Fenton shot her a glance of harsh mistrust. “Where is he? What do you want to know that for?”
“Where is he, please!” she simply repeated. And then, suddenly, she wondered how and where it was the two men had happened to meet. “Where did you find him?” she went on. “How did it happen?”
Fenton drained his cup of tea at one long gulp before he answered. “My dear Nora,” he said, “it’s all very well to be modest, it’s all very well to be proud; but take care you are not ungrateful! I went purposely to look him up. I was convinced he would have followed you to beg and implore you, as I supposed, to come back. I wanted to say to him, ‘She’s safe, she’s happy, she’s in the best hands. Don’t waste your time, your words, your hopes. Give her rope. Go quietly home and leave things to me. If she gets homesick, I will let you know.’ You see I’m frank, Nora; that’s what I meant to say. But I was received with this broadside. I found a perfect bluster of injured vanity. ‘You’re her lover, she’s your mistress, and be d——d to both of you!’”
That George deliberately lied Nora did not distinctly say to herself, for she lacked practice in this range of incrimination. But she as little said to herself that this could be the truth. “I am not ungrateful,” she answered firmly. “But where was it?”
At this, George pushed back his chair. “Where—where? Don’t you believe me? Do you want to go and ask him if it’s true? What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you up to? Have you put yourself into my hands, or not?” A certain manly indignation was now kindled in his breast; he was equally angry with Roger, with Nora, and with himself; fate had offered him an overdose of contumely, and he felt a reckless, savage impulse to wring from the occasion that compliment to his power which had been so rudely denied to his delicacy. “Are you using me simply as a vulgar tool? Don’t you care for me the least little bit? Let me suggest that for a girl in your—your ambiguous position, you are several shades too proud. Don’t go back to Roger in a hurry! You are not the immaculate young person you were but two short days ago. Who am I, what am I, to the people whose opinion you care for? A very low fellow, my dear; and yet, in the eyes of the world, you have certainly taken up with me. If you are not prepared to do more, you should have done less. Nora, Nora,” he went on, breaking into a vein none the less revolting for being more ardent, “I confess I don’t understand you! But the more you puzzle me the more you fascinate me; and the less you like me the more I love you. What has there been, anyway, between you and Lawrence? Hang me if I can understand! Are you an angel of purity, or are you the most audacious of flirts?”
She had risen before he had gone far. “Spare me,” she said, “the necessity of hearing your opinions or answering your questions. Please be a gentleman! Tell me, I once more beg of you, where Roger is to be found?”
“Be a gentleman!” was a galling touch. He placed himself before the door. “I refuse the information,” he said. “I don’t mean to have been played with, to have been buffeted hither by Roger and thither by you! I mean to make something out of all this. I mean to request you to remain quietly in this room. Mrs. Paul will keep you company. You didn’t treat her over well, yesterday; but, in her way, she is quite as strong as you. Meanwhile I shall go to our friend. ‘She’s locked up tight,’ I will say; ‘she’s as good as in jail. Give me five thousand dollars and I’ll let her out.’ Of course he will begin to talk about legal proceedings. Then I will tell him that he is welcome to take legal proceedings if he doesn’t mind the exposure. The exposure won’t be pleasant for you, Nora, you know; for the public takes things in the lump. It won’t hurt me!”
“Heaven forgive you!” murmured Nora, for all response to this explosion. It made a hideous whirl about her; but she felt that to advance in the face of it was her best safety. It sickened rather than frightened her. She went to the door. “Let me pass!” she said.
Fenton stood motionless, leaning his head against the door, with his eyes closed. She faced him a moment, looking at him intently. He seemed ineffably repulsive. “Coward!” she cried. He opened his eyes at the sound; for an instant they met hers; then a burning blush blazed out strangely on his dead complexion; he strode past her, dropped into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. “O Lord!” he cried. “I am an ass!”
Nora made it the work of a single moment to reach her own room and fling on her bonnet and shawl, of another to descend to the hall door. Once in the street she never stopped running till she had turned a corner and put the house out of sight. She went far, hurried along by the ecstasy of relief and escape, and it was some time before she perceived that this was but half the question, and that she was now quite without refuge. Thrusting her hand into her pocket to feel for her purse, she found that she had left it in her room. Stunned and sickened as she was already, it can hardly be said that the discovery added to her grief. She was being precipitated toward a great decision; sooner or later made little difference. The thought of seeing Hubert Lawrence had now taken possession of her. Reserve, prudence, mistrust, had melted away; she was mindful only of her trouble, of his nearness, and of the way he had once talked to her. His address she well remembered, and she neither paused nor faltered. To say even that she reflected would be to speak amiss, for her longing and her haste were one. Between them both it was with a beating heart that she reached his door. The servant admitted her without visible surprise (for Nora wore, as she conceived, the air of some needy parishioner) and ushered her into his bachelor’s parlor. As she crossed the threshold, she perceived with something both of regret and of relief, that he was not alone. He was sitting somewhat stiffly, with folded arms, facing the window, near which, before an easel, stood a long-haired gentleman of foreign and artistic aspect, giving the finishing touches to a portrait in crayons. Hubert was in position for a likeness of his handsome face. When Nora appeared, his handsome face remained for a moment a blank; the next it turned most eloquently pale. “Miss Lambert!” he cried.