“Not now,” he said. “You loved him?”
“No—ah God, no!” she answered.
An hour after, when she was in her room, he opened the little bundle of correspondence.—A memorandum with money from his bankers. A letter from Delia, and also one from Mrs. Gasgoyne, saying that they expected to meet him at Gibraltar on a certain day, and asking why he had not written; Delia with sorrowful reserve, Mrs. Gasgoyne with impatience. His letters had missed them—he had written on leaving Paris, saying that his plans were indefinite, but he would write them definitely soon. After he came to Audierne it seemed impossible to write. How could he? No, let the American journalist do it. Better so. Better himself in the worst light, with the full penalty, than his own confession—in itself an insult. So it had gone on. He slowly tore up the letters. The next were from his grandfather and grandmother—they did not know yet. He could not read them. A few loving sentences, and then he said:
“What’s the good! Better not.” He tore them up also. Another—from his uncle. It was brief:
You’ve made a sweet mess of it, Cadet. It’s in all the papers
to-day. Meyerbeer telegraphed it to New York and London. I’ll
probably come down to see you. I want to finish my picture on the
site of the old City of Ys, there at Point du Raz. Your girl can
pose with you. I’ll do all I can to clear the thing up. But a
British M.P.—that’s a tough pill for Clapham!
Gaston’s foot tapped the floor angrily. He scattered the pieces of the letter at his feet. Now for the newspapers. He opened Le Petit Journal, Coil Blas, Galignani, and the New York Tom-Tom, one by one. Yes, it was there, with pictures of himself and Andree. A screaming sensation. Extracts, too, from the English papers by telegram. He read them all unflinchingly. There was one paragraph which he did not understand:
There was a previous friend of the lady, unknown to the public, called Zoug-Zoug.
He remembered that day at the Hotel St. Malo! Well, the bolt was shot: the worst was over. Quid refert? Justify himself?
Certainly, to all but Delia Gasgoyne.
Thousands of men did the same—did it in cold blood, without one honest feeling. He did it, at least under a powerful influence. He could not help but smile now at the thought of how he had filled both sides of the equation. On his father’s side, bringing down the mad record from Naseby; on his mother’s, true to the heathen, by following his impulses—sacred to primitive man, justified by spear, arrow, and a strong arm. Why sheet home this as a scandal? How did they—the libellers—know but that he had married the girl? Exactly. He would see to that. He would play his game with open sincerity now. He could have wished secrecy for Delia Gasgoyne, and for his grandfather and grandmother,—he was not wilfully brutal,—but otherwise he had no shame at all; he would stand openly for his right. Better one honest passion than a life of deception and miserable compromise. A British M.P.?—He had thrown away his reputation, said the papers. By this? The girl was no man’s wife, he was no woman’s husband!