The Hoyden Part 79

"What, darling?"

"That it had been burnt to the ground before anyone else got it,"

breaks out t.i.ta, in a little storm of grief and despair.

"Yes, I know; I can feel with you," says Margaret, pressing her back into a chair, and hovering over her with loving touches and tender words. "But, after all, t.i.ta, one has to give up things daily. It is life. Life is one long surrender."

"My surrender has been done in a bundle," says t.i.ta indignantly.

"Other people do their surrenders by degrees, year after year; but in _one_ year I have lost everything--my home, my money, my husband."

Margaret notes with fear that she has put her husband last in the list of her losses.

"Not that I care a fig about Maurice," continues t.i.ta, with a tilt of her chin that would have made any man admire her. "I was delighted to get rid of _him."_ Then, glancing at Margaret, she flings her arms round her neck again. "No; don't look at me like that. I'm a wretch. But _really,_ Margaret, you know that Maurice was a wretch, too!"

"Well, well!" says Margaret sadly. "It seems useless to defend Maurice--you know how sorry I am for you always," she goes on gently. "To come from riches to poverty is one of the worst things the word offers; but to be very rich is not well, t.i.ta. It clogs the mind; it takes one away from the very meaning of life. Money hardens the soul; it keeps one away from touch with the inner circle of humanity--from the misery, the sorrow, the vice! It is bad to be too rich."

"Yet you are rich, Margaret!"

"Yet--yes; and it frightens me," says she, in a low tone.

t.i.ta rubs her cheek softly against hers.

"Yet _you_ are not far from the kingdom of G.o.d!" says she.

The little kittenish gesture and the solemn phrase! Margaret presses t.i.ta to her. What a strange child she is! What a mixture!

"Neither are you, I trust," says she.

"So you see riches have got nothing to do with it," says t.i.ta, breaking into a gay, irresistible little laugh.

Miss Knollys laughs too, in spite of herself, and then grows suddenly very grave. There is something she must say to t.i.ta.

CHAPTER XX.

HOW MARGARET STARTS AS A SPECIAL PLEADER, AND IS MUCH WORSTED IN HER ARGUMENT; AND HOW A SIMPLE KNOCK AT THE HALL DOOR SCATTERS ONE BEING WHO DELIGHTS IN WAR.

"I think you ought to see your husband," says Margaret.

It is a bombsh.e.l.l! t.i.ta withdraws her arms from round Margaret's neck and looks at her like one seeing her for the first time. It is plain to Margaret that she is very angry.

Poor Margaret! She feels torn in twain. Rylton, as has been said, had called twice during the past ten days, but on neither of those occasions had seen t.i.ta. t.i.ta, indeed, had obstinately refused to come downstairs, even though Margaret had gone up to fetch her.

Margaret had not forgotten that occasion. She had found the girl in her room.

"Never, never, never!" said t.i.ta, in answer to all her entreaties, who had screwed herself into the farthest corner of her room between a wardrobe and a table--a most uncomfortable position, but one possessed of certain advantages. It would be difficult, for example, to dislodge her from it. And she gave Margaret the impression, as she entered the room, that she thought force was about to be resorted to.

"It is your duty to come downstairs and see him," Margaret had said.

She always brought in poor Duty, who certainly must have been f.a.gged to death at that time.

"I hate him!" said t.i.ta rebelliously, and now with increased venom, as she saw that Margaret only had come to the a.s.sault. "Go down and tell him that."

"This is dreadful," said poor Margaret, going to the door.

But even now the little miscreant wedged in between the furniture was not satisfied.

"Tell him I hope I'll never see him again!" said she, calling it out loudly as though afraid Margaret might not hear and deliver her words.

"I shall certainly deliver no such message," said the latter, pausing on the threshold and waxing wroth. Even the worm will turn, they say, though I confess I never saw one that did. "You can tell him that yourself, some day, when you see him!"

But this parting shaft had only made t.i.ta laugh. _"See him!_ She would die first!"

Margaret had gone down with a modified edition of this _rencontre_ to Rylton, and Rylton had shrugged his shoulders. He could not disguise from Margaret the fact, however, that he was chagrined. He had seen through the modifying, of course, and had laughed--not very merrily--and told Margaret not to ruin her conscience on _his _account. He had lived with t.i.ta long enough to know the sort of message she would be sure to send.

Margaret mumbled something after that, never very clear to either of them, and Rylton had gone on to say that he was going down to the country for a month. He was starting on Monday next. He had said all that on Thursday, and this is Tuesday. There is a sense of relief, yet of regret, in Margaret's heart as she tells herself that he is well out of town. But _now,_ certainly, is the time to work on t.i.ta's sense of right and wrong. Rylton will come back at the end of the month, and when he does, surely--surely his wife should be willing to, at all events, receive him as a friend. The gossip surrounding these two people, so dear to her, is distressing to Margaret, and she would gladly have put an end to it. The whole thing, too, is so useless, so senseless. And as for that affair of Marian's Bethune's--she has no belief in that. It has blown over--is dead. Killed--by time.

"See him?" says t.i.ta at last, stammering.

"Yes, when he comes back. You have a month to think about it. He has gone to the country."

"A very good thing too," says t.i.ta, with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I hope he will stay there."

"But he won't," says Margaret in despair. "He returns to town in June. t.i.ta, I hope--I do hope you will be sensible, and consent to see him then."

"Does he want to see me?" asks t.i.ta.

Here Margaret is posed. Rylton had certainly _known,_ that day she had gone up to t.i.ta's room to bring her down, what her errand was, but he had not asked her to go upon it. He had expressed no desire, had shown no wish for a meeting with his wife.

"My dear--I----"

"Ah, you make a bad liar, Meg!" says t.i.ta; "you ought to throw up the appointment. You aren't earning your salary honestly. And, besides, it doesn't matter. Even if he were _dying _to see me, I should still rather die than see him."

"That is not a right spirit, to----"

"I expect my spirit is as right as his," says t.i.ta rebelliously, "and," with a sudden burst of indignation that does away with all sense of her duty to her language, "a thousand times righter for the matter of that. No, Margaret! No--no--no! I will _not_ see him. Do you think I ever forget----"

"I had hoped, dearest, that----"

"It is useless to hope. _What_ woman would forgive it? I knew he married me without loving me. That was all fair! He told me that.

What he did not tell me was the vital thing--that he loved someone else."

"You should never have married him when he told you he did not love you."

"Why not?" warmly. "I knew nothing of love; I thought he knew nothing of it either. Love seemed to me a stupid sort of thing (it seems so still). I said to myself that a nice strong friends.h.i.+p would be sufficient for me----"

"Well?"