<h2><SPAN name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></SPAN>XVIII</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">If</span> Mr. Langhope had ever stooped to such facile
triumphs as that summed up in the convenient
"I told you so," he would have loosed the phrase on
Mrs. Ansell in the course of a colloquy which these two,
the next afternoon, were at some pains to defend from
the incursions of the Lynbrook house-party.</p>
<p>Mrs. Ansell was the kind of woman who could encircle
herself with privacy on an excursion-boat and
create a nook in an hotel drawing-room, but it taxed
even her ingenuity to segregate herself from the Telfers.
When the feat was accomplished, and it became evident
that Mr. Langhope could yield himself securely to the
joys of confidential discourse, he paused on the brink
of disclosure to say: "It's as well I saved that Ming
from the ruins."</p>
<p>"What ruins?" she exclaimed, her startled look giving
him the full benefit of the effect he was seeking to
produce.</p>
<p>He addressed himself deliberately to the selecting
and lighting of a cigarette. "Truscomb is down and
out—resigned, 'the wise it call.' And the alterations<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></SPAN></span>
at Westmore are going to cost a great deal more than
my experienced son-in-law expected. This is Westy's
morning budget—he and Amherst had it out last night.
I tell my poor girl that at least she'll lose nothing when
the <i>bibelots</i> I've bought for her go up the spout."</p>
<p>Mrs. Ansell received this with a troubled countenance.
"What has become of Bessy? I've not seen
her since luncheon."</p>
<p>"No. She and Blanche Carbury have motored over
to dine with the Nick Ledgers at Islip."</p>
<p>"Did you see her before she left?"</p>
<p>"For a moment, but she said very little. Westy tells
me that Amherst hints at leasing the New York house.
One can understand that she's left speechless."</p>
<p>Mrs. Ansell, at this, sat bolt upright. "The New
York house?" But she broke off to add, with seeming
irrelevance: "If you knew how I detest Blanche Carbury!"</p>
<p>Mr. Langhope made a gesture of semi-acquiescence.
"She is not the friend I should have chosen for Bessy—but
we know that Providence makes use of strange
instruments."</p>
<p>"Providence and Blanche Carbury?" She stared at
him. "Ah, you are profoundly corrupt!"</p>
<p>"I have the coarse masculine habit of looking facts
in the face. Woman-like, you prefer to make use of
them privately, and cut them when you meet in public."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_280" id="Page_280"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Blanche is not the kind of fact I should care to
make use of under any circumstances whatever!"</p>
<p>"No one asks you to. Simply regard her as a force of
nature—let her alone, and don't put up too many
lightning-rods."</p>
<p>She raised her eyes to his face. "Do you really
mean that you want Bessy to get a divorce?"</p>
<p>"Your style is elliptical, dear Maria; but divorce
does not frighten me very much. It has grown almost
as painless as modern dentistry."</p>
<p>"It's our odious insensibility that makes it so!"</p>
<p>Mr. Langhope received this with the mildness of suspended
judgment. "How else, then, do you propose
that Bessy shall save what is left of her money?"</p>
<p>"I would rather see her save what is left of her
happiness. Bessy will never be happy in the new
way."</p>
<p>"What do you call the new way?"</p>
<p>"Launching one's boat over a human body—or several,
as the case may be!"</p>
<p>"But don't you see that, as an expedient to bring this
madman to reason——"</p>
<p>"I've told you that you don't understand him!"</p>
<p>Mr. Langhope turned on her with what would have
been a show of temper in any one less provided with
shades of manner. "Well, then, explain him, for God's
sake!"<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_281" id="Page_281"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I might explain him by saying that she's still in love
with him."</p>
<p>"Ah, if you're still imprisoned in the old formulas!"</p>
<p>Mrs. Ansell confronted him with a grave face. "Isn't
that precisely what Bessy is? Isn't she one of the most
harrowing victims of the plan of bringing up our girls
in the double bondage of expediency and unreality,
corrupting their bodies with luxury and their brains
with sentiment, and leaving them to reconcile the two
as best they can, or lose their souls in the attempt?"</p>
<p>Mr. Langhope smiled. "I may observe that, with
my poor child so early left alone to me, I supposed I
was doing my best in committing her guidance to some
of the most admirable women I know."</p>
<p>"Of whom I was one—and not the least lamentable
example of the system! Of course the only thing that
saves us from their vengeance," Mrs. Ansell added,
"is that so few of them ever stop to think...."</p>
<p>"And yet, as I make out, it's precisely what you
would have Bessy do!"</p>
<p>"It's what neither you nor I can help her doing.
You've given her just acuteness enough to question,
without consecutiveness enough to explain. But if she
must perish in the struggle—and I see no hope for
her—" cried Mrs. Ansell, starting suddenly and dramatically
to her feet, "at least let her perish defending
her ideals and not denying them—even if she has to<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_282" id="Page_282"></SPAN></span>
sell the New York house and all your china pots into
the bargain!"</p>
<p>Mr. Langhope, rising also, deprecatingly lifted his
hands, "If that's what you call saving me from her
vengeance—sending the crockery crashing round my
ears!" And, as she turned away without any pretense
of capping his pleasantry, he added, with a gleam of
friendly malice: "I suppose you're going to the Hunt
ball as Cassandra?"</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>Amherst, that morning, had sought out his wife with the
definite resolve to efface the unhappy impression of their
previous talk. He blamed himself for having been too
easily repelled by her impatience. As the stronger of the
two, with the power of a fixed purpose to sustain him, he
should have allowed for the instability of her impulses,
and above all for the automatic influences of habit.</p>
<p>Knowing that she did not keep early hours he delayed
till ten o'clock to present himself at her sitting-room
door, but the maid who answered his knock informed
him that Mrs. Amherst was not yet up.</p>
<p>His reply that he would wait did not appear to hasten
the leisurely process of her toilet, and he had the room
to himself for a full half-hour. Many months had
passed since he had spent so long a time in it, and
though habitually unobservant of external details, he
now found an outlet for his restlessness in mechanically<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_283" id="Page_283"></SPAN></span>
noting the intimate appurtenances of Bessy's life. He
was at first merely conscious of a soothing harmony of
line and colour, extending from the blurred tints of the
rug to the subdued gleam of light on old picture-frames
and on the slender flanks of porcelain vases; but gradually
he began to notice how every chair and screen and
cushion, and even every trifling utensil on the inlaid
writing-desk, had been chosen with reference to the
whole composition, and to the minutest requirements
of a fastidious leisure. A few months ago this studied
setting, if he had thought of it at all, would have justified
itself as expressing the pretty woman's natural
affinity with pretty toys; but now it was the cost of it
that struck him. He was beginning to learn from
Bessy's bills that no commodity is taxed as high as
beauty, and the beauty about him filled him with sudden
repugnance, as the disguise of the evil influences
that were separating his wife's life from his.</p>
<p>But with her entrance he dismissed the thought, and
tried to meet her as if nothing stood in the way of their
full communion. Her hair, still wet from the bath,
broke from its dryad-like knot in dusky rings and
spirals threaded with gold, and from her loose flexible
draperies, and her whole person as she moved, there
came a scent of youth and morning freshness. Her
beauty touched him, and made it easier for him to
humble himself.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_284" id="Page_284"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"I was stupid and disagreeable last night. I can
never say what I want when I have to count the minutes,
and I've come back now for a quiet talk," he
began.</p>
<p>A shade of distrust passed over Bessy's face. "About
business?" she asked, pausing a few feet away from him.</p>
<p>"Don't let us give it that name!" He went up to
her and drew her two hands into his. "You used to
call it our work—won't you go back to that way of
looking at it?"</p>
<p>Her hands resisted his pressure. "I didn't know,
then, that it was going to be the only thing you cared
for——"</p>
<p>But for her own sake he would not let her go on.
"Some day I shall make you see how much my caring
for it means my caring for you. But meanwhile," he
urged, "won't you overcome your aversion to the subject,
and bear with it as my work, if you no longer care
to think of it as yours?"</p>
<p>Bessy, freeing herself, sat down on the edge of the
straight-backed chair near the desk, as though to mark
the parenthetical nature of the interview.</p>
<p>"I know you think me stupid—but wives are not
usually expected to go into all the details of their husband's
business. I have told you to do whatever you
wish at Westmore, and I can't see why that is not
enough."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_285" id="Page_285"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Amherst looked at her in surprise. Something in
her quick mechanical utterance suggested that not only
the thought but the actual words she spoke had been
inspired, and he fancied he heard in them an echo of
Blanche Carbury's tones. Though Bessy's intimacy
with Mrs. Carbury was of such recent date, fragments
of unheeded smoking-room gossip now recurred to confirm
the vague antipathy which Amherst had felt for
her the previous evening.</p>
<p>"I know that, among your friends, wives are not
expected to interest themselves in their husbands' work,
and if the mills were mine I should try to conform to
the custom, though I should always think it a pity that
the questions that fill a man's thoughts should be ruled
out of his talk with his wife; but as it is, I am only
your representative at Westmore, and I don't see how
we can help having the subject come up between us."</p>
<p>Bessy remained silent, not as if acquiescing in his
plea, but as though her own small stock of arguments
had temporarily failed her; and he went on, enlarging
on his theme with a careful avoidance of technical
terms, and with the constant effort to keep the human
and personal side of the question before her.</p>
<p>She listened without comment, her eyes fixed on a
little jewelled letter-opener which she had picked up
from the writing-table, and which she continued to
turn in her fingers while he spoke.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_286" id="Page_286"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The full development of Amherst's plans at Westmore,
besides resulting, as he had foreseen, in Truscomb's
resignation, and in Halford Gaines's outspoken
resistance to the new policy, had necessitated a larger
immediate outlay of capital than the first estimates
demanded, and Amherst, in putting his case to Bessy,
was prepared to have her meet it on the old ground
of the disapproval of all her advisers. But when
he had ended she merely said, without looking up
from the toy in her hand: "I always expected that
you would need a great deal more money than you
thought."</p>
<p>The comment touched him at his most vulnerable
point. "But you see why? You understand how the
work has gone on growing—?"</p>
<p>His wife lifted her head to glance at him for a moment.
"I am not sure that I understand," she said
indifferently; "but if another loan is necessary, of
course I will sign the note for it."</p>
<p>The words checked his reply by bringing up, before
he was prepared to deal with it, the other and more
embarrassing aspect of the question. He had hoped
to reawaken in Bessy some feeling for the urgency of
his task before having to take up the subject of its
cost; but her cold anticipation of his demands as part
of a disagreeable business to be despatched and put
out of mind, doubled the difficulty of what he had left<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_287" id="Page_287"></SPAN></span>
to say; and it occurred to him that she had perhaps
foreseen and reckoned on this result.</p>
<p>He met her eyes gravely. "Another loan <i>is</i> necessary;
but if any proper provision is to be made for
paying it back, your expenses will have to be cut down
a good deal for the next few months."</p>
<p>The blood leapt to Bessy's face. "My expenses?
You seem to forget how much I've had to cut them
down already."</p>
<p>"The household bills certainly don't show it. They
are increasing steadily, and there have been some very
heavy incidental payments lately."</p>
<p>"What do you mean by incidental payments?"</p>
<p>"Well, there was the pair of cobs you bought last
month——"</p>
<p>She returned to a resigned contemplation of the letter-opener.
"With only one motor, one must have more
horses, of course."</p>
<p>"The stables seemed to me fairly full before. But
if you required more horses, I don't see why, at this
particular moment, it was also necessary to buy a set of
Chinese vases for twenty-five hundred dollars."</p>
<p>Bessy, at this, lifted her head with an air of decision
that surprised him. Her blush had faded as quickly
as it came, and he noticed that she was pale to the lips.</p>
<p>"I know you don't care about such things; but I
had an exceptional chance of securing the vases at a<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></SPAN></span>
low price—they are really worth twice as much—and
Dick always wanted a set of Ming for the drawing-room
mantelpiece."</p>
<p>Richard Westmore's name was always tacitly avoided
between them, for in Amherst's case the disagreeable
sense of dependence on a dead man's bounty increased
that feeling of obscure constraint and repugnance which
any reminder of the first husband's existence is wont
to produce in his successor.</p>
<p>He reddened at the reply, and Bessy, profiting by an
embarrassment which she had perhaps consciously
provoked, went on hastily, and as if by rote: "I have
left you perfectly free to do as you think best at the
mills, but this perpetual discussion of my personal expenses
is very unpleasant to me, as I am sure it must be
to you, and in future I think it would be much better
for us to have separate accounts."</p>
<p>"Separate accounts?" Amherst echoed in genuine
astonishment.</p>
<p>"I should like my personal expenses to be under my
own control again—I have never been used to accounting
for every penny I spend."</p>
<p>The vertical lines deepened between Amherst's brows.
"You are of course free to spend your money as you
like—and I thought you were doing so when you authorized
me, last spring, to begin the changes at Westmore."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_289" id="Page_289"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Her lip trembled. "Do you reproach me for that?
I didn't understand...you took advantage...."</p>
<p>"Oh!" he exclaimed.</p>
<p>At his tone the blood rushed back to her face. "It
was my fault, of course—I only wanted to please
you——"</p>
<p>Amherst was silent, confronted by the sudden sense
of his own responsibility. What she said was true—he
had known, when he exacted the sacrifice, that she
made it only to please him, on an impulse of reawakened
feeling, and not from any real recognition of a larger
duty. The perception of this made him answer gently:
"I am willing to take any blame you think I deserve; but
it won't help us now to go back to the past. It is more
important that we should come to an understanding
about the future. If by keeping your personal account
separate, you mean that you wish to resume control of
your whole income, then you ought to understand that
the improvements at the mills will have to be dropped
at once, and things there go back to their old state."</p>
<p>She started up with an impatient gesture. "Oh, I
should like never to hear of the mills again!"</p>
<p>He looked at her a moment in silence. "Am I to
take that as your answer?"</p>
<p>She walked toward her door without returning his
look. "Of course," she murmured, "you will end by
doing as you please."<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_290" id="Page_290"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The retort moved him, for he heard in it the cry of
her wounded pride. He longed to be able to cry out
in return that Westmore was nothing to him, that
all he asked was to see her happy.... But it was
not true, and his manhood revolted from the deception.
Besides, its effect would be only temporary—would
wear no better than her vain efforts to simulate
an interest in his work. Between them, forever, were
the insurmountable barriers of character, of education,
of habit—and yet it was not in him to believe that any
barrier was insurmountable.</p>
<p>"Bessy," he exclaimed, following her, "don't let us
part in this way——"</p>
<p>She paused with her hand on her dressing-room door.
"It is time to dress for church," she objected, turning
to glance at the little gilt clock on the chimney-piece.</p>
<p>"For church?" Amherst stared, wondering that at
such a crisis she should have remained detached enough
to take note of the hour.</p>
<p>"You forget," she replied, with an air of gentle reproof,
"that before we married I was in the habit of
going to church every Sunday."</p>
<p>"Yes—to be sure. Would you not like me to go
with you?" he rejoined gently, as if roused to the consciousness
of another omission in the long list of his
social shortcomings; for church-going, at Lynbrook,
had always struck him as a purely social observance.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_291" id="Page_291"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>But Bessy had opened the door of her dressing-room.
"I much prefer that you should do what you like," she
said as she passed from the room.</p>
<p>Amherst made no farther attempt to detain her, and
the door closed on her as though it were closing on a
chapter in their lives.</p>
<p>"That's the end of it!" he murmured, picking up the
letter-opener she had been playing with, and twirling
it absently in his fingers. But nothing in life ever ends,
and the next moment a new question confronted him—how
was the next chapter to open?<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_292" id="Page_292"></SPAN></span></p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
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