The woman's tact had conquered in a sentence.

"Anyhow," he answered sulkily, acknowledging defeat in that one word, "you must see _she_ is in the wrong? I know you women always hold together, but you must see that it's not--well, not exactly pleasant for me to be paragraphed in every rag as the selfish author-husband, whether I was meant or not. She had no right to publish it without my knowing."

"Oh yes," a.s.sented Ruth, "I see that, quite. She has been very silly, but I'm sure she meant nothing and perhaps----" Then she stopped abruptly and repeated; "But she has certainly been silly."

Hubert, oddly full of guilt and humiliation, was glad to leave this interview at such an end. He had planned it in a way very different.

"Well," he said decisively, as he got up, "I can do nothing with her.

She persists that she will bring another book out now, and so revive the whole unpleasant business! Tea will be ready and you must want it, but afterwards" (he touched her lovingly upon the arm), "I know you'll want to help me, dear old girl. You'll go and talk to her quite firmly, won't you?"

"I'll go and talk to her, yes," said Ruth, pressing his arm no less fondly.

He did not notice that she dropped the adverbs.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE TWO WAYS

It was not a comfortable meal, this tea, and though Helena no less than Ruth knew it to be the prelude to a scene, neither could feel much regret when Hubert with clumsy ill-ease said; "Well, it is five o'clock, I'll leave you two to a chat," and so out, colliding with the door.

They were left staring at each other, the wife and the sister.

Helena, although she knew the object of this chat and the whole visit, could not work herself up to the pitch of feeling so much resentment as she had intended. This was such a different woman, who looked across at her with bright understanding eyes, from the one she remembered: shrivelled, worthy, with a hint of tracts to come. Helena looked back across the fireplace at her almost with a smile.

It was Ruth who spoke first. "Well," she said, "of course you know I've been asked down to make peace."

It was so unexpected that Helena did actually smile. "To make me a good girl," she emended.

"I'm afraid," laughed Ruth, "as usual with children, you are both to blame."

It all seemed easy in a moment. Helena suddenly felt the thick clouds of misery lift from her soul. She believed in Ruth. The whole air of the little room appeared to change from stiff hostility to friendly hope. Tea seemed a thousand years ago. She gave a cheery little laugh.

"Look here," said Ruth, encouraged, "I'm so glad you're taking it like this; I hated coming down. I know how people feel about in-laws and I thought you'd think I had come down to side with Hubert blindly. I've not, a bit. I'm very fond of him, but I see all his faults. I only want him to be happy. I'm forty, you know, and I've seen a good deal of things, so possibly----" She broke off and said, by an abrupt change; "You see, I lived with him for years and years so I can understand. He's difficult, I know, when you're with him, but when you get away--isn't he a dear?" She smiled.

"He's _more_ than that," said Helena, suddenly wanting to cry.

She had said it unthinking, moved by the other's appeal, but to Ruth it was everything, for it meant that her task was easy. She embarked with confidence.

"When I first lived with him," she began, "I met a lot of well-known writers, artists, actors. He used to go out more then, and it flattered him to meet men who were famous. Well, I came to the conclusion that the greatest men are the most tragic, the most pathetically childish. I suppose you _have_ to be self-centred to succeed; and then somehow, they can't get used to the little things.

You know how press-notices upset poor Hubert? Well, they're all like that about something or other. You see, you married a man of that sort and you must make allowances."

"Oh, I do," said Helena, leaping at self-defence. "I always did. It's _him_. He won't forgive me, won't believe I'm sorry, won't let me put things right. You don't know what this week has been. I can't endure it, really."

"And so," asked Ruth, "you mean to write another book?"

Helena for just one moment scented battle and replied more stiffly.

She would not throw her arms down till she knew there was to be no fighting. "What do you expect me to do, otherwise? He won't allow me to see other men, won't talk to me himself. A little house like this is nothing. What am I to do? It isn't even as though I'd a child."

Ruth answered very slowly. "Hugh is just a child," she said with a great tenderness.

Helena laughed. "A child indeed? If you could have heard him this week!" She suddenly grew hostile. "Why," she demanded pa.s.sionately, "should everything in the house hinge round _his_ career? Why am I not to write another book? Is it because I am a woman? Mine has sold better than all his put together and yet I'm not to do another! I'm just to sit at home, here in this tiny room, while _he_ works and says we've no money! No, I utterly refuse. I've got an offer and I mean to take it."

Ruth looked troubled, feeling that she had been confident too soon.

"Helena," she said very gently, thrusting the name forward to make peace, "I'm not going to ask you to give up your career; I'm asking you to spare Hugh his illusions."

"I don't see," answered Helena, suspicious.

"No," said the other, and then paused. Helena thought that she had finished, when she suddenly began again. "I've been alone a good deal these three years, and I have thought a lot about marriage. Oh, not for myself, no" (she spoke so sadly that Helena relented for a moment); "but because my life now is so different from the one I spent with Hubert, and that makes one think. You know, if I'd my life to live again, I'd live it all alone--I'm afraid, yes, I'd sacrifice Hubert: men are born to marry, not to live with sisters!--but I'd have my life-work."

"And yet," swiftly interrupted Helena in triumph, "you ask me to give up mine?"

"I don't." She spoke decisively. "I only ask you not to sacrifice Hubert's to it."

"I still don't understand." Her voice was almost resentful.

"Hubert married you," began Ruth expansively, "because he is the sort of man who needs encouragement. He wanted some one who'd think his work wonderful and ask him how he did it. You surely see the difference? Imagine his life now, for any one like him: your bigger sales, your long reviews, your photographs, his own eclipse. It is impossible."

Helena remembered the press-notice and spoke more obediently. "What are you asking me to do then?"

"Leave him." The words dropped out like heavy weights.

"Leave him?" cried Helena, and by a natural dramatic instinct she rose from her chair. "Leave him when I'm fond of him?"

Ruth looked very earnest. "Leave him," she said again, "unless you're fond enough of him to give up your career. I tell you--I _know_--you can not have both, with Hubert."

"You cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon," murmured Helena. She did not know that she had said it. She sank down into her chair again and forced her numb brain to thought.

"Don't break all his illusions," she heard Ruth saying, miles away.

"Be gentle with him if you're fond of him. You know how sensitive he is. Your books, you say, sell better. How do you think he could ever endure that, he who--I tell you--is nothing but a child? It would be agony, a life-time agony; disgrace. He lives upon success, on admiration, on being the centre even of a little house. How could a man like that endure to be just Helena Brett's husband? ... Oh no, you won't do it, you can't be so brutal. No one can forbid you your career, but go away and work it out alone. _I_ will look after Hubert, if he needs me."

That struck home, among these words that came dully to Helena through the chaos of her thought. "So that's it," she said with a bitter laugh, longing to hurt somehow. "You're thinking of yourself."

"G.o.d knows," said Ruth solemnly, "I wouldn't come back willingly for half the world, fond as I am of Hugh. I've _lived_ since I got right away alone beside the sea. He always trampled on me; I lay down; I haven't got your courage. I often cried myself to sleep--and he not even guessing he had been unkind! It was hideous, I see now; hideous every day of it. But I'd go through it all again, and worse, sooner than expose him to this agony."

There was conviction in her tones. Helena tried to arouse herself.

"Leave him?" she said dully. "Surely there's some other way? Even if he didn't mind, think of---- You talk about agony, but how can you advise me to do this, when you know how his friends----"

"Nothing would hurt him," said Ruth earnestly, "nothing in all the world--that is the awful part--so much as this blow to his pride, this shattering of all his life-work. He thinks--he told me so--he thinks this book of yours was just a fluke, an amateur attempt; that you can never do another. Oh, don't you see?" (she cried impatiently): "Must I put it in words? He thinks that _he_ is a real author, you just n.o.body; that _he_ has studied, he has nerves and everything an artist has, but you are just a woman. He lives upon his self-conceit.... Oh yes, I've said it now; I had to. It's not disloyalty. I'm fond of Hubert too--everybody is, because he is so thorough in it, such a perfect child. And everybody spares him too. Men of his sort are never told; everybody pities them the shock. They smile on him and like to see him so contented. They call him 'dear old Hubert.' It's half pity, yes--but also it's half love. I've seen it all so clearly since I got away. I've sometimes told myself that if I had those years again, I should let him have the whole truth; but I know that I shouldn't. And _you_ won't either, Helena. n.o.body ever does. They dream on happily, and all we others seem the selfish ones to them.

It's all a comedy, when you're not near enough to see the tragedy.

I've thought a lot about it, and I'm so glad now I was gentle. And _you_'ll be gentle too, I know. You'll either go away or you won't write: it's not for me to settle which; but you'll be gentle. You said just now you hadn't got a child. You have. No married woman is without a child. You won't be hard, I know, will you, because your child has been a little spoilt and things have suddenly gone wrong, and--just for a little bit--he loves to hurt his toys?"

"I--I never thought of it like that," said Helena, an odd look in her eyes. "I thought him so splendid and clever, so terribly above me. It all seemed so hopeless."

For answer Ruth went across and kissed this girl who made her feel so old. "I wish we had known each other sooner," she said. "I must go and unpack."