第62章

She got up and stood in front of the fire, having her hand on the chimney-piece and looking down at the blaze.

For some moments she remained there. Bernard could not see her face.

"I said you were a dangerous woman to marry," he went on deliberately.

"I said it because I thought it. I gave Gordon an opinion about you--it was a very unfavorable one. I could n't make you out--I thought you were playing a double part. I believed that you were ready to marry him, and yet I saw--I thought I saw--" and Bernard paused again.

"What did you see?" and Angela turned toward him.

"That you were encouraging me--playing with me."

"And you did n't like that?"

"I liked it immensely--for myself! But did n't like it for Gordon; and I must do myself the justice to say that I thought more of him than of myself."

"You were an excellent friend," said Angela, simply.

"I believe I was. And I am so still," Bernard added.

She shook her head sadly.

"Poor Mr. Wright!"

"He is a dear good fellow," said Bernard.

"Thoroughly good, and dear, doubtless to his wife, the affectionate Blanche."

"You don't like him--you don't like her," said Bernard.

"Those are two very different matters. I am very sorry for Mr. Wright.

"

"You need n't be that. He is doing very well."

"So you have already informed me. But I am sorry for him, all the same."

"That does n't answer my question," Bernard exclaimed, with a certain irritation. "What part were you playing?"

"What part do you think?"

"Have n't I told you I gave it up, long ago?"

Angela stood with her back to the fire, looking at him; her hands were locked behind her.

"Did it ever strike you that my position at Baden was a charming one?--knowing that I had been handed over to you to be put under the microscope--like an insect with a pin stuck through it!"

"How in the world did you know it? I thought we were particularly careful."

"How can a woman help knowing such a thing? She guesses it--she discovers it by instinct; especially if she be a proud woman."

"Ah," said Bernard, "if pride is a source of information, you must be a prodigy of knowledge!"

"I don't know that you are particularly humble!" the girl retorted.

"The meekest and most submissive of her sex would not have consented to have such a bargain as that made about her--such a trick played upon her!"

"My dearest Angela, it was no bargain--no trick!" Bernard interposed.

"It was a clumsy trick--it was a bad bargain!" she declared.

"At any rate I hated it--I hated the idea of your pretending to pass judgment upon me; of your having come to Baden for the purpose.

It was as if Mr. Wright had been buying a horse and you had undertaken to put me through my paces!"

"I undertook nothing--I declined to undertake."

"You certainly made a study of me--and I was determined you should get your lesson wrong. I determined to embarrass, to mislead, to defeat you.

Or rather, I did n't determine; I simply obeyed a natural impulse of self-defence--the impulse to evade the fierce light of criticism.

I wished to put you in the wrong."

"You did it all very well. You put me admirably in the wrong."

"The only justification for my doing it at all was my doing it well," said Angela.

"You were justified then! You must have hated me fiercely."

She turned her back to him and stood looking at the fire again.

"Yes, there are some things that I did that can be accounted for only by an intense aversion."

She said this so naturally that in spite of a certain theory that was touched upon a few pages back, Bernard was a good deal bewildered.

He rose from the sofa where he had been lounging and went and stood beside her a moment. Then he passed his arm round her waist and murmured an almost timorous--"Really?"

"I don't know what you are trying to make me say!" she answered.

He looked down at her for a moment as he held her close to him.

"I don't see, after all, why I should wish to make you say it.

It would only make my remorse more acute."

She was musing, with her eyes on the fire, and for a moment she made no answer; then, as if her attention were returning--"Are you still talking about your remorse?" she asked.

"You see I put it very strongly."

"That I was a horrid creature?"

"That you were not a woman to marry."

"Ah, my poor Bernard," said Angela, "I can't attempt to prove to you that you are not inconsistent!"

The month of September drew to a close, and she consented to fix a day for their wedding. The last of October was the moment selected, and the selection was almost all that was wanting to Bernard's happiness.

I say "almost," for there was a solitary spot in his consciousness which felt numb and dead--unpervaded by the joy with which the rest of his spirit seemed to thrill and tingle. The removal of this hard grain in the sweet savour of life was needed to complete his felicity.

Bernard felt that he had made the necessary excision when, at the end of the month, he wrote to Gordon Wright of his engagement.

He had been putting off the performance of this duty from day to day--it seemed so hard to accomplish it gracefully. He did it at the end very briefly; it struck him that this was the best way.

Three days after he had sent his letter there arrived one from Gordon himself, informing Bernard that he had suddenly determined to bring Blanche to Europe. She was not well, and they would lose no time. They were to sail within a week after his writing.

The letter contained a postscript--"Captain Lovelock comes with us."