“Mr. Fitzgerald, why do you not leave me and go?” said Lady Glencora.
Poor Burgo also found it difficult enough to speak. What could he say? His cause was one which certainly did not admit of being pleaded in the presence of a strange lady; and he might have known from the moment in which he heard Glencora’s request that a third person should be summoned to their meeting—and probably did know, that there was no longer any hope for him. It was not on the cards that he should win. But there remained one thing that he must do. He must get himself out of that room; and how was he to effect that?
“I had hoped,” said he, looking at Alice, though he addressed Lady Glencora—“I had hoped to be allowed to speak to you alone for a few minutes.”
“No, Mr. Fitzgerald; it cannot be so. Alice do not go. I sent for my cousin when I saw you, because I did not choose to be alone with you. I have asked you to go—”
“You perhaps have not understood me?”
“I understand you well enough.”
“Then, Mr. Fitzgerald,” said Alice, “why do you not do as Lady Glencora has asked you? You know—you must know, that you ought not to be here.”
“I know nothing of the kind,” said he, still standing his ground.
“Alice,” said Lady Glencora, “we will leave Mr. Fitzgerald here, since he drives us from the room.”
In such contests, a woman has ever the best of it at all points. The man plays with a button to his foil, while the woman uses a weapon that can really wound. Burgo knew that he must go—felt that he must skulk away as best he might, and perhaps hear a low titter of half-suppressed laughter as he went. Even that might be possible. “No, Lady Glencora,” he said, “I will not drive you from the room. As one must be driven out, it shall be I. I own I did think that you would at any rate have been—less hard to me.” He then turned to go, bowing again very slightly to Miss Vavasor.
He was on the threshold of the door before Glencora’s voice recalled him. “Oh my God!” she said, “I am hard—harder than flint. I am cruel. Burgo!” And he was back with her in a moment, and had taken her by the hand.
“Glencora,” said Alice, “pray—pray let him go. Mr. Fitzgerald, if you are a man, do not take advantage of her folly.”
“I will speak to him,” said Lady Glencora. “I will speak to him, and then he shall leave me.” She was holding him by the hand now and turning to him, away from Alice, who had taken her by the arm. “Burgo,” she said, repeating his name twice again, with all the passion that she could throw into the word—“Burgo, no good can come of this. Now, you must leave me. You must go. I shall stay with my husband as I am bound to do. Because I have wronged you, I will not wrong him also. I loved you;—you know I loved you.” She still held him by the hand, and was now gazing up into his face, while the tears were streaming from her eyes.
“Sir,” said Alice, “you have heard from her all that you can care to hear. If you have any feeling of honour in you, you will leave her.”
“I will never leave her, while she tells me that she loves me!”
“Yes, Burgo, you will;—you must! I shall never tell you that again, never. Do as she bids you. Go, and leave us;—but I could not bear that you should tell me that I was hard.”
“You are hard;—hard and cruel, as you said, yourself.”
“Am I? May God forgive you for saying that of me!”
“Then why do you send me away?”
“Because I am a man’s wife, and because I care for his honour, if not for my own. Alice, let us go.”
He still held her, but she would have been gone from him had he not stooped over her, and put his arm round her waist. In doing this, I doubt whether he was quicker than she would have been had she chosen to resist him. As it was, he pressed her to his bosom, and, stooping over her, kissed her lips. Then he left her, and making his way out of the room, and down the stairs, got himself out into the street.
“Thank God, that he is gone!” said Alice.
“You may say so,” said Lady Glencora, “for you have lost nothing!”
“And you have gained everything!”
“Have I? I did not know that I had ever gained anything, as yet. The only human being to whom I have ever yet given my whole heart—the only thing that I have ever really loved, has just gone from me forever, and you bid me thank God that I have lost him. There is no room for thankfulness in any of it;—either in the love or in the loss. It is all wretchedness from first to last!”
“At any rate, he understands now that you meant it when you told him to leave you.”
“Of course I meant it. I am beginning to know myself by degrees. As for running away with him, I have not the courage to do it. I can think of it, scheme for it, wish for it;—but as for doing it, that is beyond me. Mr. Palliser is quite safe. He need not try to coax me to remain.”
Alice knew that
