He gave a half smile. "Doubtless there are the diamonds! I can have my equivalent, so far, if I choose; but I don't choose. It does not suit me personally; so that is settled. I can't do this thing, then, to please myself. Now, let us go on. You are a religious woman, I think, Mrs. Erlton--you have the look of one. Then you will say that I should remember my own frailty, and forgive as I would be forgiven. Mrs. Erlton! I am no better than most men, no doubt, but I never remember cheating at cards or pulling a horse as your husband does--it is the brutal truth between us, remember. And if you tell me I'm bound to protect a man from the natural punishment of a great crime because I've stolen a pin, I say you are wrong. That theory won't hold water. If our own faults, even our own crimes, are to make us tender over these things in others, there must be--what, if I remember right, my Colenso used to call an arithmetical progression in error until the Day of Judgment; for the odds on sin would rise with every crime. I don't believe in mercy, Mrs. Erlton. I never did. Justice doesn't need it. So let us leave religion alone too, and come to other things--altruism--charity--what you will. Now who will benefit by my silence? Will you? You said just now that a wife knows more of her husband than a stranger can. I well believe it. That is why I ask you to tell me frankly, if you really think that a continuance of the life you lead with him can benefit you?" He leaned over the table, resting his head on his hand, his eyes on hers, and then added in a lower voice, "The brutal truth, please. Not as a woman to man, or, for the matter of that, woman to woman; but soul to soul, if there be such a thing."
She turned away from him and shook her head. "It is for the boy's sake," she said in muffled tones. "It will be better for him, surely."
"The boy," he echoed, rising with a sense of relief. She had not lied, this woman with the beautiful eyes; she had simply shut the door in his face. "You have a portrait of him, no doubt, somewhere. I should like to see it. Is that it, over the mantelpiece?"
He walked over to a colored photograph, and stood looking at it silently, his hands--holding his hunting crop--clasped loosely behind his back. Kate noticed them even in her anxiety; for they were noticeable, nervous, fine-cut hands, matching the figure.
"He is not the least like you. He is the very image of his father," came the verdict. "What right have you to suppose that anything you or I can do now will overcome the initial fact that the boy is your husband's son, any more than it will ease you of the responsibility of having chosen such a father for the boy?"
She gave a quick cry, more of pain than anger, and hid her face on the table in sudden despair.
"You are very cruel," she said indistinctly.
He walked back toward her, remorseful at the sight of her miserable self-abasement. He had not meant to hit so hard, being accustomed himself to facing facts without flinching.
"Yes! I am cruel; but a life like mine doesn't make a man gentle. And I don't see how this trivial concealment of fact--for that is all it would be--can change the boy's character or help him. If I did----" he paused. "I should like to help you if I could, Mrs. Erlton, if only because you--you refused me charity! But I cannot see my way. It would do no one any good. Begin with me. I'm not a religious man, Mrs. Erlton. I don't believe in the forgiveness of sins. So my soul--if I have one--wouldn't benefit. As for my body? At the risk of you offering me diamonds again,"--he smiled charmingly,--"I must mention that I should lose--how much is a detail--by concealment. So I must go out of the question of benefit. Then there is you----"
He broke off to walk up and down the room thoughtfully, then to pause before her. "I wish you to believe," he said, "that I want really to understand the truth, but I can't, because I don't know one thing. I don't know if you love your husband--or not."