Mr. Witt's Widow Part 28

She leapt up, suddenly radiant.

"Ah, George, Cousin George, how I love you! Where is it?"

George took the doc.u.ment out of his pocket.

Neaera seized it. "Light a candle," she cried.

George with an amused smile obeyed her.

"You hold the candle, and I will burn it!" And she watched the paper consumed with the look of a gleeful child. Then she suddenly stretched her arms. "Oh, I am tired!"

"Poor child!" said George. "You can leave it to me now."

"However shall I repay you? I never can." Then she suddenly saw the cat, ran to him, and picked him up. "We are forgiven, Bob! we are forgiven!"

she cried, dancing about the room.

George watched her with amus.e.m.e.nt.

She put the cat down and came to him. "See, you have made me happy. Is that enough?"

"It is something," said he.

"And here is something more!" And she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him.

"That's better," said George. "Any more?"

"Not till we are cousins."

"Be gentle in your triumph."

"No, no; don't talk like that. Are you going?"

"Yes. I must go and put things straight."

"Good-bye. I--I hope you won't find it very hard."

"I have been paid in advance."

Neaera blushed a little.

"You shall be better paid, if ever I can," she said.

George paused outside, to light a cigarette; then he struck into the park, and walked slowly along, meditating as he went. When he arrived at Hyde Park Corner, he roused himself from his reverie.

"Now the woman was very fair!" said he, as he hailed a hansom.

CHAPTER XV.

A LETTER FOR MR. GERALD.

Mrs. Pocklington sat with blank amazement in her face, and a copy of the second edition of the _Bull's-eye_ in her hand. On the middle page, in type widely s.p.a.ced, beneath a n.o.ble headline, appeared a letter from George Neston, running thus:--

"To the Editor of the _Bull's-eye_.

"SIR,

"As you have been good enough to interest yourself, and, I hope, fortunate enough to interest your readers, in the subject of certain allegations made by me in respect of a lady whose name has been mentioned in your columns, I have the honour to inform you that such allegations were entirely baseless, the result of a chance resemblance between that lady and another person, and of my own hasty conclusions drawn therefrom. I have withdrawn all my a.s.sertions, fully and unreservedly, and have addressed apologies for them to those who had a right to receive apologies.

"I have the honour to be, sir, "Your obedient servant, "GEORGE NESTON."

And then a column of exultation, satire, ridicule, preaching, praying, prophesying, moralising, and what not. The pen flew with wings of joy, and ink was nothing regarded on that day.

Mrs. Pocklington was a kind-hearted woman; yet, when she read a sister's vindication, she found nothing better to say than--

"How very provoking!"

And it may be that this unregenerate exclamation fairly summed up public feeling, if only public feeling had been indecent enough to show itself openly. A man shown to be a fool is altogether too common a spectacle; a woman of fas.h.i.+on proved a thief would have been a more piquant dish.

But in this world--and, indeed, probably in any other--we must take what we can get; and since society could not trample on Neaera Witt, it consoled itself by correcting and chastening the misguided spirit of George Neston. Tommy Myles shook his empty little head, and all the other empty heads shook solemnly in time. Isabel Bourne said she knew she was right, and Sidmouth Vane thought there must be something behind--he always did, as became a statesman in the raw. Mr. Espion re-echoed his own leaders, like a phonograph; and the chairman of the Themis thanked Heaven they were out of an awkward job.

But wrath and fury raged in the breast of Laura Pocklington. She thought George had made a fool of her. He had persuaded her to come over to his side, and had then betrayed the colours. There would be joy in Gath and Askelon; or, in other words, Isabel Bourne and Maud Neston would crow over her insupportably.

"I will never see him or speak to him again, mamma," Laura declared, pa.s.sionately. "He has behaved abominably!"

This announcement rather took the wind out of Mrs. Pocklington's sails.

She was just preparing to bear majestically down upon her daughter with a stern _ultimatum_ to the effect that, for the present, George must be kept at a distance, and daughters must be guided by their mothers. At certain moments nothing is more annoying than to meet with agreement, when one intends to extort submission.

"Good gracious, Laura!" said Mrs. Pocklington, "you can't care much for the man."

"Care for him! I detest him!"

"My dear, it hardly looked like it."

"You must allow me some self-respect, mamma."

Mr. Pocklington, entering, overheard these words. "Hallo!" said he.

"What's the matter?"

"Why, my dear, Laura declares that she will have nothing to say to George Neston."

"Well, that's just your own view, isn't it?" A silence ensued. "It seems to me you are agreed."

It really did look like it; but they had been on the verge of a pretty quarrel all the same: and Mr. Pocklington was confirmed in the opinion he had lately begun to entertain that, when paradoxes of mental process are in question, there is in truth not much to choose between wives and daughters.

Meanwhile, George Neston was steadily and unflinchingly devouring his humble-pie. He sought and obtained Gerald's forgiveness, after half an hour of grovelling abas.e.m.e.nt. He listened to Tommy Myles's grave rebuke and Sidmouth Vane's cynical raillery without a smile or a tear. He even brought himself to accept with docility a letter full of Christian feeling which Isabel Bourne was moved to write.