Demos Part 82

'I cannot; dear.'

'May I write to you?' Stella said with a meaning look.

'Yes, to tell me how you are.'

Adela had not got far from the house when she saw her husband walking towards her. She looked at him steadily.

'I happened to be near,' he explained, 'and thought I might as well go home with you.'

'I might have been gone.'

'Oh, I shouldn't have waited long.'

The form of his reply discovered that he had no intention of calling at the house; Adela understood that he had been in Avenue Road for some time, probably had reached it very soon after her.

The next morning there arrived for Mutimer a letter from Alice. She desired to see him; her husband would be from home all day, and she would be found at any hour; her business was of importance--underlined.

Mutimer went shortly after breakfast, and Alice received him very much as she would have done in the days before the catastrophe. She had arrayed herself with special care; he found her leaning on cus.h.i.+ons, her feet on a stool, the eternal novel on her lap. Her brother had to stifle anger at seeing her thus in appearance unaffected by the storm which had swept away his own happiness and luxuries.

'What is it you want?' he asked at once, without preliminary greeting.

'You are not very polite,' Alice returned. 'Perhaps you'll take a chair.'

'I haven't much time, so please don't waste what I can afford.'

'Are you so busy? Have you found something to do?'

'I'm likely to have enough to do with people who keep what doesn't belong to them.'

'It isn't my doing, d.i.c.k,' she said more seriously.

'I don't suppose it is.'

'Then you oughtn't to be angry with me.'

'I'm not angry. What do you want?'

'I went to see mother yesterday. I think she wants you to go; it looked like it.'

'I'll go some day.'

'It's too bad that she should have to keep 'Arry in idleness.'

'She hasn't to keep him. I send her money.'

'But how are you to afford that?'

'That's not your business.'

Alice looked indignant.

'I think you might speak more politely to me in my own house.'

'It isn't your own house.'

'It is as long as I live in it. I suppose you'd like to see me go back to a workroom. It's all very well for you; if you live in lodgings, that doesn't say you've got no money. We have to do the best we can for ourselves; we haven't got your chances of making a good bargain.'

It was said with much intention; Alice hall closed her eyes and curled her lips in a disdainful smile.

'What chances? What do you mean?'

'Perhaps if _I_'d been a particular friend of Mr. Eldon's--never mind.'

He flashed a look at her.

'What are you talking about? Just speak plainly, will you? What do you mean by "particular friend"? I'm no more a friend of Eldon's than you are, and I've made no bargain with him.'

'I didn't say _you_.'

'Who then?' he exclaimed sternly.

'Don't you know? Some one is so very proper, and such a fine lady, I shouldn't have thought she'd have done things without your knowing.'

He turned pale, and seemed to crush the floor with his foot, that he might stand firm.

'You're talking of Adela?'

Alice nodded.

'What about her? Say at once what you've got to say.'

Inwardly she was a little frightened, perhaps half wished that she had not begun. Yet it was sweet to foresee the thunderbolt that would fall on her enemy's head. That her brother would suffer torments did not affect her imagination; she had never credited him with strong feeling for his wife; and it was too late to draw back.

'You know that she met Mr. Eldon in the wood at Wanley on the day after she found the will?'

Mutimer knitted his brows to regard her. But in speaking he was more self-governed than before.

'Who told you that?'

'My husband. He saw them together.'

'And heard them talking?'

'Yes.'

Rodman had only implied this. Alice's subsequent interrogation had failed to elicit more from him than dark hints.

Mutimer drew a quick breath.