The undisguised amusement, mingled with relief, that had overspread Barker's face during this lively recital might have pricked the conscience of Mrs. Horncastle, but for some reason I fear it did not. But it emboldened her to go on. “I said I promised her that I would see she wasn't disturbed; but, of course, now that YOU, her HUSBAND, have come, if”—
“Not for worlds,” interrupted Barker earnestly. “I know poor Kitty's headaches, and I never disturb her, poor child, except when I'm thoughtless.” And here one of the most thoughtful men in the world in his sensitive consideration of others beamed at her with such frank and wonderful eyes that the arch hypocrite before him with difficulty suppressed a hysterical desire to laugh, and felt the conscious blood flush her to the root of her hair. “You know,” he went on, with a sigh, half of relief and half of reminiscence, “that I often think I'm a great bother to a clear-headed, sensible girl like Kitty. She knows people so much better than I do. She's wonderfully equipped for the world, and, you see, I'm only 'lucky,' as everybody says, and I dare say part of my luck was to have got her. I'm very glad she's a friend of yours, you know, for somehow I fancied always that you were not interested in her, or that you didn't understand each other until now. It's odd that nice women don't always like nice women, isn't it? I'm glad she was with you; I was quite startled to learn she was here, and couldn't make it out. I thought at first she might have got anxious about our little Sta, who is with me and the nurse at Hymettus. But I'm glad it was only a lark. I shouldn't wonder,” he added, with a laugh, “although she always declares she isn't one of those 'doting, idiotic mothers,' that she found it a little dull without the boy, for all she thought it was better for ME to take him somewhere for a change of air.”
The situation was becoming more difficult for Mrs. Horncastle than she had conceived. There had been a certain excitement in its first direct appeal to her tact and courage, and even, she believed, an unselfish desire to save the relations between husband and wife if she could. But she had not calculated upon his unconscious revelations, nor upon their effect upon herself. She had concluded to believe that Kitty had, in a moment of folly, lent herself to this hare-brained escapade, but it now might be possible that it had been deliberately planned. Kitty had sent her husband and child away three weeks before. Had she told the whole truth? How long had this been going on? And if the soulless Van Loo had deserted her now, was it not, perhaps, the miserable ending of an intrigue rather than its beginning? Had she been as great a dupe of this woman as the husband before her? A new and double consciousness came over her that for a moment prevented her from meeting his honest eyes. She felt the shame of being an accomplice mingled with a fierce joy at the idea of a climax that might separate him from his wife forever.
Luckily he did not notice it, but with a continued sense of relief threw himself back in his chair, and glancing familiarly round the walls broke into his youthful laugh. “Lord! how I remember this room in the old days. It was Kitty's own private sitting-room, you know, and I used to think it looked just as fresh and pretty as she. I used to think her crayon drawing wonderful, and still more wonderful that she should have that unnecessary talent when it was quite enough for her to be just 'Kitty.' You know, don't you, how you feel at those times when you're quite happy in being inferior”—He stopped a moment with a sudden recollection that Mrs. Horncastle's marriage had been notoriously unhappy. “I mean,” he went on with a shy little laugh and an innocent attempt at gallantry which the very directness of his simple nature made atrociously obvious,—“I mean what you've made lots of young fellows feel. There used to be a picture of Colonel Brigg on the mantelpiece, in full uniform, and signed by himself 'for Kitty;' and Lord! how jealous I was of it, for Kitty never took presents from gentlemen, and nobody even was allowed in here, though she helped her father all over the hotel. She was awfully strict in those days,” he interpolated, with a thoughtful look and a half-sigh; “but then she wasn't married. I proposed to her in this very room! Lord! I remember how frightened I was.” He stopped for an instant, and then said with a certain timidity, “Do you mind my telling you something about it?”
Mrs. Horncastle was hardly prepared to hear these ingenuous domestic details, but she smiled vaguely, although she could not suppress a somewhat impatient movement with her hands. Even Barker noticed it, but to her surprise moved a little nearer to her, and in a half-entreating way said, “I hope I don't bore you, but it's something confidential. Do you know that she first REFUSED me?”
Mrs. Horncastle smiled, but could not resist a slight toss of her head. “I believe they all do when they are sure of a man.”
“No!” said Barker eagerly, “you don't understand. I proposed to her because I thought I was rich. In a foolish moment I thought I had discovered that some old stocks I had had acquired a fabulous value. She believed it, too, but because she thought I was now a rich man and she only a poor girl—a mere servant to her father's guests—she refused me. Refused me because she thought I might regret it in the future, because she would not have it said that she had taken advantage of my proposal only when I was rich enough to make it.”
“Well?” said Mrs. Horncastle incredulously, gazing straight before her; “and then?”
“In about an hour I discovered my error, that my stocks were worthless, that I was still a poor man. I thought it only honest to return to her and tell her, even though I had no hope. And then she pitied me, and cried, and accepted me. I tell it to you as her friend.” He drew a little nearer and quite fraternally laid his hand upon her own. “I know you won't betray me, though you may think it wrong for me to have told it; but I wanted you to know how good she was and true.”
For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was amazed and discomfited, although she saw, with the inscrutable instinct of her sex, no inconsistency between the Kitty of those days and the Kitty now shamefully hiding from her husband in the same hotel. No doubt Kitty had some good reason for her chivalrous act. But she could see the unmistakable effect of that act upon the more logically reasoning husband, and that it might lead him to be more merciful to the later wrong. And there was a keener irony that his first movement of unconscious kindliness towards her was the outcome of his affection for his undeserving wife.