第26章

This conversation took place at Dover, when he went down to give her the money for which, at Mr.Morrish's bank, he had exchanged the cheque she had left with him.That cheque, or rather certain things it represented, had made somehow all the difference in their relations.The difference was huge, and Baron could think of nothing but this confirmed vision of their being able to work fruitfully together that would account for so rapid a change.She didn't talk of impossibilities now--she didn't seem to want to stop him off; only when, the day following his arrival at Dover with the fifty pounds (he had after all to agree to share them with her--he couldn't expect her to take a present of money from him), he returned to the question over which they had had their little scene the night they dined together--on this occasion (he had brought a portmanteau and he was staying) she mentioned that there was something very particular she had it on her conscience to tell him before letting him commit himself.There dawned in her face as she approached the subject a light of warning that frightened him; it was charged with something so strange that for an instant he held his breath.This flash of ugly possibilities passed however, and it was with the gesture of taking still tenderer possession of her, checked indeed by the grave, important way she held up a finger, that he answered: "Tell me everything--tell me!""You must know what I am--who I am; you must know especially what I'm not! There's a name for it, a hideous, cruel name.It's not my fault! Others have known, I've had to speak of it--it has made a great difference in my life.Surely you must have guessed!" she went on, with the thinnest quaver of irony, letting him now take her hand, which felt as cold as her hard duty."Don't you see I've no belongings, no relations, no friends, nothing at all, in all the world, of my own? I was only a poor girl.""A poor girl?" Baron was mystified, touched, distressed, piecing dimly together what she meant, but feeling, in a great surge of pity, that it was only something more to love her for.

"My mother--my poor mother," said Mrs.Ryves.

She paused with this, and through gathering tears her eyes met his as if to plead with him to understand.He understood, and drew her closer, but she kept herself free still, to continue: "She was a poor girl--she was only a governess; she was alone, she thought he loved her.He did--I think it was the only happiness she ever knew.

But she died of it."

"Oh, I'm so glad you tell me--it's so grand of you!" Baron murmured.

"Then--your father?" He hesitated, as if with his hands on old wounds.

"He had his own troubles, but he was kind to her.It was all misery and folly--he was married.He wasn't happy--there were good reasons, I believe, for that.I know it from letters, I know it from a person who's dead.Everyone is dead now--it's too far off.That's the only good thing.He was very kind to me; I remember him, though I didn't know then, as a little girl, who he was.He put me with some very good people--he did what he could for me.I think, later, his wife knew--a lady who came to see me once after his death.I was a very little girl, but I remember many things.What he could he did--something that helped me afterwards, something that helps me now.Ithink of him with a strange pity--I SEE him!" said Mrs.Ryves, with the faint past in her eyes."You mustn't say anything against him,"she added, gently and gravely.

"Never--never; for he has only made it more of a rapture to care for you.""You must wait, you must think; we must wait together," she went on.

"You can't tell, and you must give me time.Now that you know, it's all right; but you had to know.Doesn't it make us better friends?"asked Mrs.Ryves, with a tired smile which had the effect of putting the whole story further and further away.The next moment, however, she added quickly, as if with the sense that it couldn't be far enough: "You don't know, you can't judge, you must let it settle.

Think of it, think of it; oh you will, and leave it so.I must have time myself, oh I must! Yes, you must believe me."She turned away from him, and he remained looking at her a moment.

"Ah, how I shall work for you!" he exclaimed.

"You must work for yourself; I'll help you." Her eyes had met his eyes again, and she added, hesitating, thinking: "You had better know, perhaps, who he was."Baron shook his head, smiling confidently."I don't care a straw.""I do--a little.He was a great man."

"There must indeed have been some good in him.""He was a high celebrity.You've often heard of him."Baron wondered an instant."I've no doubt you're a princess!" he said with a laugh.She made him nervous.

"I'm not ashamed of him.He was Sir Dominick Ferrand."Baron saw in her face, in a few seconds, that she had seen something in his.He knew that he stared, then turned pale; it had the effect of a powerful shock.He was cold for an instant, as he had just found her, with the sense of danger, the confused horror of having dealt a blow.But the blood rushed back to its courses with his still quicker consciousness of safety, and he could make out, as he recovered his balance, that his emotion struck her simply as a violent surprise.He gave a muffled murmur: "Ah, it's you, my beloved!" which lost itself as he drew her close and held her long, in the intensity of his embrace and the wonder of his escape.It took more than a minute for him to say over to himself often enough, with his hidden face: "Ah, she must never, never know!"She never knew; she only learned, when she asked him casually, that he had in fact destroyed the old documents she had had such a comic caprice about.The sensibility, the curiosity they had had the queer privilege of exciting in her had lapsed with the event as irresponsibly as they had arisen, and she appeared to have forgotten, or rather to attribute now to other causes, the agitation and several of the odd incidents that accompanied them.They naturally gave Peter Baron rather more to think about, much food, indeed, for clandestine meditation, some of which, in spite of the pains he took not to be caught, was noted by his friend and interpreted, to his knowledge, as depression produced by the long probation she succeeded in imposing on him.He was more patient than she could guess, with all her guessing, for if he was put to the proof she herself was not left undissected.It came back to him again and again that if the documents he had burned proved anything they proved that Sir Dominick Ferrand's human errors were not all of one order.The woman he loved was the daughter of her father, he couldn't get over that.What was more to the point was that as he came to know her better and better--for they did work together under Mr.Morrish's protection--his affection was a quantity still less to be neglected.He sometimes wondered, in the light of her general straightness (their marriage had brought out even more than he believed there was of it) whether the relics in the davenport were genuine.That piece of furniture is still almost as useful to him as Mr.Morrish's patronage.There is a tremendous run, as this gentlemen calls it, on several of their songs.Baron nevertheless still tries his hand also at prose, and his offerings are now not always declined by the magazines.But he has never approached the Promiscuous again.This periodical published in due course a highly eulogistic study of the remarkable career of Sir Dominick Ferrand.

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