“The man is a blackguard—of course.”
“He is so;—though I do not know that I wish to hear him called such a name by your lips. Let him be what he may he was your friend.”
“He was my acquaintance.”
“He was the man whom you selected to be your candidate for the borough in opposition to my wishes, and whom you continued to support in direct disobedience to my orders.”
“Surely, Plantagenet, we have had all that about disobedience out before.”
“You cannot have such things ‘out,’—as you call it. Evildoing will not bury itself out of the way and be done with. Do you feel no shame at having your name mentioned a score of times with reprobation as that man mentions it;—at being written about by such a man as that?”
“Do you want to make me roll in the gutter because I mistook him for a gentleman?”
“That was not all—nor half. In your eagerness to serve such a miserable creature as this you forgot my entreaties, my commands, my position! I explained to you why I, of all men, and you, of all women, as a part of me, should not do this thing; and yet you did it, mistaking such a cur as that for a man! What am I to do? How am I to free myself from the impediments which you make for me? My enemies I can overcome—but I cannot escape the pitfalls which are made for me by my own wife. I can only retire into private life and hope to console myself with my children and my books.”
There was a reality of tragedy about him which for the moment overcame her. She had no joke ready, no sarcasm, no feminine counter-grumble. Little as she agreed with him when he spoke of the necessity of retiring into private life because a man had written to him such a letter as this, incapable as she was of understanding fully the nature of the irritation which tormented him, still she knew that he was suffering, and acknowledged to herself that she had been the cause of the agony. “I am sorry,” she ejaculated at last. “What more can I say?”
“What am I to do? What can be said to the man? Warburton read the letter, and gave it me in silence. He could see the terrible difficulty.”
“Tear it in pieces, and then let there be an end of it.”
“I do not feel sure but that he has right on his side. He is, as you say, certainly a blackguard, or he would not make such a claim. He is taking advantage of the mistake made by a good-natured woman through her folly and her vanity;”—as he said this the Duchess gave an absurd little pout, but luckily he did not see it—“and he knows very well that he is doing so. But still he has a show of justice on his side. There was, I suppose, no chance for him at Silverbridge after I had made myself fully understood. The money was absolutely wasted. It was your persuasion and then your continued encouragement that led him on to spend the money.”
“Pay it then. The loss will not hurt you.”
“Ah;—if we could but get out of our difficulties by paying! Suppose that I do pay it. I begin to think that I must pay it;—that after all I cannot allow such a plea to remain unanswered. But when it is paid;—what then? Do you think such a payment made by the Queen’s Minister will not be known to all the newspapers, and that I shall escape the charge of having bribed the man to hold his tongue?”
“It will be no bribe if you pay him because you think you ought.”
“But how shall I excuse it? There are things done which are holy as the heavens—which are clear before God as the light of the sun, which leave no stain on the conscience, and which yet the malignity of man can invest with the very blackness of hell! I shall know why I pay this £500. Because she who of all the world is the nearest and the dearest to me,”—she looked up into his face with amazement, as he stood stretching out both his arms in his energy—“has in her impetuous folly committed a grievous blunder, from which she would not allow her husband to save her, this sum must be paid to the wretched craven. But I cannot tell the world that. I cannot say abroad that this small sacrifice of money was the justest means of retrieving the injury which you had done.”
“Say it abroad. Say it everywhere.”
“No, Glencora.”
“Do you think that I would have you spare me if it was my fault? And how would it hurt me? Will it be new to anyone that I have done a foolish thing? Will the newspapers disturb my peace? I sometimes think, Plantagenet, that I should have been the man, my skin is so thick; and that you should have been the woman, yours is so tender.”
“But it is not so.”
“Take the advantage, nevertheless, of my toughness. Send him the £500 without a word—or make Warburton do so, or Mr. Moreton. Make no secret of it. Then if the papers talk about it—”
“A question might be asked about it in the House.”
“Or if questioned in any way—say that I did it. Tell the exact truth. You are always saying that nothing but truth ever serves. Let the truth serve now. I shall not blench. Your saying it all in the House of Lords won’t wound me half so much as your looking at me as you did just now.”
“Did I wound you? God
