The Hoyden

by Duchess

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW TITA WAGES WAR WITH MARGARET AND MAURICE; AND HOW MARGARET SUFFERS IGNOMINIOUS TREATMENT ON BOTH HANDS; AND HOW MAURICE AT THE LAST GAINS ONE SMALL VICTORY.

There is a moment's awful silence, and then Tita sweeps straight up to Rylton, who is gazing at her as if he never saw her before. As for Margaret, she feels as if she is going to faint.

"I—I!" says Tita; "to accuse me of marrying you for your title! I never thought about your title. I don't care a fig for your title. My greatest grief now is that people call me Lady Rylton."

"I beg of you, Tita——" begins Margaret, trembling; she lays her hand on the girl's arm, but Tita shakes her off.

"Don't speak to me. Don't touch me. You are as bad as he is. You took his part all through. You said you felt for him! When he was saying all sorts of dreadful things about me. You said, 'Yes, yes, of course.' I heard you; I was listening. I heard every word."

"May I ask," says Rylton, "if you did not marry me for my title, what did you marry me for? Not," with a sneer, "for love, certainly."

"I should think not," with a sneer on her part that sinks his into insignificance. "I married you to escape from my uncle, who was making me wretched! But not"—with an ireful glance at him—"half as wretched as you have made me!"

Rylton shrugs his shoulders. You should never shrug your shoulders when a woman is angry.

"Yes, wretched—wretched!" says Tita, angry tears flooding her eyes. "There was never any one so miserable as I have been since I married you."

"That makes it all the more unfortunate that you are married to me still," says Rylton icily.

"I may be married to you—I shan't live with you," says Tita.

"We shall see to that," says Rylton, who has lost his head a little.

"Yes, I shall," returns she, with open defiance.

Meantime Margaret, who had been crushed by that first onslaught on her, has recovered herself a little. To appeal to Tita again is useless; but to Maurice—she must say a word of entreaty to Maurice. Tita has been most unjust, but men are of nobler make. Maurice will understand.

"I think," says she very gently, catching his eye, "that it would be better for you to—to discuss all this—with Tita—alone. I shall go, but I beg of you, Maurice, to——"

"Pray don't beg anything of me," says Maurice, turning upon her with an expression that bodes no good to anyone. "I should think you ought to be the last person in the world to ask a favour of me."

"Good gracious! what have I done now?" exclaims Margaret shrinking back, and cut to the heart by this fresh affront.

"You knew she was there, behind that screen, and you never gave me even a hint about it. A hint would have been sufficient, but——"

"I did!" says Margaret, driven to bay. "I told you I had a headache, and that you were to go away—but you wouldn't!"

"You told me you had twenty diseases, but even that wouldn't exonerate you from letting her hear what was not meant for her ears."

"Ah! I'm glad you acknowledge even so much," breaks in Tita vindictively.

"Even though they weren't meant for your ears I'm glad you heard them," says Rylton, turning to her with all the air of one who isn't going to give in at any price. "But as for you, Margaret, I did not expect this from you. I believed you stanch, at all events, and honest; yet you deliberately let me say what was in my mind, knowing there was an unseen listener who would be sure to make the worst of all she heard."

"Tita, you shall explain this!" says Margaret, turning with a tragic gesture towards her. "Speak. Tell him."

"What is the good of telling him anything?" says Tita, regarding her coldly. "Yet though you have forsaken me, Margaret, I will do as you wish." She turns to Rylton. "It was against Margaret's wish that I hid behind that screen. I heard you coming, and there was no way out of the room except by the door through which you would enter, and rather than meet you I felt"—with a sudden flash of her large eyes at him—"I would willingly die. So I got behind that screen, and—and" She pauses. "Well, that's all," says she.

"You see it was not my fault," says Margaret.

She lets a passing glance fall on Rylton, and with an increase of dignity in her air leaves the room. The two left behind look strangely at each other.

"So you were listening?" says Rylton. "Listening all that time?"

"You wrong me as usual. I was not listening all the time. I didn't want to listen at all. Do you think I ever wanted to hear your voice again?"

"I didn't flatter myself so far, as to this,"—bitterly—"and yet——"

"I only wanted to get away from you, and I wasn't listening, really. I kept my fingers tight in my ears until you had been there for hours; then my arms felt as if they were dead, and I—well, I dropped them then."

"Hours! I like that! Why, I haven't been here for half an hour yet."

"Oh, you could say anything!" says Tita contemptuously.

She walks away from him, and flings herself into a lounging chair. She is dressed in a very pale pink gown, with knots of black velvet here and there. And as she has seated herself a tiny, exquisitely shaped foot, clad in a pale pink stocking and black shoe, betrays itself to the admiring air.

Rylton, who is too angry to see anything, and has only a half-conscious knowledge that she is looking more beautiful than ever, goes up to the lounging chair in which she is reclining, and looking down upon her, says sternly, and with a distinctly dramatic air:

"At last we meet."

"At last," returns she, regarding with fixed interest the tip of her shoe as she sways it with an air of steady indifference to and fro. "Against my will!"

"I know that. I have had plenty of time to know that."

"Then why do you come?"

"To see you," says he plainly.

"Knowing that I didn't wish to see you?"

"Yes. Because I wish to see you."

"What a man's reason!" says she, with a scoffing smile. "I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourself."

"Well, I am sometimes," says Rylton, making an effort to suppress the anger that is rising within him. "I sometimes tell myself, for example, that I must be the meanest hound alive. I know you avoid me—hate me—and yet I come."

"But why—why?" impatiently.

"Because," slowly, "I—do not hate you."

"Don't be a hypocrite," says Tita sharply. She gets up suddenly, pushing back her chair behind her. "Why do you pretend?" says she. "What is to be gained by it? I know we are bound to each other in a sense—bound——" She breaks off. "Ah, that horrid word!" cries she. "Why can we not get rid of it? Why can't we separate? How ridiculous the laws are! You would be as glad to say good-bye to me for ever as I should be to say it to you, and yet——"

"I beg your pardon," says Rylton, interrupting her quickly. "Speak for yourself only. For my part, I have no desire to be separated from you now, or," steadily, "at any other time."

Tita lifts her eyes and looks at him. Their glances meet, and there is something in his that brings the blood to her face.

"I cannot understand you," cries she, with some agitation. "You don't want my money now; you have plenty of your own, and," throwing up her head with a disdainful little gesture, "certainly you don't want me."

"You seem wonderfully certain on many points," says Rylton, "but is your judgment always infallible?"

"In this case, yes."

"Ah! you have decided," says he. His gaze wanders from her face and falls upon her hands. On the right hand is a beautiful pearl ring. He regards it without thought for a second or two, and then he wakens to the fact that he had never seen it there before. "Who gave you that ring?" demands he suddenly, with something of the old masterful air. It is so like the old air that Tita for a little while is silent, then she wakes. No! It is all over now—that ownership. She has emancipated herself; she is free. There is something strange and terrible, however, to her in the knowledge that this thought gives her no joy. She stands pale, actually frightened, for there is fear in the knowledge—that she had felt a sharp throb of delight when that commanding tone had fallen on her ears.

She recovers almost instantly.

"You think it was Tom, perhaps," says she, speaking with a little difficulty, but smiling contemptuously. "Well, it was not. It was only Margaret, after all. This is a last insult, I suppose. Was it to deliver it that you came here to-day?"

"No," he is beginning, "but——"

"You ask me questions," continues she, brushing his words aside with a wave of her small hand. "And I—I—have I no questions to ask?" She stops, as if suffocating.

"You have, God knows," says he. "And"—he hesitates—"I don't expect you to believe me, but—that old folly—it is dead."

"Dead?" She shakes her head. "What killed it?"

"You!" says Rylton.

One burning glance she casts at him.

"Do not let us waste time," says she. "Tell me plainly why you came here, why you want to see me."

"You give me little encouragement to speak"—bitterly. "But it is this: I want you to come back to me, to be mistress of my house again. I"—he pauses as if seeking words—"I have bought a new house; I want you to come and be the head of it."

Tita has been listening to him with wide eyes. She had grown pale as death itself during his speech, and now she recoils from him. She makes a little movement as though to repel him for ever, and then, suddenly she covers her eyes with her hands, and bursts into violent weeping.

"Oh no! No!" gasps she. "Never! Never again! How could you ask me!"

He takes a step towards her, and lays his hand upon her arm.

"No, don't touch me. Don't speak to me," cries she. "I have had to see you to-day, and it has been terrible to me—so terrible that I hope I shall never see you again. I could not bear it. Go—go away!"

"Do not send me from you like this," entreats Rylton, in a voice that trembles. Her tears cut him to the heart. He is so close to her that he has only to put out his hand to catch her—to take her to him, and yet——"Think, Tita! We have got to live out our lives, whether we like it or not. Can we not live them out together?"

"We cannot," says Tita, in a low but distinct voice. She turns to him proudly. "Have you forgotten?" says she. Her poor little face is stained with tears, but he sees no disfigurement in it; he has but one desire, and that is to take her into his arms and kiss those tears away from it for ever.

"Forget! Do you think I shall ever forget? It is my curse that I shall always remember. But that is at an end, Tita. I swear it! I hope I shall never see her again. If you wish it—I——"

"I wish nothing with regard to either her or you," interrupts Tita, her breath coming a little quickly. "It is nothing to me. I do not care."

"Don't say that," says Rylton hoarsely. He is fighting his battle inch by inch. "Give me some hope! Is one sin to condemn a man for ever? I tell you all that is done. And you—if you love no one—give me a chance!"

"Why should I trouble myself so far?" says she, with infinite disdain.

At this Rylton turns away from her. He goes to the window, and stands there gazing out, but seeing nothing.

"You are implacable—cold, heartless," says he, in a low tone, fraught with hidden meaning.

"Oh, let us leave hearts out of the discussion," cries Tita scornfully. "And, indeed, why should we have any discussions? Why need we talk to each other at all? This interview"— clenching her handkerchief into a ball—"what has it done for us? It has only made us both wretched!" She takes a step nearer to him. "Do—do promise me you will not seek another."

"I cannot promise you that."

"No?" She turns back again. "Well—go away now, at all events," says she, sighing.

"Not until I have said what is on my mind," says Rylton, with determination.

"Well, say it"—frowning.

"I will! You are my wife, and I am your husband, and I think it is your duty to live with me."

She looks at him for a long time, as if thinking.

"I'll tell you what you think," says she slowly, "that it will add to your respectability in the eyes of your world to have your wife living in your house, and not in Margaret's."

"I don't expect to be generously judged by you," says he. "But even as you put it there is sense in it. If our world——"

"Yours! yours!" interrupts she angrily—that old wound had always rankled. "It is not my world! I have nothing to do with it. I do not belong to it. Your mother showed me that, even so long ago as when we were first"—there is a little perceptible hesitation—"married".

"Hang my mother!" says Rylton violently. "I tell you my world is your world, and if not—well, then I have no desire to belong to it. The question is, Tita, will you consent to forget—and—and forgive—and"—with a sudden plunge—"make it up with me?"

He would have taken her hand here, but she slips adroitly behind a small table.

"Say it is for respectability's sake, if you like, that I ask you to return to me," goes on Rylton, a little daunted, however, by her determined entrenchment; "though it is not. Still——"

She stops him.

"It is no use," says she. "Don't go on. I cannot. I will not. I," her lips quiver slightly—"I was too unhappy with you. And I should always think of——" Her voice dies away.

Rylton is thinking, too, of last night, and that terrible interview with Marian. A feeling of hatred towards her grows within him. She had played with him—killed all that was best in him, and then flung him aside. She had let him go for the moment—only to return and spoil whatever good the world had left him. Her face rises before him pleading, seductive; and here is the other face—angry, scornful. Oh, dear little angry face! How fair, how pure, and how beloved!

"I tell you," says he, breaking out vehemently, "that all that is at an end—if I ever loved her." He forgets everything now, and, catching her hands, holds them tightly in his own. "Give me another trial," entreats he.

"No, no!" She speaks as if choking, but for all that she draws her hands out of his. "It would be madness. You would tire. We should tire of each other in a week—where there is no love. No, no!"

"You refuse, then?"

"I refuse!"

"Tita——"

She turns upon him passionately.

"I won't listen. It is useless. You"—a sob breaks from her—"why don't you go!" she cries a little wildly.

"This is not good-bye," says he desperately. "You will let me come again? Margaret, I know, receives on Sundays. Say I may come then."

"Yes."

She gives the permission faintly, and with evident reluctance. She lifts her eyes, and makes a gesture towards the door.

"Oh, I am going," says Rylton bitterly. He goes a step or two away from her, and then pauses as if loath to leave her.

"You might at least shake hands with me," says he.

She hesitates—then lays a cold little hand in his. He too hesitates, then, stooping, presses his lips warmly, lingeringly to it.

In another moment he is gone.

Tita stands motionless, listening to his departing footsteps. For a while she struggles with herself, as if determined to overcome the strange emotion that is threatening to master her. Then she gives way, and, flinging herself into an armchair, breaks into a passion of tears.

Margaret, coming presently into the room, sees her, and going to her, kneels down beside the chair and takes her into her arms.

"Oh, Margaret!" cries Tita. "Oh, Meg! Meg! And I was so rude to you!
But to see him—to see him again——"

"My poor darling!" says Margaret, pressing the girl to her with infinite tenderness.