The Hoyden Part 76

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW MATTERS COME TO A CLIMAX; AND HOW t.i.tA TELLS MAURICE MANY THINGS THAT STING HIM SHARPLY; AND HOW HE LAYS HANDS UPON HER; AND HOW THE LAST ADIEUX ARE SAID.

"So you have made up your mind," says Maurice, looking at his wife with a glance as full of coldness as it is of rage. "You see your way? It is for ever, remember. You decide on leaving me?"

"Why should I stay?" says t.i.ta.

There is evidently no idea of "staying" about her; she is dressed for a journey, with care--_great_ care--but with all the air of one who is going away for a long, long time. She is exquisitely dressed; the soft gray costume, trimmed with costly furs, sets off her bijou figure to perfection, and her soft, dainty curls show coquettishly from beneath her fur cap. Her eyes are s.h.i.+ning like stars; her lips have taken a slightly malicious curve; her rounded chin, soft and white as a baby's, is delicately tilted. She is looking lovely. "Why should I stay?" Her question seems to beat upon his brain. He could have answered it, perhaps, had pride permitted him, but pride is a great tyrant, and rules with an iron rod. And, besides, even if he had answered, _she_ has a tyrant, too--her own pride. As a fact we all have these tyrants, and it is surprising how we hug them to our b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Why should I stay?" says t.i.ta. "All you wanted from me is gone; now I go too. You should rejoice. If you have lost in one way you have gained in another. You will never see me or my money again!"

The bitterness in the young voice, the hatred in the young eyes, is terrible.

For a full minute Rylton remains silent. The mind is a strange thing, not to be controlled, full of vagaries, and now, for no reason whatever, as it seems to him, it has run back to his wedding morning. Is _this_ the careless, idle, little tomboy who had stood before the altar--the little girl he had a.s.sured himself he could mould to his will?

"You forget," says he coldly, "that you are married to me. It is not so simple a matter as you seem to imagine for a wife to throw off her marriage yoke."

"Yoke! What a good word that is!" says t.i.ta, with the air of one making a discovery. Then lightly, "Pouf! Nonsense! I'll show you how easy it is! And as for that----" Again her mood changes. "Don't go in for that sort of thing," says she contemptuously. "Be honest with me now, at the last. You know you will be as glad to get rid of me, as I shall be to be rid of you."

"Speak for yourself," says Rylton slowly. His eyes are on the ground. "I have not said I shall be glad to get rid of you."

"No, I have said it for you. I have befriended you to the very end; and if you _will_ be a hypocrite, why--_be it!"_ cries she gaily.

She throws up her hands with an airy little gesture, full of grace, and anger, and something else difficult to describe, but that certainly is devoid of any sort of mirth.

"Hypocrite or not, remember this," says Maurice, "it is _you_ who have decided on a separation."

"Yes; I--I." She bursts out laughing. "'Alone I did it!' To-day I set you free!"

"Free!"

"Ah, not so free as I _would_ make you!" shaking her head.

He looks at her.

_ "You_ are honest, at all events," says he bitterly; then, after a moment, "You approve, then, on the step you are taking?"

t.i.ta makes a gesture of impatience.

"What _will_ you have?" says she. "What do you find fault with now?

Have I not behaved well? Have I not behaved beautifully? I stayed with you as long as I had any money--the money for which you gave me your--t.i.tle. I cannot flatter myself that you gave me more than that for it. Probably you gave me too much. And so now, when the money is gone, the bargain is off, and"--with a shrug of her shoulders, and the saucy glance of a naughty child from under her long lashes--_"I_ am off too! Isn't that being good?"

"Have you no charity?" says he. A dark red flush has crimsoned his forehead. "What a character you give me! Do you think I have no heart?"

"Oh, _your_ heart!" says she gaily. "I don't think you need to be unhappy about it. It will do. You say I am honest, and one thing honestly I do regret, that I should have unwittingly tempted you to marry me because of my money--when now it has all dropped overboard.

If I had only known how you regarded it, I----"

"That infernal money!" says he violently.

There is almost a groan in his voice. His eyes are fixed upon her; he is wondering at her. What a child she looks in her pretty frock!

What an unreasonable child! But what a charm in the angry eyes of her, the defiance of her whole air! There is something that maddens him in the scornful shrug of her dainty shoulders.

"Oh yes--yes--of course!" says she, bringing the little disdainful shrug into full requisition now. "No wonder you abuse it, poor thing! _But_ for that 'infernal money,' you would never have dreamed of marrying me, and now that it is gone--gone----" She pauses. "Oh,"

sharply, "I am _glad_ it is gone! It opens for me a way to leave you!"

Rylton strides forward, and seizes her by both her arms.

"Supposing I don't _let_ you go!" says he.

"I shan't ask your permission," returns she calmly, submitting to his violent pressure without a wince--a pressure unmeant--unknown by him, to do him justice. "And I need not! Think of the detestable life we have lived together! Don't I know that you hated it as much as I did--perhaps more! No," softly. "Not _more!"_

Rylton loosens his hold of her, and steps back. If she had said a thousand words, they could not have brought her meaning more forcibly home to him than these two, "Not _more."_

"Oh, think!" cries she, clasping her hands in a sort of ecstasy.

"To-day--this very day--in an hour or so, we shall be miles, and miles, and _miles_ away from each other! What more can you desire?"

Rylton brings his hand down upon the table before him.

"Nothing!" returns he hoa.r.s.ely. "I would rather die than subject myself to the misery I have been enduring with you. I would, by heaven!"

"Ah, you speak the truth at last," says she. "Well"--she moves towards him and holds out her hand--"now that you have spoken, I am satisfied. Good-bye; I hope I shall never see you again!"

He thrusts her hand aside.

"I shall remember that," says he.

"That was why I said it," returns she. She has flung up her head, angered a little perhaps even in this desperate moment at his rejection of her hand. Her eyes are gleaming. Her beauty seems to s.h.i.+ne out--to grow upon him. Maurice regards her curiously even now--now, when she is going for ever. _How_ can so bitter a spirit dwell in so sweet a temple? "Will you not say good-bye, then?" says she.

"No--never."

She turns away deliberately and leaves the room.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW MARGARET STEPS INTO THE BREACH, AND LEARNS THAT ALL PEACEMAKERS ARE NOT BLESSED.

"It is quite the wisest thing to be done at present," says Margaret.

"I do hope, Maurice, you will not object to the arrangement."

She regards him anxiously. It is an hour later, and the carriage has been ordered to be at the door in fifteen minutes. Margaret has come to bid Maurice good-bye, and say a few words to him.