“Madam, there’s something I’ve got to say, and I may as well get it out. France” (he utterly disregarded the menacing glitter in the eyes opposite) “means to marry your daughter, and I mean that he shan’t. If you don’t listen to me here” (Mrs. Edis was planting her stick), “I’ll say it before the whole company.”
Mrs. Edis sat back. The Captain went on, breathing more deeply. “It’s all very well for you to say that you know the world, Mrs. Edis, because you have seen a few dissipated men and unfaithful husbands. The Harold Frances haven’t come into your ken. Only the high civilizations breed them. There are plenty like him, not only in England, but in Europe and the new United States of America. They are responsible for some of the unhappiest women in the world, perhaps for the revolt of woman against man. It isn’t only that they are petty but absolute tyrants in the home; clever women can always circumvent that sort; but they’re the kind that debase their wives, treating them like mistresses, to whom nothing exists in the world but sex, and as they are vilely blasé, the sort of sex which is but the scientific term for love has long since been forgotten by them, if they ever knew it. Many are born old, perverted by too much ancestral indulgence. All sorts of books are being written to protect the poor girl from the seducer, or the man who would sell her into the life of the underworld; it seems to me it is time some one should start a crusade in behalf of the well-born, the delicately nurtured, the women with inherited brains who might be of some use in the world if not broken or hardened by the roués they marry. Mind you, I’m no silly old saint. I’m not inveighing against the young blood who sows a few wild oats; I’m after the scalp, as the Americans say, of the thousands in the upper classes that are bad all through, like Harold France, and who’ll get worse every day of their lives. Do you follow me, ma’am?”
“I don’t think I do. The whole subject is one which I have never discussed with any man, and is deeply repugnant to me, but as my child’s happiness is at stake, I waive my own feelings. Please go into details. Just what do you mean?”
The Captain gasped. “I—well—I—can’t do that exactly, you know,” he stammered, wiping his face with his large red silk handkerchief. “But—you see, the bad women—and men—of the great capitals of the earth—have taught these young bloods too much. Some it don’t hurt. There’s plenty of good men in the upper world, even when they have been a bit wild in their youth; but men like France—with a rotten spot in the brain —”
The old lady sat erect. “Do you mean to say that France is insane?”
Here was the Captain’s opportunity. But, after the mental confusion of the night of the ball, not only was he disposed to question what had seemed at the moment a flash of illumination, but he knew the pickle awaiting him if he accused a man in France’s position of insanity. He was risking much as it was; he was not brave enough for more. He had his own and his family’s interests to consider. A suit for slander would relegate him to private life, unhonored either as admiral or knight. His wife desired passionately to be addressed by servants and other inferiors as “my lady.”
“Well—no—I can’t say that—”
“I ask you to answer me yes or no. Have you ever seen Mr. France do anything which leads you to believe him a lunatic—for that, I infer, is what you mean by a rotten spot. And if you have, why, may I ask, have you been so insensible to your duty as to permit him to remain in the navy?”
“Oh, I assure you, madam, you misunderstand. A man may have a rotten spot in his brain, which will make him a horror to live with, and yet be as sane as you or I.”
Mrs. Edis leaned back. “You have described to me a man precisely like my husband. He drank too much, he thought too much of love-making when he was young, but he got over it. I, as a dutiful wife, resigned myself. That, I fancy, is the history of nine out of ten wives. After all, we have a great many other things to attend to. Husbands soon become an incident.”