“Of course you know practically nothing about such things.” Mrs. Cutting actually blushed; woman of society as she was, she would be a prude until the end. “But it is dangerous to agitate—”
“Why in heaven’s name should she be agitated because I absent myself for a few days? It has struck me that she grows more sensible every day.”
“Oh, men! I repeat that I am convinced that she will break down as soon as she realizes that she cannot see you constantly,—that you have actually deserted her at a time like this!”
“Deserted! Dear Mrs. Cutting, is not that rather a strong word? I shall not be gone more than a week at most.”
“A week! Oh, how shall I make you understand?”
“Perhaps it is because there is really nothing to make clear. You are agitating yourself for nothing.” There was no nervousness, no abstraction, even, in his manner. He smiled into her eyes and stood quite at his ease, with all that blend of charm and formality that had won her approval the day she met him in Princess Nachmeister’s park. A memory struggled upward in her mind. It was ghostly, evasive; then it took form. She recalled that fleeting moment in which she had responded to the cool ruthless kernel of this young man, so elaborately endowed for public service. Her own ambitions might be dust before the week was out, but he—he would survive more than the knowledge that he had been the death of his young wife. She shook from head to foot in the first real terror and agitation she had ever known.
“You will kill her,” she stammered. “If there should be any complication—”
He ceased to smile and, taking her hand, drew it through his arm and led her to the door of her own room. “You know that no girl could be stronger than Mabel,” he said soothingly, and in so impersonal a manner that Mrs. Cutting felt as if the blood in her veins were freezing. “And there is nothing in the world as natural as this sort of thing. Think of the thousands of women that bring their children into the world, every month in the year, who are in every sort of trouble; from the Brittany women, whose husbands have gone on the grand pêche, and are more likely than not to return no more, to the poor creatures in Whitechapel, beaten and kicked up to the last minute. Women were made to bring children into the world and to survive far worse ordeals than a separation of a few days from their devoted husbands. What on earth could I do if I were here? It seems to me, for that matter, rather nicer that I should not be.”
“Mabel is not inured to suffering like those women,” Mrs. Cutting began, but Ordham opened her door and gently pushed her in. He went on to the drawing-room. Mabel, although perhaps a shade sallower than common, was quite alert and cheerful. He understood her tactics, but if the time was past when she could deceive him in any way, he was not only grateful to her now but moved to admiration; for after all she was very young. No doubt in time she would make a clever woman of sorts. And although he believed his mother-in-law’s fears to be sheer nonsense, he was quite aware that Mabel (like all women, of course!) would fancy herself unhappy during his absence.
“It is too dreadful to think that I must part with you, even for a few days,” she said brightly. “You keep me up so! But of course if Lady Pat feels that you are necessary, I gracefully yield. But do make it as short as possible. You will, won’t you?”