Athalie Part 69

"Dearest," she said with smiling tenderness, "you are still very, very orthodox in your faith in folk-ways. That need not cause _me_ any concern, however. But, Clive, of the two pictures which seems reasonable--your wife who is no wife; your mistress who is more and is considered less?

"Don't think that I am speaking lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the t.i.tle it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions of divinity, to kill in me the right to live and love and bring the living into life. And if I am forbidden to do it in the name of the law, then I dare do it in the name of One who never turned his back on little children--"

She ceased abruptly; and he saw her eyes suddenly blinded by tears:

"Oh, Clive--if you only could have seen them--the little flower-like faces and pleading arms around--my--neck--warm--Oh, sweet!--sweet against my breast--"

CHAPTER XXV

Winifred had grown stout, which, on a slim, small-boned woman is quickly apparent; and, to Clive, her sleepy, uncertain grey eyes seemed even nearer together than he remembered them.

She was seated in the yellow and white living-room of her apartment at the Regina, still holding the card he had sent up; and she made no movement to rise when her maid announced him and ushered him in, or to greet him at all except with a slight nod and a slighter gesture indicating a chair across the room.

He said: "I did not know until this morning that you were in this country."

"Was it necessary to inform you?"

"No, not necessary," he said, "unless you have come to some definite decision concerning our future relations."

Her eyes seemed to grow sleepier and nearer together than ever.

"Why," he asked, wearily, "have you employed an agency to have me followed?"

She lifted her drooping lids and finely pencilled brows. "Have you been followed?"

"At intervals, as you know. Would you mind saying why? Because you have always been welcome to divorce."

She sat silent, slowly tearing into tiny squares the card he had sent up. Presently, as at an afterthought, she collected all the fragments and placed them in a heap on the table beside her.

"Well?" she inquired, glancing up at him. "Is that all you have to say?"

"I don't know what to say until you tell me why you have had me followed and why you yourself are here."

Her gaze remained fixed on the heap of little pasteboard squares which she s.h.i.+fted across the polished table-top from one position to another. She said:

"The case against you was complete enough before last night. I fancy even you will admit that."

"You are wrong," he replied wearily. "Somehow or other I believe you know that you are wrong. But I suppose a jury might not think so."

"Would you care to tell a jury that this trance-medium is not your mistress?"

"I should not care to defend her on such a charge before a jury or before anybody. There are various ways of d.a.m.ning a woman; and to defend her from that accusation is one of them."

"And another way?"

"To admit the charge. Either ruin her in the eyes of the truly virtuous."

"What do you expect to do about it then? Keep silent?"

"That is still a third way of destroying a woman."

"Really? Then what are you going to do?"

"Whatever you wish," he said in a low voice, "as long as you do not bring such a charge against Athalie Greensleeve."

"Would you set your signature to a paper?"

"I have given you my word. I have never lied to you."

She looked up at him out of narrowing eyes:

"You might this time. I prefer your signature."

He reddened and sat twirling the silver crook of his walking-stick between restless hands.

"Very well," he said quietly; "I will sign what you wish, with the understanding that Miss Greensleeve is to remain immune from any lying accusation.... And I'll tell you now that any accusation questioning her chast.i.ty is a falsehood."

His wife smiled: "You see," she said, "your signature _will_ be necessary."

"Do you think I am lying?"

"What do I care whether you are or not? Do you suppose the alleged chast.i.ty of a common fortune-teller interests me? All I know is that you have found your level, and that I need protection. If you choose to concede it to me without a public scandal, I shall permit you to do so. If not, I shall begin an action against you and name the woman with whom you spent last night!"

There was, in the thin, flute-like, and mincingly fastidious voice something so subtly vicious that her words left him silent.

Still leisurely arranging and re-arranging her little heap of pasteboard, her near-set eyes intent on its symmetry, she spoke again:

"I could marry Innisbrae or any one of several others! But I do not care to; I am comfortable. And that is where you have made your mistake. I do not desire a divorce! But,"--she lifted her narrow eyes--"if you force me to a separation I shall not shrink from it. And I shall name that woman."

"Then--what is it you want?" he asked with a sinking heart.

"Not a divorce; not even a separation; merely respectability. I wish you to give up business in New York and present yourself in England at decent intervals of--say once every year. What you do in the interludes is of no interest to me. As long as you do not establish a business and a residence anywhere I don't care what you do. You may come back and live with this woman if you choose."

After a silence he said: "Is that what you propose?"

"It is."

"And you came over here to collect sufficient evidence to force me?"

"I had no other choice."

He nodded: "By your own confession, then, you believe either in her chast.i.ty and my sense of honour, or that, even guilty, I care so much for her that any threat against her happiness can effectually coerce me."

"Your language is becoming a trifle involved."