That relentless force impelling an anecdotist to slaughter families for the amusement of dinner-tables, was brought home to Henrietta by her prospect of being a victim; and Livia reminding her of the excessive laughter at Rose Mackrell’s anecdotes overnight, she bemoaned her having consented to go to those Gardens in mourning.
‘How could Janey possibly have heard of the project to go?
‘You went to please Russett, he to please you, and that wild-cat to please herself,’ said Livia. ‘She haunts his door, I suppose, and follows him, like a running footman. Every step she takes widens the breach. He keeps his temper, yes, keeps his temper as he keeps his word, and one morning it breaks loose, and all that’s done has to be undone. It will bemust. That extravaganza, as she is called, is fatal, dogs him with burlesque—of all men!’
‘Why not consent to meet her once, Chillon asks.’
‘You are asking Russett to yield an inch on demand, and to a woman.’
‘My husband would yield to a woman what he would refuse to all the men in Europe and America,’ said Henrietta; and she enjoyed her thrill of allegiance to her chivalrous lord and courtier.
‘No very extraordinary specimen of a newly married man, who has won the Beauty of England and America for his wife-at some cost to some people,’ Livia rejoined.
There came a moisture on the eyelashes of the emotional young woman, from a touch of compassion for the wealthy man who had wished to call her wife, and was condemned by her rejection of him to call another woman wife, to be wifeless in wedding her, despite his wealth.
She thinks he loves her; it is pitiable, but she thinks it—after the treatment she has had. She begs to see him once.’
‘And subdue him with a fit of weeping,’ Livia was moved to say by sight of the tear she hated. ‘It would harden Russett—on other eyes, too! Salt-water drops are like the forced agony scenes in a play: they bring down the curtain, they don’t win the critics. I heard her “my husband” and saw his face.’