"Then you'll go?"
A last struggle kept her silent a moment. Then she answered in a low voice:
"Yes, I'll go."
"There's a brave little woman!" he cried delightedly, and bent down as if he would kiss her; but she had slipped her screen up nearly to her eyes again, and seemed so unconscious of his purpose that he abandoned it. His spirits rose in a moment, as his sanguine mind, catching hold of the bare chance, twisted it into a good chance—almost into a certainty.
"Gad, I believe he'll give it you! You'll put it in such a fetching way. Oh, his money's safe enough, of course! But—well, you'll make him see that better than I could. He liked you so much, you know. By Jove, I'm sure he'll do it for you, you know!"
Christine's pain-stricken eyes alone were visible above the screen. Underneath it her lips were bent in an involuntary smile of most mocking bitterness. Conscience had not been at her without a purpose. At her husband's bidding she must go and ask Caylesham for money. She bowed to conscience now.
CHAPTER VIII
IDEALS AND ASPIRATIONS
A sudden rigidity seemed to affect Mrs. Raymore from the waist upwards. Her back grew stiff, her head rose very straight from the neck, her eyes looked fixedly in front of her, her lips were tight shut. These symptoms were due to the fact that she saw Tom Courtland approaching, in company with a woman who was certainly not Lady Harriet. Thanks to the gossip about among Tom's friends, Kate Raymore guessed who she was; the woman's gorgeous attire, her flamboyant manner, the air of good-natured rowdyism which she carried with her, all confirmed the guess. Yet Tom was walking with her in the broad light of day—not in the street, it is true; it was in a rather retired part of the Park. Still, people came there and drove by there, and to many his companion was known by sight and by repute. His conduct betrayed increasing recklessness. There was nothing to do but to pass him by without notice; he himself would wish nothing else and would expect nothing else. Still Mrs. Raymore was sorry to have to do it; for Tom had been kind and helpful in obtaining that position in a railway company's office in Buenos Ayres which had covered the disastrous retreat of her well-beloved son.
This lamentable affair had been hushed up so far as the outer world was concerned; but their friends knew the truth. In the first terrible days, when there had been imminent risk of a criminal prosecution, Raymore had rather lost his head and had gone round to Grantley Imason, to Tom Courtland, to John Fanshaw, making lament and imploring advice. So they all knew—they and their wives; and the poor boy's sister Eva had been told, perforce. There the public shame stopped, but the private shame was very bitter to the Raymores. Raymore was driven to accuse himself of all kinds of faults in his bringing-up of the boy—of having been too indulgent here or too strict there—most of all, of having been so engrossed in business as not to see enough of the boy or to keep proper watch on his disposition and companions, and the way he spent his time. Kate Raymore, who even now could not get it out of her head that her boy was a paragon, was possessed by a more primitive feeling. To her the thing was a nemesis. She had been too content, too sure all was well with their household, too uplifted in her kindly but rather scornful judgment of the difficulties and follies which the Courtland family, and the Fanshaw family, and other families of her acquaintance had brought before her eyes. She had fallen too much into the pose of the judge, the critic, and the censor. Well, she had trouble enough of her own now; and that, to say nothing of Tom's kindness about Buenos Ayres, made her sorrier to have to cut him in the Park.
She was a religious woman, of a type now often considered old-fashioned. The nemesis which she instinctively acknowledged she accepted as a just and direct chastisement of Heaven. Her husband was impatient with this view, but he had more sympathy with the merciful alleviation of her sorrow which Heaven had sent. In the hour of affliction her son's heart, which had wandered from her in the waywardness of his heady youth, had come back to her. They could share holy memories of hours spent before Charley went, after forgiveness had been offered and received, and they were all drawn very close together. With these memories in their hearts they could endure, and with a confident hope look forward to, their son's future. Meanwhile they who remained were nearer in heart too. Eva, who had been inclined to flightiness, was frightened and sobered into a greater tenderness and a more willing obedience; and Edgar Raymore himself, when once he had pulled himself together, had behaved so well and been such a help to his wife in the trial that their old relations of mellow friendship took on a more intimate and affectionate character.