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CHAPTER XXVII
At the same moment the door was thrown open, and Mrs. Gordon appeared on the threshold with a gentleman behind her. Blanche stood an instant looking into the lighted room and hesitating-flushed a little, smiling, extremely pretty. "May I come in?" she said, "and may I bring in Captain Lovelock?" The two ladies, of course, fluttering toward her with every demonstration of hospitality, drew her into the room, while Bernard proceeded to greet the Captain, who advanced with a certain awkward and bashful majesty, almost sweeping with his great stature Mrs. Vivian`s humble ceiling. There was a tender exchange of embraces between Blanche and her friends, and the charming visitor, losing no time, began to chatter with her usual volubility. Mrs. Vivian and Angela made her companion graciously welcome; but Blanche begged they would n`t mind him--she had only brought him as a watch-dog. "His place is on the rug," she said. "Captain Lovelock, go and lie down on the rug." "Upon my soul, there is nothing else but rugs in these French places!" the Captain rejoined, looking round Mrs. Vivian`s salon. "Which rug do you mean?" Mrs. Vivian had remarked to Blanche that it was very kind of her to come first, and Blanche declared that she could not have laid her head on her pillow before she had seen her dear Mrs. Vivian. "Do you suppose I would wait because I am married?" she inquired, with a keen little smile in her charming eyes. "I am not so much married as that, I can tell you! Do you think I look much as if I were married, with no one to bring me here to-night but Captain Lovelock?" "I am sure Captain Lovelock is a very gallant escort," said Mrs. Vivian. "Oh, he was not afraid--that is, he was not afraid of the journey, though it lay all through those dreadful wild Champs Elysees. But when we arrived, he was afraid to come in--to come up here. Captain Lovelock is so modest, you know--in spite of all the success he had in America. He will tell you about the success he had in America; it quite makes up for the defeat of the British army in the Revolution. They were defeated in the Revolution, the British, were n`t they? I always told him so, but he insists they were not. `How do we come to be free, then?` I always ask him; `I suppose you admit that we are free.` Then he becomes personal and says that I am free enough, certainly. But it `s the general fact I mean; I wish you would tell him about the general fact. I think he would believe you, because he knows you know a great deal about history and all that. I don`t mean this evening, but some time when it is convenient. He did n`t want to come in--he wanted to stay in the carriage and smoke a cigar; he thought you would n`t like it, his coming with me the first time. But I told him he need n`t mind that, for I would certainly explain. I would be very careful to let you know that I brought him only as a substitute. A substitute for whom? A substitute for my husband, of course. My dear Mrs. Vivian, of course I ought to bring you some pretty message from Gordon-that he is dying to come and see you, only that he had nineteen letters to write and that he could n`t possibly stir from his fireside. I suppose a good wife ought to invent excuses for her husband-ought to throw herself into the breach; is n`t that what they call it? But I am afraid I am not a good wife. Do you think I am a good wife, Mr. Longueville? You once stayed three months with us, and you had a chance to see. I don`t ask you that seriously, because you never tell the truth. I always do; so I will say I am not a good wife. And then the breach is too big, and I am too little. Oh, I am too little, Mrs. Vivian; I know I am too little. I am the smallest woman living; Gordon can scarcely see me with a microscope, and I believe he has the most powerful one in America. He is going to get another here; that is one of the things he came abroad for; perhaps it will do better. I do tell the truth, don`t I, Mrs. Vivian? I have that merit, if I have n`t any other. You once told me so at Baden; you said you could say one thing for me, at any rate-that I did n`t tell fibs. You were very nice to me at Baden," Blanche went on, with her little intent smile, laying her hand in that of her hostess. "You see, I have never forgotten it. So, to keep up my reputation, I must tell the truth about Gordon. He simply said he would n`t come--voila! He gave no reason and he did n`t send you any pretty message. He simply declined, and he went out somewhere else. So you see he is n`t writing letters. I don`t know where he can have gone; perhaps he has gone to the theatre. I know it is n`t proper to go to the theatre on Sunday evening; but they say charity begins at home, and as Gordon`s does n`t begin at home, perhaps it does n`t begin anywhere. I told him that if he would n`t come with me I would come alone, and he said I might do as I chose--that he was not in a humor for making visits. I wanted to come to you very much; I had been thinking about it all day; and I am so fond of a visit like this in the evening, without being invited. Then I thought perhaps you had a salon-does n`t every one in Paris have a salon? I tried to have a salon in New York, only Gordon said it would n`t do. He said it was n`t in our manners. Is this a salon to-night, Mrs. Vivian? Oh, do say it is; I should like so much to see Captain Lovelock in a salon! By good fortune he happened to have been dining with us; so I told him he must bring me here. I told you I would explain, Captain Lovelock," she added, "and I hope you think I have made it clear." The Captain had turned very red during this wandering discourse. He sat pulling his beard and shifting the position which, with his stalwart person, he had taken up on a little gilded chair--a piece of furniture which every now and then gave a delicate creak. "I always understand you well enough till you begin to explain," he rejoined, with a candid, even if embarrassed, laugh. "Then, by Jove, I `m quite in the woods. You see such a lot more in things than most people. Does n`t she, Miss Vivian?" "Blanche has a fine imagination," said Angela, smiling frankly at the charming visitor. When Blanche was fairly adrift upon the current of her articulate reflections, it was the habit of her companions--indeed, it was a sort of tacit agreement among them--simply to make a circle and admire. They sat about and looked at her--yawning, perhaps, a little at times, but on the whole very well entertained, and often exchanging a smiling commentary with each other. She looked at them, smiled at them each, in succession. Every one had his turn, and this always helped to give Blanche an audience. Incoherent and aimless as much of her talk was, she never looked prettier than in the attitude of improvisation-or rather, I should say, than in the hundred attitudes which she assumed at such a time. Perpetually moving, she was yet constantly graceful, and while she twisted her body and turned her head, with charming hands that never ceased to gesticulate, and little, conscious, brilliant eyes that looked everywhere at once--eyes that seemed to chatter even faster than her lips-she made you forget the nonsense she poured forth, or think of it only as a part of her personal picturesqueness. The thing was a regular performance; the practice of unlimited chatter had made her perfect. She rested upon her audience and held it together, and the sight of half a dozen pairs of amused and fascinated faces led her from one piece of folly to another. On this occasion, her audience was far from failing her, for they were all greatly interested. Captain Lovelock`s interest, as we know, was chronic, and our three other friends were much occupied with a matter with which Blanche was intimately connected. Bernard, as he listened to her, smiling mechanically, was not encouraged. He remembered what Mrs. Vivian had said shortly before she came in, and it was not pleasant to him to think that Gordon had been occupied half the day in contrasting the finest girl in the world with this magnified butterfly. The contrast was sufficiently striking as Angela sat there near her, very still, bending her handsome head a little, with her hands crossed in her lap, and on her lips a kind but inscrutable smile. Mrs. Vivian was on the sofa next to Blanche, one of whose hands, when it was not otherwise occupied, she occasionally took into her own. "Dear little Blanche!" she softly murmured, at intervals. These few remarks represent a longer pause than Mrs. Gordon often suffered to occur. She continued to deliver herself upon a hundred topics, and it hardly matters where we take her up. "I have n`t the least idea what we are going to do. I have nothing to say about it whatever. Gordon tells me every day I must decide, and then I ask Captain Lovelock what he thinks; because, you see, he always thinks a great deal. Captain Lovelock says he does n`t care a fig--that he will go wherever I go. So you see that does n`t carry us very far. I want to settle on some place where Captain Lovelock won`t go, but he won`t help me at all. I think it will look better for him not to follow us; don`t you think it will look better, Mrs. Vivian? Not that I care in the least where we go-or whether Captain Lovelock follows us, either. I don`t take any interest in anything, Mrs. Vivian; don`t you think that is very sad? Gordon may go anywhere he likes--to St. Petersburg, or to Bombay." "You might go to a worse place than Bombay," said Captain Lovelock, speaking with the authority of an Anglo-Indian rich in reminiscences. Blanche gave him a little stare. "Ah well, that `s knocked on the head! From the way you speak of it, I think you would come after us; and the more I think of that, the more I see it would n`t do. But we have got to go to some southern place, because I am very unwell. I have n`t the least idea what `s the matter with me, and neither has any one else; but that does n`t make any difference. It `s settled that I am out of health. One might as well be out of it as in it, for all the advantage it is. If you are out of health, at any rate you can come abroad. It was Gordon`s discovery--he `s always making discoveries. You see it `s because I `m so silly; he can always put it down to my being an invalid. What I should like to do, Mrs. Vivian, would be to spend the winter with you-just sitting on the sofa beside you and holding your hand. It would be rather tiresome for you; but I really think it would be better for me than anything else. I have never forgotten how kind you were to me before my marriage--that summer at Baden. You were everything to me--you and Captain Lovelock. I am sure I should be happy if I never went out of this lovely room. You have got it so beautifully arranged--I mean to do my own room just like it when I go home. And you have got such lovely clothes. You never used to say anything about it, but you and Angela always had better clothes than I. Are you always so quiet and serious--never talking about chiffons-always reading some wonderful book? I wish you would let me come and stay with you. If you only ask me, Gordon would be too delighted. He would n`t have to trouble about me any more. He could go and live over in the Latin Quarter--that `s the desire of his heart--and think of nothing but old bottles. I know it is n`t very good manners to beg for an invitation," Blanche went on, smiling with a gentler radiance; "but when it `s a question of one`s health. One wants to keep one`s self alive-does n`t one? One wants to keep one`s self going. It would be so good for me, Mrs. Vivian; it would really be very good for me!" She had turned round more and more to her hostess as she talked; and at last she had given both her hands to Mrs. Vivian, and sat looking at her with a singular mixture of earnestness and jocosity. It was hard to know whether Blanche were expressing a real desire or a momentary caprice, and whether this abrupt little petition were to be taken seriously, or treated merely as a dramatic pose in a series of more or less effective attitudes. Her smile had become almost a grimace, she was flushed, she showed her pretty teeth; but there was a little passionate quiver in her voice. "My dear child," said Mrs. Vivian, "we should be delighted to have you pay us a visit, and we should be so happy if we could do you any good. But I am afraid you would very soon get tired of us, and I ought to tell you, frankly, that our little home is to be--a broken up. You know there is to be a--a change," the good lady continued, with a hesitation which apparently came from a sense of walking on uncertain ground, while she glanced with a smile at Bernard and Angela. Blanche sat there with her little excited, yet innocent-too innocent--stare; her eyes followed Mrs. Vivian`s. They met Bernard`s for an instant, and for some reason, at this moment, Bernard flushed. He rose quickly and walked away to the window where he stood looking out into the darkness. "The devil--the devil!" he murmured to himself; "she does n`t even know we are to be married-Gordon has n`t been able to trust himself to tell her!" And this fact seemed pregnant with evidence as to Gordon`s state of mind; it did not appear to simplify the situation. After a moment, while Bernard stood there with his back turned-he felt rather awkward and foolish--he heard Blanche begin with her little surprised voice. "Ah, you are going away? You are going to travel? But that `s charming; we can travel together. You are not going to travel? What then are you going to do? You are going back to America? Ah, but you must n`t do that, as soon as I come abroad; that `s not nice or friendly, Mrs. Vivian, to your poor little old Blanche. You are not going back to America? Ah, then, I give it up! What `s the great mystery? Is it something about Angela? There was always a mystery about Angela. I hope you won`t mind my saying it, my dear; but I was always afraid of you. My husband--he admires you so much, you know--has often tried to explain you to me; but I have never understood. What are you going to do now? Are you going into a convent? Are you going to be--A-a-h!" And, suddenly, quickly, interrupting herself, Mrs. Gordon gave a long, wondering cry. Bernard heard her spring to her feet, and the two other ladies rise from their seats. Captain Lovelock got up as well; Bernard heard him knock over his little gilded chair. There was a pause, during which Blanche went through a little mute exhibition of amazement and pleasure. Bernard turned round, to receive half a dozen quick questions. "What are you hiding away for? What are you blushing for? I never saw you do anything like that before! Why do you look so strange, and what are you making me say? Angela, is it true-is there something like that?" Without waiting for the answer to this last question, Blanche threw herself upon Mrs. Vivian. "My own Mrs. Vivian," she cried, "is she married?" "My dear Blanche," said Bernard, coming forward, "has not Gordon told you? Angela and I are not married, but we hope to be before long. Gordon only knew it this morning; we ourselves have only known it a short time. There is no mystery about it, and we only want your congratulations." "Well, I must say you have been very quiet about it!" cried Blanche. "When I was engaged, I wrote you all a letter." "By Jove, she wrote to me!" observed Captain Lovelock. Angela went to her and kissed her. "Your husband does n`t seem to have explained me very successfully!" Mrs. Gordon held Bernard`s intended for a moment at arm`s length, with both her hands, looking at her with eyes of real excitement and wonder. Then she folded her in a prolonged, an exaggerated, embrace. "Why did n`t he tell me--why did n`t he tell me?" she presently began. "He has had all day to tell me, and it was very cruel of him to let me come here without knowing it. Could anything be more absurd--more awkward? You don`t think it `s awkward--you don`t mind it? Ah well, you are very good! But I like it, Angela--I like it extremely, immensely. I think it `s delightful, and I wonder it never occurred to me. Has it been going on long? Ah, of course, it has been going on! Did n`t it begin at Baden, and did n`t I see it there? Do you mind my alluding to that? At Baden we were all so mixed up that one could n`t tell who was attentive to whom! But Bernard has been very faithful, my dear; I can assure you of that. When he was in America he would n`t look at another woman. I know something about that! He stayed three months in my house and he never spoke to me. Now I know why, Mr. Bernard; but you might have told me at the time. The reason was certainly good enough. I always want to know why, you know. Why Gordon never told me, for instance; that `s what I want to know!" Blanche refused to sit down again; she declared that she was so agitated by this charming news that she could not be quiet, and that she must presently take her departure. Meanwhile she congratulated each of her friends half a dozen times; she kissed Mrs. Vivian again, she almost kissed Bernard; she inquired about details; she longed to hear all about Angela`s "things." Of course they would stop for the wedding; but meantime she must be very discreet; she must not intrude too much. Captain Lovelock addressed to Angela a few fragmentary, but well-intentioned sentences, pulling his beard and fixing his eyes on the door-knob--an implement which presently turned in his manly fist, as he opened the door for his companion to withdraw. Blanche went away in a flutter of ejaculations and protestations which left our three friends in Mrs. Vivian`s little drawing-room standing looking at each other as the door closed behind her. "It certainly would have been better taste in him to tell her," said Bernard, frowning, "and not let other people see how little communication there is between them. It has mortified her." "Poor Mr. Wright had his reasons," Mrs. Vivian suggested, and then she ventured to explain: "He still cares for Angela, and it was painful to him to talk about her marrying some one else." This had been Bernard`s own reflection, and it was no more agreeable as Mrs. Vivian presented it; though Angela herself seemed indifferent to it--seemed, indeed, not to hear it, as if she were thinking of something else. "We must simply marry as soon as possible; to-morrow, if necessary," said Bernard, with some causticity. "That `s the best thing we can do for every one. When once Angela is married, Gordon will stop thinking of her. He will never permit his imagination to hover about a married woman; I am very sure of that. He does n`t approve of that sort of thing, and he has the same law for himself as for other people." "It does n`t matter," said Angela, simply. "How do you mean, my daughter, it does n`t matter?" "I don`t feel obliged to feel so sorry for him now." "Now? Pray, what has happened? I am more sorry than ever, since I have heard poor Blanche`s dreadful tone about him." The girl was silent a moment; then she shook her head, lightly. "Her tone--her tone? Dearest mother, don`t you see? She is intensely in love with him!" CHAPTER XXVIII This observation struck Bernard as extremely ingenious and worthy of his mistress`s fine intelligence; he greeted it with enthusiasm, and thought of it for the next twelve hours. The more he thought of it the more felicitous it seemed to him, and he went to Mrs. Vivian`s the next day almost for the express purpose of saying to Angela that, decidedly, she was right. He was admitted by his old friend, the little femme de chambre, who had long since bestowed upon him, definitively, her confidence; and as in the ante-chamber he heard the voice of a gentleman raised and talking with some emphasis, come to him from the salon, he paused a moment, looking at her with an interrogative eye. "Yes," said Mrs. Vivian`s attendant, "I must tell Monsieur frankly that another gentleman is there. Moreover, what does it matter? Monsieur would perceive it for himself!" "Has he been here long?" asked Bernard. "A quarter of an hour. It probably does n`t seem long to the gentleman!" "Is he alone with Mademoiselle?" "He asked for Mademoiselle only. I introduced him into the salon, and Mademoiselle, after conversing a little while with Madame, consented to receive him. They have been alone together, as I have told Monsieur, since about three o`clock. Madame is in her own apartment. The position of Monsieur," added this discriminating woman, "certainly justifies him in entering the salon." Bernard was quite of this opinion, and in a moment more he had crossed the threshold of the little drawing-room and closed the door behind him. Angela sat there on a sofa, leaning back with her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes fixed upon Gordon Wright, who stood squarely before her, as if he had been making her a resolute speech. Her face wore a look of distress, almost of alarm; she kept her place, but her eyes gave Bernard a mute welcome. Gordon turned and looked at him slowly from head to foot. Bernard remembered, with a good deal of vividness, the last look his friend had given him in the Champs Elysees the day before; and he saw with some satisfaction that this was not exactly a repetition of that expression of cold horror. It was a question, however, whether the horror were changed for the better. Poor Gordon looked intensely sad and grievously wronged. The keen resentment had faded from his face, but an immense reproach was there--a heavy, helpless, appealing reproach. Bernard saw that he had not a scene of violence to dread-and yet, when he perceived what was coming, he would almost have preferred violence. Gordon did not offer him his hand, and before Bernard had had time to say anything, began to speak again, as if he were going on with what he had been saying to Angela. "You have done me a great wrong--you have done me a cruel wrong! I have been telling it to Miss Vivian; I came on purpose to tell her. I can`t really tell her; I can`t tell her the details; it `s too painful! But you know what I mean! I could n`t stand it any longer. I thought of going away--but I could n`t do that. I must come and say what I feel. I can`t bear it now." This outbreak of a passionate sense of injury in a man habitually so undemonstrative, so little disposed to call attention to himself, had in it something at once of the touching and the terrible. Bernard, for an instant, felt almost bewildered; he asked himself whether he had not, after all, been a monster of duplicity. He was guilty of the weakness of taking refuge in what is called, I believe, in legal phrase, a side-issue. "Don`t say all this before Angela!" he exclaimed, with a kind of artificial energy. "You know she is not in the least at fault, and that it can only give her pain. The thing is between ourselves." Angela was sitting there, looking up at both the men. "I like to hear it," she said. "You have a singular taste!" Bernard declared. "I know it `s between ourselves," cried Gordon, "and that Miss Vivian is not at fault. She is only too lovely, too wise, too good! It is you and I that are at fault--horribly at fault! You see I admit it, and you don`t. I never dreamed that I should live to say such things as this to you; but I never dreamed you would do what you have done! It `s horrible, most horrible, that such a difference as this should come between two men who believed themselves--or whom I believed, at least-the best friends in the world. For it is a difference--it `s a great gulf, and nothing will ever fill it up. I must say so; I can`t help it. You know I don`t express myself easily; so, if I break out this way, you may know what I feel. I know it is a pain to Miss Vivian, and I beg her to forgive me. She has so much to forgive that she can forgive that, too. I can`t pretend to accept it; I can`t sit down and let it pass. And then, it is n`t only my feelings; it `s the right; it `s the justice. I must say to her that you have no right to marry her; and beg of her to listen to me and let you go." "My dear Gordon, are you crazy?" Bernard demanded, with an energy which, this time at least, was sufficiently real. "Very likely I am crazy. I am crazy with disappointment and the bitterness of what I have lost. Add to that the wretchedness of what I have found!" "Ah, don`t say that, Mr. Wright," Angela begged. He stood for an instant looking at her, but not heeding her words. "Will you listen to me again? Will you forget the wrong I did you?-my stupidity and folly and unworthiness? Will you blot out the past and let me begin again. I see you as clearly now as the light of that window. Will you give me another chance?" Angela turned away her eyes and covered her face with her hands. "You do pain me!" she murmured. "You go too far," said Bernard. "To what position does your extraordinary proposal relegate your wife?" Gordon turned his pleading eyes on his old friend without a ray of concession; but for a moment he hesitated. "Don`t speak to me of my wife. I have no wife." "Ah, poor girl!" said Angela, springing up from the sofa. "I am perfectly serious," Gordon went on, addressing himself again to her. "No, after all, I am not crazy; I see only too clearly--I see what should be; when people see that, you call them crazy. Bernard has no right-he must give you up. If you really care for him, you should help him. He is in a very false position; you should n`t wish to see him in such a position. I can`t explain to you--if it were even for my own sake. But Bernard must have told you; it is not possible that he has not told you?" "I have told Angela everything, Gordon," said Bernard. "I don`t know what you mean by your having done me a wrong!" the girl exclaimed. "If he has told you, then--I may say it! In listening to him, in believing him." "But you did n`t believe me," Bernard exclaimed, "since you immediately went and offered yourself to Miss Vivian!" "I believed you all the same! When did I ever not believe you?" "The last words I ever heard from Mr. Wright were words of the deepest kindness," said Angela. She spoke with such a serious, tender grace, that Gordon seemed stirred to his depths again. "Ah, give me another chance!" he moaned. The poor girl could not help her tone, and it was in the same tone that she continued-
"If you think so well of me, try and be reasonable." Gordon looked at her, slowly shaking his head. "Reasonable--reasonable? Yes, you have a right to say that, for you are full of reason. But so am I. What I ask is within reasonable limits. " "Granting your happiness were lost," said Bernard--"I say that only for the argument--is that a ground for your wishing to deprive me of mine?" "It is not yours--it is mine, that you have taken! You put me off my guard, and then you took it! Yours is elsewhere, and you are welcome to it!" "Ah," murmured Bernard, giving him a long look and turning away, "it is well for you that I am willing still to regard you as my best friend!" Gordon went on, more passionately, to Angela. "He put me off my guard--I can`t call it anything else. I know I gave him a great chance--I encouraged him, urged him, tempted him. But when once he had spoken, he should have stood to it. He should n`t have had two opinions--one for me, and one for himself! He put me off my guard. It was because I still resisted him that I went to you again, that last time. But I was still afraid of you, and in my heart I believed him. As I say, I always believed him; it was his great influence upon me. He is the cleverest, the most intelligent, the most brilliant of men. I don`t think that a grain less than I ever thought it," he continued, turning again to Bernard. "I think it only the more, and I don`t wonder that you find a woman to believe it. But what have you done but deceive me? It was just my belief in your intelligence that reassured me. When Miss Vivian refused me a second time, and I left Baden, it was at first with a sort of relief. But there came back a better feeling--a feeling faint compared to this feeling of to-day, but strong enough to make me uneasy and to fill me with regret. To quench my regret, I kept thinking of what you had said, and it kept me quiet. Your word had such weight with me!" "How many times more would you have wished to be refused, and how many refusals would have been required to give me my liberty?" asked Bernard. "That question means nothing, because you never knew that I had again offered myself to Miss Vivian." "No; you told me very little, considering all that you made me tell you." "I told you beforehand that I should do exactly as I chose." "You should have allowed me the same liberty!" "Liberty!" cried Gordon. "Had n`t you liberty to range the whole world over? Could n`t he have found a thousand other women?" "It is not for me to think so," said Angela, smiling a little. Gordon looked at her a moment. "Ah, you cared for him from the first!" he cried. "I had seen him before I ever saw you," said the girl. Bernard suppressed an exclamation. There seemed to flash through these words a sort of retrospective confession which told him something that she had never directly told him. She blushed as soon as she had spoken, and Bernard found a beauty in this of which the brightness blinded him to the awkward aspect of the fact she had just presented to Gordon. At this fact Gordon stood staring; then at last he apprehended it--largely. "Ah, then, it had been a plot between you!" he cried out. Bernard and Angela exchanged a glance of pity. "We had met for five minutes, and had exchanged a few words before I came to Baden. It was in Italy--at Siena. It was a simple accident that I never told you," Bernard explained. "I wished that nothing should be said about it," said Angela. "Ah, you loved him!" Gordon exclaimed. Angela turned away--she went to the window. Bernard followed her for three seconds with his eyes; then he went on-
"If it were so, I had no reason to suppose it. You have accused me of deceiving you, but I deceived only myself. You say I put you off your guard, but you should rather say you put me on mine. It was, thanks to that, that I fell into the most senseless, the most brutal of delusions. The delusion passed away-it had contained the germ of better things. I saw my error, and I bitterly repented of it; and on the day you were married I felt free." "Ah, yes, I have no doubt you waited for that!" cried Gordon. "It may interest you to know that my marriage is a miserable failure." "I am sorry to hear it--but I can`t help it." "You have seen it with your own eyes. You know all about it, and I need n`t tell you." "My dear Mr. Wright," said Angela, pleadingly, turning round, "in Heaven`s name, don`t say that!" "Why should n`t I say it? I came here on purpose to say it. I came here with an intention--with a plan. You know what Blanche is-you need n`t pretend, for kindness to me, that you don`t. You know what a precious, what an inestimable wife she must make me-how devoted, how sympathetic she must be, and what a household blessing at every hour of the day. Bernard can tell you all about us--he has seen us in the sanctity of our home." Gordon gave a bitter laugh and went on, with the same strange, serious air of explaining his plan. "She despises me, she hates me, she cares no more for me than for the button on her glove-by which I mean that she does n`t care a hundredth part as much. You may say that it serves me right, and that I have got what I deserve. I married her because she was silly. I wanted a silly wife; I had an idea you were too wise. Oh, yes, that `s what I thought of you! Blanche knew why I picked her out, and undertook to supply the article required. Heaven forgive her! She has certainly kept her engagement. But you can imagine how it must have made her like me-knowing why I picked her out! She has disappointed me all the same. I thought she had a heart; but that was a mistake. It does n`t matter, though, because everything is over between us." "What do you mean, everything is over?" Bernard demanded. "Everything will be over in a few weeks. Then I can speak to Miss Vivian seriously." "Ah! I am glad to hear this is not serious," said Bernard. "Miss Vivian, wait a few weeks," Gordon went on. "Give me another chance then. Then it will be perfectly right; I shall be free." "You speak as if you were going to put an end to your wife!" "She is rapidly putting an end to herself. She means to leave me." "Poor, unhappy man, do you know what you are saying?" Angela murmured. "Perfectly. I came here to say it. She means to leave me, and I mean to offer her every facility. She is dying to take a lover, and she has got an excellent one waiting for her. Bernard knows whom I mean; I don`t know whether you do. She was ready to take one three months after our marriage. It is really very good of her to have waited all this time; but I don`t think she can go more than a week or two longer. She is recommended a southern climate, and I am pretty sure that in the course of another ten days I may count upon their starting together for the shores of the Mediterranean. The shores of the Mediterranean, you know, are lovely, and I hope they will do her a world of good. As soon as they have left Paris I will let you know; and then you will of course admit that, virtually, I am free." "I don`t understand you." "I suppose you are aware," said Gordon, "that we have the advantage of being natives of a country in which marriages may be legally dissolved." Angela stared; then, softly-
"Are you speaking of a divorce?" "I believe that is what they call it," Gordon answered, gazing back at her with his densely clouded blue eyes. "The lawyers do it for you; and if she goes away with Lovelock, nothing will be more simple than for me to have it arranged." Angela stared, I say; and Bernard was staring, too. Then the latter, turning away, broke out into a tremendous, irrepressible laugh. Gordon looked at him a moment; then he said to Angela, with a deeper tremor in his voice-
"He was my dearest friend." "I never felt more devoted to you than at this moment!" Bernard declared, smiling still. Gordon had fixed his sombre eyes upon the girl again. "Do you understand me now?" Angela looked back at him for some instants. "Yes," she murmured at last. "And will you wait, and give me another chance?" "Yes," she said, in the same tone. Bernard uttered a quick exclamation, but Angela checked him with a glance, and Gordon looked from one of them to the other. "Can I trust you?" Gordon asked. "I will make you happy," said Angela. Bernard wondered what under the sun she meant; but he thought he might safely add-
"I will abide by her choice." Gordon actually began to smile. "It won`t be long, I think; two or three weeks." Angela made no answer to this; she fixed her eyes on the floor. "I shall see Blanche as often as possible," she presently said. "By all means! The more you see her the better you will understand me. " "I understand you very well now. But you have shaken me very much, and you must leave me. I shall see you also--often." Gordon took up his hat and stick; he saw that Bernard did not do the same. "And Bernard?" he exclaimed. "I shall ask him to leave Paris," said Angela. "Will you go?" "I will do what Angela requests," said Bernard. "You have heard what she requests; it `s for you to come now." "Ah, you must at least allow me to take leave!" cried Bernard. Gordon went to the door, and when he had opened it he stood for a while, holding it and looking at his companions. Then-
"I assure you she won`t be long!" he said to Angela, and rapidly passed out. The others stood silent till they heard the outer door of the apartment close behind him. "And now please to elucidate!" said Bernard, folding his arms. Angela gave no answer for some moments; then she turned upon him a smile which appeared incongruous, but which her words presently helped to explain. "He is intensely in love with his wife!"
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