“But we shall starve, Marie!” exclaims her mistress.
“Je le crois bien, madame,” is all the other replies as she leaves the room. Marie is not a stranger to revolution. She was in Paris as a young girl during the revolt which cost Napoleon III. his throne. She knows well the suffering which an upheaval of the people always brings with it. She will be astonished at nothing that may come. Has she not been detailing her experiences downstairs to the frightened servants, who are undergoing their first hardships in Mr. and Mrs. de Lacy Trevor’s luxurious service by having to go without milk in their tea that morning? Do they, by any chance, cast a thought to the suffering thousands who have no tea into which to put either milk or sugar,—those suffering thousands whose condition and very existence has given the brain of Gloria de Lara many a racking thought, as—when in power—she has pondered the problem, so far unravelled, of their amelioration and upraising? Not a bit of it. These servants do not realise a suffering which they have never seen. It is just the world’s way. Not one half of it knows how the other half lives.
Left alone, Vivi Trevor opens her husband’s note. She thinks it strange he should write to her. He has never written to her before while staying under the same roof. She has not set eyes on him since the day before, when he parted with her after the trial, conviction, and sentence of Hector D’Estrange. He had not come in to dinner that night, nothing out of the way to Vivi, the comings and goings of her husband being of small importance or interest to her. These two have drifted more than ever apart since the days when Mr. Trevor first had his eyes opened by the Eton boy’s article in the Free Review. He has never sought to interfere with his wife’s goings on, feeling that to do so would only make his desolate home more unhomely and comfortless than ever. It is therefore with some surprise that Vivi reads the following:—
“My Dearest Vivi,—You will wonder at these few lines, but I feel I owe you some little explanation, though whether you will care about it I know not. Our lives as regards one another have not been over happy; at least I can speak for myself in saying so. I do not blame you, Vivi, for the want of affection you have always shown me, or for your goings on with other men. The fault lies in your bringing up, and the false position in which your sex is placed by man’s unnatural laws. I learnt to recognise this long ago, and to acknowledge the teaching of Hector D’Estrange as true and just. That noble genius, now unveiled to a wondering world as Gloria de Lara, is paying the penalty of her attempt to naturalise woman’s position in this world, as a lead up to many and much-needed social reforms. I feel strongly that in this moment of trial she should receive the support of all men and women, high and low, rich and poor, who feel with her, and I have determined to place my services at her disposal. This, Vivi, will naturally take me away from you for a time, perhaps for ever. Who knows? Only God. You will not miss me, for I have never been anything to you. I do not blame you, dearest, for I ought never to have married you. Still I loved you, and love you still; that is my only plea, and I ask your forgiveness. You will perhaps accord it when you realise that I am giving my life to the upraising of your sex, and to attaining its freedom, thereby accomplishing the first great step in the direction of social reform, on which the gaze of Gloria de Lara is fixed. How this struggle will end I know not. It will be the greatest revolution this world has ever known,—far-reaching in its results, and, let us hope and pray, bringing about a final, fair, and lasting settlement of that all-momentous question, which has given to the world its noblest woman in Gloria de Lara. Good-bye, Vivi.
“Your ever-devoted husband,
“Launcelot Trevor.”
She lays the letter down on her lap, and sits staring at it. Her thoughts fly back across the years of her wedded life, years spent in vain amusements and false excitements. She cannot recall a single kindly or unselfish act on her part towards the man who has loved her so devotedly and tenderly, nor can she lay hold of one single act of usefulness upon which she can look back with either pleasure or satisfaction. Very acutely she feels this now; and yet has it been entirely her own fault?
“What else could I do?” she murmurs to herself. “I was never brought up to think of anything else. Mother bade me marry well and quickly. That’s exactly what I did do. What other opening was given me? None. If I had been a man, and properly educated, I might have done something; but as it was, what else could I do?”
Her thoughts are flying on ahead now, to that vague future of which she can know nothing till it comes. Yet what hope does that glance ahead bring to Vivi Trevor? Absolutely none. In the past her life had been wasted, and now the future, when regarded, brings her nothing but the vague dread of growing old and passée, with nothing to turn to when that time comes, nothing to console her for the gay, giddy life which she has led in the past.
She is beginning to understand Lady Manderton’s words and action better now. Launcelot Trevor’s note has opened her eyes very wide. Vivi vividly sees what she has never seen before, for she is beginning to think for the first time.