"No, it could hardly be called a quarrel. We were both too reasonable—understood each other too thoroughly," answered Leonard, as he got up and went off to his dressing-room, leaving Mopsy sorely perplexed by an indescribable something in his tone and manner. Surely there must be some fatal meaning in that dark evil smile, which changed to so black a frown, and that deep sigh which seemed wrung from the very heart of the man: a man whom Mopsy had hitherto believed to be somewhat poorly furnished with that organ, taken in its poetical significance as a thing that throbs with love and pity.
Alone in his dressing-room the lord of the Manor sat down in front of the fire with his boots on the hob, to muse upon the incongruity of his present position in his own house. A year ago he had ruled supreme, sovereign master of the domestic circle, obeyed and ministered to in all humility by a lovely and pure-minded wife. Now he was a cipher in his own house, the husband of a woman who was almost as strange to him as if he had seen her face for the first time on his return from South America. This beautiful brilliant creature, who held him at arm's length, defied him openly with looks and tones in which his guilty soul recognized a terrible meaning—looks and tones which he dare not challenge—this woman who lived only for pleasure, fine dress, frivolity, who had given his house the free-and-easy air of a mess-room, or a club—could this be indeed the woman he had loved in her girlhood, the fair and simple-minded wife whom his mother had trained for him, teaching her all good things, withholding all knowledge of evil.
"I'm not going to stand it much longer," he said to himself, with an oath, as he kicked the logs about upon his fire, and then got up to dress for the feast at which he always felt himself just the one guest who was not wanted.
He had been at home three weeks—it seemed an age—an age of disillusion and discontent—and he had not yet sought any explanation with Christabel. Not yet had he dared to claim his right to be obeyed as a husband, to be treated as a friend and adviser. With a strange reluctance he put off the explanation from day to day, and in the meanwhile the aspect of life at Mount Royal was growing daily less agreeable to him. Could it be that this wife of his, whose purity and faith he had tried by the hardest test—the test of daily companionship with her first and only lover—was inclined to waver now—to play him false for so shallow a coxcomb, so tawdry a fine gentleman as Oliver de Cazalet. Not once, but many times within the past week he had asked himself that question. Could it be? He had heard strange stories—had known of queer cases of the falling away of good women from the path of virtue. He had heard of sober matrons—mothers of fair children, wives of many years—the Cornelias of their circle, staking home, husband, children, honour, good name, and troops of friends against the wild delirium of some new-born fancy, sudden, demoniac as the dance of death. The women who go wrong are not always the most likely women. It is not the trampled slave, the neglected and forlorn wife of a bad husband—but the pearl and treasure of a happy circle who takes the fatal plunge into the mire. The forlorn slave-wife stays in the dreary home and nurses her children, battles with her husband's creditors, consoles herself with church going and many prayers, fondly hoping for a future day in which Tom will find out that she is fairer and dearer than any of his false goddesses, and come home repentant to the domestic hearth: while the good husband's idol, sated with legitimate worship, gives herself up all at once to the intoxication of unholy incense, and topples off her shrine. Leonard Tregonell knew that the world was full of such psychological mysteries; and yet he could hardly bring himself to believe that Christabel was of the stuff that makes false wives, or that she could be won by such a third-rate Don Juan as the Baron de Cazalet.
The dinner was a little noisier and gayer than usual to-night. Every one talked, laughed, told anecdotes, let off puns, more or less atrocious—except the host, who sat in his place an image of gloom. Happily Mrs. St. Aubyn was one of those stout, healthy, contented people who enjoy their dinner, and only talk about as much as is required for the assistance of digestion. She told prosy stories about her pigs and poultry—which were altogether superior, intellectually and physically, to other people's pigs and poultry—and only paused once or twice to exclaim, "You are looking awfully tired, Mr. Tregonell. You must have overdone it to-day. Don't you take curaçoa? I always do after ice pudding. It's so comforting. Do you know at the last dinner I was at before I came here the curaçoa was ginger brandy. Wasn't that horrid? People ought not to do such things."
Leonard suggested in a bored voice that this might have been the butler's mistake.
"I don't think so. I believe it was actual meanness—but I shall never take liqueur at that house again," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, in an injured tone.
"Are you going to this picnic to-morrow?"
"I think not. I'm afraid the walk would be too much for me—and I am not fond enough of Mrs. Torrington to enjoy two hours' tête-à-tête in a pony-carriage. My girls will go, of course. And I suppose you will be there," added Mrs. St. Aubyn, with intention.
"No, Vandeleur, Monty, and I are going shooting."