"Well, then—of course you must go."
The two women considered each other for a moment. There was no pity, no relenting to be read on the older face, only an inflexible purpose softened by a childlike look of gay anticipation. Anne turned away.
"I couldn't bear it—I couldn't bear to live with you——"
She ran down the verandah steps into the garden as though flying from a revelation of evil.
Mrs. Boucicault looked after her, watching till the light-clad figure had disappeared among the trees. Then, plucking a fresh rose from the trellis-work, went back into her boudoir. A few minutes later she entered her husband's sick-room and motioned the nurse to leave them. In that simple action there was an authority, an easy self-assurance that seemed, to change even her appearance. She held herself well, with lifted head as a prisoner does who breathes the free air after many years.
Boucicault saw her. He could not turn his head, but she stood well within the range of his roving eyes. He stared at her, and she too studied him, the while scenting her rose delicately. He had changed almost beyond belief. The muscles of his face were withered so that it looked much smaller and weaker. The consuming, unappeasable temper was still marked about the mouth, in the black puckered brow, but now it was merely pitiable. It could never make another man or woman cower. It could never make her cower again. Perhaps some such reflection passed through both their minds. Boucicault turned his eyes away like a sick animal. It was almost the first sign he had given of understanding. Hitherto, though obviously conscious, he had refused all response to the code of signals which Dr. Martin had planned for him, in his bitter humiliation of body seeming to cling to the utter isolation of his mind. Now, though he could not move, he appeared to shrink into himself, to cringe before an encroachment which he could no longer avert. His wife came and stood close beside him. She was playing idly with her rose, twisting the stem between her fingers. Her eyes were bright, wide open, with two sharp points of light in them which seemed to dance. There was real colour in her cheeks. She was not smiling now, and yet her face, her whole body, radiated a fierce vivid amusement.
"I've just seen Dr. Martin, Richard," she said. "You'd rather I told you the truth, wouldn't you? He says there's no hope of your getting well—not really well. Perhaps, after a long time, you may be able to move a little, but you might also die suddenly. No one can do anything for you. You'll just lie there. I thought I'd tell you. I'm going to have a good time. Anne doesn't think it quite proper, but I'm sure you'll understand. I haven't had much fun in the last few years, have I? And I was awfully gay before I married you. You don't object, do you, Richard? Do say so if you do."
She grew bigger—taller, like a bird of prey spreading itself over its maimed and helpless victim. The soldier's whitewashed room, blank of all beauty, made a simple frame for the artificial brilliancy of her. The man whose dead body outlined itself massively under the thin covering, burned and withered in it. His eyes met hers for an instant in understanding and mad defiance.
"Of course we'll do all we can, Richard. We shall stay in Gaya. Dr. Martin advises it, and I want to. It will be nicer for you too, because if we went to a new place—or to Cheltenham or something of that sort-nobody would bother about you. Here, of course, people are bound to take notice of you. They'll drop in and tell you about the regiment and all that. I shall come in every day, so that you shall hear all I am doing. I expect I shall be very busy."
She paused deliberately, assuming an attitude of closer interest. "Have you tried to tell any one who killed you? I wonder. Perhaps you don't want to. I expect it was something discreditable. Besides, even if he or they were caught and hanged it wouldn't help you much, would it? You couldn't see it done—unless we dragged you out in a long chair or something——" She laughed, and bent over him—a pale-tinted, delicate, very sinister figure. "Am I tiring you? You look tired. Smell that rose—isn't it beautiful?—you can smell still, can't you? But I forgot; you don't care for flowers. You wouldn't let me have any in the house. Well, perhaps you will grow to care for them. I will tell nurse to put some in a vase for you." She touched his cheek lightly with the flower and laughed again. "Well, good-bye for today, Richard."