There was a pause. Arabella put the book down, and pushed it from her with an almost violent gesture. "I cannot understand," she cried, "how this can in any way have suggested James! I never met a man who was less of a Don Juan. If he was so he would be happier, and so should I. Imagine Don Juan and Louise Marshall—why, he would have made mincemeat of such a woman; she would have been a mere episode!"
"And what more has poor Louise been? No woman likes to be a mere episode! I do not say"—the Duchess spoke slowly; she knew she had gone a little too far, and wished to justify herself, also to find out, for the knowledge had made her very indignant, if Arabella was aware of how her brother was now spending his time,—"I do not say by any means that your brother is a Don Juan in the low and mean sense of the term, but circumstances and you—yes, you, in a measure—have made his relations to women essentially false and unnatural. Yes, my dear girl, that sort of thing is against nature! You are amazed and indignant when I speak of it as being possible that he should marry Louise Marshall, and yet I am quite sure that James is a man far more constituted for normal than for abnormal conditions, and that he would be happier, and more successful in the things that you consider important for him if, like other men, he realised that—that——"
The Duchess stole a look at her guest's rigid face, then went on with dogged courage—
"Well, that a certain kind of behaviour nearly always leads to a man's having to take a woman—generally the wrong woman, too—to church, that is, if he is, in the ordinary sense, an honourable man! I fear," concluded the Duchess dolefully, "that you think me very coarse. But James and Louise between them have made me quite wretched the last few days, so you must forgive me, and really I don't think you have anything to fear—Louise is leaving the day after to-morrow."
The speaker got up; why, oh! why, had she allowed herself to be lured into this odious discussion?
Arabella had also risen, and for a moment the two women, perfectly contrasted types of what centuries have combined to make the modern Englishwoman of the upper class, faced one another.
The Duchess was essentially maternal and large-hearted in her outlook on life. She was eager to compass the happiness of those round her, and thanked God daily for having given her so good a husband and such perfect children—unconscious that she had herself made them to a great extent what they were. Particular to niceness as to her own conduct, and that of her daughters, she was yet the pitying friend of all black sheep whose blackness was due to softness of heart rather than hardness of head. On the whole, a very happy woman—one who would meet even those natural griefs which come to us all with soft tears of submission, but who would know how to avert unnatural disaster.
To her alone had been confided the story of Miss Berwick's love passages with Daniel O'Flaherty. To-day, looking at the still youthful figure and proud reserved face of her friend, she marvelled at the strength of character, the mingled cruelty and firmness, Arabella had shown, and she wondered, not for the first time, whether the agony endured had been in any sense justified by its results. Then she reminded herself that as Mrs. O'Flaherty the sister could hardly have brought about, as Miss Berwick had known how to do, her brother's marriage to one of the wealthiest unmarried women of her day.
"I think we ought to be going downstairs: and—and—please forgive me for speaking as I did just now—you know I am simply tired out!"
And indeed the Duchess had endured that which had gone far to spoil her innocent happiness in her son's coming-of-age festivities. After each long day of what was on her part real hard work, the poor lady, whom all about her envied, would call on her only confidant, the Duke, to scourge her for the folly to which her kindness of heart and platonic sympathy with the tender passion had led her; and husband-wise he would by turns comfort and scold her, saying very uncomplimentary things of both the sinners now in full enjoyment of his hospitality. Berwick, generally the most agreeable and serviceable of guests, was moody, ill at ease, and often absent for long hours—behaving indeed in a fashion which only his hosts' long kindness to him could, in any way, excuse or authorise.