CHAPTER XIII.
HOW A YOUNG AND LOVELY NATURE TAKES A SHOCK MOST CRUELLY ADMINISTERED. AND HOW A DOWAGER TAKES A NEW NAME AS A DIRECT INSULT. AND HOW TITA DECLINES TO PROMISE ANYTHING.
He stands at the open window looking in. All at once Tita knows and feels that Margaret sent him to rescue her from captivity.
"Lady Rylton," calls he, "won't you come out? The evening is a perfect dream—a boon and a blessing to men, like those pens, you know."
The elder Lady Rylton answers him. She leans forward, a charming smile on her wonderfully youthful features.
"No. No, thanks." She shakes her pretty, fair head at Gower in a delightfully coquettish fashion. Dear boy! How sweet is it of him to come and fetch her for a little stroll among the hollyhocks. "I can't go out now. Not to-night, Randal!"
"Oh! er—so sorry! But——" He looks at Tita. It is impossible not to understand that the Lady Rylton he had intended to take for a little stroll in the calm, delightful evening, had been the younger Lady Rylton. "Well, if your—er—mother—won't come, won't you?" asks he, now addressing Tita distinctly.
"I am not going out either," says she, smiling gently at him. To go now will be to betray fear, and she—no, she will not give in, any way, she will never show the white feather. She will finish this hour with Lady Rylton, whatever it may cost her.
"Really?" asks Gower. He looks as if he would have persuaded her to come with him, but something in her manner convinces him of the folly of persistence.
"Yes, really," returns she, after which he goes down the steps again. They can hear him going, slowly this time, as if reluctantly, and step by step. There doesn't seem to be a run left in him.
"How absurd it is, this confusion of titles!" says Lady Rylton, as the last unsatisfactory step is lost to them in the distance. "Lady Rylton here and Lady Rylton there. Absurd, I call it." She makes a pretence at laughter, but it is a sorry one—her laugh is only angry.
"I suppose it can't be helped," says Tita indifferently. Her eyes are still downcast, her young mouth a little scornful.
"But if you are to be Lady Rylton as well as I, how are we to distinguish? What am I to be?"
"The dowager, I suppose," says Tita, with a little flash of malice. She has been rubbed the wrong way a trifle too much for one afternoon.
"The dowager!" Lady Rylton springs to her feet. "I—do you think that I shall follow you out of a room?"
"Follow me! I'd hate you to follow me anywhere!" says Tita, who does not certainly follow her as to her meaning.
"That is meant to be a smart speech, I presume," says Lady Rylton, sinking back into her seat once more. "But do not for a moment imagine that I dread you. You know very little of Society if you think you will be tolerated there."
"I know nothing of Society," returns Tita, now very pale, "and perhaps you will understand me when I say that I never want to know anything. If Society means people who tell hateful, unkind stories of a husband to his wife, I think I am very well out of it."
"That is a little censure upon poor me, I suppose," says Lady Rylton with a difficult smile. She looks at Tita. Evidently she expects Tita to sink into the ground beneath that austere regard, but Tita comes up smiling.
"Well, yes. After all, I suppose so," says she slowly, thoughtfully. "You shouldn't have told me that story about Maurice and——" She stops.
"I shall not permit you to dictate to me what I should or should not do," interrupts Lady Rylton coldly. "You forget yourself! You forget what is due to the head of the house."
"I do not, indeed; Maurice will tell you so!"
"Maurice! What has he to do with it?"
"Why, he is the head," slowly.
"True, you are right so far," says Lady Rylton bitterly. "But I was not alluding to the actual head; I was alluding to the—the mistress of this house." She pauses, and looks with open hatred at the little girl before her. Tita could have answered her, have told her that her authority was at an end for ever, but by a violent effort she restrains herself. Tita's naturally warm temper is now at boiling-point. Still, she puts a restraint upon herself.
"You will understand for the future, I hope," says Lady Rylton, who has lost all control over her temper; "you will, for the future, at all events, I trust, bear yourself with respect towards the mistress of this house."
Her manner is so insolent, so unbearable, that Tita's short-lived calm gives way.
"Maurice says I am the mistress here," says she distinctly, clearly.
"You! you——" Lady Rylton advances towards her with a movement that is almost threatening.
"Don't be uneasy about it," says Tita, with a scornful little laugh, and a gesture that destroys the meaning of Lady Rylton's. "I don't want to be the mistress here. I dislike the place. I shall be delighted if you will live here—instead of me."
"You are too good!" says Lady Rylton, in a choking tone. She looks as if she could kill this girl, whom she has driven to so fierce an anger.
"I think it dismal," goes on Tita. "I like light and gay places." There is a little clutch at her heart, though why, she hardly knows. What she does know is that she hates this pretty, fair, patrician woman before her—this woman with a well-bred face, and the vulgarest of all vulgar natures. This woman who has betrayed her son's secret. Even to so young a girl, and one who is not in love with her husband, the idea of the husband being in love with somebody else is distinctly distasteful.
"Besides, remember," says Tita, "Mrs. Bethune lives here. After all you have told me of her, and—Maurice—you," breaking into a gay little laugh, "could hardly expect me to make this place my home."
"You certainly seem to take it very lightly," says Lady Rylton. "Maurice must be congratulated on having secured so compliant a wife."
"Why should I care?" asks Tita, turning a bright face to her. "We made a bargain before our marriage—Maurice and I. He was to do as he liked."
"And you?"
"I was to follow suit."
"Outrageous!" says Lady Rylton. "I shall speak to Maurice about it. I shall warn you. I shall tell him how I disapprove of you, and he——"
"He will do nothing," interrupts Tita. She stands up, and looks at the older woman as if defying her. Her small face is all alight, her eyes are burning.
"I dare say not, after all," says Lady Rylton, with a cruel smile. "He knew what he was about when he made that arrangement. It leaves him delightfully free to renew his love-affair with Marian Bethune."
"If he desires such freedom it is his." Tita gathers up her fan, and the long suède gloves lying on the chair near her, and walks towards the door.
"Stay, Tita!" cries Lady Rylton hurriedly. "You will say nothing of this to Maurice. It was in strict confidence I spoke, and for your good and his. You will say nothing to him?"
"I! what should I say?" She looks back at Lady Rylton, superb disdain in her glance.
"You might mention, for example, that it was I who told you."
"Well, why shouldn't I?" asked Tita. "Are you ashamed of what you have said?"
"I have always told you that I spoke only through a sense of duty, to protect you and him in your married life. You will give me your word that you will not betray me."
"I shall give you my word about nothing," coldly. "I shall tell
Maurice, or I shall not tell him, just as it suits me."