"Mr. Breton, I think you forget----"

Instantly Breton stopped. He forced control upon his voice, he stammered, "I'm ashamed--I oughtn't to have--But sitting there--not being allowed to speak--you must excuse me----"

He turned round to Roddy. "You must think me the most complete blackguard. It's only a climax to everything that's happened since I came back. I don't want to defend myself, but it isn't--it isn't all so simple as just talking about it makes it look. You're the kind of man to whom everything's just black or white--you do it or you don't--but I--I've never found that. I've been in things without knowing I've been in them. I've done things that would have turned out straight for any other fellow, but they've always been crooked for me. Something always blinds me just when I need to see straightest. That's no excuse, but it's an awful handicap.

"I won't hide or pretend about it. Why should I? I loved Rachel. We've only met so little--really only that once in my rooms--that you can't grudge us that. We had things--heaps of things--in common long before we knew one another. It wasn't like any ordinary two people meeting, and I knew so well that she could make all the difference to my life that I took the chance of knowing her even though she wasn't ever going to belong to me. I don't think I ever really believed that I'd be the man.

I know now that she's yours altogether and you ought to have her--now that I've seen you I know that. And last night when I faced the fact that I'd have to go all my life without her I realized what she told me long ago, that it was much better just to have my idea of her and not to have had my regret about having spoiled anything for her. I've no confidence in myself, you see. If I thought I were the kind of man just to carry her off and make her happy for ever and ever, then I suppose I'd have been bolder about her long ago, but I know, even if she didn't belong to you at all, that I should be afraid that I'd spoil her life just as I've always spoiled my own.

"I expect this is all very confused. It's all so difficult and you don't want long explanations, but I'm only trying to say that you needn't ever have any fear again that I'm going to step in or try to have any part in her. We've got our things together that n.o.body can take from us. We've seen each other so little that most people would say it wasn't much to give up. But things don't happen only when you're together...." He stopped suddenly, seemed to stand there confused, turned and flung a fierce, defiant look at his grandmother--exactly the glance that an angry small boy flings at someone in authority who has seen fit to punish him--then went back to his corner and stood there in the shadow, watching them all.

Even as he finished speaking he had realized finally that his relationship with Rachel was over, closed, done for. He had known it on that afternoon in the park--He had realized it perhaps again in the heart of the storm last night, but now, when he had seen the soul pierce, through Rachel's eyes, to her husband, he knew that Roddy, one way or another, had at last won her.

Moreover, to anyone as impressionable as Breton, Roddy's helplessness, his humour, his bravery had, on the score of Roddy alone, settled the matter. Breton had his fierce moments, his high inspirations, his n.o.ble resolves!... Now, as he looked this last time upon Rachel, his was no mean spirit.

Rachel drew a sharp breath and looked at Roddy with wide eyes, flooded with fear. He had heard now everything that they had to say; although she had watched him so closely she could not say what he would do. As she saw the two men there before her she felt that she knew Francis Breton exactly, that she could tell what he would say, how he would see things, what would anger him or surprise him.

But about Roddy she was always uncertain: she was only now, very slowly, beginning to know him, but she was sure that if Roddy were to beat her she would care for him the more, but if Francis Breton were to beat her she would leave him for ever.

A flush meanwhile was rising over Roddy's neck, up into his face, to the very roots of his hair.

"It's rather beastly," he said, speaking very slowly and trying to choose his words, "all this talkin'. I might have known, if I'd been able to think about it, what it would be like, but there, I never did. I had a kind of idea that we'd all get it over sort of in five minutes and then have tea, don't you know, and all go away comfortably. I don't feel now that you've rightly got all that everybody thinks about it. It was very decent of you, Mr. Breton, to say exactly--so plainly, you know--how you felt. But I don't want to talk a lot--I can't you know, anyhow.

"It's only this. I wanted the d.u.c.h.ess to hear me say, amongst ourselves, that I know _all_ about it, that we _all_ know all about it and that there isn't anything for anyone to talk about because there isn't anything in it, and if I hear of anyone sayin' a word they've just got to reckon with me. Rachel and I know one another and, Mr. Breton, I hope you'll go on bein' a friend of ours and come and see us often. Of course you and Rachel have a lot in common and it's only natural you should have.

"Now d.u.c.h.ess, you can just tell anyone who's talkin' that Mr. Breton is welcome here just as often as he pleases and he's a friend of mine and my wife's--and they can jolly well shut their mouths. Thank G.o.d, all _that's_ over."

II

But he was very swiftly to realize that it was _not_ all over. Sharply, quivering through the air like an arrow from a bow, came the d.u.c.h.ess's words.

"Good G.o.d, Roddy, are you completely insane?"

She was twisted, distorted with anger, she seemed to take her rage and fling it about her so that the chairs, the tables, Roddy's innocent little sporting sketches and even the case of birds' eggs were saturated with it.

The gleaming park, the peaceful evening sky, the sharp curve of an apricot-tinted moon, these things were blotted out and the noises of the town deadened by this indignant fury. Rachel had known it in other days, to Breton it evoked long-distant nursery hours, to Roddy it was something utterly new and unsuspected. For the first time in his life he caught a shadow of the terror that had darkened Rachel's young days.

To the d.u.c.h.ess it was simply that she now clearly discovered that she was the victim of an elaborate plot. The three of them! Oh! she saw it all! and Roddy, Roddy--who had been the one living soul to whom her hard independence had made concession! This came, the definite climax to the year's acc.u.mulations, the final decision flung at her, before she died, by those two--Rachel and Breton--from whom, of all living souls, she could endure it least.

With her rage rose her fighting spirit. She would show them, these young fools, the kind of woman that an earlier and a finer generation than theirs could produce!

They had more there before them than one old woman, sick and ailing, and they should see it.

Her voice shook a little, but she gave no other sign, after that first challenge: her little eyes flamed from the mask of her face like candles behind holes in a screen.

"This is your sense of fun, Roddy, I suppose," she said. "You always _were_ lacking in that. I've told you so before. As you asked me here I suppose you're ready for my opinion. You shall have it. I'll only ask you to cast your eye over any friend of ours: see what you would say if this--this idiotic folly committed by someone else had come to your ears. I suppose you'd arranged this, the three of you. Well, you shall know what I think. Your tenderness to Rachel is magnificent--she has obviously reckoned on it, knew that her frankness would serve her well enough. You've already been more patient with her than men would have been in my day. I only hope that your patience may not be too severely tried....

"As for my grandson, to whom you have so tenderly entrusted Rachel, your acquaintance with him is quite recent, is it not? I am sure that if you were to enquire of any man at one of your clubs he would give you quite excellent reasons for my grandson's long unhappy absence from his relations and his country. At any rate you don't know him as well as I do. I could tell you, if you asked me, that it is a long time now since any decent man or woman has sought his society. Do you suppose that his family have not the best of reasons for trying to forget his existence--an attempt that he makes unpleasantly difficult?

"Have you heard _nothing_, Roddy? Do you really want a man who has been kicked out of society for the most excellent reasons, who has disgraced his name as no member of his family has ever disgraced it before him, for your wife's lover? If she must have one...."

Rachel, trembling, had come forward, Roddy had cried out, but quietly, stronger than either of them, Breton had faced her. She had not, throughout the afternoon, looked at him nor spoken one word to him. Now, her anger carrying her beyond all physical control, she was compelled to meet his gaze.

He stood very quietly beside her chair, looking at the three of them.

"My grandmother is wrong," he said, "I am not quite as deserted as she thinks. Just before I came here this afternoon Uncle John called upon me. I had half an hour's very pleasant talk with him: he told me that, although his mother had not altered her opinion of me, Uncle Vincent and Aunt Adela and himself considered that I had earned"--he smiled a little--"forgiveness. He hoped that I would understand that--while my grandmother was alive--I could not be invited to 104 Portland Place, but that he thought that I would like to know that they had realized my--well, improvement, and that he hoped that we would be friends. I said that I should be delighted."

The d.u.c.h.ess spoke to him then, her voice shaking so that it was difficult to catch her words.

"John--came--said that--to _you_?"

"Yes. It was a curious coincidence that to-day----"

Her eyes had dropped. She murmured to herself:

"John ... John ... Adela ... behind my back ... Adela ... Vincent----"

They were all silent. She sat there, her head down, leaning on her hands, brooding. Her anger seemed to have departed, her fire, her fury had fled: she was a very old woman--and the room was suddenly chilly.

Before her were Rachel and Breton: they faced the ancient enemy. But as Rachel stood there, realizing that there had flashed between them the climax of all their lives together, yes, and a climax of forces greater and more powerful than anything that their own small histories could contain, she had no sense of drama nor of revenge nor of any triumphant victory. A little while before she had been almost insane with anger....

Now something had occurred. Rachel only knew that the three of them--Roddy, Francis and herself--were young and immensely vigorous, with all life before them; but that one day they would be old, as this old woman, and would be deserted and sick and past anyone's need of them.

"Oh! I wish we hadn't! I wish we hadn't!" she thought.

In that moment's silence they all might have heard the sound of the soft, sharp click--the click that marked the supreme moment of their relationship to the situation that had, for all of them, been so long developing--

Breton surrendered Rachel, Roddy received her, and, beyond them all, the d.u.c.h.ess definitely abandoned her world.

For them all, grouped there so closely together, the heart of their relations the one to the other had been revealed to them.

Other dramas, other comedies, other tragedies--This had claimed its moment and had pa.s.sed....

After the silence the d.u.c.h.ess said, "My family--I no longer...." She stopped, collected, with all her will, her words, then in a low voice said, looking at Breton, "I owe you, I suppose--an apology. I owe that perhaps to you all. My children are wiser in their own generation. I no longer understand--the way things go--all too confused for my poor intelligence." She pulled herself together as an old ship rights itself after a roller's stinging blow. "This has lasted long enough.... We've all talked--My family are--wiser--it seems."

But she could not go on. "Please, Roddy," she said at length, "I think it's time--if you'd ring."

"I'm sorry----" he said and then stopped.

Soon Peters and a footman appeared. She leaned heavily upon them and, staring before her at the door, slowly went out.

CHAPTER IX

RACHEL AND RODDY

"Tell me, Praise, and tell me, Love, What you both are thinking of?

O, we think, said Love, said Praise, Now of children and their ways."