"To set her free—and upon what grounds?"
"Upon the rather crude, but preeminently sensible grounds, my dear mother, that after full consideration, she found the bid was not high enough."
"Indeed," Katherine said.
"Yes, indeed, my dear mother," Richard repeated. "Does that surprise you? It quite ceased to surprise me, when she pointed out the facts of the case. For she was touchingly sincere. I respected her for that. The position was an ungracious one for her. She has a charming nature, and really wanted to spare me just as much as was possible along with the gaining of her cause. Her gift of speech is limited, you know, but then no degree of eloquence or diplomacy could have rendered that which she had to say agreeable to my self-esteem. Oh! on the whole she did it very well, very conclusively."
Richard raised his head, pausing a moment. Again that dryness of the throat checked his utterance. And then, recalling the scene of the past night, a great wave of unhappiness, pure and simple, of immense disappointment, immense self-disgust broke over him. His anger, his outraged pride, came near being swamped by it. He came near losing his bitter self-control and crying aloud for help. But he mastered the inclination, perhaps unfortunately, and continued speaking.
"Yes, decidedly, with the exception of Ludovic, that family do not possess ready tongues, yet they contrive to make their meaning pretty plain in the end. I have just driven over from Whitney, and am fresh from a fine example of eventual plain speaking from that excellent father of the family, Lord Fallowfeild. It was instructive. For the main thing, after all, as we must both agree, mother, is to understand oneself clearly and to make oneself clearly understood. And in this respect you and I, I'm afraid, have failed a good deal. Blinded by our own fine egoism we have even failed altogether to understand others. Lady Constance, for instance, possesses very much more character than it suited us to credit her with."
"You are harsh, dearest," Katherine murmured, and her lips trembled.
"Not at all," he answered. "I have only said good-bye to lying. Can you honestly deny, my dear mother, that the whole affair was just one of convenience? I told you—it strikes me now as a rather brutally primitive announcement—that I wanted a wife because I wanted a son—a son to prove to me the entirety of my own manhood, a son to give me at second hand certain obvious pleasures and satisfactions which I am debarred, as you know, from obtaining at first hand. You engaged to find me a bride. Poor, little Lady Constance Quayle, unfortunately for her, appeared to meet our requirements, being pretty and healthy, and too innocent and undeveloped to suspect the rather mean advantage we proposed to take of her.—What? I know it sounds rather gross stated thus plainly. But, the day of lies being over, dare you deny it?—Well then, we proceeded to traffic for this desirable bit of young womanhood, of prospective maternity,—to buy her from such of her relations as were perverted enough to countenance the transaction, just as shamelessly as though we had gone into the common bazar, after the manner of the cynical East, and bargained for her, poor child, in fat-tailed sheep or cowries. Doesn't it appear to you almost incredible, almost infamous that we—you and I, mother—should have done this thing? The price we offered seemed sufficient to some of her people—not to all, I have learned that past forgetting to-day, thanks to Lord Fallowfeild's thick-headed, blundering veracity. But, thank heaven, she had more heart, more sensibility, more self-respect, more decency, than we allowed for. She plucked up spirit enough to refuse to be bought and sold like a pedigree filly or heifer. I think that was rather heroic, considering her traditions and the pressure which had been brought to bear to keep her silent. I can only honour and reverence her for coming to tell me frankly, though at the eleventh hour, that she preferred a man of no particular position or fortune, but with the ordinary complement of limbs, to Brockhurst, and the house in London, and my forty to forty-five thousand a year, plus——"
Richard laughed savagely, leaning forward, spreading out his arms.
"Well, my dear mother,—since as I say the day of lies is over,—plus the remnant of a human being you may see here, at this moment, if you will only have the kindness to look!"