When Michael Arranstoun got Henry's wire asking him to dine, he laughed bitterly. There was something so cynically entertaining in the idea of the whole situation! He was being asked out to meet the wife whom he was madly in love with, and was preparing to divorce for desertion, so that she might marry the giver of the invitation!
He was tempted to accept for a second or two, the desire to see her again was growing almost more than he could bear; but at this period he had still strength to refuse—and then, as the days went on, it seemed that nothing gave him any pleasure, and that constantly and incessantly his thoughts turned to one subject. If there had been no friendship or honor mixed up in the thing, nothing would have been simpler than to sit down and write to Henry telling him plainly that Sabine was his wife—and that she must choose between them. But then he remembered that, apart from all friendship, Sabine had already plainly expressed her choice, and that he had absolutely no right to hold her in any way since he had given her permission all those years ago to make what she chose of her life. He had not yet instructed his lawyers to begin actual proceedings—he was in a furnace of indecision and unrest. He would like just somehow to get Sabine to Arranstoun first—then, if after that she still plainly showed that she loved Henry, he would make himself go ahead with the freedom scheme; but if he commenced actual proceedings now, by no possibility could she come to Arranstoun—and this idea—to get her to Arranstoun, began to be an obsession. Just in proportion as his nature was wild and rebellious, so the mad longing grew and grew in him to induce her to come once more into his house.
And it would seem that fate at first intended to assist him in this, for on the second of November the party went up North to stay with Rose Forster, Henry's sister, at Ebbsworth for a great ball she was giving for a newly married niece.
CHAPTER XV
F or a day or two, Michael Arranstoun could not make up his mind, when he heard of the Ebbsworth ball, as to whether or no he ought to go to it. He had several conversations with Binko upon the subject, and finally came to the conclusion that he would go. He had grown so desperately unhappy by this time, that he cared no more whether it were right or wrong—he must see Sabine. He had not believed that it could be possible for him to suffer to such a degree about a woman. He must satisfy himself absolutely as to the fact of her loving Henry.
Rose Forster had written, of course, to ask him to stay in the house for it—holding out the bait that she had two absolutely charming Americans coming. So Michael fell—and accepted, not without excusing himself to Binko as he finished writing out his wire:
Thousand thanks. I will come.
"I am a coward, Binko—I ought to have the pluck to go off to Timbuctoo and let Henry have a fair field—but I haven't and must be certain first."