Chapter XXVI (2)

Strangely enough, as my own misdemeanors grow in size and importance, his decrease, until at length they sink into utter insignificance. The remembrance of that pink note alone rankles, and perhaps even that could be explained.

The hours slip by. 'Duke's foot is to be heard slowly pacing his own floor.

I must and will compel him to make friends with me. How can I face a long sleepless night such as I know will be mine if I go to bed unpardoned? I will make one more effort, and this time I will not be unsuccessful, As I have not now, and never have had, a particle of pride in my composition, it takes me very little thinking to decide on this course.

I am sitting before my fire as I develop this idea, toasting my bare toes in a rather purposeless manner, preparatory to jumping into bed. Unlike most people, I can endure any amount of heat to the soles of my feet.

Mechanically I slip into my blue slippers, and, rising, go to the glass. Yet, what I see pleases me: I certainly do look nice in my dressing-gown. No other style of garment, no matter how bewitching or elaborate, suits me half as well. This particular gown at which I am now gazing profoundly is of white cashmere, lined and wadded, and trimmed profusely with pale blue. There is a dear little frill round the neck that almost makes me love myself. It is a gift of Marmaduke's. Walking one day in Paris, during our honeymoon, it had attracted our attention in a shop-window, and he had insisted on my going into the shop then and there and making myself the owner of it. Surely when he sees me now he will remember the circumstance, and it will soften him.

Ah! he was very fond of me then, I recollect, with a sigh.

My hair is streaming down my back, far below my waist; I am looking well, but young very young; indeed, I am painfully conscious that, now my high-heeled shoes are lying under a chair, I might easily be mistaken for a child of fourteen.

The thought is distasteful. Hastily putting up my hands, I wind my hair round and round my head until I have reduced it to its everyday decorous fashion; only to find that rolls and smoothness do not accord well with a _negligee_ costume.

Looking at myself again with a critical eye, I am again dissatisfied. I may appear older, I certainly do not present so pleasing a _tout ensemble_; so, with much vicious haste, I once more draw out the hair-pins and let my straight brown hair hang according to its fancy. Being now at last convinced I am to be seen at my best, I proceed to act upon the thought that has caused all this unwonted vanity, I go softly to Marmaduke's dressing-room door, armed with my brush and begin to batter at it pretty loudly.

"Marmaduke, Marmaduke!" I cry, but obtain no answer. That he is within is beyond all doubt, as every now and then through the thick oaken door I can hear a sound or two.

Again I exercise my lungs, again I batter at the door.

"'Duke--Marmaduke!" I cry once more, impatiently.

"What do you want?" demands my husband, in a voice that sends my heart into my blue slippers.

"I want to get in," I return, as meekly as one can, when one's tone is raised to the highest pitch.

"You cannot now; I am busy."

"But I must. 'Duke, do open the door. I have something of the utmost importance to say to you."

After a moment or two I can hear him coming slowly to the door. In another instant he has unlocked it, and is standing in the doorway in an attitude that is plainly meant to bar my further approach.

"Won't you let me in?" I say. "I want to speak to you; I have something to tell you."

Here I make a dive under the arm he had placed against one side of the door as a prudent barricade, and gain the dressing-room. Having so far succeeded, I pause to glance timidly at him.

He has divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and has evidently been brushing his hair, as it is smooth to the last degree and has about it a general air of being ready to enter a ball-room at a moment's notice.

"You might be going to a reception, your hair is so beautifully dressed," I say, with a weak attempt at raillery and composure.

"Did you nearly break down the door to come and tell me that?" asked he, without a vestige of a smile.

Once again my eyes seek the carpet. All my affected nonchalance deserts me. I feel frightened. Never before has his voice sounded go harsh when addressed to me. I put my hands behind me, and grasp nervously the torrent of hair that flows down my back. For the second time it occurs to me how abominably young I must be looking. Somehow the word "Doll" writes itself before my lowered eyes.

"No," I say, in a whisper. "I came to ask you to forgive me to tell you I am very sorry for it all."

"Are you? I am glad of that. In my opinion you could not be too sorry."

"Oh, 'Duke, do not be _too_ hard on me. I did not mean to make you so very angry. I did not think there was any harm in what I did."

"_No harm?_ No harm in flirting so outrageously as to bring down upon you the censure of all your guests? No harm in making yourself the subject of light gossip? Do you know that ever since last night, when you chose to disgrace both yourself and me by your conduct, I have felt half maddened. _Angry_. The word does not express what I feel. A hundred times during these past few hours I have with the utmost difficulty restrained myself."

"I don't see that I have done anything so very terrible; I have not behaved worse than--than others I could name, I don't believe anybody noticed me," I reply, miserably, and most untruthfully.

"Pshaw! How blind you must think people! Do you suppose they will not comment freely on your going to that low place with Gore, at nine o'clock at night, _alone_. I own my belief in their dulness or good-nature is not as comfortable a one as yours. Blanche Going, at all events, spoke to me openly about it."

I instantly take fire.

"No doubt," I cry, with passion. "Lady Blanche Going has her own reasons for wishing to degrade me in my husband's sight. She is a wicked woman! Were I to do _half_ what she has done, and is capable of doing, I would be ashamed to look you in the face. I _hate_ her! If you believe what _she_ says, rather than what _I_ say, of course there is little use in my speaking further in my own defense."

"I believe only what I see," returns my husband, significantly; "and that--I regret to say of you, Phyllis--is more than I can think of with calmness."

He turns from me as he speaks, and begins to pace excitedly up and down the room, a frown born of much anger upon his forehead.

"To think you should have chosen _that_ fellow, who has hardly a shred of character left, as your _friend_."

It would be impossible to put on paper the amount of scorn he throws into the last word.

"He is no friend of mine," I say, sullenly, beating my foot petulantly against the ground. "I always understood he was a particular favorite of yours. If you consider him such a disreputable creature, why did you invite him to your house!

"Because I was unfortunately under the impression I could ask any man with safety into my _wife's_ house," says he, loftily; and the quotation in which Caesar's wife is brought to bear comes to my mind: I am almost tempted to mention it for purposes of provocation, but refrain. In truth, I am really unhappy, and at my wit's end, by this. Surely I cannot have so altogether forgotten myself as he seems to imagine.

"There are worse people here than Mark Gore," I remark, still sullen.

"If there are, I don't know them, and certainly do not wish to discuss them. The misdemeanors of the world do not concern me; it is with you alone I have to deal. Ever since Gore entered the house you have shown an open and most undignified desire for his society. I bore it all in silence, neither thwarting you nor exhibiting my displeasure in any way; but when I see you casting aside common prudence, and making yourself a subject for scandalous remarks, I think it is high time for me to interfere and assert my authority. Were you several years younger than you are, you are still quite old enough to know right from wrong; and for the future"--here he stops short close beside me, and, with his blue eyes flashing, goes on, "for the future, I insist on your conducting yourself as my wife should."

When a man is without his coat and waistcoat, and thinks himself ill-used, he generally looks more than his actual height. Marmaduke, standing before me with uplifted hand to enforce his remarks, and with a very white face, certainly appears uncomfortably tall. He is towering over poor little me, in my heelless shoes and white gown, and for a moment it occurs to me that I ought to feel frightened; the next instant anger has overpowered me, and raised me to his level.

"How _dare_ you speak to me like that? By what right do _you_ use such language? You who every hour of the day make yourself conspicuous with that horrible cousin of yours? Do you suppose, then, that I have no eyes? that I cannot fathom motives, and actions, and---`"

"What do you mean?" interrupts he, haughtily.

"That sounds very well; but if, when you accused me of flirting with Mark Gore, _I_ had drawn myself up, and asked, in an injured tone, 'what you meant,' you would very soon have told me I knew only too well. Have I not noticed you with Blanche? Do you ever leave her side? Whispering in corridors--lingering in conservatories--letting her write you letters! Oh, I know _everything!_" cry I, absolutely sobbing with long pent-up rage and grief.

"Write me letters!" repeats 'Duke, in utter bewilderment.

"Yes; long, _long_ letters. I saw it."

"Blanche never in her life wrote me a long letter, or any other letter, that I can recollect."

"_Oh!_ When I saw it with my own eyes, and only yesterday, too! How can you deny it? In the morning she pretended she had a headache, and I went up to ask her how she was, and there on the table was a pink note, with three of the pages closely written over, and while I stayed she folded it into a cocked hat; and when I came home in the evening I went into your room---_this_ room--for some eau-de-Cologne, and it was lying _there_ on the table under my _nose_," I wind up, with passionate vulgarity.

"I think you must be raving," says 'Duke, his own vehemence quieted by mine. "A letter--yet stay," a look of intelligence coming into his face; and, going over to a drawer he rummages there for a moment, and at length produces the very three-cornered note that has caused me so many jealous pangs. "Is this the note you mean?"

"Yes, it is," coming eagerly forward.

"I now recollect finding this in my room, when I returned from shooting yesterday. She asks me to do a commission for her, which, as it happens, quite slipped my memory until now. Take and read it, and see how just were your suspicions."

As I put out my hand, I know that I am acting meanly, but still I do take it, and, opening it, find my three closely-written pages have dwindled down to half a one. Five or six lines, carelessly scrawled, are before me.

"Are you satisfied?" asks 'Duke, who, half sitting on the table with folded arms, is watching me attentively.

"Yes," in a low voice; "I was wrong. This is not the note I saw with her. I now understand she must have meant _that_ one for--for somebody else, and, knowing I saw it, sent this to you to blind me."

"_More_ suspicions, Phyllis? As to what other charges you have brought against me, I can only swear that when I told you a year ago you were the only woman I had ever really loved, I spoke the truth."

"From all you have said to me to-night, I can scarcely imagine you would now repeat those words," I say, in trembling tones.

"Yes, I would. If I live to be an old man, I shall never love again as I have loved, and _do_ love, you."

"Yet you are always meeting Blanche; you are always with her. Only this very morning I found you both together in the corridor in earnest conversation."

"It was quite by accident we met; I had no idea she was there."

"She was speaking to you of me?"

"She said something about your manner towards Gore the night previous. It was something very kind, I remember, but it angered me to think any one had noticed you, though in my heart I knew it must be so. It was too palpable. She meant nothing hurtful."

"The wretch! 'Duke, listen to me and believe me. If I had not felt positive that note," moving a little nearer and laying my fingers upon it, "was the one I saw with her, I would never have acted towards Mark Gore as I did last night. But I felt wounded and cut to the heart, and tried to torture you as I was being tortured. It was foolish, wicked of me, I know, but it made no one so miserable as myself."

"But then--the rink." He speaks very quietly now, but he has come off the table, and is standing before me, one hand resting on it very close to mine, but not touching. I am gazing earnestly into his face with large, wistful eyes.

"It was the same longing for revenge made me go there--nothing else. I had tried to make up with you by asking you to take me to the rink in the evening, but you would not meet my advances, and answered me very cruelly." My lips tremble. "Your words restored all my anger. I was determined to show you I could go there without your permission. Sir Mark was on the spot, and asked me to go with him; it was all the same to me whom I went with, so long as I could defy you, and I agreed to accompany him--not, as you thought, because I wished to be with him, but only to vex you. I thought of no one but you. It would not trouble me if I never saw Mark Gore again. You believe me, 'Duke? I never told you a wilful lie, did I?" Two heavy tears long gathering roll down my cheeks.

"Never," replies he, hoarsely.

Silence follows his last word. We stand very near, yet separate gazing into each other's eyes. Presently, impulsively, his hand mores, and closes firmly upon mine. For an instant longer we gaze, and then I am in his arms, crying as if my heart would break.

"You don't care for her; _say_ you don't care for her," I sob, entreatingly.

"Phyllis, how can you ask me? To care for that worldly-wise woman, when I have _you_ to love, my own darling my angel!"

This is comforting; it almost sounds as though he were calling her bad names, and I sob on contentedly from the shelter of his arms.

"And you will never speak to her again, will you, _dear_ 'Duke?"

"Oh, my pet! You forget she is a guest in the house. How can I avoid speaking and being civil to her?"

"Of course I don't mean _that_. But you will have no _tete-a-tete_ and you won't be so attentive to her and you will be very glad when she goes away?"

"I will indeed, be most sincerely delighted, if her staying causes you one moment's unhappiness. She speaks of leaving next week; let us be polite to her for these few remaining days--poor Blanche!--and then we will forget she ever lived."

"Yes," I acquiesce, and then there is a pause in the conversation. Is he not going to touch on the other cause of war? For a little time I am filled with wonderment; then I say, shyly, "You do not ask me about Mark Gore?"

"No." replies he, hastily, "nor will I. I understand everything; I believe all you said. A misconception arose between us: now it is at rest forever, let us refer to it no more. Now that it is at an end, I feel rather flattered at your being so jealous; it tells me you must be getting to care for me a little."

"Oh, _caring_ is a poor thing. I think now I love you better than any one in the world, except---"

"Billy, and Roly, and mamma," he mimics me, laughing, though he bites his lips, "the old story."

"Wrong: I was going to say mother only. Somehow, Billy and Roly of late do not seem so dear as you." I stroke his face patronizingly.

"Only mother!" he says, with a gay laugh (how many weeks have passed since last I heard that laugh!) "why, that is much better. Billy always appeared the most formidable rival. I am progressing in your good books. In time I may even be able to vanquish mother."

"I am so glad I made that onslaught on your door a little while ago," declare I, merrily, "and I think you were very undecided about letting me in. How good it is to be quite friends again! and we have not been that for a long time. Oh, is not jealousy a horrible pain?"

"'And to be wroth with those we love Doth work like madness on the brain,'"

quotes 'Duke softly.

"It all began by Mark Gore telling me you were once engaged to Blanche Going."

"What a lie!" cries 'Duke, so eagerly that I cannot choose but believe him. "How often am I to tell you I never loved any one but you?"

"That is another thing. Men always imagine when they form a new attachment that the old ones contained no real love. What I should like to know is, how many you asked to marry you." My words are uttered jestingly, yet his face changes, very slightly, ever so little, yet it certainly changes. Only a little pallor, a little faint contraction nothing more. It is gone almost as soon as it is there.

"I never asked Blanche, at all events," he laughs, lightly. And not until many days have come and gone, do I remember his singular hesitation.