CHAPTER x.x.x

THE BIRTH OF A SLANDER

After that visit to Father Molyneux the devil seems to have entered into Molly. It was a devil of fear and, consequently, of cruelty. What she did to harm him was at first unpremeditated, and it must be allowed that she had not at the moment the means of knowing how fearful a harm such words as hers could do. She said them too when terror had driven her to any distraction, and when wine had further excited her imagination.

Still it would not be surprising to find that many who might have forgiven her for a long, protracted fraud, would blot her out of their own private book of life for the mean cruelty of one sentence.

Not many hours had pa.s.sed after the visit before Molly was furious with herself for her consummate folly in giving herself away to the young priest, who might even think it a duty to reveal what she said.

She had once told Mark that she might soon come to hate him, as hatred came most easily to her. There was now quite cause enough for this hatred to come into being. Molly had two chief reasons for it. First, she was in his power to a dangerous extent and he might ruin her if he chose; secondly, she was afraid of his influence--chiefly of the influence of his prayers--and she dreaded still more that he should persuade her to ruin herself.

One evening Molly had been with Mrs. Delaport Green and two young men to a play. It was a play that represented a kind of female "Raffles"--a thief in the highest ranks of society, and the lady Raffles had black hair. The lady stole diamonds, and fascinated detectives, and even beguiled the ruffianly burglar who had wanted the diamonds for himself.

It was a far-fetched comparison indeed, but it worried and excited Molly to the last degree. They went back to supper at Miss Dexter's house, and there one more lady and another man joined them. They sat at a gorgeous little supper at a round table in the small dining-room, Mrs. Delaport Green opposite Molly, and Lady Sophia Snaggs, a spirited, cheery Irishwoman, separated from the hostess by Billy, with whom the latter had always, in the past weeks, been ready to discuss the poverty and the failings of Sir Edmund Grosse. Of the other two men, one was elderly, bald, greedy, fat and witty, and the other was a soldier, spare, red and rather silent but extremely popular for some happy combination of qualities and excellent manners. It would seem hardly worth while to say even this little about them, only that it proved of some importance that the few people who heard Molly's words that night, and certainly repeated them afterwards, had unfortunately rather different and rather wide opportunities of making them known.

The Florentine looking-gla.s.ses that once belonged to Sir Edmund Grosse, with their wondrous wreaths of painted flowers, looked down from three sides of the room and reflected the pretty women and their gowns, the old silver, the rare gla.s.s, and the flowers. They were probably refreshed by the exquisite taste of the little banquet that might recall the first reflection of their youth. Morally there was a rift within the lute among the guests, for Molly betrayed that Adela had got on her nerves. Lady Sophia Snaggs poured easy conversation on the troubled waters, but at last the catastrophe could not be averted.

At a moment when the others were silent Adela was talking.

"Yes; I went to hear him preach, and it is so beautiful, you know.

Crowds; the church was packed, and many people cried. You _should_ go.

And then one feels how real it is for him to preach against the world, because he gave up so much."

Molly drained her gla.s.s of champagne and leant across.

"Whom are you talking about?"

"Father Molyneux."

"I thought so."

"Have you heard him preach?" asked Lady Sophy.

"I used to, but I never go now." She again leant forward and spoke this time with unconcealed irritation. "Adela, I don't go now because I know too much about him."

There was immediate sensation.

Molly slowly lit a cigarette. Even then she did not know what she was going to say, but she had determined on the spur of the moment, and chiefly from sheer terror, to put Mark out of court if she possibly could.

"He is a humbug," she proclaimed in her low, incisive tone.

"Oh! come now," said Billy. "A man who gave up Groombridge--extraordinary silly thing to do, but he is not a humbug!"

Molly turned on him.

"Yes, he is. He knows he made a great mistake and he would undo it if he could."

"Molly, it can't be true!" cried Adela almost tearfully. "If you had only heard him preach last Sunday you couldn't say such hasty, unkind, horrid things!"

"It is true," said Molly.

"Our hostess is pleased to be mysterious," said the fat man, and "you know," turning to Mrs. Delaport Green, "it's very likely that he is sorry he made such a sacrifice, but I don't think that prevents its having been a n.o.ble action at the time."

"Or makes him a humbug now," said the soldier. "I believe he is an uncommonly nice fellow."

"Oh! she means something else," said Lady Sophia, looking at Molly with curiosity. "What is it you have against him?"

Molly felt the table to be against her, and it added to her nervous irritability. She was not in any sense drunk, and the drugs she took were in safe doses at present; yet she was to a certain degree influenced both by the champagne she had just taken, and the injection she had given herself when she came in from the theatre.

"You will none of you repeat what I am going to say?"

"I probably shall," said the big guest, "unless it is excessively interesting; otherwise I never remember what is a secret and what isn't."

But Molly did not heed him.

"Well," she said, "it is a fact that Father Molyneux would give up the Roman Church to-morrow if a very intimate friend of mine, who could give him as much wealth as he has lost, would agree to marry him after he ceased to be a priest!"

"Oh! how dreadfully disappointing!" cried Adela.

"Why shouldn't he?" said Billy.

"It seems a come-down," said the fat man; and the soldier said nothing.

"Stuff and nonsense," said Lady Sophia firmly. "Somebody has been humbugging you, Molly."

But being a lady who liked peace better than warfare, she now went on to say that she had had no notion how late it was until this moment, and that she really must be off. Her farewell was quite friendly, but Molly's was cold.

The departure of Lady Sophia made a welcome break, and, in spite of the hostess being silent and out of temper, the men managed to divert the conversation into less serious topics. But they were not likely to forget what Molly had impressed upon their minds by the strange vehemence with which she had emphasised her accusations.

"She meant herself, I suppose?" asked Billy, when leaving the house with his stout fellow guest. "Do you believe it?"

"It was very curious, very curious indeed. Do you know I rather doubt if she wholly and entirely believed it herself."

Billy was puzzled for a moment, thinking that some difficult mental problem had been offered for his digestion.

"Oh, I see," he said, as he opened his own door with his latch-key. "He only meant that she was telling a lie; I suspect he is right too."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE NURSING OF A SLANDER

Meanwhile, in shadowy corners of Westmoreland House, Miss Carew lived a monotonous but anxious life. For days together she hardly saw Molly, and then perhaps she would be called into the big bed-room for a long talk, or rather, to listen to a long monologue in which Molly gave vent to views and feelings on men and things.

Molly's cynicism was increasing constantly, and she now hardly ever allowed that anybody did anything for a good motive. She had moods in which she poured scandal into Miss Carew's half excited and curious mind, piling on her account of the wickedness and the baseness of the people she knew intimately, of the sharks who pursued her money, and, most of all, she showered her scorn on the men who wanted to marry her.