The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

“Nothing at all,” replied Edith firmly. “Don’t suppose for one moment that I am going to be involved in any wretched irregularity with its inevitable end.”

“What’s the inevitable end, my dear?”

“Where men like you are concerned, desertion and exposure, I imagine.”

“You are not complimentary to-day, Edith, though perhaps you are right. These hole-and-corner businesses always finish in misery; very often in mutual detestation. But now, just see what a mess you have made by trying to get everything. You married Rupert, whom you cordially disliked, and won’t stick to him because somebody has cut off his foot and Devene has got an heir. You engaged yourself to me, who, up to the present, at any rate, you cordially liked, and now you won’t stick to me, not from any motives of high morality, which one might respect, but for fear of the consequences. So it seems that there is only one person to whom you will stick, and that is your precious self. Well, I wish you joy of the choice, Edith, but speaking as a candid friend, I don’t personally know anyone who has held better cards and thrown them under the table. Now the table is left, that is all, a nice, hard, polished table, and you can look in it at the reflection of your own pretty face till you grow tired. There is one thing, I shan’t be jealous, because what applies to me will apply to any other man. As your own husband is not good enough for you, you will have to do without the lot of us, though whether you will have cause to be jealous of me is another matter. Do you see the point, dearest?”

“Do you see the door, Dick?” she answered, pointing towards it.

“Very well done,” he said, mocking her, “quite in our local leading lady’s best tragedy manner. But I forgot, you have had practice lately with poor old Rupert. Well, I will follow his example. Good-day, Edith!” and with a most polite bow he went.

To say that he left Edith in a rage would be to put the matter too mildly, for his bitter slings and arrows had worked her into such a fury that she could only find relief in tears.

“If it hadn’t been for him,” she reflected to herself, when she recovered a little, “I don’t think I should have turned Rupert away like that, and this is my reward. And what’s more, I believe that I have been a fool. After all, Rupert is a gentleman and Dick—isn’t. Those doctors are so clever that they might have mended him up and made him look respectable; the official business could have been explained, for I am certain he did nothing he shouldn’t do, and perhaps he may still be Lord Devene in the end. Whereas, what am I now? A young widow who daren’t marry again, and who must starve for the rest of her life upon a thousand a year. Why should I be so cruelly treated? Fate must have a grudge against me. It is too bad, too bad, and as for Dick, I hate him worse than Rupert.”

So she said and thought, yet during the years that followed, at any rate outwardly, this pair made it up, after a fashion, as they always did. To her determination to be involved in nothing compromising, Edith remained quite firm, although Dick, in his role of a man of the world, did his best to shake her scruples whenever he saw an opportunity, arguing that Rupert must be really dead, and that it would even be safe for them to marry. These, however, were, as it chanced, greatly strengthened by Dick himself, who, as time went on, progressively disimproved.

To begin with, his good looks, which were so striking in his youth, had entirely left him. He grew fat, and as is not uncommon with those in whom the southern blood is strong, who sit up late at night, drink more than is good for them, and in general live fast, Dick acquired also an appearance that is best described as “greasy.” His rich colour departed, leaving his cheeks tallow-like in hue, whereas beneath the eyes that used to be so fine and eloquent appeared deep, black lines, while his wavy, chestnut-coloured hair became quite dark, and on the top of his head melted into baldness. In short, within seven years of the conversation recorded above, Dick was nothing more than a middle-aged gentleman of somewhat unpleasing aspect, who no longer appealed in the slightest to Edith’s aesthetic tastes. Moreover, now again his reputation was as seedy as his looks, for to those first-class companies of which he was a director, in his desire for money to satisfy his extravagant mode of life, he had added others of a more doubtful character, his connection with one of which landed him in a scandal, whence he only escaped by the help of Lord Devene. The House, too, to which he still belonged had discovered that there was nothing in him after all, and left him to sink to the level of an undistinguished private member. Lastly, his health was far from good, and he had been warned by the doctors that unless he entirely altered his way of life, the liver attacks from which he suffered might develop into something very serious. Meanwhile, they did not improve his temper.