She sprang upon him, clasping her soft arms around his neck, and, kissing him with a fierce and fervent passion, exclaimed:
“Thank you, Dudley! Thank you for those words! You know how fondly I love you—you know that I could not live without frequent sight of you, without your good counsels and guidance—for I am but a woman, after all.”
“The best and bravest little woman in all the world,” he declared in words that came direct from his heart. Then, pressing her closer to him, he went on: “You surely know how deep and complete is my affection, Claudia. The test of it is shown by the fact that were it not for my love for you I should have forsaken you months ago in order to save my reputation—and yours.”
“It was a foul calumny!” she cried quickly. “The lie was probably started by some woman who envied me. But a scandal is like a snowball—it increases as it is rolled along. We invited gossip, and lent colour to the report by being seen so much together. I know it too well, and I have regretted it bitterly for your sake. With a public man like yourself a scandal is very apt to put an end for ever to all chances of high position. Knowing that, I, too, tried hard to cut myself adrift from you. Ah! you cannot know, Dudley, what I suffered when I attempted self-sacrifice for your own dear sake. You can never know!” she went on, panting and trembling. “But you misjudged me—you believed me fickle. It was what I intended, for I wanted you to cast me aside and save yourself.”
“Well?”
“They spoke of my flirtations en plein jour at Fernhurst,” she continued, looking up into his face with an expression full of passionate love. “The report, with exaggerations, reached you as I had hoped it would, but although it caused you pain it made no difference to your affection. Therefore, I failed, and we were compelled to accept the inevitable.”
“Yes, Claudia. What I heard from Fernhurst did pain me terribly,” he answered very gravely. “Yet I could not believe without absolute proof that you, whom I knew to be an honest, upright woman, would deliberately create a scandal, knowing well that it would be reflected upon me. I knew that you loved me; I knew that our lives were firmly linked the one to the other, and that our mutual confidence and affection were based upon a sure foundation. That is why I refused to give credence to the scandalous gossip.”
Her small hands trembled with emotion, and as she pressed her lips to his, mutely thanking him for his forbearance and refusal to believe ill of her, she burst into tears.
“I know, dearest, how terribly you have suffered,” he said in a low voice as he tried to console her. “I know well that your position as a smart woman supplies your enemies with opportunities for wounding your reputation. In the clubs men will, with an idle word, take away a woman’s good name, and often think it a huge joke when they hear the despicable calumny repeated. Indeed, it seems an unwritten law nowadays, that the woman who is not talked about and who does not hover between sacraments and scandals, is not to be considered smart. If she gives dinners and supper-parties at the Carlton or Prince’s, her name is usually coupled with one of her favourite guests. No woman is really in the running without gossip having ungenerously given her a lover.”
“Yes,” she answered, “that is only too true? Dudley. I know quite well that the happiness of many a smart woman, as well as her domestic comfort has been utterly wrecked by the eternal chatter which follows public entertaining. A short time ago we gave dinners in our own houses, as our mothers used to do; but that is all of the past. The glitter of the big restaurants has attracted us. To be chic one must engage a table at Prince’s or the Carlton, smother it with flowers, and dine with one’s guests in the full glare of publicity in a hot and crowded room, where the chatter is so incessant that one can scarcely hear one’s own voice. The Italian waiters rush through the courses as if they wish to get rid of you at the earliest possible moment; there is clatter, noise, an inordinate perfume of cooked food, and a hasty gobbling up of gastronomic masterpieces. I am compelled to give my dinners amid such surroundings, but how I hate it all! For me it is only an ordeal—just as are your political dinners with your friendly working-men.”