XLIX
THE days that followed were dark and difficult for Mame. Nor did Lady Violet find them particularly easy. At heart she was kindly and honest and she could not help fixing upon herself a good deal of the blame for what had occurred. She it was who had introduced this little marauder; she had been wilfully and stupidly blind to the consequences; and her only excuse was that not for a moment could she believe that Bill would be so weak. Yet she had deliberately thrown them together. She had bestowed upon Mame a spurious eligibility. This bitterly humiliating business was an object lesson in the sheer folly of playing the fool.
It was decidedly painful all round. First of all, poor Mame really suffered. The part she had undertaken to play was superhumanly big. Very few girls could have gone back in that way on their whole philosophy of life; and to Violet’s good heart it was hateful to have to ask her to do it. She must have loved Bill, perhaps as no other woman was likely to do, to nerve herself to a sacrifice so high.
Much diplomacy was called for in the days that followed. Bill could be a stubborn fellow. His family had always humoured his whims. It looked at first as if there would be no handling him. Irresponsible, not to say flabby, as his nature was, had he had the wit to realise clearly that poor Mame had got a blow over the heart, he would not have taken the thing lying down.
Violet, hating intensely the rôle her own folly had doomed her to play, yet proved herself, when fairly put to it, a consummate tactician. Bill must not guess, must not come near guessing, how much this good and brave child really cared for him. He must be rather a “dud,” his sister thought, not to see it for himself. Instinct ought to have told him how the little brick was steeling her heart. Even while Violet threw dust in his eyes with a subtlety and a success for which she loathed herself, she yet clung to the paradoxical view that had Bill been worthy of Mame he would have been less obtuse. “She can’t bear your losing the Towers and giving up the Army.” That phrase was Violet’s strongest weapon. It admitted two interpretations and his sister was not in the least proud of Bill when he allowed it to suggest the wrong one. “Of course she considers the gilt will be off the gingerbread.” That was Machiavellian. The end seemed to justify the means; at any rate Violet had so persuaded herself; but it really was rather low down. And she could not, womanlike, help resenting Bill’s denseness and lack of character which made the unpleasant task of throwing dust in his eyes so much less difficult than it ought to have been.
The weeks went by and Mame set herself stoically to forget. There was pride in her as well as grit. She was determined to stand up to life and make something of the mighty difficult business of living it. To stanch her wounds she threw herself into her work with new ardour. Back of everything was rare common sense. She must have the strength to bear the self-inflicted blow without flinching.
One morning, however, just before Christmas, an incident occurred that reopened the closing wounds. Mame and Celimene were discussing the make-up of the weekly cable to New York, when Celimene said with an odd change of tone, “There’s one bit of news that may not be without interest on the other side. It’s not yet announced, so we shall be the first in the field.”
“What is the news?” asked Mame keenly. Her flair for a choice tit-bit was not less than of yore.
“A marriage has been arranged, the date of which will be shortly announced, between the Marquis of Kidderminster and Gwendolen, the only child of Giles Childwick, Esquire, and Mrs. Childwick, formerly of Treville, New Jersey.”
“Oh!” Mame gave a little gasp. Celimene saw her turn very white.