“Do you mean altogether, Lady Chiltern?”
“Certainly I do. Such a resolve cannot be a half-and-half arrangement.”
“But why?”
“I think you must know why, Mr. Maule.”
“I don’t in the least. I won’t have it broken off. I have as much right to have a voice in the matter as she has, and I don’t in the least believe it’s her doing.”
“Mr. Maule!”
“I do not care; I must speak out. Why does she not tell me so herself?”
“She did tell you so.”
“No, she didn’t. She said something, but not that. I don’t suppose a man was ever so used before; and it’s all Lord Chiltern;—just because I told him that he had no right to interfere with me. And he has no right.”
“You and Oswald were away together when she told me that she had made up her mind. Oswald has hardly spoken to her since you have been in the house. He certainly has not spoken to her about you since you came to us.”
“What is the meaning of it, then?”
“You told her that your engagement had overwhelmed you with troubles.”
“Of course; there must be troubles.”
“And that—you would have to be banished to Boulogne when you were married.”
“I didn’t mean her to take that literally.”
“It wasn’t a nice way, Mr. Maule, to speak of your future life to the girl to whom you were engaged. Of course it was her hope to make your life happier, not less happy. And when you made her understand—as you did very plainly—that your married prospects filled you with dismay, of course she had no other alternative but to retreat from her engagement.”
“I wasn’t dismayed.”
“It is not my doing, Mr. Maule.”
“I suppose she’ll see me?”
“If you insist upon it she will; but she would rather not.”
Gerard, however, did insist, and Adelaide was brought to him there into that room before he went to bed. She was very gentle with him, and spoke to him in a tone very different from that which Lady Chiltern had used; but he found himself utterly powerless to change her. That unfortunate allusion to a miserable exile at Boulogne had completed the work which the former plaints had commenced, and had driven her to a resolution to separate herself from him altogether.
“Mr. Maule,” she said, “when I perceived that our proposed marriage was looked upon by you as a misfortune, I could do nothing but put an end to our engagement.”
“But I didn’t think it a misfortune.”
“You made me think that it would be unfortunate for you, and that is quite as strong a reason. I hope we shall part as friends.”
“I won’t part at all,” he said, standing his ground with his back to the fire. “I don’t understand it, by heaven I don’t. Because I said some stupid thing about Boulogne, all in joke—”
“It was not in joke when you said that troubles had come heavy on you since you were engaged.”
“A man may be allowed to know, himself, whether he was in joke or not. I suppose the truth is you don’t care about me?”
“I hope, Mr. Maule, that in time it may come—not quite to that.”
“I think that you are—using me very badly. I think that you are—behaving—falsely to me. I think that I am—very—shamefully treated—among you. Of course I shall go. Of course I shall not stay in this house. A man can’t make a girl keep her promise. No—I won’t shake hands. I won’t even say goodbye to you. Of course I shall go.” So saying he slammed the door behind him.
“If he cares for you he’ll come back to you,” Lady Chiltern said to Adelaide that night, who at the moment was lying on her bed in a sad condition, frantic with headache.
“I don’t want him to come back; I will never make him go to Boulogne.”
“Don’t think of it, dear.”
“Not think of it! how can I help thinking of it? I shall always think of it. But I never want to see him again—never! How can I want to marry a man who tells me that I shall be a trouble to him? He shall never—never have to go to Boulogne for me.”
XLIII
The Second Thunderbolt
The quarrel between Phineas Finn and Mr. Bonteen had now become the talk of the town, and had taken many various phases. The political phase, though it was perhaps the best understood, was not the most engrossing. There was the personal phase—which had reference to the direct altercation that had taken place between the two gentlemen, and to the correspondence between them which had followed, as to which phase it may be said that though there were many rumours abroad, very little was known. It was reported in some circles that the two aspirants for office had been within an ace of striking each other; in some, again, that a blow had passed—and in others, further removed probably from the House of Commons and the Universe Club, that the Irishman had struck the Englishman, and that the Englishman had given the Irishman a thrashing. This was a phase that was very disagreeable to Phineas Finn. And there was a third—which may perhaps be called the general social phase, and which unfortunately dealt with the name of Lady Laura Kennedy. They all, of course, worked into each other, and were
