“I am going to play the most ungainly part that can fall to a man,” he said, in a husky and obstructed voice, which he did not attempt to make smooth. “Let us part, Perdita. The only thing that gives me resolution to say this, is that I find it hard to say. But I know myself too well! I am small and incomplete of nature: hitherto I have deluded myself, and perhaps others, by a play of intellect which drew attention from my real feebleness and narrowness, and made me seem to be as broad and as deep as the reach of my thoughts and imagination. It is all delusion: I can chatter and contrive, but what I do and feel is petty and cold. There have been moments when I fancied I had overcome that torpid chill of the heart, and should be single, at last, in thought and feeling; but the chill has always come back, and the horizon been blotted out again by the shadow of my own carcase. Even now it is of myself that I am talking, instead of about you!”
“That is why you interest me, my friend.”
“Yes; and I might as well stop there. I am not going to hang such a lump of emptiness as myself round your neck. Even your overflow of life would not suffice long to vivify me. A man whose wife has been forced to desert him six months after marriage—a man who, merely by being himself, could change an innocent and high-spirited girl into a miserable outcast—such a fellow as that has neither the power nor the right to claim the love of a woman like you. Perdita, I am not fit even to commit a genuine sin! May God help me to the decency of keeping henceforth to myself! What would be, at least, generosity and courage in you, would be selfish and dastardly in me. It amazes me that I can feel even the shame and self-contempt that I am trying to give utterance to. But probably I shall have forgotten that too by to-morrow!”
“All that is very extravagant and impolite,” said Perdita pleasantly. “You should know better than to abuse a gentleman whom I esteem, and ... who cannot defend himself! Seriously, Philip, if I am angry with you, it is because you are quite right. I will not compliment you on your virtue, because you don’t seem to think of that so much as to be afraid of becoming a burden on my hands. No—I perceive, underneath your disguise, a courteous desire to save me from the consequences of my own rashness. It is the act of a true gentleman, and ... I shall never forgive it! I must, like you, have some occupation, and since you will not let me love you, you shall give employment to my hate. It will be just as amusing, and a great deal more comme il faut! And then, some day—who knows?—your lost Marion may turn up again, neither better nor worse than other men’s wives, and with her curiosity as to the world gratified. And then you will be happier than ever. Will you drink another glass of wine?”
“Yes!” said Philip, pouring it out, and taking the glass in his hand. “I drink to your new occupation, Perdita. May it bring you satisfaction: and may you long enjoy it!”
“Stay!” exclaimed she: “let me drink too. But my toast shall be different. May the day on which I forgive you be the last day I live!”
They drank, and set down their glasses; and exchanged a final look. Was it hate that he saw in her eyes, or love? Often afterwards that question recurred to Philip’s mind, and never found a certain answer. But he always remembered Perdita as she stood there, erect and bright, with a smile on her beautiful face, and her red lips wet with the red wine.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
SIR FRANCIS BENDIBOW, the last of his race, and once held to be the greatest and most successful banker in England, was meanwhile lying on a bed in a small room, in a house not his own, and with no traces of luxury about him. The bed, indeed, was an easy bed enough, though it was not made of mahogany, nor draped with damask curtains: and the room was by no means a dungeon, though the furniture and fittings were of the plainest and most economical description, and Sir Francis would not have been at liberty to open the door and go out, had he wished to do so. It is not probable, however, that he wished to do anything of the kind: nor, had he been as free as the sparrow that was twittering on the eaves outside the narrow window, could he have found strength to rise from his bed and walk across the room. His physical resources were at an end: and the physician who had felt his pulse that morning had admitted (in response to the urgent demand of the baronet) that the chances were against his surviving many hours longer. Sentence of death, come it how it may, generally produces a notable impression on the recipient. Sir Francis said nothing: he fixed his eyes curiously upon the doctor’s face for a few moments; then let his gaze wander slowly round the room, taking note of every object in it. Finally, he settled himself comfortably in the bed, and appeared to give himself up to his meditations, in the midst of which the doctor left him, feeling some surprise at the baronet’s sang-froid and equanimity. “Must have a tolerable clean conscience, after all,” he remarked to Fillmore, outside the door. “Dare say others were more to blame for the smash than he. Seems always to have been unlucky in his friends.”
Sir Francis, in fact, appeared rather cheerful than otherwise. The symptoms of harassment, suspense, and irritation which had beset him for several months past, were no longer visible. He lay there as one who composedly awaits some agreeable event, and, meanwhile, occupies himself with passing in review before his mind the incidents of a pleasant and successful career. After an hour or so of this, however, he signed to Fillmore to approach the bedside, and spoke to him earnestly, though in a low tone, for several moments. After a little discussion, the lawyer left the room. He did not return for five or six hours, during which time Sir Francis lay quite alone, save for an occasional momentary visit from the attendant on duty. At last there was another step in the passage: the door opened and Fillmore came in.