CHAPTER XIX.
MR. FORBES read his wife’s second letter with dry eyes. His face, during the past weeks, had been habitually hard and severe. He looked older. It was a long letter. It was fragrant with love and admitted remorse; but it reasserted that unless he made the required settlement three weeks from receipt she would hand over to the Duke’s attorneys all she possessed.
Mr. Forbes tore the letter into strips and threw them on the fire. His face had flushed as he read; and as he lay back in his chair, it relaxed somewhat.
“If she were here would I yield?” he thought. “I am thankful that she is not. Or am I? I don’t know. What fools we mortals be—in the hands of a woman. Five millions seem a small price to have her back. But to pay them, unfortunately, means the free gift of my self-respect. What is to come? What is to come? I had believed at times that this woman read my very soul and touched it. Her intuitions, her sympathy, her subtle comprehension of the highest wants of a man’s nature and reverence for them amounted to something like genius. Indeed, she had a genius for loving—a most uncommon gift. Or so it seemed to me. But I think that few men would appreciate that they were idealising a woman like Virginia Forbes. And now? I am to take back the beautiful woman, the companionable mind, I suppose—nothing more. But it is something to have been a fool for twenty-two years. I cannot say that I have any regrets. And possibly it was my own fault that I could not make her love me better.”
He looked up at the picture. “Several times,” he thought, “I have felt like mounting a chair and kissing it. And if I did, I should feel as if I were kissing the lips of a corpse.”
“Ned! Are you there?”
Mr. Forbes rose instantly. The door had opened, and a tall woman, not unlike Augusta, but with something more of mellowness, had entered.
“I am glad to see you, Harriet,” he said. “What brings you at this hour? Have you come to help me through my solitary dinner?”
“I will stay to dinner, certainly.” Mrs. Van Rhuys took the chair he offered, and looked at him keenly. “I have just received a letter from Augusta,” she said. “Do withdraw your opposition, Ned. Yield gracefully, before the world knows what it is beginning to suspect. And a man can never hold out against his womankind. He might just as well give in at once and save wrinkles.”
“What is your personal opinion of the Duke of Bosworth?” asked Mr. Forbes curtly.
“Well, I certainly should have chosen a finer sample of the English aristocracy for Augusta, but I cannot sympathise with your violent antipathy to him. His manners are remarkably good for an Englishman, and it would be one of the most notable marriages in American history.”
“You women are all alike,” said Mr. Forbes contemptuously. “Would you give your daughter to this man?”
“Assuredly. I am positive that when the little Duke settles down he will be all that could be desired. He has something to live for now. Poor thing! He has been hampered with debts ever since he came of age. The old Duke was a sad profligate, but a very charming man. What it is I do not pretend to define, and I say it without any snobbishness, for I am devoted to New York; but there is something about the English aristocracy——”
“Oh!”—Mr. Forbes rattled the shovel among the coals—“Do, please, spare me. You’re all peer-bewitched, every one of you. Don’t let us discuss the subject any farther. It is loathsome to me, and I am ashamed of my womankind.”
“Are you determined to let Virginia sell her houses and jewels, Ned? It will break her heart.”
“She knew what she was doing when she struck the bargain. It was an entirely voluntary act on her part. I see no reason why she should not stand the consequences. Shall we go in to dinner?”