“I’m going to St. John’s Wood. I suppose you’re not going my way?”
“I am relieved to hear that you are going to St. John’s Wood,” said the other with mock politeness. “I feared you were going to the nearest crematorium.”
Gilbert found his wife in the study on his return. She was sitting on the big settee reading. The stress of the previous night had left no mark upon her beautiful face. She favoured him with a smile. Instinctively they had both adopted the attitude which best met the circumstances. Her respect for him had increased, even in that short space of time; he had so well mastered himself in that moment of terror—terror which in an indefinable way had communicated itself to her. He had met her the next morning at breakfast cheerfully; but she did not doubt that he had spent a sleepless night, for his eyes were heavy and tired, and in spite of his geniality his voice was sharp, as are the voices of men who have cheated Nature.
He walked straight to his desk now.
“Do you want to be alone?” she asked.
He looked up with a start.
“No, no,” he said hastily, “I’ve no wish to be alone. I’ve a little work to do, but you won’t bother me. You ought to know,” he said with an affectation of carelessness, “that I am resigning my post.”
“Your post!” she repeated.
“Yes; I find I have so much to do, and the Foreign Office takes up so much of my time that I really can’t spare, that it came to a question of giving up that or something else.”
He did not enlighten her as to what that “something else” was, nor could she guess. Already he was an enigma to her; she found, strange though it seemed to her, a new interest in him. That there was some tragedy in his life, a tragedy unsuspected by her, she did not doubt. He had told her calmly and categorically the story of his disinheritance; at his request, she had put the whole of that story into a letter which she had addressed to her mother. She felt no qualms, no inward quaking, at the prospect of the inevitable encounter, though Mrs. Cathcart would be enraged beyond reason.
Edith smiled a little to herself as she had stuck down the flap of the envelope. This was poetic justice, though she herself might be a lifelong sufferer by reason of her worldly parent’s schemings. She had hoped that as a result of that letter, posted early in the morning, her mother would have called and the interview would have been finished before her husband returned. But Gilbert had been in the house half an hour when the blow fell. The tinkle of the hall bell brought the girl to her feet: she had been waiting, her ears strained, for that aggressive ring.
She herself flew down the stairs to open the door.
Mrs. Cathcart entered without a word, and as the girl closed the door behind her she turned.
“Where is that precious husband of yours?” she asked in a choked voice.
“My husband is in his study,” said the girl calmly. “Do you want him, mother?”
“Do I want him?” she repeated in a choked voice.
Edith saw the glare in the woman’s eyes, saw, too, the pinched and haggard cheek. For one brief moment she pitied this woman, who had seen all her dreams shattered at a moment when she had hoped that their realisation was inevitable.
“Does he know I am coming?”
“I think he rather expects you,” said the girl dryly.
“I will see him by myself,” said Mrs. Cathcart, turning halfway up the stairs.
“You will see him with me, mother, or you will not see him at all,” said the girl.
“You will do as I tell you, Edith,” stormed the woman.
The girl smiled.
“Mother,” she said gently, “you have ceased to have any right to direct me. You have handed me over to another guardian whose claims are greater than yours.”
It was not a good preparation for the interview that was to follow. Edith recognised this even as she opened the door and ushered her mother in.
When Gilbert saw who his visitor was he rose with a little bow. He did not offer his hand. He knew something of what this woman was feeling.
“Won’t you sit down, Mrs. Cathcart?” he said.
“I’ll stand for what I have to say,” she snapped. “Now, what is the meaning of this?” She threw down the letter which the girl had written, and which she had read and reread until every word was engraven on her mind. “Is it true,” she asked fiercely, “that you are a poor man? That you have deceived us? That you have lied your way into a marriage—”
He held up his hand.
“You seem to forget, Mrs. Cathcart,” he said with dignity, “that the question of my position has already been discussed by you and me, and you have been most emphatic in impressing upon me the fact that no worldly considerations would weigh with you.”
“Worldly!” she sneered. “What do you mean by worldly, Mr. Standerton? Are you not in the world? Do you not live in a house and eat bread and butter that costs money? Do you not use motorcars that require money for their upkeep? Whilst I am living in the world and you are living in the world worldly considerations will always count. I thought you were a rich man; you’re a beggar.”
He smiled a little contemptuously.
“A pretty mess you’ve made of it,” she said harshly. “You’ve got a woman who doesn’t love you—I suppose you know that?”
He bowed.
“I know all that, Mrs. Cathcart,” he said. “I knew the worst when I learnt that. The fact that you so obviously planned the marriage because you thought that I was Sir John Standerton’s heir does not hurt me, because I have met so many women like you, only”—he shrugged his shoulders—“I must confess that I thought you were a little
