"I don't expect you to understand my reasons," pursued the other, in the same manner; while, beside him, Bethune kept his taciturn watch. "But you have, I recognise, the right to be told of them. I had to find out if my wife was happy."
"You had to find out if——" Sir Arthur pouncing upon the new suggestion, to lay bare its folly, was suddenly arrested midway by a glimmer of the other's meaning and its extraordinary bearing upon himself.
"If you wish, I shall put the matter clearer," said the first husband, incisively. "I had to find out if your wife was happy."
"If my wife was happy!"
A vision rose before Sir Arthur—his wife, the wife of Sir Arthur Gerardine, the wife of the Lieutenant-Governor, her Excellency, Lady Gerardine, queen of her world, flashing in the glory of his diamonds and emeralds, treading palace rooms, herself the centre of a court—his wife petted, adulated, envied, the object of his chivalrous attention, of his lavish indulgence, his constant solicitude—not happy! He broke into boisterous laughter.
"Not happy! For that was your conclusion, I suppose?"
Still laughing, he flung a glance at M. Châtelard—eloquent. "Did you ever hear such an absurdity in your life?" it said, in all languages.
M. Châtelard unaccountably dropped his eyes before that triumphant appeal; and a dry cough of unwonted embarrassment escaped him. Sir Arthur's mirth changed from its first genuine note of sarcastic fury to something that rang hollow and forced. Abruptly withdrawing his eyes from the unresponsive Frenchman, he caught sight of his own countenance reflected, in all the cruel morning light, by a mirror that hung between the two windows. He stood staring. For a second he could not recognise himself—an unkempt old man, with yellow trembling cheeks and vacant mouth.
In such moments the body works unconsciously. Had Sir Arthur had proper control over himself, the swift look at his rival, the immediate comparison, was the last thing his vanity would have condescended to. But his treacherous eyes had done their work before self-esteem could intervene. And, for once, Sir Arthur Gerardine saw.
The braced figure of Henry English, with its noble lines of still young manhood; the romantic head, refined, not aged, by suffering and endurance, the vital flame in the eye. What a contrast! Sir Arthur swayed, fell into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. Acrid tears of self-pity were burning his lids. This is what they have brought me to!