Cecilia had narrated to him with passable fidelity what had occurred upstairs, while he was sitting alone in the dining-room. That she, in her anger, had at one moment spurned Harry Clavering, and that in the next she had knelt to him, imploring him to come back to Florence—those two little incidents she did not tell to her husband. Harry’s adventures with Lady Ongar, as far as she knew them, she described accurately. “I can’t make any apology for him; upon my life I can’t,” said Burton. “If I know what it is for a man to behave ill, falsely, like a knave in such matters, he is so behaving.” So Theodore Burton spoke as he took his candle to go away to his work; but his wife had induced him to promise that he would not write to Stratton or take any other step in the matter till they had waited twenty-four hours for Harry’s promised letter.
The letter came before the twenty-four hours were expired, and Burton, on his return home on the Saturday, found himself called upon to read and pass judgment upon Harry’s confession. “What right has he to speak of her as his darling Florence,” he exclaimed, “while he is confessing his own knavery?”
“But if she is his darling—?” pleaded his wife.
“Trash! But the word from him in such a letter is simply an additional insult. And what does he know about this woman who has come back? He vouches for her, but what can he know of her? Just what she tells him. He is simply a fool.”
“But you cannot dislike him for believing her word.”
“Cecilia,” said he, holding down the letter as he spoke—“you are so carried away by your love for Florence, and your fear lest a marriage which has been once talked of should not take place, that you shut your eyes to this man’s true character. Can you believe any good of a man who tells you to your face that he is engaged to two women at once?”
“I think I can,” said Cecilia, hardly venturing to express so dangerous an opinion above her breath.
“And what would you think of a woman who did so?”
“Ah, that is so different! I cannot explain it, but you know that it is different.”
“I know that you would forgive a man anything, and a woman nothing.” To this she submitted in silence, having probably heard the reproof before, and he went on to finish the letter. “Not defending himself!” he exclaimed—“then why does he not defend himself? When a man tells me that he does not, or cannot defend himself, I know that he is a sorry fellow, without a spark of spirit.”
“I don’t think that of Harry. Surely that letter shows a spirit.”
“Such a one as I should be ashamed to see in a dog. No man should ever be in a position in which he cannot defend himself. No man, at any rate, should admit himself to be so placed. Wish that he should go on with his engagement! I do not wish it at all. I am sorry for Florence. She will suffer terribly. But the loss of such a lover as that is infinitely a lesser loss than would be the gain of such a husband. You had better write to Florence, and tell her not to come.”
“Oh, Theodore!”
“That is my advice.”
“But there is no post between this and Monday,” said Cecilia temporizing.
“Send her a message by the wires.”
“You cannot explain this by a telegram, Theodore. Besides, why should she not come? Her coming can do no harm. If you were to tell your mother now of all this, it would prevent the possibility of things ever being right.”
“Things—that is, this thing, never will be right,” said he.
“But let us see. She will be here on Monday, and if you think it best you can tell her everything. Indeed, she must be told when she is here, for I could not keep it from her. I could not smile and talk to her about him and make her think that it is all right.”
“Not you! I should be very sorry if you could.”
“But I think I could make her understand that she should not decide upon breaking with him altogether.”
“And I think I could make her understand that she ought to do so.”
“But you wouldn’t do that, Theodore?”
“I would if I thought it my duty.”
“But at any rate, she must come, and we can talk of that tomorrow.”
As to Florence’s coming, Burton had given way, beaten, apparently, by that argument about the post. On the Sunday very little was said about Harry Clavering. Cecilia studiously avoided the subject, and Burton had not so far decided on dropping Harry altogether, as to make him anxious to express any such decision. After all, such dropping or not dropping must be the work of Florence herself. On the Monday morning Cecilia had a further triumph. On that day her husband was very fully engaged—having to meet a synod of contractors, surveyors, and engineers, to discuss which of the remaining thoroughfares of London should not be knocked down by the coming railways—and he could not absent himself from the Adelphi. It was, therefore, arranged that Mrs. Burton should go to the Paddington Station to meet her sister-in-law. She therefore would have the first word with Florence, and the earliest opportunity of impressing the newcomer with her own ideas. “Of course, you must say something to her of this man,” said her husband, “but the less you say the better. After all she must be left to judge for herself.” In all matters such
