“And,” said Mrs. Huston between half-suppressed sobs, when the tale was told, “I simply could not stand it any longer, so I came home. I … I hoped, Theo, to find you in England, and when Brenda told me that you were in the East, busy with some horrid war, it was the last straw. I wonder why people want to fight at all. Why can’t the world live in peace?”
Trist tugged pensively at the armrest, and looked out into the darkness without replying. He did not seem at that moment prepared to answer the extremely pertinent and relevant question propounded. If Mrs. Huston had expected a proper show of masculine emotion, she must have been slightly disappointed; for during no part of her narrative had the incongruous face opposite to her, beneath the ludicrous lamp, displayed aught else than a most careful and intelligent attention. What she required was sympathy, not attention. Her story was not calculated to withstand too close a study. Being in itself emotional, it was eminently dependent upon an emotional reception; it was, in fact, a woman’s narrative, fit for relation by a peaceful fireside, in the hush of twilight, on the top (so to speak) of tea and muffins, and to a woman’s ear. Retailed to a hard practical man of the world in a noisy train, where the more pathetic vocal inflections were inaudible; after dinner, and while narrator and listener wore thick wraps and gloves, it lost weight most lamentably. She ought to have thought of these trifles, which, however, are no trifles. You, dear madam, know better than to attempt to soften your husband’s stony heart when he is protected by gloves, or boots, or topcoat. Ah! these little things make a mighty difference.
Trist was an ardent follower of that school of philosophy which seeks to ignore the emotions. By means of cold suppression he would fain have wiped all passions out of human nature, and, having moved amidst bloodshed and among men engaged in bloodshed, he had learnt that our deepest feelings are, after all, mere matters of habit. From the Eastern lands he knew so well, it is probable that he had brought back some reflection of that strange Oriental apathy of life which is incomprehensible to our more highly-strung Western intellects.
When Mrs. Huston pushed her dainty veil recklessly up over the front of her bonnet, and made no pretence of hiding the tears that rendered her lovely face almost angelic in its pathos, Trist made no further acknowledgment of emotion than a momentary contraction of the eyelids. He continued tugging pensively at the leather armrest, while his eyes only strayed at times from the flashing lights of peaceful village or quiet town to the beautiful form crouching against the sombre cushions opposite to him.
“Oh why … did you ever let me marry him?” sobbed Alice miserably.
He glanced at her with a peculiar twist of his lips, downwards, to one side. Then he shrugged his shoulders very slightly.
“I? … What had I to do with it, Alice?”
There was something in his voice, a certain dull concentration, which had the singular effect of checking her sobs almost instantaneously, although her breast heaved convulsively at short intervals, like the swell that follows a storm at sea, long after the rage has subsided.
She touched her eyes prettily with a diminutive handkerchief, and made an effort to recover her serenity, smoothing a wrinkle out of the front of her dress.
“Well,” she sighed, “I suppose you had as much influence over me as anybody. And … and you never liked him, Theo. I could see that, and lately the recollection of it has come back to me more vividly.”
“You forget that I was in China at the time of your engagement. My influence could not have been very effective at such a range—even if I had taken it upon myself to exert it, which would have been an unwarrantable liberty.”
“I was so young,” she pleaded, “and so inexperienced.”
“Twenty-two,” he observed reflectively; “and you had your choice, I suppose, of all the best men in London.”
In some vague way Mrs. Huston’s eyes conveyed a contradiction to this statement, although her lips never moved. A man less dense than this war-correspondent appeared to be would have understood readily enough what that glance really signified.
“I hope,” he continued imperturbably, “that this misunderstanding is only temporary …”
She laughed bitterly, and examined the texture of her lace handkerchief with a gracefully impatient poise of the head.
“Huston … loves you.”
“And you,” she answered pertly, “hate him! Why? Tell me why, Theo.”
“I hate no one in the world,” he answered. “Not on principle, but because I have met no one as yet whom I could hate. There has invariably been some redeeming point.”
“And what is my husband’s redeeming point?”
“His love for you,” answered Trist promptly, and with such calm assurance that his companion evacuated her false position at once, and returned to her original line of argument.
“I only had Brenda,” she murmured sorrowfully; “and she is like you. She listens and listens and listens, but never gives any real advice.”
“If she had, would you have taken it?” suggested Trist.
The graceful shoulders moved interrogatively and indifferently.
“I suppose not.”
During the silence that followed, Trist looked at his watch, openly and without disguise. The journey, which was a short one, was almost half accomplished, and the train was now running at a breakneck pace through
