"What a disturbing thought!"

"Yes--because it is not really the infidelities which can be sins, they are merely human nature--it is the breaking of the given word which draws the current of disaster."

"I expect you are quite right--the whole thing is infernal--and yet we must have some sort of union recognised by the state or chaos would ensue."

"Obviously--and as marriage now stands there seem to be only three ways of supporting it. One," and she ticked them off on her fat fingers--"to grow to that abstract state of good when to keep a vow against inclination in itself brings happiness; two, to behave decently to the legal partner, and with propriety before the world, and then if necessary to have mistresses or lovers as the case may be; or--three--for the state to allow a man to have several wives, and the woman, if she desires it, a change of husbands!"

Mr. Strobridge handed his cup for more coffee.

"Most of us are quite out of the running for the first, the third would be unworkable, Seraphim, so I see no help for it; the second course is the only possible one for half the poor devils in the world."

"Probably--then the greatest pains ought to be taken to keep up appearances so that those who live up to the first may not have their feelings outraged. No one should show a bad public example. The facts of straying fancy cannot be altered until human nature changes--an unlikely event!--so the best we can do is to hide irregularities under a cloak of virtuous hypocrisy. It helps many good and weak people to keep up a general standard, but there must be something wrong in the original scheme, G., if we are obliged to do this."

"Undoubtedly. It is the one, however, which has kept all sensible societies going since the beginning of civilisation and will continue to do so while there are two s.e.xes in the world. But all this does not help me in my present case of being madly in love with a woman whom I may not have as either wife or mistress. Friendship is the only cold comfort left to me!"

"Tut, tut! Half a loaf is better than no bread!"

"You think she might marry Sir John?" There was hope in his tone.

"Why not? Only I don't feel sure that he deserves such a prize. For me she is quite a marvellous character, and we could perhaps find her something young and handsome."

Mr. Strobridge jumped up with a start. This idea was altogether unpalatable to him.

"How shocking! Seraphim, that might be a creature a woman would adore!"

"Well?"

"Well----"

"Concentrate upon friendship, my dear boy!--If she has once said you nay, the role of lover is not for you--no matter whom she marries!"

CHAPTER XXI

Time pa.s.sed. A year went by after this with a gradual but unmistakable upward advance on the part of Katherine Bush. Moments of depression and discouragement came, of course, but her iron will carried her beyond them. All would go well for a while, and then would come a barrier, as it were, which was difficult to climb, and which would baffle her intentions for a week or two, and then she would surmount it, and race onward.

Her manipulation of Gerard Strobridge was masterly. She never permitted him to go beyond the bounds of friendship, and he gradually grew to entertain the deepest worship and respect for her, which influenced his whole life. She spurred him on in his career, while obtaining from him all the polish his cultivated mind could bestow. Lady Garribardine watched the pa.s.sage of events with her wise old eyes, a.s.sisting them, moreover, when she deemed it necessary.

If Katherine's dominion over her beloved nephew was for his good, she must not let cla.s.s prejudice stand in the way of her sympathy. The world for Sarah Garribardine was full of incredible fools, who, however strong their desire might be for a given end, were yet too stupid to see that their actions and methods--nearly always inspired by personal vanity--militated against the attainment of that end, and so they went on their blundering way, continually surprised at their own want of success!

It was the quality of reasoning and of a.n.a.lysis in her secretary which grew to interest her most deeply. Katherine was her perpetual study, inasmuch as she stood so far apart from the world of fools.

Their visit to Paris had been a great experience for Katherine. She took the place historically, not as she had taken it before, as the setting for a love dream. She had had a recurrence of the violent longing for Lord Algy when they arrived at the Gare du Nord, that strangely sudden seizure of pa.s.sion to which she seemed periodically subject; when she knew that if at the moment Fate were to offer him to her again she would find the temptation of acceptance too strong to resist. She was afterwards always extremely thankful that this did not occur, and that she was given time to resume her self-command.

When first she drove down the Champs Elysees, a strange sense of fear came over her--what if after all that Palatial Hotel episode in her life should have power one day to raise up its ghost and destroy the fabric of her ambitions? The more she saw of the great world, the more she realised that such a breach of convention, such a frank laying aside of all recognised standards of morality, would never be forgiven if discovered. Incidents of the kind occurred every day, but must always be rigorously kept out of sight. She grew to understand that it is a much more punishable offence to hold unorthodox views and act honestly by them, than to profess orthodox, stringent virtue, and continually blink at the acting against conscience, by secret indulgences!

One day it chanced that she could discuss the point with her mistress.

"You must remember the good of the community always first, girl," Lady Garribardine had said. "If you want to benefit humanity you must not be too much occupied with the individual. For the good of the community certain standards must be kept up, and sensible people should put on blinkers when examining the frailties of human nature. Nature says one thing and civilisation and orthodox morality another; there must logically be an eternal conflict going on between the two and the only chance for souls to achieve orthodox morality is for hypocrisy to a.s.sist them by hiding bad examples given when nature has had an outburst and won the game. If you won't conform to these practical rules it is wiser and less harmful to your neighbours for you to go and live in the wilds--I am all for _tenue_, I am all for the uplifting of the soul where it is possible, and decency and good taste where it is not."

"I see," responded Katherine. "One must in this, as in all other things, look to the end."

"You have indeed said it!" Her Ladyship cried. "That faculty is the quintessence of statesmanship, as it is of wisdom, and one we never see displayed by a radical government!"

As the season went on in London, various peeps at society were afforded Katherine, and as her eyes opened, and the keenness of her understanding developed, she learned many useful lessons.

On rare Sat.u.r.day afternoons, she visited the museums again with Gerard Strobridge, to her intense delight, and with much pain as well as pleasure to him, and when the big Sat.u.r.day to Monday parties came down to Blissington, Lady Garribardine often found her secretary invaluable for the entertainment of unavoidable bores.

Thus by the autumn, when Gerard's aching soul and denied pa.s.sions thought to take solace in flight on that mission to Teheran, Katherine Bush was an established inst.i.tution at tea time, and had acquired the art of conversation in a degree which would have pleased Chesterfield himself!

To make herself liked by women was the immediate objective she had laid down for herself. Of what use to gain the little pleasure by the way, of the gratification of her vanity from the incense of men? She must wait until some one man appeared upon the scene, the securing of whom would be her definite goal--then she could pursue her aims without the stumbling-block of female antagonism.

She learned many things from her employer: tolerance--kindness of heart--supreme contempt for all shams, apart from that of necessary moral hypocrisy, which seeming paradox she grew to realise was a sensible a.s.sistance to the attainment of a general moral ideal. Her wits sharpened, her brain expanded, her cultivation increased and her manners a.s.sumed an exquisite refinement and graciousness; and when the second Christmas came and the New Year of 1913, no one could possibly have discovered the faintest trace of Bindon's Green, or of the lower middle cla.s.s from which she had sprung.

Lady Garribardine had materially augmented her salary, and substantial cheques found their way to poor Gladys, whose baby was born dead, much to Matilda's disappointment.

"But it is often like that," she told Katherine as they walked in the park one Sunday, "with a seven months' child, and Glad don't take on about it as I should."

Mrs. Robert Hartley was firmly determined to go to America.

"We've had enough h.e.l.l in these few months, Bob," she informed her husband as she was getting better, "and I am going to be like Katherine and make a career for myself. I'm tired of your grumbling and your rudeness to me, and every bit of love I had for you is gone--We've no baby--There's nothing to keep us chained up together like a pair of animals, and I'm off to make my fortune--so I tell you flat."

Mr. Robert Hartley a.s.serted the rights of an English husband, but to no avail. Gladys had the money from her sister in her hand to start herself with, and a warm recommendation from Madame Ermantine, and so in the early autumn sailed for New York and almost immediately obtained lucrative employment.

Thus the family at Bindon's Green was reduced to Matilda, Ethel, and the two young men, and still further diminished in the New Year by the marriage (and retirement to a villa of his own!) of Mr. Frederick Bush with the genteel Mabel Cawber!

The wedding of the pair was a day of unalloyed pleasure to Matilda.

Katherine had manoeuvred so that she could not possibly be spared to attend it; thus the festivities were unclouded by the restraint which her presence--quite undesired by herself--always imposed upon her relations. They were all admittedly uncomfortable with her, not she with them. They felt in some vague way that they were of less account in their own eyes when in her company, and that an impa.s.sable gulf now separated them. They had nothing to complain of, Katherine gave herself no airs, she neither patronised them nor talked over their heads, but a subtle something divided them, and all were glad of her seemingly enforced absence. All except the bride, who was sorry the poor secretary sister-in-law should not be chastened by witnessing her triumph!

For was she not having four bridesmaids dressed in pink pongee silk with blue sashes, and two pages to carry her court train! Pages in "Renaissance" costume. The Lady Agatha Tollington's were so described in the _Flare_, and why should not hers be also? "Renaissance!" She did not know what the word meant, but it had such a nice sound and seemed so well to fit the picturesque suits advertised as copied from Millais'

immortal Bubbles which had been secured at the local emporium to adorn the two smug-faced infants who would carry--very shamefacedly it must be admitted--the confection of cheap satin and imitation lace which would depend from Miss Cawber's angular shoulders.

If Katherine could have seen all that! Miss Cawber felt that a humbler mien in this obstreperous creature might have resulted!

But Katherine never saw it, and when Matilda recounted all the glories to her, she had the awkwardness to ask why Mabel had indulged in a court train?

"Bridesmaids were natural enough," she said, "if you all wanted to have some gaiety and a jolly party, but Fred's wife will never go to Court, so why pages and a train?"

"Oh--well," Matilda returned in annoyance, "who's to know that at Bindon's Green? And it has given her ever such a tip-top position to begin her home upon. The Perkins girls and Bob Hartley's mother and cousins were just mad with envy, and Fred as pleased as Punch to have such a stunning turn-out at his side to down the aisle with."

"I am so glad you are all happy then," Katherine said kindly.

How merciful, she reflected when she had left her sister at Stanhope Gate, that their ambitions were so easily satisfied! How merciful also that only Matilda's affection for her need count in her future connection with the family--and Matilda might at no distant date be a bride too! The bride of Katherine's old devoted admirer, Charlie Prodgers! While Ethel announced her intention of following Gladys'

example and migrating to America the moment she was seventeen, in the spring.

Thus, visits to Bindon's Green were no longer desired by the inhabitants of Laburnum Villa, nor of Talbot Lodge, where Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Bush were installed, and Katherine felt she could drift from them all without hurting their feelings, indeed, with mutual satisfaction.