“I am speaking,” cried Jim Airth, in furious desperation, “to the woman I have won for my own; and who is mine, and none other’s. If it had not been for my pride and my folly, we should have been married by now—married, Myra—and far away. I left you, I know; but—by heaven, I may as well tell you all now—it was pride—damnable false pride—that drove me away. I always meant to come back. I was waiting for you to send; but anyhow I should have come back. Would to God I had done as you implored me to do! By now we should have been together—out of reach of this cursed telegram,—and far away!”
Myra slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. He, blinded by pain and passion, failed to mark the look, or he might have taken warning. As it was, he rushed on, headlong.
Myra, very white, with eyelids lowered, leaned against the mantelpiece; slowly furling and unfurling the ivory fan.
“But, darling,” urged Jim Airth, “it is not yet too late. Oh, Myra, I have loved you so! Our love has been so wonderful. Have I not taught you what love is? The poor cold travesty you knew before—that was not love! Oh, Myra! you will come away with me, my own belovèd? You won’t put me through the hell of leaving you to another man? Myra, look at me! Say you will come.”
Then Lady Ingleby slowly closed the fan, grasping it firmly in her right hand. She threw back her head, and looked Jim Airth full in the eyes.
“So this is your love,” she said. “This is what it means? Then I thank God I have hitherto only known the ‘cold travesty,’ which at least has kept me pure, and held me high. What? Would you drag me down to the level of the woman you have scorned for a dozen years? And, dragging me down, would you also trail, with me, in the mire, the noble name of the man whom you have ventured to call friend? My husband may not have given me much of those things a woman desires. But he has trusted me with his name, and with his honour; he has left me, mistress of his home. When he comes back he will find me what he himself made me—mistress of Shenstone; he will find me where he left me, awaiting his return. You are no longer speaking to a widow, Lord Airth; nor to a woman left desolate. You are speaking to Lord Ingleby’s wife, and you may as well learn how Lord Ingleby’s wife guards Lord Ingleby’s name, and defends her own honour, and his.” She lifted her hand swiftly and struck him, with the ivory fan, twice across the cheek. “Traitor!” she said, “and coward! Leave this house, and never set foot in it again!”
Jim Airth staggered back, his face livid—ashen, his hand involuntarily raised to ward off a third blow. Then the furious blood surged back. Two crimson streaks marked his cheek. He sprang forward; with a swift movement caught the fan from Lady Ingleby’s hands, and whirled it above his head. His eyes blazed into hers. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her. She neither flinched nor moved; only the faintest smile curved the corners of her mouth into a scornful question.
Then Jim Airth gripped the fan in both hands; with a twist of his strong fingers snapped it in half, the halves into quarters, and again, with another wrench, crushed those into a hundred fragments—flung them at her feet; and, turning on his heel, left the room, and left the house.