CHAPTER XXIV TO THE SOUL SHOP
With the departure of the other two, Trix's tempestuousness finally left her; it had worn itself out—and her. She sat very quiet, watching Airey Newton with a look that was saved from forlorn despair only by a sort of appeal; it witnessed to a hope which smouldered still, and might burn again if he would fan it. A sense of great physical fatigue was on her; she lay back in a collapse of energy, her head resting against the chair, her hands relaxed and idle on the arms of it.
'What a pity we can't leave it just where it is!' said Airey with a compassionate smile. 'Because we can't really put it all straight to-night; that'll take ever so much longer.' He sighed, and smiled at her. He came and laid his hand on one of hers. 'If I've got a life worth living, it's through you,' he told her. 'You were very angry with Tommy Trent, who had nothing to do with it. You were very, very angry with poor Peggy. Well, she was partly responsible; I don't forget that. But in the end it's a thing between you and me. We haven't seen so very much of one another—not if you count by time at least; but ever since that night at Paris there seems to have been something uniting us. Things that happened to you affected me, and—well, anyhow, you used to feel you had to come and tell me about them.'
He caressed her hand gently, and then walked away to the window.
'Yes, I used to feel that,' said Trix softly. 'I came and told you even—even bad things.'
'You chose your man well,' he went on. 'Better than you knew. If you had known, it wouldn't have been fair to choose a confessor so much worse than yourself. But you didn't know. I believe you thought quite highly of me!' There was no bitterness about him, rather a tone of exultation, almost of amusement. He took hold of a chair, brought it nearer to her, and rested his knee on it. 'There was a man who loved a woman and knew that she was ruined. There was no doubt about it. A friend told him; the woman herself told him. The friend said: "You can help." The woman he loved said, "Nobody can help." He could help, but even still he wouldn't. The friend said, "You can give her back life and her care about living." She said, "I have no joy now in living"—her eyes said that to him. Come, guess what his answer was! Can you guess? No, by heaven, nobody in the world could guess! He answered, "Yes, perhaps, but it would cost too much."'
For an instant she glanced at his face; she found him smiling still.
'That's what he said,' Airey pursued, in a tone of cheerful sarcasm. 'The fellow said it would cost too much. Prudent man, wasn't he? Careful and circumspect, setting a capital example to the thriftless folk we see all about us. It was suggested to him—oh, very delicately!—that it was hardly the occasion to count pennies. Then he got as far as asking that the thing should be reduced to figures. The figures appalled him!' A dry chuckle made her look again; she smiled faintly, in sympathy, not in understanding.
'Remarkable fellow, wasn't he? And the best of it was that the woman he loved was so cut up about being ruined and not having made a success of it altogether that she thought it very condescending and noble of him to show any concern about her or to trouble to give her advice. Now this man was always most ready to give advice; all his friends relied on him for that. As far as advice went, he was one of the most generous men in England. Well, there she lay—in the dust, as somebody put it to him. But, as I say, when it came to figures, the cost of raising her was enormous. Are you feeling an admiration for this hero? Don't you think that the worst, the foolishest woman on earth would have been a bit too good for him? This little trouble of his about figures he had once described as a propensity.'