The Irrational Knot Part 59

"Well, but--Marian: perhaps I may have spoken rather harshly just now; but I did not mean you to take it so. You must be reasonable."

"Pray let us have no more words about it. I need no apologies, and desire no advances. Good-bye is enough."

"But, Marian," said he, coming nearer, "you must not fancy that I have ceased to love you."

"Above all," said Marian, "let us have no more of that. You say you hate this place and the life we lead here. I am heartily sick of it, and have been so for a long time."

"Let us go elsewhere."

"Yes, but not together. One word," she added resolutely, seeing his expression become fierce. "I will not endure any violence, even of language, from you. I know of old what you are when you lose your temper; and if you insult me I will summon aid, and proclaim who I am."

"Do you think I am going to strike you?"

"No, because you dare not. But I will not listen to oaths or abuse."

"What have you to complain of? What is your grievance?"

"I make no complaint. I exercise the liberty I bought so dearly to go where I please and do what I please."

"And to desert me when I have sacrificed everything for you. I have incurred enormous expenses; alienated my friends; risked my position in society; and broken my mother's heart for your sake."

"But for that I would have left you before. I am very sorry."

"You have heard something in that letter which makes you hope that your husband will take you back. Not a woman in London will speak to you."

"I tell you I am not going back. Oh, Sholto, dont be so mean. Can we not part with dignity? We have made a mistake. Let us acknowledge it quietly, and go our several ways."

"I will not be got rid of so easily as you suppose," he said, his face darkening menacingly. "Do you think I believe in your going out alone from this hotel and living by yourself in a strange city? Come! who is it?"

"Who is----? What do you mean?"

"What new connexion have you formed? You were very anxious about our s.h.i.+p returning the other day--anxious about the mails, of course.

Perhaps also about the surgeon."

"I understand. You think I am leaving you to go to some other man. I will tell you now the true reason."

"Do," said he, sarcastically, biting his lip.

"I will. I am leaving you because, instead of loving you, as I foolishly thought I could, I neither respect nor even like you. You are utterly selfish and narrow-minded; and I deserve my disappointment for having deserted for your sake a far better man. I am sorry you have sacrificed so much for me; but if you had been worthy of a woman's regard, you would not have lost me."

Douglas stared at her. "_I_ selfish and narrow-minded!" he said, with the calm of stupefaction.

"Yes."

"I may have been narrow-minded in devoting myself so entirely to you,"

said he slowly, after a pause. "But, though I do not ask for grat.i.tude, I think I have been sufficiently a loser to disregard such a monstrous a.s.sertion as that I am selfish."

"You show your selfishness by dwelling on what you have lost. You never think of what I have lost. I make no profession of unselfishness. I am suffering for my folly and egoism; and I deserve to suffer."

"In what way, pray, are you suffering? You came here because you had a wretched home, and a husband who was glad to be rid of you. You do what you like, and have what you like. Name one solitary wish of yours that has not been silently gratified."

"I do not find fault with you. You have been generous in supplying me with luxuries such as money can obtain. But it was not the want of money that made me fancy my home wretched. It is not true that I can do as I like. How many minutes is it since you threatened to cast me off if I did not make myself agreeable to you? Can you boast of your generosity after taunting me with my dependence on you?"

"You misunderstood me, Marian. I neither boasted, nor threatened, nor taunted. I have even apologized for that moment's irritation. If you cannot forgive such a trifle, you yourself can have very little generosity."

"Perhaps not. I do not violently resent things; but I cannot forget them, nor feel as I did before they happened."

"You think so at present. Let us cease this bickering. Lovers' quarrels should not be carried too far."

"I am longing to cease it. It worries me; and it does not alter my determination in the least."

"Do you mean----"

"I do mean. Dont look at me like that: you make me angry instead of frightening me."

"And do you think I will suffer this quietly?"

"You may suffer it as you please," said Marian, stepping quietly to the wall, and pressing a b.u.t.ton. "I will never see you again if I can help it. If you follow me, or persecute me in any way, I will appeal to the police for protection as Mrs. Conolly. I despise you more than I do any one on earth."

He turned away, and s.n.a.t.c.hed up his coat and hat. She stood apparently watching him quietly, but really listening with quickened heart to his loud and irregular breathing. As he opened the door to go out, he was confronted on the threshold by a foreign waiter.

"Vas you reeng?" said the waiter doubtfully, retreating a step.

"I will not be accountable for that woman's expenses from this time forth," said Douglas, pointing at her, "You can keep her at your own risk, or turn her into the streets to pursue her profession, as you please."

The waiter, smiting vaguely, looked first at the retreating figure of Douglas, and then at Marian.

"I want another room, if you please," she said. "One on any of the upper floors will do; but I must have my things moved there at once."

Her instructions were carried out after some parley. In the meantime, Douglas's man servant appeared, and said that he had been instructed to remove his master's luggage.

"Is Mr. Forster leaving the hotel?" she asked.

"I dont know his arrangements, madam."

"I guess I do, then," said a sulky man, who was preparing to wheel away Marian's trunk. "He's about to s.h.i.+ft his billet to the Gran' Central."

Marian, still in a towering rage, sat down in her new room to consider her situation. To fix her attention, which repeatedly wandered to what had pa.s.sed between her and Douglas, she counted her money, and found that she had, besides a twenty pound note which she had brought with her from London, only a few loose dollars in her purse. Her practice in housekeeping at Westbourne Terrace and Holland Park had taught her the value of money too well to let her suppose that she could afford to remain at a first rate American hotel with so small a sum in her possession. At home Conolly had made her keep a separate banking account; and there was money to her credit there; but in her ignorance of the law, she was not sure that she had not forfeited all her property by eloping. She resolved to move at once into some cheap lodging, and to live economically until she could ascertain the true state of her affairs, or until she could obtain some employment, to support her. She faced poverty without fear, never having experienced it.

It was still early in the afternoon when she left the hotel and drove to the Crawfords'.

"So you have come at last," cried Mrs. Crawford, who was fifty years of age and stout, but leaner in the face than fat Englishwomen of that age usually are.

"I just expected you'd soon git tired of being grand all by yourself in the hotel yonder."

"I fear I shall have to be the reverse of grand all by myself in some very shabby lodging," said Marian. "Dont be surprised Mrs. Crawford. Can one live in New York on ten dollars a week?"

"_You_ cant live on ten dollars a week in New York nor on a hundred. You rode here, didnt you?"