“Well, but, you know, if you’re left, why then, everybody’s got you, so to speak—Morelli, my people, everybody. There’s only you to turn on; you’ll have a pretty rotten time. It isn’t fair. And even now, you know, if you’d rather get out of it I expect I’ll manage.”
Maradick said nothing.
“I hadn’t really seen how damned selfish it all was until just now. I asked you to come and didn’t see it really a bit, what it would all lead to, I mean, and especially for you.”
Maradick looked up, laughing.
“My dear boy, do you suppose I, at any rate, haven’t seen? Why, from the beginning, from that first night of all when we talked about it, I was responsible; responsible to your mother at any rate, and she’s the only person who really matters. As to Morelli, he can do nothing. When I see a girl look as Janet looked the other night, why, then it was time some steps were taken by somebody to get her away.”
He put his hand on Tony’s arm. “And besides, whatever happened to me, do you suppose that I could ever cease to be grateful for all that you’ve done for me, your being with me, your showing me a new kind of life altogether? I’d be a bit of a cur if I wasn’t ready to help you after that. Nothing that I can do can quite repay you.”
“That’s all right, then,” said Tony. He was a little impatient, just then, of Maradick’s approach to sentiment. It was off the mark; it hadn’t anything at all to do with Janet, and besides, it was all rot, anyway, to talk about all that he’d done. He’d done nothing. But he didn’t, in the least, want to be ungracious. “But that’s most awfully good of you, really, and I don’t suppose, as a matter of fact, they’ll do very much. They can’t, anyhow. I’m over age, and I shan’t have to go to the governor for money. Besides, it will be all right in a week or two. The governor’s like that; I know him, and once the thing’s over he’ll get over it, because he loathes things being uncomfortable; besides, mother will manage him. Anyhow, are you sure you don’t mind going off to the parson? I’d come, too, but I think it would be safer for me on the whole to hang round here this afternoon.”
No, Maradick didn’t mind. Maradick would like to go; Maradick would do anything. And, as a matter of fact, he wanted to get out and away—away from the house and the people in it, where he could think undisturbed.
He left Tony and started down to the town. His brain was still on fire with his meeting with Mrs. Lester on the evening before. During these last three days they had had very few opportunities of meeting, but the affair had nevertheless advanced with extraordinary rapidity. Then, last night, he had been alone with her, after dinner, in the garden. It had been terribly hot and oppressive, a prelude to the storm that came a few hours later.
There was not a breath of wind; the world might have been of carved stone, so motionless was it. He had had her in his arms; her hands had crept round his neck and had pulled his head down until it rested on her breast. He had been on fire—the world had been on fire—and he had poured into her ear, in fierce hurried words, passion such as it seemed to him no man had ever known before. He had told her the old, old arguments; things that seemed to him absolutely new and fresh. Their marriages had been, both of them, absurd. They had been joined, each of them, to persons who did not understand them, people who did not even care to understand them. After all, what were marriage vows? A few words spoken hurriedly when they could not possibly tell whether there was even a chance of their being able to keep them.