“Oh, yes. And you?”
“I am beside you, Renie. That is all I want in this world.”
The answer contented her. She whispered a foolish word, her head near his. Instinctively he raised his eyes to Minna’s box, and saw her staring down at him with the hard, ugly look upon her face that he had known so well in days past.
“I am afraid that poor girl is not happy,” said Irene, following his glance. “Isn’t it strange, Hugh dear, that from the very first, I always wanted to lighten her lot? What a meddlesome creature she would think me if she knew!”
She drove knives into the man. In what estimation would she hold him, if he told her his and that girl’s story? He was no hero in his own eyes; in hers he day by day perceived, with an indescribable mingling of pain and pride, that he was. It was her nature to exalt any one she loved on a pinnacle of greatness. He had married her, allowing her to remain in ignorance, honestly, according to his lights; for the sake of her welfare alone. Now, for the first time, he trembled for himself.
“Don’t be sad, dear,” she said after awhile. “I can look back on it all so calmly—as if it had happened in a prior state of existence. And so must you.”
“Love is the god that works all healing,” he replied. And the sincerity of his faith comforted him.
The object of Irene’s pity soon withdrew into the shadow of the box, and plunged into flippant and bitter dialogue with Mrs. Delamere. The newspaper account of the scandal gave her scope for much mordant criticism of Hugh and Irene. It was a savage pleasure to tear their reputation to shreds, heap on invective and opprobrium, invent past meannesses and dishonours and treacheries.
“You seem to dislike him very much,” remarked Mrs. Delamere, smiling.
“Who wouldn’t, considering his record of infamy?” replied Minna, her rich, deep voice turning, as it always did when she was angered, to harshness.