As he read, she felt the anger rise within him, she saw it in his eyes fixed upon the sheet, and the sense of fear, of irreparable loss, that had come over her as she had sat alone awaiting him, deepened. And yet, long expected verdicts are sometimes received in a spirit of recklessness: He finished the letter, and flung it in her lap.
“Read it,” he said.
“Oh, Hugh!” she protested tremulously. “Perhaps—perhaps I'd better not.” He laughed, and that frightened her the more. It was the laugh, she was sure, of the other man she had not known.
“I've always suspected that Cecil was a fool—now I'm sure of it. Read it!” he repeated, in a note of command that went oddly with his next sentence; “You will find that it is only ridiculous.”
This assurance of the comedy it contained, however, did not serve to fortify her misgivings. It was written from a club.
“DEAR HUGH: Herewith a few letters for the magnum opus which I have
extracted from Aunt Agatha, Judge Gaines, and others, and to send
you my humble congratulations. By George, my boy, you have dashed
off with a prize, and no mistake. I've never made any secret, you
know, of my admiration for Honora—I hope I may call her so now.
And I just thought I'd tell you you could count on me for a friend
at court. Not that I'm any use now, old boy. I'll have to be frank
with you—I always was. Discreet silence, and all that sort of
thing: as much as my head is worth to open my mouth. But I had an
idea it would be an act of friendship to let you know how things
stand. Let time and works speak, and Cecil will give the thing
a push at the proper moment. I understand from one of the
intellectual journals I read that you have gone in for simple life
and scientific farming. A deuced canny move. And for the love of
heaven, old man, keep it up for a while, anyhow. I know it's
difficult, but keep it up. I speak as a friend.
“They received your letters all right, announcing your marriage.
You always enjoyed a row—I wish you could have been on hand to see
and hear this one. It was no place for a man of peace, and I spent
two nights at the club. I've never made any secret, you know, of
the fact that I think the Pendleton connection hide-bound. And you
understand Bessie—there's no good of my explaining her. You'd have
thought divorce a brand-new invention of the devil, instead of a
comparatively old institution. And if you don't mind my saying so,
my boy, you took this fence a bit on the run, the way you do
everything.
“The fact is, divorce is going out of fashion. Maybe it's because
the Pendleton-Grenfell element have always set their patrician faces
against it; maybe its been a bit overdone. Most people who have
tried it have discovered that the fire is no better than the frying-
pan—both hot as soon as they warm up. Of course, old boy, there's
nothing personal in this. Sit tight, and stick to the simple life—
that's your game as I see it. No news—I've never known things to
be so quiet. Jerry won over two thousand night before last—he made
it no trumps in his own hand four times running.
“Yours,
“CECIL.”
Honora returned this somewhat unique epistle to her husband, and he crushed it. There was an ill-repressed, terrifying savagery in the act, and her heart was torn between fear and pity for this lone message of good-will. Whatever its wording, such it was. A dark red flush had mounted his forehead to the roots of his short curly hair.
“Well?” he said.
She was fighting for her presence of mind. Flashes of his temper she had known, but she had never seen the cruel, fiendish thing—his anger. Not his anger, but the anger of the destroyer that she beheld waking now after its long sleep, and taking possession of him, and transforming him before her very eyes. She had been able to cope with the new man, but she felt numb and powerless before the resuscitated demon of the old.
“What do you expect me to say, Hugh?” she faltered, with a queer feeling that she was not addressing him.