"Well, this is not. I deny it. I absolutely," said Madame von Marwitz, and now with some excitement, "deny it. Did I not give her to him? Did I not go to them with tenderest solicitude and strive to make possible between him and me some relation of bare good fellowship? Did I not curb my spirit, and it is a proud and impatient one, as you know, to endure, lest she should see it, his veiled insolence and hostility? Oh! when I think of what I have borne with from that young man, I marvel at my own forbearance. I have nothing to reproach myself with, Tallie; nothing; and if his life is ruined I can say, with my hand on my heart,"—Madame von Marwitz laid it there—"that he alone is to blame for it. A more odious, arrogant, ignorant being," she added, "I have never encountered. Karen is well rid of him."
Mrs. Talcott remained unmoved. "You don't like him because he don't like you and that's about all you've got against him, I reckon, if the truth were known," she said. "You can make yourself see it all like that if you've a mind to, but you can't make me; I know you too well, Mercedes. You were mad at him because he didn't admire you like you're used to being admired, and you went to work pinching and picking here and there, pretending it was all on Karen's account, but really so as you could get even with him. You couldn't stand their being happy all off by themselves without you. Why I can see it all as plain and clear as if I'd been there right along. Just think of your telling that poor deluded child that you wanted her to make her husband like you. That was a nice way, wasn't it, for setting her heart at rest about you and him. If you didn't like him and saw he didn't like you, why didn't you keep your mouth shut? That's all you had to do, and keep out of their way all you could. If you'd been a stupid woman there might have been some excuse for you, but you ain't a stupid woman, and you know precious well what you're about all the time. I don't say you intended to blow up the whole concern like you've done; but you wanted to get even with Mr. Jardine and show him that Karen cared as much for you as she did for him, and you didn't mind two straws what happened to Karen while you were doing it."
Madame von Marwitz had listened, turning on her back and with her eyes still on the ceiling, and the calm of her face might have been that of indifference or meditation. But now, after a moment of receptive silence, indignation again seemed to seize her. "It's false!" she exclaimed.
"No it ain't false, Mercedes, and you know it ain't," said Mrs. Talcott gloomily.
"False, and absolutely false!" Madame von Marwitz repeated. "How could I keep my mouth shut—as you delicately put it—when I saw that Karen saw? How keep my mouth shut without warping her relation to me? I spoke to her with lightest, most tender understanding, so that she should know that my heart was with her while never dreaming of the chasms that I saw in her happiness. It was he who forced me to an open declaration and he who forced me to leave; for how was happiness possible for Karen if I remained with them? No. He hated me, and was devoured by jealousy of Karen's love for me."
"I guess if it comes to jealousy you've got enough for two in any situation. It don't do for you to talk to me about jealousy, Mercedes," Mrs. Talcott returned, "I've seen too much of you. You can't persuade me it wasn't your fault, not if you were to talk till the cows come home. I don't deny but what it was pretty hard for you to see that Mr. Jardine didn't admire you. I make allowances for that; but my gracious me," said Mrs. Talcott with melancholy emphasis, "was that any reason for a big middle-aged woman like you behaving like a spiteful child? Was it any reason for your setting to work to spoil Karen's life? No, Mercedes, you've done about as mean a thing as any I've seen you up to and what I want to know now is what you're going to do about it."
"Do about it?" Madame von Marwitz wrathfully repeated. "What more can I do? I open my house and my heart to the child. I take her back. I mend the life that he has broken. What more do you expect of me?"
"Don't talk that sort of stage talk to me, Mercedes. What I want you to do is to make it possible so as he can get her back."
"He is welcome to get her back if he can. I shall not stand in his way. It would be a profound relief to me were he to get her back."
"I can see that well enough. But how'll you help standing in his way? The only thing you could do to get out of his way would be to help Karen to be quit of you. Make her see that you're just as bad as he thinks you. I guess if you told her some things about yourself she'd begin to see that her husband wasn't so far wrong about you."