ROCHESTER IS INDIGNANT

Rochester accepted his wife's offer of a lift in her victoria after the luncheon party in Cadogan Street.

"Mary," he said, as soon as the horses had started, "I cannot imagine why you were so civil to that insufferable bounder Saton."

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"Is he an insufferable bounder?" she asked.

"I find him so," Rochester answered, deliberately. "He dresses like other men, he walks and moves like other men, he speaks like other men, and all the time I know that he is acting. He plays the game well, but it is a game. The man is a bounder, and you will all of you find it out some day."

"Don't you think, perhaps," his wife remarked, "that you are prejudiced because you have some knowledge of his antecedents?"

"Not in the least," Rochester answered. "The fetish of birth has never appealed to me. I find as many gentlefolk amongst my tenants and servants, as at the parties to which I have the honor of escorting you. It isn't that at all. It's a matter of insight. Some day you will all of you find it out."

"All of us, I presume," Lady Mary said, "includes Pauline."

Rochester nodded.

"Pauline has disappointed me," he said. "Never before have I known her instinct at fault. She must know--in her heart she must know that there is something wrong about the fellow. And yet she receives him at her house, and treats him with a consideration which, frankly, shall we say, annoys me?"

"One might remind you," Lady Mary remarked, "that it is you who are responsible for this young man's introduction amongst our friends."

"It is true," Rochester answered. "I regret it bitterly. I regret it more than ever to-day."

"Because of Pauline?" Lady Mary asked.

"Because of Pauline, and for one other reason," Rochester answered, lowering his voice, and turning a little in his seat towards his wife.

"Mary, I was unfortunate enough to hear a sentence which pa.s.sed between you and this person in the hall. I would have shut my ears if I could, but it was not possible. Am I to understand that you have made use of him in some way?"

Lady Mary gasped. This was a thunderbolt to descend at her feet without a second's warning!

"As a matter of fact," she said slowly, "he has done me a service."

Rochester's face darkened.

"I should be interested," he said, "to know the circ.u.mstances."

Lady Mary was not a coward, and she realized that there was nothing for it but the absolute truth. Her husband's eyes were fixed upon her, filled with an expression which she very seldom saw in them. After all, she had little enough to fear. Their relations were scarcely such that he could a.s.sume the position of a jealous husband.

"I suppose that you will laugh at me, Henry," she said. "Perhaps you will be angry. However, one must amuse oneself. Frankly, I think that all this talk that is going on about occultism, and being able to read the future, and to find new laws for the government of the will, has perhaps turned my brain a little. Anyhow, I went to one of those Bond Street people, and asked them a few questions."

"You mean to one of these crystal-gazers or fortune-tellers?" he asked.

"Precisely," she answered. "No doubt you think that I am mad, but if you had any idea of the women in our own set who have done the same thing, I think you would be astonished. Well, whilst I was there I chanced to drop, or leave behind--it scarcely concerns you to know which--a letter written to me by a very dear friend. One of my perfectly harmless love affairs, you know, Henry, but men do make such idiots of themselves when they have pen and paper to do it with."

Rochester moved a little uneasily in his place.

"May I inquire----" he began.

"No, I shouldn't!" she interrupted. "You know very well, my dear Henry, the exact terms upon which we have both found married life endurable. If I choose to receive foolish letters from foolish men, it concerns you no more than your silent adoration of Pauline Marrabel does me. You understand?"

"I understand," he answered quietly. "Go on."

"Well," she continued, "a few days afterwards I had just about as terrifying a specimen of a blackmailing letter as you can possibly imagine."

"From these people?" Rochester asked.

"No! From a firm who called themselves agents, and said that the letter had come into their possession, had been deposited with them, in fact, by someone who owed them some money," Lady Mary answered. "Of course, I was frightened to death. I don't know what made me think of Bertrand Saton as the best person to consult, but anyhow I did. He took the matter up for me, paid over some money on my account, and recovered the letter."

"The sum of money being?"

"Five hundred pounds," Lady Mary answered, with a sigh. "It was a great deal, but the letter--well, the letter was certainly very foolish."

Rochester was silent for several moments.

"Do you know," he asked at length, "what the natural inference to me seems--the inference, I mean, of what you have just told me?"

"You are not going to say anything disagreeable?" she asked, looking at him through the lace fringe of her parasol.

"Not in the least," he answered. "I was not thinking of the personal side of the affair--so far as you and I are concerned, I have accepted your declaration. I claim no jurisdiction over your correspondence. I mean as regards Saton."

"No! What?" she asked.

"It seems to me highly possible," he declared, "that Saton was in league with these blackmailers, whoever they may have been. Any ordinary man whom you had consulted would have settled the matter in a very different way."

"I was quite satisfied," Lady Mary answered. "I thought it was really very kind of him to take the trouble."

"Indeed!" Rochester remarked drily. "I must say, Mary, that I gave you credit for greater perspicuity. The man is an intriguer. Naturally, he was only too anxious to be of service to so charming a lady."

Lady Mary raised her eyebrows, but did not answer.

"I might add," Rochester continued, "that however satisfactory our present relations may seem to you, I still claim the privilege of being able to a.s.sist my wife in any difficulty in which she may find herself."

"You are very kind," she murmured.

"Further," Rochester said, "I resent the interference of any third party in such a matter. You will remember this?"

"I will remember it," Lady Mary said. "Still, the circ.u.mstances being as they are, you can scarcely blame me for having been civil to him to-day. Besides, you must admit that he is clever."

"Clever! Oh! I've no doubt that he is clever enough," Rochester answered, impatiently. "Nowadays, all you women seem as though you can only be attracted by something freakish--brains, or peculiar gifts of some sort."

Lady Mary laughed lightly.

"My dear Henry," she said, "you are not exactly a fool yourself, are you? And then you must remember this. Bertrand Saton's cleverness is the sort of cleverness which appeals to women. We can't help our natures, I suppose, and we are always attracted by the mysterious. We are always wanting to know something which other people don't know, something of what lies behind the curtain."

"It is a very dangerous curiosity," Rochester said. "You are liable to become the prey of any adventurer with a plausible manner, who has learned to talk glibly about the things which he doesn't understand.