Mrs. Duchemin assumed her most aloof, tender and high air: “My poor child,” she said, “what possible concern can the opinions of that broken fellow cause anyone? You can warn him from me that he does himself no good by going on uttering these discredited opinions. He’s a marked man. Finished! It’s no good Guggums, my husband, trying to stand up for him.”
“He does stand up for him?” Valentine asked. “Though I don’t see why it’s needed. Mr. Tietjens is surely able to take care of himself.”
“My good child,” Edith Ethel said, “you may as well know the worst. There’s not a more discredited man in London than Christopher Tietjens, and my husband does himself infinite harm in standing up for him. It’s our one quarrel.”
She went on again:
“It was all very well whilst that fellow had brains. He was said to have some intellect, though I could never see it. But now that, with his drunkenness and debaucheries, he has got himself into the state he is in; for there’s no other way of accounting for his condition! They’re striking him, I don’t mind telling you, off the roll of his office …”
It was there that, for the first time, the thought went through Valentine Wannop’s mind, like a mad inspiration: this woman must at one time have been in love with Tietjens. It was possible, men being what they were, that she had even once been Tietjens’ mistress. For it was impossible otherwise to account for this spite, which to Valentine seemed almost meaningless. She had, on the other hand, no impulse to defend Tietjens against accusations that could not have any possible grounds.
Mrs. Duchemin was going on with her kind loftiness:
“Of course a fellow like that—in that condition!—could not understand matters of high policy. It is imperative that these fellows should not have the higher command. It would pander to their insane spirit of militarism. They must be hindered. I’m talking, of course, between ourselves, but my husband says that that is the conviction in the very highest circles. To let them have their way, even if it led to earlier success, would be to establish a precedent—so my husband says!—compared with which the loss of a few lives …”
Valentine sprang up, her face distorted.
“For the sake of Christ,” she cried out, “as you believe that Christ died for you, try to understand that millions of men’s lives are at stake …”
Mrs. Duchemin smiled.
“My poor child,” she said, “if you moved in the higher circles you would look at these things with more aloofness …”
Valentine leant on the back of a high chair for support.
“You don’t move in the higher circles,” she said. “For Heaven’s sake—for your own—remember that you are a woman, not forever and for always a snob. You were a good woman once. You stuck to your husband for quite a long time …”
Mrs. Duchemin, in her chair, had thrown herself back.
“My good girl,” she said, “have you gone mad?”
Valentine said:
“Yes, very nearly. I’ve got a brother at sea; I’ve had a man I loved out there for an infinite time. You can understand that, I suppose, even if you can’t understand how one can go mad merely at the thoughts of suffering at all. … And I know, Edith Ethel, that you are afraid of my opinion of you, or you wouldn’t have put up all the subterfuges and concealments of all these years …”
Mrs. Duchemin said quickly:
“Oh, my good girl. … If you’ve got personal interests at stake you can’t be expected to take abstract views of the higher matters. We had better change the subject.”
Valentine said:
“Yes, do. Get on with your excuses for not asking me and mother to your knighthood party.”
Mrs. Duchemin, too, rose at that. She felt at her amber beads with long fingers that turned very slightly at the tips. She had behind her all her mirrors, the drops of her lustres, shining points of gilt and of the polish of dark woods. Valentine thought that she had never seen anyone so absolutely impersonate kindness, tenderness and dignity. She said:
“My dear, I was going to suggest that it was the sort of party to which you might not care to come. … The people will be stiff and formal and you probably haven’t got a frock.”
Valentine said:
“Oh, I’ve got a frock all right. But there’s a Jacob’s ladder in my party stockings and that’s the sort of ladder you can’t kick down.” She couldn’t help saying that.
Mrs. Duchemin stood motionless and very slowly redness mounted into her face. It was most curious to see against that scarlet background the vivid white of the eyes and the dark, straight eyebrows that nearly met. And, slowly again her face went perfectly white; then her dark blue eyes became marked. She seemed to wipe her long, white hands one in the other, inserting her right hand into her left drawing it out again.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a dead voice. “We had hoped that, if that man went to France—or if other things happened—we might have continued on the old friendly footing. But you yourself must see that, with our official position, we can’t be expected to connive …”
Valentine said:
“I don’t understand!”
“Perhaps you’d rather I didn’t go on!” Mrs. Duchemin retorted. “I’d much rather not go on.”
“You’d probably better,” Valentine answered.
“We had meant,” the elder woman said, “to have a quiet little dinner—we two and you, before the party—for auld lang syne. But that fellow has forced himself in, and you see for yourself that we can’t have you as well.”
Valentine said:
“I don’t see why not. I always like to see Mr. Tietjens!”
Mrs. Duchemin looked hard at her.
“I don’t see the use,” she said, “of your keeping on that mask. It is surely bad enough that your mother should go about with that man and that terrible scenes like that of the other Friday should occur. Mrs. Tietjens was heroic; nothing less than heroic. But you have no right
