His Edith, his wife, clinging to another man's arm, clinging to her husband's arm, clinging to the arm of a husband who was not himself, dependent on him, supported by him, possessed by him, coming and going with him, living and eating with him, bearing him children, sharing with him whatever was most intimate, directed by him and dominated by him!—yet, all the while, in everything that could make two beings one except that stroke of the pen called law, his wife!
How had it come about? What had he done, what had she done, to make this hideous topsyturvydom a fact? He put his hand to his forehead like a man dazed; but he withdrew it quickly. His forehead was wet and clammy. He was shaken, transpierced. He saw now that, in all the three years since he had heard she was married, he hadn't really known it. Perhaps it was his imagination that was at fault—perhaps his incapacity for believing what wasn't under his very eyes—perhaps his own success in keeping the dreadful fact at a distance—but he hadn't really known it. Nothing could have brought it home to him like this—this glimpse of her intimate association with the other man, and her dependence upon him.
His first impulse was to get out of their sight, to hide, to find some place where he could grasp the appalling fact in silence and seclusion. Second thoughts reminded him that there was a situation to be faced and that he might as well face it now as at any other time. What sort of situation it would be he couldn't guess; but he was sure that behind the immobile mask of the other man's grave face there was something that would be worth the penetration. He would give him a chance. He would go forward to meet them. No, he wouldn't go forward to meet them; he would wait for them where he stood. No, he wouldn't wait for them where he stood; he would slip into the little rotunda close beside him—a little rotunda generally occupied by motherly Bernese women, but which for the moment the commanding spectacle outside had emptied.
It was a little open rotunda, with seats all round and a rude table in the middle. In sitting down he placed himself as nearly as possible in full view, but with his face toward the mountains. It gave him a preoccupied air to be seen relighting his cigar. It was thus optional with the couple who began to advance along the promenade to pass him by or to pause and address him.
Nothing but a shadow warned him of their approach.
"Chip—"
He turned. Edith was standing in the doorway, the man behind her. The haggard pallor of her face and the feverishness of her eyes reminded Chip of the morning little Tom was born. He was on his feet—silent. He couldn't even breathe her name. It was the less necessary since she herself hastened to speak:
"Chip, Mr. Lacon knows we met in England. I told him as soon as I reached Paris; I didn't want him not to know. And now he wants us all to meet—I don't know why."
Since he had to say something, he uttered the first words that came to him: "Was there any harm in it—our meeting? Mr. Lacon knows we have children—and things to talk over."
"Oh, it isn't only that," she said, excitedly. "It's more. I don't know what—but I know it's more."