"Isn't that a pleasant defence for crime?" Isabelle asked.
Lane looked at his wife for a long moment of complete silence.
"Haven't you observed that people break laws, and seem to feel that they are justified in doing so by the force of higher laws?"
Isabelle's eyes fell. He had seen, Vickers knew,—not only this afternoon, but all along! … Presently they rose from the table, and as they passed out of the room Isabelle's scarf fell from her neck. Lane and Cairy stooped to pick it up. Cairy had his hands on it first, but in some way it was the husband who took possession of it and handed it to the wife. Her hand trembled as she took it from him, and she hurried to her room.
"If you are interested in this matter of the Pacific roads, Tom," Lane continued, handing Cairy the cigarette box, "I will have my secretary look up the data and send it out here…. You will be with us some time, I suppose?"
Cairy mumbled his thanks.
After this scene Vickers felt nothing but admiration for his brother-in-law. The man knew the risks. He cared,—yes, he cared! Vickers was very sure of that. At dinner it had been a sort of modern duel, as if, with perfect courtesy and openness, Lane had taken the opportunity to try conclusions with the rival his wife had chosen to give him,—to tease him with his rapier, to turn his mind to her gaze…. And yet, even he must know how useless victory was to him, victory of this nature. Isabella did not love Cairy because of his intellectual grasp, though in the matters she cared for he seemed brilliant.
'It's to be a fight between them,' thought Vickers. 'He is giving the other one every chance. Oh, it is magnificent, this way of winning one's wife. But the danger in it!' And Vickers knew now that Lane scorned to hold a woman, even his wife, in any other way. His wife should not be bound to him by oath, nor by custom, nor even by their child. Nor would he plead for himself in this contest. Against the other man, he would play merely himself,—the decent years of their common life, their home, her own heart. And he was losing,—Vickers felt sure of that.
CHAPTER LII
Did he know that he had virtually lost when at the end of his brief vacation he went back to the city, leaving his rival alone in the field? During those tense days Vickers's admiration for the man grew. He was good tempered and considerate, even of Cairy. Lane had always been a pleasant host, and now instead of avoiding Cairy he seemed to seek his society, made an effort to talk to him about his work, and advised him shrewdly in a certain transaction with a theatrical manager.