment broadened over his face, for the letter was to draw the at- tention of the President to what the writer called a failure of justice under the present law. It pointed out in lan- guage which was not very grammatical, but was wonderful in its choice of the right word to convey a situation, that she was the offending party, that not only had she driven her husband into elopement by an unparalleled incom- patibility, but that she had actually misconducted herself 245 PAULS WIFE with Captain Fenwick before the Wentworth-St. Ives elopement was dreamt of. " Yet," the letter ran, " Mr. Wentworth could not vin- dicate himself, nor I confess the wrongs which I had done him, before the Court, without causing the intervention of the King's Proctor. I, who broke the marriage, had to deal the blow, and he had to forfeit the sympathies of the public in silence. The accident of the death of Captain Fenwick, who recently gave his life so heroically, leaves me free to repair the injustice as far as I can. But I protest against the state of the law, which, on the prin- ciple of two negatives making an affirmative, decrees that if both parties to a marriage instead of one incur the penalty of divorce, no divorce shall be granted. I have no hope of the injustice being repealed. The British Parliament has lost its sanity. But now that I am beyond the reach of the law and otherwise free to speak, I wish the facts to be known in justice to Mr. Wentworth, for whom I have the highest admiration and respect." " Do you mean to tell me that this letter is in all the evening papers, Vivy ? " " Yes." " Good God ! " He looked at her. She ran into his arms and he held her there. The air was charged with Fate. What if Rhoda came in at this minute ? She ought to have been here already. At length Vivien disengaged herself gently, and Paul found words. " How quixotically generous of you ? " " It was common justice." " Common justice or no, you know what Society will say, not only of you, but to you." " My dear, I don't know and don't care. I don't want to go to their dull crushes. I don't need to bore myself with their dinners. I have enough money to pay for my own champagne at a restaurant. They can't prevent me taking seats at the theatre ; they can't warn me off race-courses, or order shops not to serve me. And there's nothing else I care about, except your good opinion — and Rhoda's, if she gives it to me." " I am sure that she will." 246 VICKY RELENTS " It doesn't matter if she doesn't ! " said the old Vivien. " I shall do without it. But yours I must have, Paul, because I've tried to do the square thing by you ever since ..." she hesitated. " Ever since what ? " The affection in his voice reassured her and she flashed out : " Ever since you took French leave." CHAPTER XXXV VICKY RELENTS To go back a little, the only caller admitted at Cowley Street on the day of their arrival was Vicky. John St. Barbe had gone down to Southampton with Lord Lyonesse to meet them. " I shan't go to the house with you," he said, when they got to London. " My housekeeper, who lives in it far more than I do, can tell you where to find things better than I can." He said this not from laziness, but because he judged that they would rather be alone. Lord Lyonesse, when he had motored them from Water- loo to the house, went off to try and win over his wife with accounts of the children, with whom he was en- raptured — dear little mites, with their father's arrestive dark eyes. The lady-hospital-nurse had swept them off to bed before Vicky arrived. A bell rang. The footman announced : " Miss Went- worth." Through all her correspondence Vicky had maintained her disapproval of the elopement. To Rhoda she had not written once. To Paul she never mentioned domestic affairs, but wrote questions about Italy and comments on the political horizon in England. But now, when she came in and saw how innocent and wholesome and lovely her sister-in-law looked, she knew at a glance that she had been quite mistaken, that Rhoda, in spite of what she had done, was as good a woman as she was herself. She did not kiss her, because she never had kissed her before the catastrophe, but she gave her 347 PAUL'S WIFE a whole-hearted welcome, and then flew to Paul and buried herself in his arms, so delighted was she at being able to accept Rhoda. While this was going on, Rhoda left the room and went up to see if her children had all they needed. She judged that Paul and Vicky should be left to take their new levels. When she had gone, Vicky said, " I've forgiven you, Paul, because you can't look at Rhoda without knowing that all's well. It has taken me the three years to get over your doing such a dreadful thing, but I haven't reproached you, have I ? ' " No, I don't think you have." " You know, I promised never to think any worse of you whatever I heard. It was a pretty hard job some- times, after hearing what Lady Lyonesse had to say about your stealing her ewe-lamb. But since I had promised, I took it for granted that you had some excuse beyond the paltry one that you would have lost her for ever unless you had taken French leave, which was the only one you advanced in your letters. Why didn't you tell me plank out that you were necessary to each other's lives ? I saw it to-night the moment I set eyes on you. You are twice the man that you were before you went away, for you have added the human element to the dry bones of greatness, and your Rhoda, who was only a political beauty when she left, is now the most lovable creature I ever saw. It is a pity that you didn't put something of this into your letters." " You did not give me a chance, Vicky. You snubbed me so by writing copybook letters which discouraged all domestic confidences, that I could not be natural." " But you weren't natural to start with, Paul. I say it again, that excuse really was too paltry." " But it was the truth. You ask Rhoda if it wasn't. She may be able to bring it home to you." " Well, I will. Only I must say again that if you could have depicted her, as she is, in your letters, I am sure that I should have come out to visit you." " If you'd given me the least encouragement, I should have." 248 VICKY RELENTS " And I, of course, couldn't, until the lead came from you. Oh, Paul, my hero, I am glad to have you back again, with my doubts at rest, and about to resume your work in the world, your place in the battle. You know what you were to me all your life until that fatal night. Think what it must have meant to me to do without you three whole years ! " " I'm glad you missed me, Vicky." " I did indeed ! And the boys — what are they like ? Are they like you ? " " Rhoda says so. You'd better go and see for your- self. You'll find them right over this room — that is to sav, the day-nursery is, and the night-nursery leads out of it." Vicky flew upstairs and knocked at the door. It was a very gentle " Come in." " I've come to see the boys, Rhoda." " May I say you can't until they're asleep ? They're in the throes of going to sleep now, and the day has made them rather excited. Nurse will come out when they're off, and then we can go in to see them. They don't wake easily when they're once off." " I am glad to see that they have a strict mamma as well as such a very lovely one." " That means that I am forgiven ! " " I can't help forgiving you, for you're just the wife I should have pictured for Paul. And Vivien, though I am really fond of her, was often a terrible trial. But may I clear up one point, Rhoda ? You know what a literal person I am." Rhoda winced ; she seemed to think that something unkind was coming. Vieky saw her wince, and said, " I'm not going to hurt you, dear. I only want you to arbitrate between Paul and myself on an issue arising from our correspondence." Rhoda beamed again. She wanted Vicky, whose eharacterfulness she had admired from the time that she began to know her, for her very own, and she saw that Vicky was going to judge her not from the Church's point of view, but from the point of whether she had made good for such exceptional behaviour. 249 PAUL'S WIFE " What is this issue which troubles you, Vicky ? ' she asked. " You must excuse my being a little crude in stating it, Rhoda." Rhoda nodded. She had her sister-in-law's assurance that she did not mean to be unkind. " The only excuse that Paul ever advanced for running away with you, is that he would have lost you if he hadn't. I say that since he had no right to you, this isn't any excuse at all. Of course, I know that they were going to take you to Java, and that he would have lost you for many months ; but people like your parents were not going to spend the rest of their lives in Java, or in any way to permanently exile themselves from London, And, in any case, if you were in love with each other, it was the best thing that could happen for both your sakes." " But there was much more in it than that, Vicky. Paul wouldn't have come for that. I told him and he knew that I meant it, for I gave him the password Mizpah, which was our code-word for ' take this literally ' — I told him that if he did not take me away, to prevent them carrying mc off in the yacht, I would kill myself. I had bought the poison." " Oh, you wicked girl ! " cried Vicky, horror-struck into conventionality. " I don't wonder that Paul did a thing so unlike himself ! " Then, seeing how hurt Rhoda was, in spite of her assurance, she added very quickly, " But I am glad that he did it because it would be terrible to think of anything so sweet and beautiful as you are going out of the earth." " You think I was worth it ? " " Nothing that has happened to me in my whole life has made me so glad as to think that you are my brother's wife, that Paul, whose married life was a bed of thorns, has, like St. Francis in the miracle, found it transformed into a bed of roses." " We had a picture of that miracle by Filippino Lippi at Lyoncsse House." " That's what put it into my mind," said Vicky, noticing that Rhoda said " had," not ' have," as if Lyonesse House belonged to her past. 250 VICKY RELENTS " And you're quite sure that you have forgiven me for being so . . . wicked ? " ' Of course, I wish that your marriage with Paul could have been managed otherwise. But I am afraid that I am beginning to see degrees in wickedness. You and Paul were not wicked like Vivien and poor Freddy." Rhoda gave a little deprecating smile. It was a strange galere for a woman, who held such opinions as Vicky did, to be in. ' I know that it's very wrong to do what I'm going to do — to compound a felony because it has been success- ful, to approve of what you have done because I happen to love you both. It is dead against my principles. I don't hold with the modern talk, which they bandied at your Liberal parties, about everyone's having a right to happiness, and yet I have no doubt about you and Paul having the right — and I'm veering round in the most dastardly way to that text about it being hard for the ass to kick against the pricks. I feel as if I were the ass. Oh, Rhoda, what nonsense I'm talking ! And you're responsible, because you've upset all my ideas with your ridiculous happiness and innocence." Just as Rhoda was beginning a blushing confession of how she was touched by what Vicky was saying, the hospital nurse came in to say that the children were asleep. ' Miss Paley," said Rhoda, " this is my husband's sister, Miss Wentworth. Are your charges fast enough asleep for her to see them ? " ' Quite," she replied, wondering why Paul should have such a smart and pretty sister, and not conscious of the much more wonderful phenomenon which was before her eyes — that of the wife of the great Australian Prime Minister, the heiress to the vast estates and immemorial pedigree of the St. Ives', bursting with gratitude for the friendship and forgiveness of the ex- governess of the " Money " Moretons. What greater tribute to the power of Mrs. Grundy could there be ? As she saw Paul's boys sleeping in their cots — not Angles, but angels — Vicky was thankful that she had had the strength to let her heart triumph over her conscience, 251 PAUL'S WIFE for she knew what a difference it was going to make in her life, having Paul's wife and children to love. She thought that if he would follow her in this, she might even marry David Shand. When the sisters-in-law came down from the nursery, Paul knew that peace had been signed. Vicky's attitude on the question threw her much into the society of Lord Lyonesse. To treat her as a daughter and be accompanied by her as a daughter when Lady Lyonesse was obdurate, solved various minor diffi- culties. And he was not fonder of her society than his wife was. Lady Lyonesse had much greater sympathy for the one sheep which did not stray than for the one sinner which repented. She wished sinners to keep their distance, and regarded repentance as an unfair claim on her sympathies. At the solicitation of both, Vicky began a visit, which was not likely to end soon, at Lyonesse House, taking the place in the menage which Rhoda had vacated. The whole household felt the effect of the return of youth, of the presence of a pretty girl, so nearly connected with the family. She was, of course, asked everywhere with them, and thus was present at the historical party at the St. Barbes'. CHAPTER XXXVI THE TRIUMPH OF PAUL The day after Vivien's letter had appeared in the evening papers, Lady Lyonesse went to call upon Paul at Catesby House and asked to see him alone. He received her with a politician's cordiality. Though she had hurt Rhoda cruelly in private, she had supported him loyally in public. When they had shaken hands, he waited for her to proceed. He was a skilled parliamentary tactician. " Paul," she blurted out, " I believe that I've been unjust to you." He agreed with her, but waited for her to explain. She proceeded, " I did not know that Vivien had justified you in leaving her. But I think you might have chosen a more considerate way of doing it." " You gave me no time, Lady Lyonesse. In another twenty-four hours you would have had Rhoda out of the 252 THE TRIUMPH OF PAUL country, in another direction, lost to me for long months, if not for ever." " You might have told me about your wife." " It wouldn't have been very decent, and only barely legal." As a politician and a K.C., he did not think it necessary to add that he was unaware of the fact. Since Lady Lyonesse imagined herself to be in the wrong, it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. A meatless banquet was in progress at John St. Barbe's old house at Richmond. The company invited to test the cook's ingenuity in fish and eggs, and the fruits of the earth out of their due season, made up for the absence of fleshpots, for the men were of John St. Barbe's kidney, men trusted by the rank and file Conservative M.P.'s, men whose ancestors had served in the councils and armies of England as long as there had been Parliaments. If Lord Lyonesse's political antecedents hardly entitled him to be there, the head of the Norman family of St. Ives had a warrior ancestry which would compare with any of them, and Lady Lyonesse's Fenwick forefathers had been hereditary fighters against the Scot. They were asked, not on their own merits, but out of compli- ment to Paul Wentworth, whom the guests were as- sembled to honour, because the War Party in the House of Commons, Conservatives and Liberals alike, felt that it was due to Paul's platform assaults upon the Press Censor that the " Ostrich " regime was overthrown and Mr. Lloyd George, the Vox Populi Vox Dei, had been entrusted with the keys of office. Rhoda was the recipient of profound sympathy, both as an enemy leader who had joined their ranks, and as one who had made a similar sacrifice to beautify the home of the man whom they felt to be their standard- bearer in the fight for the existence of England. To which were added youth, beauty and extraordinary simpatica. The only person in the room who was not fired with chivalrousness for her was that stark Northum- brian, her mother ; the only person in the room who did not belong to the ancient Chivalry of England was her 253 PAUL'S WIFE husband, the Melbourne board-school boy, to whom that proud Chivalry to-day looked for leadership. He led the way when the men came up to join the ladies after dinner, since it was in his honour — a tall, slab-sided Colonial, with a face burned and a beard bleached by the sun, and a sweeping and commanding eye. As markedly one of the people as everyone else in the room was a person of breeding was the man for whom Rhoda St. Ives, heir to a peerage and one of the greatest fortunes in England, had sacrificed her honour. Yet there was only one person in that assemblage who would have cast a stone at her for it. ' You must be very proud of your husband, Roe," said John St. Barbe, who had gone straight to her when he entered the room. ' Proud, yes, Cousin John ! I am consumed with exultation at having listened to my heart. And I owe my happiness almost as much to you as I do to my hus- band. It was your standing by us at the critical moment which made people ' know ' me." '* It did not cost me nothing, Roe, because it was flat in the face of the principles which I had always cherished. But I felt that I owed it to England to support your husband in the way he needed most." While John St. Barbe was talking to Rhoda, Lady Lyonesse had taken the opportunity to get a word with her son-in-law. They met as friends now, though she had not really forgiven him for carrying off Rhoda, or he really forgiven her for her hostility to the marriage. ' Well, Paul ! what's going to happen with the new Prime Minister ? " she asked. Paul, as the platform mouthpiece of the muzzled Press, was credited with knowing as much of the new programme as anyone in the country. ' Well, at last we've got a man to speak for the country as Hindenburg speaks for Germany, a man who can act on the spur of a crisis — I can tell you that. And the war will be waged with a will. We are using our Napo- leon." ' Yes, I know that, but what new measures will he take to stop the rot ? — I'm not talking slang." 254 THE TRIUMPH OF PAUL k Well, we shall have a real War Council ; he won't mind my telling you that. The war is not going to be run any longer by a score of Departmental heads, who only seemed to think about it when they had nothing left to tie up with red tape. It will be a super-Cabinet of five or six men, mostly without portfolios, I think, who arc to give all their time to the war." 1 You ought to be one of them, Paul. Though I shall never forgive you, I know that you are one of the few men who could be trusted not to give a thought to anything but your country." ' And do you really think that of me, Lady Lyonesse ? I thought I was a thief and a robber ! " ' Only to us, Paul — only to me, I mean, for John has made you a present of the treasure which you stole from him." " Are you ever going to forgive me ? " ' I can't conceive anything that would make me." There was a ring at the front-door bell. The St. Barbes were too old-fashioned to have their hanging bells ousted by electricity; their front-door bell was a tocsin. " That can't be anybody's car yet," said Mrs. St. Barbe, tentatively, to her husband. ' I hope not. Who is it ? " he asked the footman, who approached him with a card on the tray. A gentleman who wishes to speak to Lord Lyonesse, sir." John St. Barbe glanced at the card ; on it was engraved " Mr. Miles Willoughbv." •to* ' Willoughby is a King's messenger," said the host to his wife, adding to the footman, " Ask Mr. Willoughby whether he won't join us." " Yes, sir." The footman returned alone. " Mr. Willoughby asked if he may see Lord Lyonesse in the library, sir." " Certainly. Please tell his Lordship." Lord Lyonesse was away some minutes. When he came back, he was waving a large blue envelope, with the seals broken. He went straight up to his wife and Paul Wentworth. " It is about you, Paul," he said. Paul raised his evebrows. - 255 PAUL'S WIFE "It is from the Prime Minister. He wishes me to ascertain if you will accept a seat without a portfolio on the War Council, to represent the Britains beyond the Seas." " It's too late for me to offer my forgiveness now, Paul," sighed Lady Lyonesse. " Why am I always a day behind the fair ? " " Shall I tell you ? " " I suppose it will be something horrid, but tell away." " Because you are not a time-server." " Is that why I would not forgive you ? ' " I am sure it is." "Do you really think that, Paul ? " " I do." " But I should be a time-server if I forgave you now." " Be a time-server for once to please Rhoda." " Shall I be forgiven if I tell the truth ? " " What is the truth ? " " That I am so prostrated by your being a member of the War Council." " But I haven't accepted yet." " No, you haven't," said Lord Lyonesse. " What shall I tell Willoughby ? I think he's" waiting." " There can only be one answer," said Paul. ' I have always been a thorough Lloyd-Georgeite." " And what is my answer, Paul ? " asked Lady Lyon- esse, with shamefaced affection. " Go and tell Rhoda that you and I arc friends again, and how much she'll have to depend on you. My days will often start with political breakfasts, and I may only get home in time to be waked in the morning." THE END Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 2 o 198» SEP 2 01988 rm L9-Series 4939 3 1158 01295 3559 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 375 588