"No, but he may think of it, I suppose? And I suppose I may, if I like, Mr. Maxon?"
He looked at her sourly for just a moment, then recovered himself and, without replying, passed on to the subject of a book which he had brought her. But he was annoyed that she should resist him, stand up to him, and claim her liberty—especially her liberty to receive Sir Axel alone. However, it was not good fighting ground; he had brought her rebuke upon himself.
Lady Rosaline was quite alive to the fact that Sir Axel's appearance and Sir Axel's attentiveness were a valuable asset to her, but she did not think of her old friend's husband in any other light. To begin with, he himself, though assiduous, had shown no sign of sentiment. If he were moving in that direction at all, he was moving slowly and secretly. And then she was still inclined to Maxon. She had a great opinion of his ability—she was more sure about that than about how much she liked him—and the chances of a high career for him allured her. But Sir Axel and his assiduity enhanced her value and buttressed her independence. They helped her to establish her position; she had an idea that the more firmly she established it now, the better it would resist any attacks on it, if and when she became Lady Rosaline Maxon. Here she was probably right. But she had another idea too. She was not going to be dictated to; she would not be browbeaten into becoming Lady Rosaline Maxon.
In this state of external affairs and internal dispositions, the 'proceedings' came and went—really meaning no more than a transitory quarter of an hour's annoyance to the rising Cyril Maxon, for whom everything was made as easy and sympathetic as possible. Other effects in Woburn Square, no doubt—possibly others in Madeira! Yet transitory and formal as they were, the proceedings left behind them a state of affairs more essentially transitory and formal still. The tie was now a mere technicality, and when conscience took the position that Cyril Maxon was still a married man for all purposes, conscience began to seem to put the matter too high. For present conduct, yes—and he had no wish to run counter to the injunction, for reasons both moral and prudential; but for laying down the future on definite lines? That seemed a different point. He reconsidered his attitude—not without being influenced, more or less consciously, by Lady Rosaline's independence and by the assiduity of Sir Axel Thrapston. The hint that she still considered herself free, the notion of a rival, turned the necessary interval from a mere nuisance into a possible danger. Moreover she was going abroad with Mrs. Ladd, and he could not follow. Mrs. Ladd was a friendly influence, but he would like to define the situation before Lady Rosaline went. Not desiring to risk a peculiarly annoying collision with Sir Axel, he wrote and asked her for an appointment.
She neither desired to refuse the interview, nor well could. But she scented an attack, and stood instinctively on the defensive. She wanted just the opposite of what Cyril Maxon did; the trip first and the decision afterwards was her order of events. She relied on the necessary interval, while he was now out of patience with it. "I won't be rushed!" she said to herself. She gave him the appointment he asked on a Saturday afternoon (he had suggested that comparatively free day) at half-past four, but she let drop to Sir Axel that she would be at home at half-past five on the same afternoon. Her motive in doing this was rather vague—just a notion that some discussions can go on too long, or that she might like to relax an agitated mind in talk with a friend, or, possibly, that she might like to be told that she had done right. Her reasons for the intimation to Sir Axel defy conclusive analysis.
"Lady Rosaline," said Cyril Maxon, as he put down his empty teacup, "last week saw the end of an episode in my life." (Mr. Attlebury would hardly have referred to it as an episode.) "The future is my concern now. I took the action I did take on the fullest consideration, and I'm glad to think, from what you said in Paris, that it had your approval." He paused a moment. "I hope I'm not wrong in thinking that you understood why I took it, when once I had made up my mind that it was permissible?"
"Oh, you mustn't make too much of what I said in Paris. I'm no authority. I left it to you."
He smiled. "The question of permissibility—naturally. But the other altogether? Well, never mind that." He rose from his chair and stood by her. "You must know that it was for your sake that I took the step I did?"
She moved restlessly, neither affirming nor denying. She knew it very well.
"Before the world we must remain as we are for the present. But it would make a vast difference to me, during this time of waiting, to know that I—that I could rely on you, Rosaline. You can have no doubt of my feelings, though I have exercised self-restraint. I love you, and I want you to be my wife as soon as possible."