“Dear old thing!” said Lady Ingleby, affectionately; “you deserved to be happy. All the same I never can understand why you did not marry Deryck Brand.”
Jane smiled. She could not bring herself to discuss her husband, but she was very willing at this critical juncture to divert Lady Ingleby from her own troubles by entering into particulars concerning herself and the doctor.
“My dear,” she said, “Deryck and I were far too much alike ever to have dovetailed into marriage. All our points would have met, and our differences gaped wide. The qualities which go to the making of a perfect friendship by no means always ensure a perfect marriage. There was a time when I should have married Deryck had he asked me to do so, simply because I implicitly trusted his judgment in all things, and it would never have occurred to me to refuse him anything he asked. But it would not have resulted in our mutual happiness. Also, at that time, I had no idea what love really meant. I no more understood love until—until Garth taught me, than you understood it before you met Jim Airth.”
“I wish you would not keep on alluding to Jim Airth,” said Myra, wearily. “I never wish to hear his name again. And I cannot allow you to suppose that I should ever have adopted your strong-minded suggestion, and admitted to Michael that I loved Jim. I should have done nothing of the kind. I should have devoted myself to pleasing Michael in all things, and made myself—yes, Jane; you need not look amused and incredulous; though I don’t wear collars and shooting-boots, I can make myself do things—I should have made myself forget that there was such a person in this world as the Earl of Airth and Monteith.”
“Oh spare him that!” laughed Mrs. Dalmain. “Don’t call the poor man by his titles. If he must be hanged, at least let him hang as plain Jim Airth. If one had to be wicked, it would be so infinitely worse to be a wicked earl, than wicked in any other walk of life. It savours so painfully of the ‘penny-dreadful’, or the cheap novelette. Also, my dear, there is nothing to be gained by discussing a hypothetical situation, with which you do not after all find yourself confronted. Mercifully, Lord Ingleby is not coming back.”
“Mercifully!” exclaimed Lady Ingleby. “Really, Jane, you are crude beyond words, and most unsympathetic. You should have heard how tactfully the doctor broke it to me, and how kindly he alluded to my loss.”
“My dear Myra,” said Mrs. Dalmain, “I don’t waste sympathy on false sentiment. And if Deryck had known you were already engaged to another man, instead of devoting to you four hours of his valuable time, he could have sent a sixpenny wire: ‘Telegram a forgery. Accept heartfelt congratulations!’”
“Jane, you are brutal. And seeing that I have just told you the whole story of these last weeks, with the cruel heart-breaking finale of yesterday, I fail to understand how you can speak of me as engaged to another man.”
Instantly Jane Dalmain’s whole bearing altered. She ceased looking quizzically amused, and left off swinging her brown boot. She sat up, uncrossed her knees, and leaning her elbows upon them, held out her large capable hands to Lady Ingleby. Her noble face, grandly strong and tender, in its undeniable plainness, was full of womanly understanding and sympathy.
“Ah, my dear,” she said, “now we must come to the crux of the whole matter. I have merely been playing around the fringe of the subject, in order to give you time to recover from the inevitable strain of the long and painful recital you have felt it necessary to make, in order that I might fully understand your position in all its bearings. The real question is this: Are you going to forgive Jim Airth?”