The torment of his humiliation snatched at anger for a veil. He said, smiling, “You have been very successful till now in concealing your real opinion of me.”
“Have I concealed it?”
“My work certainly seemed to be of absorbing interest to you.”
“I listened to it; yes.”
“I didn’t imagine you’d stoop to feign interest. I didn’t imagine you’d take such pains to allure and flatter a commonplace young père de famille.”
“Did I take pains to allure and flatter him?”
“From the first!—From the very first!—That day we met!—My God!” Even now he could not help feeling himself, seeing himself, as one of his own heroes; and, for a moment, he bent his head upon his hands—as they would have done had a calamity as unimaginable as this befallen them. “That first day!—The apple-blossoms framing you! You stood under your white parasol in our orchard—and you smiled at me!”
“I generally do at agreeable-looking young men when I see that they admire me,” Mrs. Dallas commented.
“Oh, don’t pretend!—Don’t hide and shift!” He lifted fierce eyes; “It wasn’t only that. You seemed to care. You seemed to need me. You made it easy—inevitable. You came—and came; and you asked me here again and again.”
“Not 'me,'—'us,'” Mrs. Dallas amended suavely. She was looking at him, all this time, with that thoughtful, poisonous curiosity; and as he now sat, finding for the moment no words, his fury baffled by her quiet checkmating, she went on, “And afterwards I let you come alone because I saw that you admired me, and that is always pleasant to me. When, at first, as you say, I showed myself so affable, it was because I liked Marian. I do still like her; more than I ever liked you, my dear Rupert; if you are good-hearted and intelligent, she is more so, and she has more sense of humour than you have, and doesn’t take herself so seriously. And, to be quite frank, since we are talking it all out like this, I not only liked Marian, but saw that she could be of use to me. I’ve had, in some ways, a tiresome, tangled life, and things haven’t always gone as I wanted them to go, so that I don’t let opportunities for strengthening and straightening here and there pass me by. Through Marian I met several people I wanted to meet and make sure of. People useful to me. I think Marian quite understood and quite wanted to help. She would. She is of my world in a sense you aren’t, you know, my dear Rupert. And, in my idle way, I did take a good deal of trouble to be agreeable to her. It all turned out exceedingly well and I was very grateful to Marian. That’s one reason, you see, why I felt to-day that our little flirtation was going too far and must be put a stop to. I don’t want Marian to be jealous of me; it would be distinctly inconvenient. But there is more in it than that. I wouldn’t have put myself to this bother and talked things out like this if it hadn’t been because of my liking for Marian. It makes me angry to see that you don’t know how lucky you are to have such a wife. I want you to see how very lucky you are. I want you to see yourself as others see you,—a very unimportant young man, without position and without money, married to a quite unusually delightful girl who has both. This isn’t the young man’s fault, of course; one wouldn’t like him the less for it; but one does expect him to be aware of his own felicity. One does expect him to feel that, at present, his wife is too good for him. I don’t mean in the conventional sense; one wouldn’t ask him to recognize that; but in the sense of worth and charm and distinction, for those are the things he supposes himself to care for.”