Pearl's thoughts turned before long from herself and Martinworth to the girl he had married. At last she experienced the satisfaction of being able to give full vent to her anger and disappointment. To think that it was she--that it was Harry Joyce whom he had chosen as his wife out of all the women of his world! That elderly young lady whose whole soul was wrapped up in guns and horses, in motor cars and rational costumes. Harry Joyce, who never opened a book, and whose newspaper and magazine reading was confined to the racing calendar and to the sporting journals. Harry of the strident voice and weather-beaten countenance, whose ordinary way of greeting her intimates of the opposite sex was to call them by their nick-names, and to slap them on the back. A woman who disregarded all the ordinary usages of society, every outward form of conventionalism, and yet, because she was the only daughter of a Duke, was not only time after time forgiven, but what was more, was accepted as a matter of course, and in her frequent eccentricities was never at a loss to find in either sex both followers and admirers.
"Perhaps she has improved now, but she used to be a horrible girl," exclaimed Pearl aloud, and rising from her chair she paced up and down the room. "Dick always told me he detested her, and was ashamed to acknowledge her as his cousin. And to think of his committing the enormity of marrying such a woman. He must be mad! They haven't got a single idea in common. In old days he cordially hated the emancipated female. Some men of course find that sort of thing amusing. I have heard her called more than once 'A capital fellow,' but imagine Dick, my Dick, with such a wife! Imagine Dick uniting his lot with 'A capital fellow!' Every word she will utter, every action, every gesture, will grate on his nerves--will horrify and disgust him. Oh, what could have possessed him to ruin his life by such an outrageous marriage?"
For many days did Pearl ponder over this problem, till at last she arrived at what was perhaps more or less the right solution. Would she have been human if, having decided in her own mind the reason for this marriage, she did not at the bottom of her heart feel a sneaking satisfaction that the wife he had taken was after all the masculine and unattractive Lady Harriet Joyce, and not the sweet and innocent and beautiful maid whom she herself had prescribed?
Nevertheless, in spite of any slight comfort she may have succeeded in deriving from this thought, poor Pearl felt very sore and very forlorn, and when a few days later Monsieur de Güldenfeldt offered her his hand and his heart, she was more than half inclined to yield to the temptation of accepting a man who in positive terms assured her of his love, and who could give her not only a much-to-be-desired, but what was more, a safe and tangible position.
Stanislas had, on the occasion referred to, accompanied her in her ride, and they had stopped at a little tea-house to rest themselves and their horses. They wandered off on foot through a grove of bamboos, and the conversation turning on Ralph Nicholson's unexpected return to the country, Pearl found herself speaking with considerable feeling, of his constancy to her erratic young cousin.
"Nevertheless I have given him a piece of very worldly and very wicked advice," she said with her pretty laugh--"I told him to get up a mild flirtation with a married woman."
"Why married?" asked de Güldenfeldt.
"Because if he has no serious intentions, what's the good of compromising a girl? Girls fall in love so easily; whereas married women," she added with a sigh, "know so well how to look after themselves."
Monsieur de Güldenfeldt did not reply for a moment. Then he stopped in his walk, and gazing at his companion, asked somewhat gravely:
"Mrs. Nugent, are you quite sure that all married women know so very well how to take care of themselves?"