CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW MARGARET STEPS INTO THE BREACH, AND LEARNS THAT ALL PEACEMAKERS ARE NOT BLESSED.
"It is quite the wisest thing to be done at present," says Margaret.
"I do hope, Maurice, you will not object to the arrangement."
She regards him anxiously. It is an hour later, and the carriage has been ordered to be at the door in fifteen minutes. Margaret has come to bid Maurice good-bye, and say a few words to him.
"I! What have I got to do with it?" he laughs contemptuously. "She has arranged everything. The farther she goes from me the better. I am sorry that the resting-place she has chosen is so near. Park Lane as usual, I suppose, Margaret? But it won't last, my dear girl. She will go farther afield soon."
"You think her fickle, I don't," says Margaret gravely. "You have misjudged her all along. I believe she loves me. I believe," slowly, "she has a great capacity for loving."
"Are you alluding to her capacity for loving Mr. Hescott?"
"That is unworthy of you," says his cousin. She rises. "I have only a few moments—and your wife is coming with me, and I would say one word to you before I go. She is young—very young. She is a mere child."
"She is old enough, I presume, to know right from wrong."
"She is the youngest creature I know," persists Margaret, in her sweet angelic way, that is all charity, all kindness and all forbearance. "And what a little fairy of a thing! A man should have patience with her. Have patience, Maurice."
"Oh! All you women support each other," says he, frowning. "You wish me to believe that because Nature has built her in a smaller mould than other women, I should therefore condone her faults."
"Such pretty faults," says Margaret. "A little hot temper, a little sauciness, a little petulance—what more?"
Rylton's lip curls.
"If you are such a devotee at her shrine as all that comes to, there is nothing more to be said. Her flirtation with her cousin——"
"Was it a flirtation?"
"There are new names for things every day. Give it the new name and be done with it."
"There can be no new name for a mere imagination. I don't believe she ever had any—any love affair with Mr. Hescott. I don't really, and," boldly, "in your heart I don't think you believe it either. No, don't turn away, don't. It is for your sake I speak, because I have always your interest at heart; Maurice, I entreat you to pause, to think. Is all the fault on Tita's side? Have you loved her as she should be loved?—that little, quick, enthusiastic creature. Where has your heart been since your marriage!"
"You go very far," says Rylton, pale, cold.
"I know; I know. And I am only a cousin, a mere nobody. But I love the child, and I must speak. You will hate me for it, perhaps, but why has Marian been here?"
"Tita asked her."
"Is that the whole truth?"
"No; the half," says Sir Maurice. He rouses himself from the lethargy into which he has fallen, and looks at Margaret. "I promised Marian an invitation here; I asked Tita for that invitation later. Marian came. I believed there would be harm in her coming, and I steeled myself against it. I tell you, Margaret—I tell you, and you only—that when she came the harm—was—well"—straightening himself—"there was no harm. All at once I found I did not care. My love for her seemed dead. It was terrible, but it was the fact; I seemed to care for nothing—nothing at all. Margaret, believe me, it was all dead. I tell you this, that the night when I discovered that, I longed for death as a solution of my misery. To care for nothing—nothing!"
"There was something," says Margaret. "There was Tita!"
"Was there?"
"Certainly there was."
"She has proved it," says Rylton, breaking into a sort of heart-broken mirth.
"She is angry now," says Margaret eagerly. "She is very naturally—unhinged; and she has been told——"
"By my mother?"
"Yes. That was unfortunate. She—Tessie—your mother," hastily, "should not have told her."
"After all, I'm glad she did," says Rylton warmly. "What does it matter? And, at all events, it makes the thing clear to Tita. It is quite as well that she should know that I was a cur of the worst description when I asked her to marry me."
"You were never that," says his cousin, tears rising in her eyes. "You have been wrong in many ways, but I still believe in you, and I think that when you married Tita you meant to be true to her."
"I did, God knows!" says he. "It was the least I could do, considering how I had taken advantage of her. But she——"
"Well?" says Margaret.
"Hescott——"
"Oh, Maurice, don't! Don't be unjust over that. I tell you there was nothing in that. The poor child has been foolish, faulty, absurd, in many ways, but daylight is not sweeter or more pure. I tell you this as my last word. And, Maurice, in time—in a month or so—come and see us——"
"Us? Her? No!"
"Come and see me, then. I shall be, as you know, in town. Do come."
"Well, let me know first that she won't be there."
"I shall arrange for you not to see her, if you wish that," says Margaret, deeply grieved in her kind spirit. "But I hope that in time——"
"If you are hoping that Tita and I shall ever make it up again, you are the most hopeful person alive," says he. "No—I tell you plainly—I shall go to see you when she is away, never when she is with you."
"But why? You certainly can't believe she has any tendresse for
Mr. Hescott."
"Why should I not believe it?" gloomily.
"Why should you? Dear Maurice, be sensible. I know that Tita cares nothing for him."
"How? Has she told you?"
"Not told me. But one can see."
"So can another one." He throws up his head suddenly, as if tired and altogether done. "There! I give it up," says he. "I have married an enigma, apparently, and my blood must be on my own head."
"You have married one of the sweetest girls on earth," says Margaret indignantly, stung by his nonchalant demeanour. "You are unworthy of her—you are not capable of understanding her." Rylton shrugs his shoulders. "In time—in time," says the gentle Margaret, now all aglow with anger, "you will learn her worth; but as it is——"
She moves towards the door. Rylton hurries to open it for her.
"I may come and see you?" asks he.
"If you will, but I shall certainly not send Tita out of the way to oblige you."
"Well, I shall take my chance."
"It is in your own hands."
Margaret sweeps past him. She is at this moment nearly as angry with him as Tita is.