Banked Fires Part 54

He was nervous and uncomfortable, while fidgeting with a letter in his fingers.

"He has made a rather sporting offer, don't you think?" she asked with biting sarcasm, her eyes studying his face.

"What are you going to do?"

"Surely!--that's for you to say."

"Me?" (irritably).

"Of course. You know that he and I parted long ago over incompatibility of temper, and that his offer is made only to save his precious honour.

He has heard rumours! There is no love in it; instead, it is carefully ruled out. I may return to his protection whenever I like; but as his wife _only in name_."

"It will be better than this knock-about sort of life you have led, with an allowance wholly inadequate to your needs" (conciliatingly).

"But is there nothing else in life for a young woman of my years and temperament? What about you and me?" (tenderly).

Meredith reddened as he said resolutely, "That page will have to be turned down for good, in the fullest sense of the word."

It was a page of which he was heartily ashamed. The shame was inevitable, the affair having been, from the first, a comedy of degrees in which his heart had never been involved; begun while he was a helpless invalid dependent upon this woman for nursing and companions.h.i.+p. That she had started the flirtation, and had taken advantage of his loneliness and temporary weakness to bring him almost to the verge of a deep dishonour, were memories he would have given much to forget. Mrs. Dalton was a type of woman he had always held in contempt; but he had failed to identify her as such, till his normal health had rea.s.serted itself. Latterly he had allowed himself to drift with the tide while looking for a means of escape from his intolerable position.

"Do you mean that?" she asked with whitening lips.

"I think it is the only thing to do," he replied.

"If you say that for my sake, then I might just as well be frank. You know I love you, Ray Meredith, and I believe you love me, only you have never quite let yourself go, for some hidden reason--possibly your career? It can't be consideration for that bloodless and callous creature, your wife? I refuse to believe that you have any feeling for a woman who has placed her child before her husband and is content to live apart from him when she knows that men are but human after all! Your career is safe. A man's private life is his own affair. If we throw in our lot together, we can after the divorce marry and live happily ever after, as the good little story books tell us in the nursery." She laughed tenderly. "My husband will gladly have done with me, for I can tell who it is he wants. I paid a stolen visit to his bungalow at Muktiarbad and snapshots of her live all about him in his den. Can I tolerate the position I shall occupy in his house, knowing all the while it has been flung at me like a bone to a dog? If he could marry her tomorrow he would; only she isn't the sort, I am told, who would take him unless I am dead! Now, this is frankness indeed!"

Meredith was silent.

"Can't you speak?"

"I have spoken."

"And is that all?" she cried pa.s.sionately, creeping nearer, her dark eyes compelling his surrender. "Don't you know that all Darjeeling is talking of us? That, for your sake, people are treating me abominably while they smile kindly on you? I am only a woman, therefore may be crushed. My G.o.d!--and you would turn me down, like a 'page' for 'good'!"

"Perhaps I should not put it like that," he said nervously as he trifled with Captain Dalton's letter to his wife, and allowed it to fall to the floor. His cigarette case suggested comfort and was drawn forth as a diversion.

"Put it as you like, it is rather a knock-out blow for me!"

"Say, rather, that it is a mercy things have not gone too far, and that you can accept your husband's 'sporting' offer with a clear--a clear"--_conscience_ was scarcely a suitable word. He was certain she had smothered it long ago.

"Oh, d.a.m.n my husband! I want nothing to do with him since knowing you!

Ray, old dear, have you ceased to love me?--I don't believe it!" She flung her arms about his neck and laid her cheek to his. In her tones was beguilement, in her eyes the lure of an evil thing. Her back was turned to the door so that she did not see that it had opened suddenly to admit someone. Both had been too preoccupied to hear the gentle knock.

Meredith looked up and saw his wife enter,--his little Joyce, whom he imagined was in England. For a moment he was petrified--the next instant he shook himself free of Mrs. Dalton's embrace, and stood apart, convicted and ashamed.

Joyce stood stock still as if paralysed, and could only murmur conventionally, "I am sorry," purely a mechanical expression of apology such as she would have made to a stranger. "No one answered my knock, so I came in."

The very air was electrical. Meredith could only utter his wife's name in blank amazement. What could he say under such d.a.m.ning circ.u.mstances?

Mrs. Dalton laughed hysterically.

Collecting her scattered wits, Joyce explained, reaching a hand out to a cabinet for support: "I came out with the mails. There was a hint of _this_, only I dared not let myself believe it. It seemed impossible from my knowledge of you. But it appears I was wrong," her lip curled.

Turning to Mrs. Dalton she said coldly, "Perhaps you will be good enough to leave us together?"

Standing there erect in her pride and beauty, dressed exquisitely, yet simply, she was a revelation to the woman who had sought to rob her and was now brazen enough to carry off the situation with effrontery.

"It was pretty smart of you to act the spy, stealing on us without warning! However, we are not afraid. Do your worst!"

"I am waiting for you to leave the room," said Joyce with immovable calm. Her queenlike dignity was something new to her husband, and it commanded Mrs. Dalton's unwilling respect and obedience.

Meredith walked swiftly to the door and held it open for the lady to pa.s.s out, his features rigid, his eyes bent on the carpet at his feet, nor did he raise them when she brushed past him and lightly touched his hand as it held the door-k.n.o.b.

"Why didn't you cable?--or wire from Calcutta?" he asked through white lips.

Joyce looked in scornful silence at him and then said with a perceptible shrug, "I am glad I did neither."

"Things look pretty bad against me, I admit," he said bitterly. "Is it any use for me to ask you not to judge me too hastily? The situation you surprised was not of my creating."

Joyce laughed suddenly, a strained and mirthless laugh as she mentally recalled the words, "The woman gave me, and I did eat."

"Judge you hastily? Such a situation requires no explanation. It is plainly a confession of guilt, or it could not have been."

"By that do you mean you will take action?"

"Action?--do you mean, divorce you?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you would like to marry Mrs. Dalton if her husband gives her up!" she said bitterly, hardly recognising the tones of her own voice.

"Good G.o.d!--never!" he shuddered involuntarily.

"I do not understand you."

"You would not believe me if I told you."

"I am beginning to understand more of men than I did when we parted. It seems, you could make love to this lady without being in love with her?

You even humiliated me in the eyes of the world, merely for the sake of a vulgar intrigue?"

She astonished Meredith with every word she spoke. His little Joyce had suddenly become a woman, a thousand times more wonderful than he had ever known her.

"I am innocent of anything but an ordinary flirtation, of which I am heartily ashamed, believe it or not," he returned pacing the floor restlessly, his face pallid, his eyes miserable. "What are you going to do?" coming to a stop before her. It was as well that he should know the worst she contemplated.

"I don't know ... but I cannot advertise my shame to the world!" she said icily as she turned to leave the room.

"Where are you going?"

"There is my trunk. I shall need to engage a room."

"Sit down by the fire, and I will see to everything for you."