The Helpmate Part 34

That was precisely what poor Charlie was thinking. And if that sister-in-law was to come between them, too, it would be harder still.

But Edith insisted that she would make no difference.

"In fact," said she, "you can come more than ever. For if Walter's absorbed in Anne, and Anne's absorbed in Walter--"

He took it up gaily. "Then I may be absorbed in you? So, after all, it turns out to my advantage."

"Yes. You can console me. You can console me now, this minute, if you'll play to me."

He was always lamenting that he could do nothing for her. Playing to her was the one thing he could do, and he did it well.

He rose joyously and went to the piano, removing the dust from the keys with his handkerchief. "How will you have it? Sentimental and soporific?

Or loud and strong?"

"Oh, loud and strong, please. Very strong and very loud."

"Right you are. You shall have it hot and strong, and loud enough to wake the dead."

That was his rendering of Chopin's "Grande Polonaise." He let himself loose in it, with a rush, a vehemence, a diabolic brilliance and clamour.

The quiet room shook with the sounds he wrenched out of the little humble piano in the corner. And as Edith lay and listened, her spirit, too, triumphed, and was free; it rode gloriously on the storm of sound. It was, she said, laughing, quite enough to wake the dead. This was the miracle that he alone could accomplish for her.

And downstairs in the study, Anne heard his music and started, as the dead may start in their sleep. It seemed to her, that Polonaise of Chopin, the most immoral music, the music of defiance and revolt. It flung abroad the prodigal's prodigality, his insolent and iniquitous joy. That was what he, a bad man, made of an innocent thing.

Majendie's face lit up, responsive to the delight and challenge of the opening chord. "He's all right," said he, "as long as he can play."

He listened, glancing now and then at Anne with a smile of pride in his friend's performance. It was as if he were asking her to own that there must be some good in a fellow who could play like that.

Anne was considering in what words she would intimate to him that Mr.

Gorst's music was never to be heard again in that house. Some instinct told her that she was courting danger, but the approval of her conscience urged her on. She waited till the Polonaise was over before she spoke.

"You say," said she, "he's all right as long as he can play like that. To me, it's the most convincing proof that he's all wrong."

"How do you make that out?"

"I don't want to go into it," said Anne. "I don't approve of Mr. Gorst; but I should think better of him if he had only better taste."

"You're the first person who ever accused Gorst of bad taste."

"Do you call it good taste to live as he does, as I know he does, and you know he does, and yet to come here, and sit with Edie, and behave as if he'd never done anything to be ashamed of? It would be infinitely better taste if he kept away."

"Not at all. There are a great many very nice things about Gorst, and his caring to come here is one of the nicest. He has been faithful to Edith for ten years. That sort of thing isn't so common that one can afford to despise it."

"Faithful to her? Poor darling, does she think he is?"

"She doesn't think. She knows."

"Preserve me from such faithfulness."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I do know. And you know that I know." In proof of her contention she offered him the incident of the four-in-hand.

Majendie made a movement of impatience. "Oh, that's nothing," he said.

"He doesn't like her. He likes driving, and she likes a front seat at any show (I can't see her taking a back one); and if she insisted on climbing up beside him, he couldn't very well knock her off, you know. You don't seem to realise how difficult it is to knock a woman off any seat she takes a fancy to sit on. You simply can't do it."

Anne was silent. She felt weak and helpless before his imperturbable levity.

He smoked placidly. "No," he said presently. "Gorst mayn't be a saint, but I will acquit him of an unholy pa.s.sion for poor Sarah."

Anne fired. "He may be a very bad man for all that."

"There again, you show that you don't know what you're talking about. He is not a 'very bad man'. You've no discrimination in these things. You simply lump us all together as a bad lot. And so we may be, compared with the angels and the saints. But there are degrees. If Gorst isn't as good as--as Edie, it doesn't necessarily follow that he's bad."

"Please--I would rather not argue the point. But I am not going to have anything to do with Mr. Gorst."

"Of course not. You disapprove of him. There's nothing more to be said."

He spoke placably as if he made allowance for her att.i.tude while he preserved his own.

"There is a great deal more to be said, dear. And I may as well say it now. I disapprove of him so strongly that I cannot have him received in this house if I am to remain in it."

Astonishment held him dumb.

"You have no right to expect me to," said she.

"To expect you to remain, or what?"

"To receive a man of Mr. Gorst's character."

"My dear girl, what right have you to expect me to turn him out?"

"My right as your wife."

"My wife has a right to ask me a great many things, but not that."

"I ought not to have to ask you. You should have thought of it yourself.

You should have had more care for my reputation."

At this he laughed, greatly to his own annoyance and to hers.

"Your reputation? Your reputation, I a.s.sure you, is in no danger from poor Gorst."

"Is it not? My friends--the Eliotts--will not receive him."

"There's no reason why they should."

"Is there any reason why I should? Do you want me to be less fastidious than they are? You forget that I was brought up with very fastidious people. My father wouldn't have allowed me to speak to a man like Mr.

Gorst. Do you want me to accept a lower standard that his, or my mother's?"

"Have you considered what my standard would look like if I turned my best friend out of the house--a man I've known all my life--just because my wife doesn't happen to approve of him? I know nothing about your Eliotts; but if Edie can stand him, I should think you might."