The Making of a Soul Part 44

"To visit--what, Eva?"

"Why, I hardly know what to say." Eva smiled subtly to herself. "Of course, it may be only my imagination. I daresay you make Mr. Rose as happy as any woman could do. I expect he works too hard and that's why he looks so worried."

"Does he look worried?" queried Toni softly. "I suppose I ought to have noticed it--but----"

"But you didn't?" Eva leaned across and patted the girl's arm. "Never mind, dear, it's probably my fancy. I daresay Mr. Rose is not a very lively person at any time--and, after all, one can't always be feeling cheerful."

"You mean," said Toni, who, like other primitive people, was apt to be disconcertingly outspoken, "you mean that Owen--my husband--isn't happy.

At least--is that what you mean?"

"Well, I suppose I did mean that," said Eva with pretended reluctance.

"But it's all nonsense--I had no business to say it, Toni. Do forget it, will you?"

"No." Toni spoke very quietly. "I shan't forget it. But I want to know a little more. You think Owen is unhappy because he is married to me. Do you think he would be happier if I went away and left him? Is that what you are too kind, too generous to imply?"

Eva's heart gave a sudden throb. Her first aim in life ever since the prison gates clanged behind her at the end of her term of confinement had been to do some harm in the world, to make up for the injury which she considered had been done to her; and no weak emotions such as pity or generosity could be allowed to hold her back.

To her oddly-perverted mind, it seemed that if she could persuade Toni to leave her husband, to wreck her home and her future, she would have got "her own back" to a considerable degree; and she had a double motive in her hatred of Owen, who, as she well knew, distrusted her personally and disliked her friends.h.i.+p with his young wife.

Any person connected with a big penal settlement will tell you that there is never any certainty as to the moral result of a term of imprisonment on any given prisoner.

To some natures, the punishment may be both a deterrent and an excellent lesson, while to others the educational value may be great and the deterrent effect almost _nil_; but in one cla.s.s of prisoner--the cla.s.s to which Eva Herrick belonged--imprisonment wakes only the worst and basest of all emotions, a desire, perforce stifled during the period of punishment, for revenge.

That she had suffered, on the whole, justly, never weighed for one instant with Eva herself. That she had been guilty of a crime was less than nothing. What did weigh with her was the fact that she had been found out, and forced to undergo a humiliating and degrading punishment; and from the moment when she came to her senses after the swoon which had mercifully cut short the scene in court, Eva Herrick's whole being had been in revolt against a world where such things were allowed to be.

Her whole pleasure, indeed, while in prison, had been found in planning how, in the future, she could render miserable the life of the husband who had not, so she considered, stood by her; and it was a bitter disappointment to her to find that try as she might she could not torture him to the breaking-point.

He met her most poisoned and bitter shafts with a patience which nothing, it seemed, could pierce. When she taunted him, he only smiled; and when she reviled him he left her presence; so that the only way in which she could win any satisfaction was by detailing to him exaggerated accounts of the treatment she had received in prison.

These stories, untrue and impossible as many of them were, made him wince, not knowing indeed how cunning was the invention behind them; and many times when she was more maddening than usual, Herrick schooled himself to patience by reminding himself of the drastic punishments which had apparently been meted out to her.

When at length she found that Jim was impervious to her stings, Eva looked around her for another victim; and found one in the person of Toni Rose.

It did not take Eva long to read, more or less correctly, the position between Toni and her husband; and although she was quite shrewd enough to realize that the situation would probably adjust itself in time, Eva was determined to prevent any such adjustment with every weapon in her power.

Unhappily it proved only too easy for a woman such as she was to direct the affair pretty much as she willed it; and her suggestion to Toni that she should leave her husband had been carefully led up to by scores of insinuations, of carelessly-dropped hints, and sc.r.a.ps of repeated conversations heard on the subject of the Roses' married life.

She was careful to let none of the elation she felt escape her as she replied to Toni's speech after a significant pause.

"Put that way, it sounds dreadful," she said, pretending to shudder. "I don't think I really meant that. I only thought that perhaps--your husband is a writer, you know, an artist--with the artistic temperament, I suppose; and everyone knows that genius is difficult to live with."

"I don't care for myself," said Toni hastily. "I could always be happy--with Owen--but if you really think I spoil his life----"

"Oh, don't say that, dear." Eva spoke soothingly. "I daresay I am entirely mistaken. Of course, you know best how you get on; and after all Mr. Rose is so keen on his work he hasn't much time for outside things."

"I wonder what Owen would say--or do--if I left him?" She spoke musingly; and Eva's heart beat tumultuously as she noted the result of her tentative suggestion.

"Go after you and bring you back, I expect." Such was Eva's reply.

"Then there wouldn't be much use in going," said Toni quickly, and Eva read the relief in her eyes.

"No--not if you went like that." Her tone was purposely cryptic.

"But--how else should I go?"

"Why, if you really wanted to go----" Eva broke off with a laugh. "Don't be so silly, Toni. You talk as though I had really meant my stupid suggestion."

"Didn't you mean it?" Toni's gaze was disconcerting.

"Why, of course not. Come, Toni, let's have tea. I'll send for Jim, too.

It's getting quite dark."

"Wait a moment," said Toni. "Eva, if I made up my mind to leave Owen--for his own sake--how could I prevent him fetching me back?"

"You really mean it?" Eva's tone sent a chill through Toni's veins.

"Supposing you really saw that it was for Owen's good--that by remaining with him you were spoiling his life, ruining his career--making him unhappy, in short--you mean in _that_ case how could you prevent him searching for you?"

"Yes," Toni said, her eyes on the fire, "that is what I mean."

"There's only one way, Toni." She was careful to speak lightly. "If you went away with another man----" for a moment even her nerve failed her, but she conquered her weakness and went on calmly, and her grey Irish eyes were as cold as ice as she looked at Toni. "Then your husband would probably divorce you, and devote himself to his career."

For a second Toni's pallor alarmed her. All the girl's colour died away, leaving her curiously white round the mouth, a sign of emotion to which Eva was not blind; and Mrs. Herrick wondered, uneasily, if Toni were about to faint.

But Toni was in no fainting mood.

"You think that, Eva? You think that if I were gone--out of his life altogether--Owen would forget me and find happiness in his work?"

"I think so, yes. Oh, Toni, I know I seem unkind," said Eva, Judas-like.

"Believe me I wouldn't have told you if you hadn't pressed me. It only struck me that perhaps--you will forgive me, dear?--perhaps you didn't manage to make your husband very happy--and if you really did want him to forget you----"

"No, I don't make him happy," said Toni with a sigh. "It is funny, isn't it, when I love him so much? But you're right in one thing. I am spoiling his life; and my going away won't help him unless I go for good."

"If you merely go, without any apparent reason, your husband will be miserable, unsettled, give up everything to find you, to bring you back----"

She was startled by a sudden exclamation from Toni.

"But, Eva, if you're so sure he'd want me back----"

"Why should you go?" Eva smiled a little, patiently. "Don't you see, dear, if you go like that, Mr. Rose will be so alarmed, so upset, that of course he'll want to find you. He would think you'd perhaps run away because you were unhappy, and he'd do all he could to get you back on your own account. Oh, I know Mr. Rose is very fond of you, Toni"--somehow her very inflection made Toni's conception of Owen's love shrivel into nothingness--"and he couldn't rest if he thought you were unhappy. He would bring you back, and things would be just the same again. He would do his work, helped by Miss Loder, I suppose, and you would go on as you are now. After all, Toni, you know you have a lot to be grateful for."

She looked at the girl to see how far she might safely go, but Toni never moved; and Eva was emboldened to proceed.

"You have a lovely home--Greenriver is quite a show place, and after all, you and your husband never quarrel, do you? So that on the whole you'd be a little fool if you gave up all these very substantial benefits. Eh, Toni?"

Eva was clever. She knew exactly the spur to apply to Toni's flagging mood, and she smiled to herself when she heard Toni's reply.

"Do you think I would hesitate to give up Greenriver--and all the rest--to make my husband happy?"

And looking at her Eva knew she would not. Mistaken, Toni might often be--foolish, self-willed, a little intolerant of advice; but she would never be selfish. If she could be convinced that her departure would be beneficial to the man she loved, she would certainly leave him, though it broke her heart to go.