“Why hard upon her?” Inquired John Treverton.
“Because there’s no salary goes with the situation. The belle of the season ought to get something to lighten the expenses of her year of office, like the Lord Mayor. See what is expected of her! Every eye is upon her. Every woman in London looks to her as a model of taste and elegance, and eagerly strives to dress after her. How is she to put a limit upon her milliner’s bill, when she knows that all the society journals are lying in wait to describe her last gown, to eulogise her newest bonnet, to write an epigram upon her parasol, to be ecstatic about her boots. Can she ride in a hired carriage? No. Can she be absent from Goodwood, or missing at Cowes? No. She must die standing. I say that since she furnishes the public with interest and amusement—much better than the Lord Mayor does, by the way—she ought to get a handsome allowance out of the public purse.”
When he had exhausted pictures, and reigning beauties, and the winner of the Leger, Edward began to talk about crime.
“People in London have a knack of wearing a subject to tatters,” he said. “I thought neither the newspapers nor the public would ever get tired of talking about the Chicot murder.”
“The Chicot murder. Ah, that was the ballet dancer, was it not?” enquired Lady Barker, who was so interested in this vivacious young man on her right hand that she had hardly given due attention to Mr. Treverton, who was on her left. “I remember feeling rather interested in that mystery. A diabolical murder, certainly. And how stupid the police must have been not to find the murderer.”
“Or how clever the murderer to sink his identity so completely as to give the police the slip,” suggested Edward.
“Oh, but he must have got away to the colonies, or somewhere, surely,” cried Lady Barker. “There are so many vessels leaving England nowadays. You don’t imagine for a moment that the murderer of that wretched woman remained in England?”
“I think it highly probable that he did, discreetly hidden under some outer shell of intense respectability.”
“I suppose you think it was the husband?” put in Sir Joshua Parker, from his place at Laura’s right hand.
“I don’t see any ground for doubt,” replied Edward. “If the husband was not guilty, why should he disappear the moment the crime was discovered?”
“He may have had reasons of his own for wishing to get away, reasons unconnected with the mode and manner of his wife’s death,” hazarded John Treverton.
“What reasons could he have had strong enough to induce him to run the risk of being thought a murderer?” asked Edward, incredulously. “No innocent man would place himself in such a position as that.”
“Not knowingly,” said John; “but this man may have acted on impulse, without reckoning the consequences of his act.”
“To admit that would be to consider him a fool,” retorted Edward; “and from all I have heard of the fellow, he belonged to the other half of humanity.”
“You mean that he was a knave?”
“I mean that he was a fellow who knew the ropes. He was not the sort of man to find his wife’s throat cut, and to make a bolt, leaving every newspaper in London free to brand him as a coward and a murderer,” said Edward, decisively.
John Treverton pursued the subject no further. Lady Parker, who sat at his left, had just begun to question him about a late importation of Jersey cows, in which she was deeply interested; whereupon he favoured her with a detailed account of their graces and merits. Laura happened to look up at Edward Clare as he finished speaking, and the expression of his countenance startled and shocked her. Never had she seen so keen a look of malice in any living face. Only in the face of Judas in an old Italian picture had she ever beheld such craft and such venom. And that malignant look—brief as a flash of lightning—glanced at her unconscious husband, whose face was gravely courteous as he bent his handsome head a little to tell Lady Parker about the Jersey cows.
“Good heavens!” thought Laura, with a sense of absolute fear. “Is it possible that this young man can be so bitter against my husband because I loved him best? What could the love be like that could engender such malice!”
Later in the evening when Edward came and hung over the ottoman where Laura was sitting, she turned from him with an involuntary movement of disgust.
“Have I offended you?” he asked, in a low voice.
“Yes. I saw a look in your face at dinner that told me you dislike my husband.”
“Do you expect me to love him—very dearly—at first? You must at least give me time to get accustomed to the idea that he is your husband. Time cures most wounds. Give me time, Laura, and do not judge me too hardly. I possess the poet’s curse, a mind more sensitive than the minds of ordinary men—dowered with the love of love, the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn.”
“I hope you will leave your dowry outside when you come across this threshold,” said Laura, with a smile that was more contemptuous than relenting. “I can accept friendship from no one who does not like my husband.”
“Then I will struggle with the original man within me, and try to like John Treverton. Believe me, Laura, I want to be your friend—in honest and unequivocal friendship.”
“That is the kind of friendship I expect from your father’s son,” said Laura, in a gentler tone.
She was too happy, too secure in her own happiness, to be unforgiving. She reasoned with herself—arguing against instinct and conviction—and told herself that Edward Clare’s malevolent look had meant less than it seemed to mean.
Edward
