“No.”
I was quite convinced, as the reader must be, that there was really nothing in the conduct of Mrs. Percival to justify the cruel suspicions of her husband. His employment of me would, I saw, be one of the absurdest things he could very well do.
Should I allow him to employ me? Ought I to permit myself to be used as a spy upon his wife’s movements—being so firmly convinced, as I was, of her innocence?
The mystery of this jealousy was capable of a simple explanation. The lady had been endowed by nature with a somewhat mercurial disposition, which her education had done little to check. The very scenes in which her girlhood had been spent had inspired her with a wild or playful tendency. Nothing in her married life had yet happened to curb or control the innocent gaiety, or it might be waywardness, of her disposition. Had her union with Mr. Percival been blessed by offspring (of which, it is needless to say, there was yet no ground for despair), it is most probable that at dinner-parties she would have been a less attractive member, at public breakfasts she would have been less chatty or facetious, at flower-shows a less anxious inquirer.
But should I, or should I not, undertake to confirm or remove the unjust husband’s suspicions?
Upon this I could not make up my mind. I required time for consideration. It was arranged that Mr. Percival should see me again in three days.
During the interval between his first and second visits, I carefully balanced reasons for and against the engagement, and at length resolved to accept it. If I did not undertake it, I knew others would, if it were offered them. If they took it in hand, I was not at all sure that they would perform their task with becoming delicacy and consideration. I thought it not improbable that some rude or vulgar man might be instructed, and that he might, by starting on his inquiry with a foregone conclusion of the lady’s guilt, so interpret what he saw of her free conduct as to increase her husband’s jealousy. On the other hand, if I undertook the affair, I doubted not the result would be a vindication of Mrs. Percival in her husband’s eyes.
Mr. Percival punctually kept his appointment with me.
He was the first to speak.
“I hope,” he said, “you have agreed to assist me?”