Louise returned to London in a strange state of mind. In the first place, her family, who liked Eric, had not been disposed to listen sympathetically to her rather vague complaints. She had found her sister, an enthusiastic gardener, preoccupied and full of plans for altering the gardens of Mistley; her mother too engrossed with Theosophy to listen to earthly troubles, and her father too much upset over the budget. So she had been left to herself more than she had liked. She had made up her mind to stay until Eric expressed a desire for her return, but as he did no such thing, and she felt she couldn’t stand another hour of boredom, she returned to town.
And there was something else. The day before she left, a humble cousin of her mother’s came to tea. She had been to Paris for the first time in her life, and was not to be denied the greater joy of relating her impressions. The rest of the family, murmuring appropriate excuses, drifted away after tea, and Louise was left alone with the caller. It was then that Louise received a shock.
She heard that her husband had been seen in Paris. It came out quite naturally during the conversation. It also appeared that he had been seen at some private hotel with a lady. “I dare say—a relation?” The cousin’s voice had an inquiring note. “I dare say you’ll know who it was if I describe her. A tall lady, my friend said, not very young. Fair.” And Louise said, with her brain whirling, “Oh, yes, a cousin.“ The visitor nodded. “So odd, wasn’t it, my friend having seen your husband? One never expects to see any one one knows in Paris. It’s not like dear London.”
Louise was so amazed that she forgot to feel angry and outraged. She thought of it most of the night, and in the train next morning, and she thought of it—and it seemed stranger than ever then—when she was once more in her own home, among the familiar things she had lived with for eight years.
Eric was at the House. She couldn’t remember whether it was Divorce Reform or the Plumage Bill. Anyway, he wasn’t expected back till late. She longed for some one to talk to. She had no intimate woman friend with whom she could discuss her husband; in fact, she could think of no better ear in which to pour her troubled amazement than that of her husband’s mother.
Lady Gregory was in, Dawson said over the telephone, and was not expecting visitors. She would be delighted to see Mrs. Eric.
If Louise had been accustomed to self-examination, she would have realized that she was less unhappy than she had been for some years. She was indeed conscious of an odd satisfaction. Eric, then, was less perfect than his friends and family believed. There was a chink in that shining armor, his light had suddenly become dimmed. That woman in Paris—she was not young—it had evidently been going on for years. Or was it the renewal of some old affair? Her informant had managed to convey to her that her husband’s—“cousin did you say?”—had not looked—well—quite of their world. She was thankful for that. When Eric admired Lady Norah Thorpe-Taylor, or Mrs. Dennison, or that hideous, clever Madame Fonteyn, she resented it bitterly, for she knew they had what she had not—charm. So she scoffed at charm, and prided herself on having none, nor wishing to have.
But here was something different; here was a blemish in the fabric, a rotten spot brought for the first time to light. It put her on a new footing with him, a slightly elevated footing. Let him point, if he could, to anything unworthy in her life. She had always believed him to be fastidious. Well, he was not. But she was—perhaps she was too fastidious; but then she had the defects of her qualities. Let others touch pitch and be soiled. She could almost pity Eric for lacking what she had. After all, he was merely common clay, and she had been expected to prostrate herself before an idol. Ridiculous! She would try to forgive him. Perhaps he had found her difficult to live up to.
She grew greatly in her own eyes. She no longer felt herself dwarfed by him. He must understand that. Then she would forgive and forget—except at such times as it might suit her to remember.
* * * * * *