May smiled; absolute candour resulted, as it seemed to her, in giving rise to an impression that the Professor had been in favour of the merits of the Alethea.
"And you won't show it to the directors?"
"No," said Quisanté, "certainly not." He paused for a moment and then added slowly, "In fact it has not been preserved. What is stated there is based on my own personal discussions with the Professor, and on Mandeville's; the few lines he wrote added nothing."
It had not been preserved; it had sunk from a report to a draft report, from a draft report to considerations, from considerations to a few lines which added nothing; the minimising process, pursued a little further, had ended in a total disappearance. And nobody knew that it had ever existed, even as considerations, even as a few lines adding nothing, except her husband, cousin Mandeville, and herself.
"If the Professor himself," Quisanté resumed, "had considered it of any moment, he would have kept a copy or some memorandum of it; but there was not a word about it among his papers."
There was safety, then, so far as the Professor was concerned; and so far as Quisanté was concerned; of course, also, so far as cousin Mandeville was concerned. But Quisanté's restless eyes seemed to ask whether there were perfect safety all round, no possibility of Jimmy or Sir Winterton or anybody else picking up false ideas from careless talk about the few lines in which the Professor had added nothing. For an instant May's eyes met his, and she understood what he asked of her. She was to hold her tongue; that sounded simple. She had held her tongue before, and thus it happened that Sir Winterton was her husband's friend and trusted him. Now she was again to be a party to deceiving him, and this time Jimmy Benyon was to be hoodwinked too. She was to hold her tongue; if by any chance need arose, she was to lie. That was the request Quisanté made of her, part of the price of being Quisanté's wife.
She gave him no pledge in words; a touch of the tact that taught him how to deal with difficult points prevented him from asking one of her. But it was quite understood between them; no reference was to be made to the few lines that the Professor had written. Quisanté's uneasiness passed away, his headache seemed to become less severe; he was in good spirits as he made his preparations to go to the House. Apparently he had no consciousness of having asked anything great of her. He had been far more nervous and shamefaced about his betrayal of the Crusade, far more upset by the untoward incident of Mr. Foster's letter. May told herself that she understood why; he was getting accustomed to her and she to him; he knew her point of view and allowed for it, expecting a similar toleration in return. As she put it, they were getting equalised, approaching more nearly to one another's level. You could not aid in queer doings and reap the fruits of them without suffering some gradual subtle moral change which must end in making them seem less queer. As the years passed by, the longer their companionship lasted, the more their partnership demanded in its community of interest and effort, the more this process must go on. As they rose before the world—for rise they would (even the Alethea would succeed in spite of the Professor's burked report)—they would fall in their own hearts and in one another's eyes. This was the prospect that stretched before her, as she sat again alone in the drawing-room, after Quisanté had set out, much better, greatly rested, in good spirits, serene and safe, and after she had pledged herself to his fortunes by the sacrifice of loyalty to friends and to truth.
Yes, that was the prospect unless—she started a little. She had forgotten what she had meant to ask him; she had not inquired about his visit to the doctor nor told him that kind Lady Mildmay was anxious about his health. It had all been driven out of her head, she said to herself in excuse at first. Then she faced her feelings more boldly. Just then she could have put no such questions, feigned no such interest, and assumed no show of affection or solicitude. That evening such things would have been mere hypocrisy, pretences of a desire to keep him for herself when her whole nature was in revolt at having to be near him. Her horror now was not that she might lose him, but of the prospect that lay before her and the road she must tread with him. Trodden it must be; unless by any chance there were truth, or less than the truth, in what good Lady Mildmay said.
THE IRREVOCABLE.