“No, my dear boy. Of course not. Oh, he’s straight enough, in his way, is Gerard. He’s pretty miserable about it. He’s off to California next week—to buy a ranch and settle down, he says. So your paths won’t cross again. I was to give you that message.”
Hugh felt relieved. Gerard’s presence in London caused him an oppression which he had not been able to shake off.
“I am glad we are clear in the eyes of you two, at last,” he said.
“You have always been clear in our hearts, my dear Hugh,” said the old solicitor.
But in spite of Hugh’s relief, and that of Irene, who had been wept and smiled over by Selina upstairs, the dinner had not the usual success of their little reunions. Irene looked tired. Hugh’s efforts at entertainment lacked spontaneity. Both exerted themselves, and were conscious of exertion. After the guests had gone, they sat a while together in the drawing-room.
“I suppose Mrs. Harroway told you?” said Hugh.
“Yes. It’s the best thing that can happen to us,” she answered. He assented gloomily. She stole a wistful glance at him, and pitied him for his downfall. She longed as yearningly as he for the dead day’s departed grace. But it could never come back. Forgiveness implies raising or lowering of respective planes. Where one forgives, one cannot worship. Neither can one feel outside the limit imposed by temperament. It was not given to her to love frail mortality with the sacred fire. Her mother, father, the old eidolon of Gerard she had worshipped. Hugh she had loved with a newly-awakened elemental passion, but had worshipped him also. The whole devotion would never return. Her heart was moved by the pity of it. And yet what could she do? In her heart she was grateful to him for his tender courtesy, and his perception of her soul’s workings. It made their common life tolerable, by giving her breathing space, time to realise herself, and once more to reconstruct a new life upon the ruins of an old one.
To cheer him, she gave him an account of her day’s doings, of the day’s oddities and signs of progress in the boy. Demanded his news, touched on the new appointment. For he had come home late, just in time to dress for dinner, and they had not seen each other alone since the morning. Then she rose and bade him good night.
“Good night. God bless you,” he said.
For some moments he sat in a brown study, meditating over the change that a few days had wrought in his paradise. The haughtiness of spirit that had enabled him all his life long to face his own misdeeds and to scorn their consequences, was crushed. Irene had never been so unutterably dear. He felt humbly grateful for her kindness.