'Only one more condition. J'y suis. J'y reste. You will call your servant and inform him that I am your wife, and the mistress of this establishment. I think there will be no more earthquakes and broken panels. Alec'—she laid her hand upon his arm—'you should have done this three years ago. I should have saved you. I should have saved myself. Now, whatever happens, we are on the same level—we cannot reproach each other. We shall walk hand in hand. It was done for you, Alec. And I would do it again. Yes—yes—yes. Again!' She repeated the words with flashing eyes. 'Fraud—sham—pretence—these are our servants. We command them. By them we live, and by them we climb. What matter—so we reach the top—by what ladders we have climbed?' She looked around with a gesture of defiance, fine and free. 'The world is all alike,' she said. 'There is no truth or honour anywhere. We are all in the same swim.'
The man dropped into his vacant chair. 'We are saved!' he cried.
'Saved!' she echoed. 'Saved! Did you ever see a Court of Justice, Alec? I have. Once, when our company was playing at Winchester, I went to see the Assizes. I remember then wondering how it would feel to be a prisoner. Henceforth I shall understand his sensations. There they stand, two prisoners, side by side—a man and a woman—a pair of them. Found out at last, and arrested and brought up for trial. There sits the Judge, stern and cold: there are the twelve men of the jury, grave and cold: there are the policemen, stony-hearted: there are the lawyers, laughing and talking: there are the people behind, all grave and cold. No pity in any single face—not a gleam of pity—for the poor prisoners. Some people go stealing and cheating because they are driven by poverty. These people did not: they were driven by vanity and greed. Look at them in the box: they are well dressed. See! they are curiously like you and me, Alec'—she was acting now better than she ever acted on the stage—'The man is like you, and the woman—oh! you poor, unlucky wretch!—is like me—curiously, comically like me. They will be found guilty. What punishment will they get? As for her, it was for her husband's sake that she did it. But, I suppose, that will not help her. What will they get, Alec?'
He sat up in the chair and heaved a great sigh of relief.
'What are you talking about, my dear? I was not listening. Well; we are saved. It has been a mighty close shave. Another day, and I must have thrown up the sponge. We have a world of work before us; but if you are only half or quarter as clever as you think yourself, we shall do splendidly.' He laid his arm round her waist, and drew her gently and kissed her again. 'So—now you are sensible—what were you talking about prisoners for? No more separations now. Let me kiss away these tears. And now, Zoe—now—time presses. I am anxious to repair my losses. Where are we to find these ghosts? Sit down. To work! To work!'
CHAPTER XXIII
THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH
A man may do a great many things without receiving from the world the least sign of regard or interest. He may write the most lovely verses—and no one will read them. He may design and invent the most beautiful play—which no one will act: he may advocate a measure certain to bring about universal happiness—but no one will so much as read it. There is one thing, however, by which he may awaken a spirit of earnest curiosity and interest concerning himself: he may get married. Everybody will read the announcement of his marriage in the paper: everybody will immediately begin to talk about him. The bridegroom's present position and future prospects, his actual income and the style in which he will live: the question whether he has done well for himself, or whether he has thrown himself away: the bride's family, her age, her beauty, her dot, if she has got any: the question whether she had not a right to expect a better marriage—all these points are raised and debated when a man is married. Also, which is even more remarkable, whatever a man does shall be forgotten by the world, but the story of his marriage shall never be forgotten. A man may live down calumny; he may hold up his head though he has been the defendant in a disgraceful cause; he may survive the scandal of follies and profligacies; he may ride triumphant over misfortune: but he can never live down his own marriage. All those who have married 'beneath' them—whether beneath them in social rank, in manners, in morals, character, in spiritual or in mental elevation, will bear unwilling and grievous testimony to this great truth.
When, therefore, the Times announced the marriage of Mr. Alexander Feilding, together with the fact that the announcement was no less than three years late, great amazement fell upon all men and all women—yea, and dismay upon all those girls who knew this Universal Genius—and upon all who knew or remembered the lady, daughter of the financial City person who let in everybody to so frightful a tune, and then, like another treacherous person, went away and hanged himself. And as many questions were asked at the breakfast-tables of London as there were riddles asked at the famous dinner-party at the town of Mansoul. To these riddles there were answers, but to those none. For instance, why had Alec Feilding concealed his marriage? Where had he hidden his wife? And (among a very few) how could he permit her to go about the country in a provincial troupe? To these replies there have never been any answers. The lady herself, who certainly ought to know, sometimes among her intimate friends alludes to the cruelty of relations, and the power which one's own people have of making mischief. She also speaks of the hard necessity, owing to these cruelties, of concealing her marriage. This throws the glamour and magic of romance—the romance of money—over the story. But there are some who remain unconvinced.