It so happened that we had unfortunately among us two artists who had quarrelled with their wives. O’Brien, whom I have before mentioned, was one of them. In his case, I believe him to have been almost as free from blame as a man can be whose marriage was in itself a fault. However, he had a wife in Ireland some ten years older than himself; and though he might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were well aware of it. In the other case the whole fault probably was with the husband. He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect. In both cases our friend Mrs. Talboys took a warm interest, and in each of them she sympathised with the present husband against the absent wife.
Of the consolation which she offered in the latter instance we used to hear something from Mackinnon. He would repeat to his wife, and to me and my wife, the conversations which she had with him. “Poor Brown;” she would say, “I pity him, with my very heart’s blood.”
“You are aware that he has comforted himself in his desolation,” Mackinnon replied.
“I know very well to what you allude. I think I may say that I am conversant with all the circumstances of this heart-blighting sacrifice.” Mrs. Talboys was apt to boast of the thorough confidence reposed in her by all those in whom she took an interest. “Yes, he has sought such comfort in another love as the hard cruel world would allow him.”
“Or perhaps something more than that,” said Mackinnon. “He has a family here in Rome, you know; two little babies.”
“I know it, I know it,” she said. “Cherub angels!” and as she spoke she looked up into the ugly face of Marcus Aurelius; for they were standing at the moment under the figure of the great horseman on the Campidoglio. “I have seen them, and they are the children of innocence. If all the blood of all the Howards ran in their veins it could not make their birth more noble!”
“Not if the father and mother of all the Howards had never been married,” said Mackinnon.
“What; that from you, Mr. Mackinnon!” said Mrs. Talboys, turning her back with energy upon the equestrian statue, and looking up into the faces, first of Pollux and then of Castor, as though from them she might gain some inspiration on the subject which Marcus Aurelius in his coldness had denied to her. “From you, who have so nobly claimed for mankind the divine attributes of free action! From you, who have taught my mind to soar above the petty bonds which one man in his littleness contrives for the subjection of his brother. Mackinnon! you who are so great!” And she now looked up into his face. “Mackinnon, unsay those words.”
“They are illegitimate,” said he; “and if there was any landed property—”
“Landed property! and that from an American!”