The Helpmate Part 29

For one moment of repulsion she saw him no less gross. She wondered, would she have to reckon with that, henceforth, too?

She looked up, and met across the table the engaging innocence that she recognised as the habitual expression of his face. He had no idea of what dreadful things she was thinking of him. She put her thoughts from her, admitting that she had never had to reckon with that, yet. But it was terrible to her that, while he forced her to such thinking, he could sit there so unconscious, and so unashamed. He sat there, bright-eyed, smiling, a little flushed, playing with a light topic in a manner that suggested a conscience singularly at ease. He went on sitting there, absolutely unembarra.s.sed, eating dessert. The eating of dinner was bad enough, it showed complacency. But dessert argued callousness. She had wondered how he could have any appet.i.te at all. Her dinner had almost choked her.

And she sat waiting for him to finish, hardly looking at him, detached, saint-like, and still.

At last her silence struck him as a little ominous. He had distinct misgivings as they turned into the study for coffee and his cigarette.

Anne sat up in her chair, refusing the support and luxury of cus.h.i.+ons, leaning a little forward with a brooding air.

"Well, Nancy," said he, "are you going to read to me?"

(Better to read than talk.)

"Not now," said she. "I want to talk to you."

He saw that it was not to be avoided. "Won't you let me have my coffee and a cigarette first?"

She waited, silent, with a strained air of patience more uncomfortable than words.

"Well," said he, lighting a second cigarette, and settling in the position that would best enable him to bear it, "out with it, and get it over."

"I want to know," said she, "what you are going to do."

"To do?" He was genuinely bewildered.

"Yes, to do."

"But about what?"

"About that woman."

He was so charmed with the angelic absurdity of the question that he paused while he took it in, smiling.

"I can't see," he said presently, "that I'm called upon to take action.

Why should I?"

She drew herself up proudly.

"For my sake."

He was instantly grave. "For your sake, dear, I would do a great deal.

But"--he smiled again--"what action should I take?"

"Is it for me to say?"

"Well, I hardly know. I should be glad, at any rate, if you'd make a suggestion. I can't, for instance, get up and turn the lady out of her own sister's house. Do you want me to do that? Would you like me to--to take her away in a cab?"

There was a long silence, so awful that he forced himself to speak. "I am extremely sorry. It was, of course, outrageous that you should have had to sit in the same room with her for five minutes. But what could I do?"

"You could have taken _me_ away."

"I did, as soon as I got the chance."

"Not before you had"--she paused for her phrase--"condoned her appearance."

"Condoned her appearance? How?"

"By your whole manner to her."

"Would you have had me uncivil?"

"There are degrees," said she, "between incivility and marked attention."

He coloured. "Marked attention! There was nothing marked about it. What could I do? Would you, I say, have had me turn my back on the unfortunate woman? That would have been marked attention, if you like."

"I don't know what I would have had you do. One has no rules beforehand for inconceivable situations. It was inconceivable that I should have met her as I did, in your friend's house. Inconceivable that I should meet such people anywhere. What I do ask is that you will not let me be exposed in that way again."

"That I certainly will not. The Ransomes did their best to get her out of the room to-day. They won't annoy you. I can't conceive why they called--except that they have always been rather fond of me. You can't hold people accountable for all the doings of all their relations, can you?"

"In this case I should say you could--perfectly well."

"Well, I don't, as it happens. But you needn't have anything to do with them; not, at least, while she's living in their house."

"It was in the Hannays' house I met her. But I'm not thinking of myself."

"I'm thinking of you, and of nothing else."

"You needn't," said she, cold to his warmth. "I can take care of myself.

It's you I'm thinking of."

"Me? Why me?"

"Because I'm your wife and have a right to. It's out of the question that I should call on Mrs. Hannay or receive her calls. I must also beg of you to give up going there, and to the Ransomes, and to every place where you will be brought into contact with Lady Cayley."

He stared at her in amazement. "My dear girl, you don't expect me to cut the Ransomes because she isn't brute enough to turn her sister out of doors?"

"I expect you to give up going to them, and to the Hannays, as long as Lady Cayley is in Scale. Promise me."

"I can't promise you anything of the sort. Heaven knows how long she's going to stay."

"I ought not to have to explain that by countenancing her you insult me.

You should see it for yourself."

"I can't see it. In the first place, with all due regard to you, I don't insult you by countenancing her, as you call it. In the second place, I don't countenance her by going into other people's houses. If I went into her house, you might complain. She hasn't got a house, poor lady."

She ignored his pity. "In spite of your regard for me, then, you will continue to meet her?"

"I shan't if I can help it. But if I must, I must. I can't be rude to people."

"You can be firm."