A momentary desire to look in at the Elwyns’ possessed him. Then he thought of a supper-party and forgot it.
CHAPTER XI
MRS. WOLFSTEIN was right. There was money in Miss Schley’s performance. Her sly impropriety appealed with extraordinary force to the peculiar respectability characteristic of the British temperament, and her celebrity, hitherto mainly social, was suddenly and enormously increased. Already a popular person, she became a popular actress, and was soon as well-known to the world in the streets and the suburbs as to the world in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair. And this public celebrity greatly increased the value that was put upon her in private—especially the value put upon her by men.
The average man adores being connected openly with the woman who is the rage of the moment. It flatters his vanity and makes him feel good all over. It even frequently turns his head and makes him almost as intoxicated as a young girl with adulation received at her first ball.
The combination of Miss Schley herself and Miss Schley’s celebrity—or notoriety—had undoubtedly turned Lord Holme’s head. Perhaps he had not the desire to conceal the fact. Certainly he had not the finesse. He presented his turned head to the world with an audacious simplicity that was almost laughable, and that had in it an element of boyishness not wholly unattractive to those who looked on—the casual ones to whom even the tragedies of a highly-civilised society bring but a quiet and cynical amusement.
Lady Holme was not one of these. Her strong temper was token of a vivid temperament. Till now this vivid temperament had been rocked in the cradle of an easy, a contented, a very successful life. Such storms as had come to her had quickly passed away. The sun had never been far off. Her egoism had been constantly flattered. Her will had been perpetually paramount. Even the tyranny of Lord Holme had been but as the tyranny of a selfish, thoughtless, pleasure-seeking boy who, after all, was faithful to her and was fond of her. His temperamental indifference to any feelings but his own had been often concealed and overlaid by his strong physical passion for his wife’s beauty, his profound satisfaction in having carried off and in possessing a woman admired and sought by many others.
Suddenly life presented to Lady Holme its seamy side; Fate attacking her in her woman’s vanity, her egoism, even in her love. The vision startled. The blow stung. She was conscious of confusion, of cloud, then of a terrible orderliness, of a clear light. In the confusion she seemed to hear voices never heard before, voices that dared to jeer at her; in the cloud to see phantoms of gigantic size menacing her, impending over her. The orderliness, the clear light were more frightful to her. They left less to her imagination; had, as it were, no ragged edges. In them she faced a definite catastrophe, saw it whole, as one sees a near object in the magical atmosphere of the East, outlined with burning blue, quivering with relentless gold. She saw herself in the dust, pelted, mocked at.
That seemed at first to be incredible. But she saw it so plainly that she could not even pretend to herself that she was deceived by some unusual play of light or combination of shadows. What she saw—was:
Her husband had thrown off his allegiance to her and transferred his admiration, perhaps his affection, to the woman who had most deftly and delicately insulted her in the face of all her world. And he had done this with the most abominable publicity. That was what she saw in a clear light like the light of the East. That was what sent a lash across her temperament, scarring it perhaps, but waking it into all it could ever have of life. In each woman there is hidden a second woman, more fierce and tender, more evil and good, more strong and fervent than the woman who hides her in the ordinary hours of life; a woman who weeps blood where the other woman weeps tears, who strikes with a flaming sword where the other woman strikes with a willow wand.