A Knight of the Nets

by Amelia E. Barr

“But I have been grossly insulted.”

“We shall have to get used to that, and bear it as we can. We deserve all that can be said of us—or to us.” Then he threw himself on his bed again and refused to say another word. Madame scolded and complained and pitied herself, and appealed to God and man against the wrongs she suffered, and finally went into a paroxysm of hysterical weeping. But Archie took no notice of the wordy tempest, so that Madame was confounded and frightened, by an indifference so unusual and unnatural.

Weeks of continual sulking or recrimination passed drearily away. Archie, in the first tide of his remorse, fed himself on the miseries which had driven Sophy to her grave. He interviewed the servants and heard all they had to tell him. He had long conversations with Miss Kilgour, and made her describe over and over Sophy’s despairing look and manner the morning she ran away. For the poor woman found a sort of comfort in blaming herself and in receiving meekly the hard words Archie could give her. He visited Mrs. Stirling in regard to Sophy’s sanity, and heard from that lady a truthful report of all that had passed in her presence. He went frequently to Janet’s cottage, and took all her home thrusts and all her scornful words in a manner so humble, so contrite, and so heart-broken, that the kind old woman began finally to forgive and comfort him. And the outcome of all these interviews and conversations Madame had to bear. Her son, in his great sorrow, threw off entirely the yoke of her control. He found his own authority and rather abused it. She had hoped the final catastrophe would draw him closer to her; hoped the coolness of friends and acquaintances would make him more dependent on her love and sympathy. It acted in the opposite direction. The public seldom wants two scapegoats. Madame’s ostracism satisfied its idea of justice. Every one knew Archie was very much under her control. Every one could see that he suffered dreadfully after Sophy’s death. Every one came promptly to the opinion that Madame only was to blame in the matter. “The poor husband” shared the popular sympathy with Sophy.

However, in the long run, he had his penalty to pay, and the penalty came, as was most just, through Marion Glamis. Madame quickly noticed that after her loss of public respect, Marion’s affection grew colder. At the first, she listened to the tragedy of Sophy’s illness and death with a decent regard for Madame’s feelings on the subject. When Madame pooh-poohed the idea of Sophy being in an hospital for weeks, unknown, Marion also thought it “most unlikely;” when Madame was “pretty sure the girl had been in London during the hospital interlude,” Marion also thought, “it might be so; Captain Binnie was a very taking man.” When Madame said, “Sophy’s whole conduct was only excusable on the supposition of her unaccountability,” Marion also thought “she did act queerly at times.”

Even these admissions were not made with the warmth that Madame expected from Marion, and they gradually grew fainter and more general. She began to visit Braelands less and less frequently, and, when reproached for her remissness, said, “Archie was now a widower, and she did not wish people to think she was running after him;” and her manner was so cold and conventional that Madame could only look at her in amazement. She longed to remind her of their former conversations about Archie, but the words died on her lips. Marion looked quite capable of denying them, and she did not wish to quarrel with her only visitor.

The truth was that Marion had her own designs regarding Archie, and she did not intend Madame to interfere with them. She had made up her mind to marry Braelands, but she was going to have him as the spoil of her own weapons—not as a gift from his mother. And she was not so blinded by hatred as to think Archie could ever be won by the abuse of Sophy. On the contrary, she very cautiously began to talk of her with pity, and even admiration. She fell into all Archie’s opinions and moods on the subject, and declared with warmth and positiveness that she had always opposed Madame’s extreme measures. In the long run, it came to pass that Archie could talk comfortably with Marion about Sophy, for she always reminded him of some little act of kindness to his wife, or of some instance where he had decidedly taken her part, so that, gradually, she taught him to believe that, after all, he had not been so very much to blame.

In these tactics, Miss Glamis was influenced by the most powerful of motives—self-preservation. She had by no means escaped the public censure, and in that set of society she most desired to please, had been decidedly included in the polite ostracism meted out to Madame. Lovers she had none, and she began to realise, when too late, that the connection of her name with that of Archie Braelands had been a wrong to her matrimonial prospects that it would be hard to remedy. In fact, as the winter went on, she grew hopeless of undoing the odium generated by her friendship with Madame and her flirtation with Madame’s son.

“And I shall make no more efforts at conciliation,” she said angrily to herself one day, after finding her name had been dropped from Lady Blair’s visiting-list; “I will now marry Archie. My fortune and his combined will enable us to live where and how we please. Father must speak to him on the subject at once.”

That night she happened to find the Admiral in an excellent mood for her purpose. The Laird of Binin had not “changed hats” with him when they met on the highway, and he fumed about the circumstance as if it had been a mortal insult.

“I’ll never lift my hat to him again, Marion, let alone open my mouth,” he cried; “no, not even if we are sitting next to each other at the club dinner. What wrong have I ever done him? Have I ever done him a favour that he should insult me?”