“Yes, your lordship.”
Gordon went to the fireplace and stared down dazedly into the embers. He had been a santon; now he was an Ishmaelite, a mark for the thrust of every scurrillous poetaster who wielded a pen—a chartered Blue-Beard—another Mirabeau whom the feudalists discovered to be a monster! The world had learned with pleasure that he was a wretch. Tom Moore was in Ireland, Sheridan dead. Of all he knew, only two rallied to his support: Hobhouse, the sturdy, undemonstrative, likable companion of his early travels, and—Dallas!
Gordon laughed bitterly. He had been London’s favorite. Now, without justice or reason, it covered him with obloquy and went by on the other side.
There had followed days and nights of mental agony, of inner crying-out for reprisal—hours of fierce longing for his child, when he had sought relief in walking unfrequented streets from dark to dawn, in desultory composition, more often in the black bottle that lay in the library drawer. Meager news had reached his sister, and a brave, true message from her was the only cooling dew that fell into his fiery Sahara of suffering. A packet left by a messenger roused him to a white fury. It was from Sir Samuel Romilly, the solicitor under his retainer. Sir Samuel had reversed his allegiance. His curt note inclosed a draft of separation proposed by Sir Ralph Milbanke, and though couched in judicial phrases, voiced a threat unmistakable.
Almost a round of the clock Gordon sat with this paper before him, his meals untasted. His wife at that moment was with Ada—his child and hers!—at her father’s house in Seaham. She had read the attacks—knew their falseness—knew and would not deny. Now he knew why. What she wanted was written in that document: freedom and her daughter. She would engulf him in calumny only so the world would justify her in her self-righteous desertion. And lest he put it to the test, lest he refuse to be condemned unheard and demand the arbitrament of an open though prejudiced tribunal, she threatened him with what further veiled accusations he could not imagine. Good God! Was there anything more to accuse him of? Better any appeal to publicity now than this step which shut him from Ada!
Suppose he made this appeal. There was no justice in public opinion. In his case, it was already poisoned. Already it dubbed him a Nero, a Caligula, a Richard Third! Add to the present outcry new and more terrible charges—the formless insinuations of Sir Ralph—and what might not its verdict be? It would justify his wife, applaud the act which robbed him of his child! And these dark indictments, though false, would be no less an evil legacy for that daughter whom he loved with every fiber of his being.
To consent to lose Ada forever—or to risk both her loss and her blight. To battle, and jeopardize her life’s happiness perhaps—or to yield and give tacit admission to the worst the world said of him, her father!
Night fell. At last he stirred and his square shoulders set. “To wait,” he said—“to wait and be patient. That is all that is left. Whatever I must do, the world shall not see me cringe. The celebrity I have wrung from it has been in the teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I will show no white feather now!”
He laid the document aside, rose and looked in the glass. His face was haggard, worn; there were listless lines under his eyes. He summoned Fletcher and dressed with all his old scrupulousness—such a costume as he had worn the afternoon he had waked to fame. With a thought, perhaps, of that day, he drew a carnation through his buttonhole. Then he left the house and turned his steps toward Drury Lane.
The fog was gone, the air lay warm and pleasant, and a waxing moon shamed the street lamps. He passed down St. James Street, and came opposite White’s Club. He had no thought of entering. Lord Petersham descended the steps as he approached, his dress exquisite, his walking-stick held daintily between thumb and forefinger like a pinch of snuff. The fop’s eyes met Gordon’s in a blank stare.