Grimshaw displayed a sudden and incomprehensible agitation.
“Then he hadn’t been carrying on with you?” he said.
“Carrying on with me?” she mocked him, but with a bitter scorn. “Do you mean to say that you suspected him of that? I suppose you suspected him of fooling about with me before he was married to his Pauline, and after? What an unspeakable toad of a mind you’ve got!”
Robert Grimshaw said, “Good God!”
She struck her hip with her clenched hand. “I see it,” she said, “you thought Dudley Leicester had seized the chance of his wife’s mother being ill to monkey about with me. You thought he’d been doing it before. You thought he was going to go on doing it. You thought he’d managed to conceal it from you. You thought he was a deep, dark ne’er-do-well like yourself or any other man. But I tell you this: Dudley Leicester’s a man in a thousand. I’m the only person that’s to blame. I tell you Dudley Leicester hasn’t spoken a word to me since the day we parted. I tell you I got him just that one night to show myself what I could do. He couldn’t help being with me; he had to see me home. We were all at the Esmeralda together, and all the rest of us were married, or engaged or coupled up somehow. He had to see me home as we lived next door. He did it with the worst grace in the world. He tried to get out of it. It was because he behaved so like an oaf that I set myself to get him. I swear that it is true. I swear as I am a religious woman. I believe in God and things.”
Again Robert Grimshaw said, “Good God” and his agitation grew on him.
“Well,” Etta Stackpole said, “what is there to get so upset about? It doesn’t count in Dudley for dissoluteness. There isn’t a man in the world, not even yourself, Robert Grimshaw, could get out of my having him if I set myself to it at that time of night and after that sort of evening. I’m not boasting about it. It’s the nature of the beast that you men are. I set myself to do it because I knew it would mortify him; because it would make him feel he was a dirty sort of dog next morning. What are you in such a stew about?” she said. “It wasn’t anything to do with Dudley’s real nature. I tell you he’s as pure-minded as a sucking-lamb.”
Robert Grimshaw was walking nervously up and down, striking the side of his trousers with his ebony stick.
“Oh,” she said with a sudden gibe, “I know what’s the matter with you; you’re feeling remorse. You’re upset because you suspected Dudley of being a mean hound. I know you, Robert Grimshaw. You were jealous of him; you were madly jealous of him. You married him to that little pink parroquet and then you got jealous of him. You wanted to believe that he was mean and deceitful. You wanted to believe that he was going to turn out a bad hat. You wanted to believe it so that you could take your Pauline off his hands again, and now you’re feeling remorse because you suspected him. You knew in your heart that he was honest and simple and pure, but your jealousy turned you mad; I know you, Robert Grimshaw. Well, go on feeling remorse. Get all you can of it. I tell you this: I got Dudley Leicester into my hands and I did what I wanted with him, and nothing happened to shock him except when the telephone bell rang and someone recognized his voice. I guess that was shock enough for him. I thought he was in for something. I could tell it by the look of his eyes, but that only proves the thorough good sort he was. It wasn’t till then that he understood what he’d been up to. Then he was knocked flat.”
“There wasn’t anything else at all?” Robert Grimshaw said. He had pulled himself together and stood with his stick behind his back, leaning upon it a little. “Yes I admit I misjudged Dudley; but it’s a queer sort of world. You’re quite sure there wasn’t anything else?”