‘That you may have her at hand and within reach when she is wanted, eh? I divine you, my Leo. What is becoming for the mother who is so little capable of understanding that for herself, is a beautiful pretext—what is convenient for some one else——’
‘Who is the person,’ he said, suddenly lifting his eyes, ‘to whom it will be so convenient to know where this woman is?’ He did not shrink or show any consciousness as he thus carried the war into the enemy’s country. Leo, after all, was a man of the world, and his mother’s son.
‘Ah!’ she cried, stopping in her laugh, which was always a gain. ‘I congratulate you, my son, upon your aplomb. But don’t you know you take away all grace from your offer, if there were any in it, when you say this woman? How dare you speak of your mother’s dear friend and relation as this woman? It is an affront I will not bear.’
‘Mother, this is a subterfuge,’ said Leo indignantly.
‘And is not your proposal a subterfuge? Understand that I will manage things in my own way, Leo. Artémise shall come to me how she and I please. She shall stay with me if I wish it, and she consents to it, as would have been the case whatever you had felt on the subject. I am not here, you understand, as your housekeeper,’ she laughed scornfully, ‘or your dependent; I am, while I am here, the mistress of the house: and shall invite whom I please. If you think your order to shut her out affected me, any more than your order to admit her does now—I think we have said enough on this subject. You can give me your arm upstairs.’
She held out her arm, imperiously rising from the table, and Leo obeyed. They presented a group full of natural grace, as he led her carefully upstairs, subduing his steps to hers. She, wonderful in all her laces and draperies, a marquise, a lady of the old régime, exacting every sign of devotion; he, not made of velvet or brocade, as her cavalier ought to have been, but in the spare and reserved costume of modern days, with a manner very grave, very self-controlled, full of care, and attention, and duty. There was nothing in it of that pretty gallantry, so charming from a son to a mother, of which Leo for years of his life had been an example, but a serious care of guidance and protection, which was as different as night from day. They went upstairs thus, she leaning all her weight upon him, he careful above measure to keep her foot from stumbling even upon her own too ample skirts. When he had placed her in her favourite chair, and seen that she had everything she liked near her, he stood gravely by her side.
‘Is this your last word, mother?’ he said.
‘It is quite my last word. Should Artémise come here, I shall expect you to be civil to her. Should she not come, you will be careful to let her alone.’
‘I must act in that matter according to my own judgment,’ he said.
He could hear the tinkle of the laugh as he went away. That laugh!—it had been compared to silver bells dans les temps. It was not that now, but an electric jar or vibration that got on the nerves. Mrs. Swinford’s son did not think of this, or feel any pity for the woman who had descended thus from the poetic state of compliment and adulation. Sons, perhaps, rarely consider that downfall with any sympathy. And Leo was too angry to make any sentiment possible for the moment. He was all the more angry because of his own undisclosed motive, which his mother had been so quick to discover. Had he been quite single-minded, desiring only his mother’s comfort and honour, things might perhaps have gone better; but he was not single-minded. And now the question was, not how to justify his mother, but to discover for Lady William the woman she wanted—to secure her, wherever she was, and whatever might be the motive for which she was sought. He did not very clearly know what that was, nor was he sure as to the previous connection of Artémise with Lady William’s history. But his mother’s revelations to Lord Will had helped the vague recollections in his own mind, and he divined something of her possible importance—importance most probably (he thought) more fancied than real, for it would be in the nature of a woman to give weight to a personal witness of the marriage, above all papers and records. Importance or not, however, real or fancied as might be the need of her, it was enough that Lady William wanted her to make Leo’s action certain. She must be found, he said to himself, as he went downstairs.