CHAPTER XXIX

THE PARTING

At the breakfast-table the next morning, Riviere found a letter with an official seal awaiting him. It was a call to Nimes to give evidence in the coming trial of the peasant Crau. He was asked to be there on a date a few days later.

Olive was already waiting for him in the palm-lounge of the Quisisana when he reached there at ten-o'clock. She was smilingly gracious--had seemingly forgiven him his doubting of her word the evening before. They took a taxi to the nursing home, and on the way Olive stopped at a florist's to buy a bunch of tiger-lilies. Her choice of flower struck Riviere as very characteristic of her own temperament.

They received permission to visit the patient, and were shown to her room by a nurse.

"I have brought you a few flowers, dear," said Olive.

Elaine murmured some words of thanks and felt the flowers to see what they might be. When she recognized them, they conveyed to her the same impression as they had done to Riviere. She drew her vase of white lilac nearer to her, and that trifling action seemed to Riviere as though she were calling upon him for protection.

"We've come to talk matters over calmly and dispa.s.sionately," said Olive, taking the reins of conversation into her own hands. "My husband and myself are both anxious to make some arrangement which will be for your happiness. Clifford feels, and I entirely agree with him, that he's under a distinct obligation to you."

"There is no obligation," answered Elaine.

"It's very generous of you to say so, but both Clifford and I feel it deeply. Your livelihood has been taken away from you, and it's our bare duty to make you some form of compensation. The suggestion of letting it come through me would be a very suitable way of solving a delicate problem." She turned to her husband. "Don't you think so, Clifford?"

"I want to hear what Miss Verney has to say."

"Very well."

Elaine paused before she replied, so that her words might carry a fuller significance. "Mrs Matheson," she said, "I don't wish to accept anything from you."

"That means, I take it, that you are ready to accept from my husband?"

"Accept what?"

"Well, financial a.s.sistance."

"No."

"Then what are you going to do when you leave the home?"

"I shall return to my relations until I've learnt a new trade and can manage to support myself."

"But surely you will let us help you with the expenses of the first few months?"

"I prefer not."

"Clifford, can't you persuade Miss Verney?"

"I don't wish to persuade her."

Olive tried a fresh avenue of attack. "Very well, then, let's leave that point. What I want to say now is still more delicate. I don't want to wound your feelings, but now that all three of us are together the matter ought to be discussed calmly and dispa.s.sionately and settled once and for all."

Riviere interrupted. "You promised me that this matter should not be mentioned."

"Promised?"

"In effect."

"But we _must_ discuss it!"

Elaine put in a word: "I'd sooner the whole situation were threshed out now. Please!"

"As you will," answered Riviere. "But remember that you're perfectly free to close the discussion at any moment."

Olive resumed: "Yesterday, when we had our chat together, I was forced to draw certain inferences. And I had to tell Clifford that it would be only right for him to avoid compromising you further."

"What inferences?"

"Must I speak more definitely?"

"I prefer plain speaking."

"Well, that people would begin to talk malicious gossip about yourself and my husband."

Riviere interrupted again. "This discussion is an insult to Miss Verney."

But Elaine answered: "I prefer to thresh it out.... What people say matters nothing to me. In any case, n.o.body knows that Mr Riviere is your husband."

"But they will."

"You mean that you'll tell them?"

"It must come out."

"You mean that you want Mr Riviere to return to you openly as your husband?"

"Naturally."

"Then why did you tell me yesterday that you had cut definitely loose from him? That you never wanted to see him again? That he was free to live out his life as John Riviere?"

"Why did you say that you had lived with my husband at Nimes?" retorted Olive sharply. "That you'd let the divorce suit go undefended?"

It thundered upon Riviere what Elaine had done for him--how she had wrought her miracle--and that moment cleared his mind of all doubt and hesitancy.

"I've heard sufficient," he cut in.

"You've not heard all I've got to say!" pursued Olive vindictively, and a torrent of words poured out from her: "It was a pretty scheme your Miss Verney had planned! She was to egg me on to divorce you, so that she could get a clutch on your feelings and marry you and your money!

Your money--that puts it in a nutsh.e.l.l! That's the kind of woman a man like you falls in love with! A woman who's too shrewd and too cunning to commit herself. Who provokes and tantalizes and lures on a man, and then stops him short at the very last moment. The musical-comedy type. The 'mind the paint' girl. A hundred times worse than the frankly vicious. A woman who knows that a week of living with a man would sicken him of her. Who's shrewd enough to tantalize him into hand-and-feet marriage.

That's your Miss Verney. You're welcome to her as Miss Verney! So long as I live, you'll never have her as your wife! That's my last word--my absolute final last word!"

Olive rose from her chair, quivering in every limb, and swept out of the room.