"And Maurice?" asks Margaret.
"Is going to take it," returns his mother airily. "And is going to give her, what she has never had—a name!"
"A cruel compact," says Margaret slowly, but with decision. "I think this marriage should not be so much as thought of! That child! and Maurice, who cares nothing for her. Marian"—Miss Knollys turns suddenly to Marian, who has withdrawn behind the curtains, as if determined to have nothing to say further to the discussion—"Marian, come here. Say you think Maurice should not marry this silly child—this baby."
"Oh! as for me," says Mrs. Bethune, coming out from behind the curtains, her face a little pale, "what is my weight in this matter? Nothing! nothing! Let Maurice marry as he will."
"As he will!" Lady Rylton repeats her words, and, rising, comes towards her. "Why don't you answer?" says she. "We want your answer. Give it!"
"I have no answer," says Mrs. Bethune slowly. "Why should he not marry Miss Bolton?—and again, why should he? Marriage, as we have been told all our lives, is but a lottery—they should have said a mockery," with a little bitter smile. "One could have understood that."
"Then you advise Maurice to marry this girl?" asks Lady Rylton eagerly.
"Oh, no, no! I advise nothing," says Marian, with a little wave of her arms.
"But why?" demands Lady Rylton angrily.
She had depended upon Marian to support her against Margaret.
"Simply because I won't," says Mrs. Bethune, her strange eyes beginning to blaze.
"Because you daren't?" questions Lady Rylton, with a sneer.
"I don't understand you," says Marian coldly.
"Don't you?" Lady Rylton's soft, little, fair face grows diabolical. "Then let me explain." Margaret makes a movement towards her, but she waves her back. "Pray let me explain, Margaret. Our dear Marian is so intensely dull that she wants a word in season. We all know why she objects to a marriage of any sort. She made a fiasco of her own first marriage, and now hopes——"
She would have continued her cruel speech but that Mrs. Bethune, who has risen, breaks into it. She comes forward in a wild, tempestuous fashion, her eyes afire, her nostrils dilated! Her beautiful red hair seems alight as she descends upon Lady Rylton.
"And that marriage!" says she, in a suffocating tone. "Who made it? Who?" She looks like a fury. There is hatred, an almost murderous hatred, in the glance she casts at the little, languid, pretty woman before her, who looks back at her with uplifted shoulders, and an all-round air of surprise and disapprobation. "You to taunt me!" says she, in a low, condensed tone. "You, who hurried, who forced me into a marriage with a man I detested! You, who gave me to understand, when I resisted, that I had no place on this big earth except a pauper's place—a place in a workhouse!"
She stands tall, grave, magnificent, in her fury before Lady Rylton, who, in spite of the courage born of want of feeling, now shrinks from her as if affrighted.
"If you persist in going on like this," says she, pressing her smelling-bottle to her nose, "I must ask you to go away—to go at once. I hate scenes. You must go!"
"I went away once," says Mrs. Bethune, standing pale and cold before her, "at your command—I went to the home of the man you selected for me. What devil's life I led with him you may guess at. You knew him, I did not. I was seventeen then." She pauses; the breath she draws seems to rive her body in twain. "I came back——" she says presently.
"A widow?"
"A widow—thank God!"
A silence follows; something of tragedy seems to have fallen into the air—with that young lovely creature standing there, upright, passionate, her arms clasped behind her head, as the heroine of it. The sunlight from the dying day lights up the red, rich beauty of her hair, the deadly pallor of her skin. Through it all the sound of the tennis-balls from below, as they hurry to and fro through the hair, can be heard. Perhaps it reaches her. She flings herself suddenly into a chair, and bursts out laughing.
"Let us come back to common-sense," cries she. "What were we talking of? The marriage of Maurice to this little plebeian—this little female Croesus. Well, what of the argument—what?"
Her manner is a little excited.
"I, for one, object to the marriage," says Margaret distinctly. "The child is too young and too rich! She should be given a chance; she should not be coerced and drawn into a mesh, as it were, without her knowledge."
"A mesh? Do you call a marriage with my son a mesh?" asks Lady Rylton angrily. "He of one of the oldest families in England, and she a nobody!"
"There is no such thing as a nobody," says Miss Knollys calmly. "This girl has intellect, mind, a soul! She has even money! She must be considered."
"She has no birth!" says Lady Rylton. "If you are going in for Socialistic principles, Margaret, pray do not expect me to follow you. I despise folly of that sort."
"I am not a Socialist," says Margaret slowly, "and yet why cannot this child be accepted as one of ourselves? Where is the great difference? You object to her marrying your son, yet you want to marry her to your son. How do you reconcile it? Surely you are more of Socialist than I am. You would put the son of a baronet and the daughter of heaven knows who on an equality."
"Never!" says Lady Rylton. "You don't understand. She will always be just as she is, and Maurice——"
"And their children?" asks Margaret.
Here Mrs. Bethune springs to her feet.
"Good heavens! Margaret, have you not gone far enough?" says she. If her face had been pale before, it is livid now. "Why, this marriage—this marriage"—she beats her hand upon a table near her—"one would think it was a fact accomplished!"
"I was only saying," says Miss Knollys, looking with a gentle glance at Marian, "that if Maurice were to marry this girl——"
"It would be an honour to her," interrupts Lady Rylton hotly.
"It would be a degradation to him," says Margaret coldly. "He does not love her."
She might have said more, but that suddenly Marian Bethune stops her. The latter, who is leaning against the curtains of the window, breaks into a wild little laugh.
"Love—what is love?" cries she. "Oh, foolish Margaret! Do not listen to her, Tessie, do not listen."
She folds the soft silken curtains round her slender figure, and, hidden therein, still laughs aloud with a wild passion of mirth.
"It is you who are foolish," cries Margaret, with some agitation.
"I?" She lets the curtains go; they fall in a sweep behind her. She looks out at Margaret, still laughing. Her face is like ashes. "You speak too strongly," says she.
"Do you think I could speak too strongly?" asks Margaret, looking intently at her. It is a questioning glance. "You! Do you think Maurice ought to ask this poor, ignorant girl to marry him? Do you advise him to take this step?"
"Why, it appears he must take some step," says Marian. "Why not this?"
Margaret goes close to her and speaks in so low a tone that Lady
Rylton cannot hear her.
"His honour, is that nothing to you?" says she.
"To me? What have I got to do with his honour?" says Mrs. Bethune, with a little expressive gesture.
"Oh, Marian!" says Miss Knollys.
She