“It does concern me,” said Palgrave, and he put up his hand and grasped Adrienne’s. “Barbara’s well-being concerns me as much as it does you; and your wife’s happiness concerns me a good deal more. I can promise you that I wouldn’t trouble your hospitality for another day if it weren’t for her—and Mother. It’s perfectly open to you, of course, to turn me out of my home whenever you like to make use of your legal privilege. But until I’m turned out I stay—for their sakes.”
“You young ass! You unmitigated young ass!” Barney snarled, springing to his feet. “All right, Mother. Don’t bother. I’ll leave you to your protector for the present. I only wish he were young enough to be given what he needs—a thorough good hiding. I’ll go down and see Nancy. Don’t expect me back to dinner.”
“Nancy is busy, my dear,” poor Mrs. Averil, deeply flushing, interposed, while Palgrave, under his breath, yet audibly, murmured: “Truly Kiplingesque! Home and Hidings! Our Colonial history summed up!”
“She would be here if she weren’t busy,” said Mrs. Averil.
“I won’t bother her,” said Barney. “I’ll sit in the garden and read. It’s more peaceful than being here.”
“Please tell dear Nancy that it’s ten days at least since I’ve seen her,” said Adrienne, “and that I miss her and beg that she’ll give me, sometime, a few of her spare moments.”
At that Barney stopped short, and looked at his wife. “No, Adrienne, I won’t,” he said with a startling directness. “I’ll take no messages whatever from you to Nancy. Let Nancy alone—do you see? That’s all I’ve got to ask of you. Let her alone. She and Aunt Monica are the only people you haven’t set against me and I don’t intend to quarrel with Nancy to please you, I promise you.”
Sitting motionless and upright, her hand laid on Palgrave’s shoulder, her face as unalterable as a little mask, Adrienne received these well-aimed darts as a Saint Sebastian might have received the arrows. Barney stared hard at her for a moment, then turned his back and marched out into the sunlight and Oldmeadow, as he saw him go, felt that he witnessed the end, as he had, little more than a year ago, witnessed the beginning, of an epoch. What was there left to build on after such a scene? And what must have passed between husband and wife during their hours of intimacy to make it credible? Barney was not a brute.
When Barney had turned through the entrance gates and disappeared—Adrienne’s eyes dropped to Palgrave’s. “I think I’ll go in, Paladin,” she said, and it was either with faintness or with the mere stillness of her rage. “I think I’ll lie down for a little while.”
Palgrave had leaped to his feet and, as she rose, drew her hand within his arm, and Mrs. Chadwick, her eyes staring wide, hastened to her: but Adrienne gently put her away. “No, no, dearest Mother Nell. Paladin will help me. You must stay with Aunt Monica and Mr. Oldmeadow.” Her hand rested for a moment on Mrs. Chadwick’s shoulder and she looked into her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Mother Nell. I meant no harm.”