She turned her face away and would not answer. He brought another chair and sat down beside her. “My lost, forlorn, betrayed one—”
“I am,” she sobbed. “You don’t mean it, but I am.”
“You are also my dearest and best of wives. If you ever loved me, Hetty, do, for my once dear sake, drink this before it gets cold.”
She pouted, sobbed, and yielded to some gentle force which he used, as a child allows herself to be half persuaded, half compelled, to take physic.
“Do you feel better and more comfortable now?” he said.
“No,” she replied, angry with herself for feeling both.
“Then,” he said cheerfully, as if she had uttered a hearty affirmative, “I will put some more coals on the fire, and we shall be as snug as possible. It makes me wildly happy to see you at my fireside, and to know that you are my own wife.”
“I wonder how you can look me in the face and say so,” she cried.
“I should wonder at myself if I could look at your face and say anything else. Oatmeal is a capital restorative; all your energy is coming back. There, that will make a magnificent blaze presently.”
“I never thought you deceitful, Sidney, whatever other faults you might have had.”
“Precisely, my love. I understand your feelings. Murder, burglary, intemperance, or the minor vices you could have borne; but deceit you cannot abide.”
“I will go away,” she said despairingly, with a fresh burst of tears. “I will not be laughed at and betrayed. I will go barefooted.” She rose and attempted to reach the door; but he intercepted her and said:
“My love, there is something serious the matter. What is it? Don’t be angry with me.”
He brought her back to the chair. She took Agatha’s letter from the pocket of her fur cloak, and handed it to him with a faint attempt to be tragic.
“Read that,” she said. “And never speak to me again. All is over between us.”
He took it curiously, and turned it to look at the signature. “Aha!” he said, “my golden idol has been making mischief, has she?”
“There!” exclaimed Henrietta. “You have said it to my face! You have convicted yourself out of your own mouth!”
“Wait a moment, my dear. I have not read the letter yet.”
He rose and walked to and fro through the room, reading. She watched him, angrily confident that she should presently see him change countenance. Suddenly he drooped as if his spine had partly given way; and in this ungraceful attitude he read the remainder of the letter. When he had finished he threw it on the table, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and roared with laughter, huddling himself together as if he could concentrate the joke by collecting himself into the smallest possible compass. Henrietta, speechless with indignation, could only look her feelings. At last he came and sat down beside her.
“And so,” he said, “on receiving this you rushed out in the cold and came all the way to Lyvern. Now, it seems to me that you must either love me very much—”
“I don’t. I hate you.”
“Or else love yourself very much.”
“Oh!” And she wept afresh. “You are a selfish brute, and you do just as you like without considering anyone else. No one ever thinks of me. And now you won’t even take the trouble to deny that shameful letter.”
“Why should I deny it? It is true. Do you not see the irony of all this? I amuse myself by paying a few compliments to a schoolgirl for whom I do not care two straws more than for any agreeable and passably clever woman I meet. Nevertheless, I occasionally feel a pang of remorse because I think that she may love me seriously, although I am only playing with her. I pity the poor heart I have wantonly ensnared. And, all the time, she is pitying me for exactly the same reason! She is conscience-stricken because she is only indulging in the luxury of being adored ‘by far the cleverest man she has ever met,’ and is as heartwhole as I am! Ha, ha! That is the basis of the religion of love of which poets are the high-priests. Each worshipper knows that his own love is either a transient passion or a sham copied from his favorite poem; but he believes honestly in the love of others for him. Ho, ho! Is it not a silly world, my dear?”
“You had no right to make love to Agatha. You have no right to make love to anyone but me; and I won’t bear it.”
“You are angry because Agatha has infringed your monopoly. Always monopoly! Why, you silly girl, do you suppose that I belong to you, body and soul? — that I may not be moved except by your affection, or think except of your beauty?”
“You may call me as many names as you please, but you have no right to make love to Agatha.”
“My dearest, I do not recollect calling you any names. I think you said something about a selfish brute.”
“I did not. You called me a silly girl.”
“But, my love, you are.”
“And so YOU are. You are thoroughly selfish.”
“I don’t deny it. But let us return to our subject. What did we begin to quarrel about?”
“I am not quarrelling, Sidney. It is you.”
“Well, what did I begin to quarrel about?”
“About Agatha Wylie.”
“Oh, pardon me, Hetty; I certainly did not begin to quarrel about her. I am very fond of her — more so, it appears, than she is of me. One moment, Hetty, before you recommence your reproaches. Why do you dislike my saying pretty things to Agatha?”
Henrietta hesitated, and said: “Because you have no right to. It shows how little you care for me.”
“It has nothing to do with you. It only shows how much I care for her.”
“I will not stay here to be insulted,” said Hetty, her distress returning. “I will go home.”
“Not tonight; there is no train.”
“I will walk.”
“It is too far.”
“I don’t care. I will not stay here, though I die of cold by the roadside.”
“My cherished one, I have been annoying you purposely because you show by your anger that you have not ceased to care for me. I am in the wrong, as I usually am, and it is all my fault. Agatha knows nothing about our marriage.”
“I do not blame you so much,” said Henrietta, suffering him to place her head on his shoulder; “but I will never speak to Agatha again. She has behaved shamefully to me, and I will tell her so.”
“No doubt she will opine that it is all your fault, dearest, and that I have behaved admirably. Between you I shall stand exonerated. And now, since it is too cold for walking, since it is late, since it is far to Lyvern and farther to London, I must improvise some accommodation for you here.”
“But—”
“But there is no help for it. You must stay.”
CHAPTER IX
Next day Smilash obtained from his wife a promise that she would behave towards Agatha as if the letter had given no offence. Henrietta pleaded as movingly as she could for an immediate return to their domestic state, but he put her off with endearing speeches, promised nothing but eternal affection, and sent her back to London by