Annette must be back by now from wherever she had gone, for it was nearly dinner-time, and as the moment for seeing her approached, the difficulty of knowing what to say and how to say it had increased. Anew and scaring thought occurred to him. Suppose she wanted her liberty to marry this fellow! Well, if she did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that. The image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He had better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel represented---! But what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing that mattered surely. And yet something real enough in the world--unmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl! That expression Annette had caught from him: "Je m'en fiche! "A fatalistic chap! A continental--a cosmopolitan--a product of the age! If there were condemnation more complete, Soames felt that he did not know it.
The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into some distance of their own. One of them uttered a little hiss, wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam away. The other followed. Their white bodies, their stately necks, passed out of his sight, and he went toward the house.
Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he thought as he went up-stairs 'Handsome is as handsome does.' Handsome!
Except for remarks about the curtains in the drawing-room, and the storm, there was practically no conversation during a meal distinguished by exactitude of quantity and perfection of quality.
Soames drank nothing. He followed her into the drawing-room afterward, and found her smoking a cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows. She was leaning back, almost upright, in a low black frock, with her knees crossed and her blue eyes half-closed;grey-blue smoke issued from her red, rather full lips, a fillet bound her chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk stockings, and shoes with very high heels showing off her instep. A fine piece in any room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand thrust deep into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said:
"I'm going to shut the window; the damp's lifting in."He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the cream-panelled wall close by.
What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his life--except Fleur--and Fleur not always! His heart beat fast. But if he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David Cox, he took out the torn letter.
"I've had this."
Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened.
Soames handed her the letter.
"It's torn, but you can read it." And he turned back to the David Cox--a sea-piece, of good tone--but without movement enough. 'Iwonder what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll astonish him yet.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side under her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyes. She dropped the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled, and said:
"Dirrty!"
"I quite agree," said Soames; "degrading. Is it true?"A tooth fastened on her red lower lip. "And what if it were?"She was brazen!
"Is that all you have to say?"
"No."
"Well, speak out!"
"What is the good of talking?"
Soames said icily: "So you admit it?"
"I admit nothing. You are a fool to ask. A man like you should not ask. It is dangerous."Soames made a tour of the room, to subdue his rising anger.
"Do you remember," he said, halting in front of her, "what you were when I married you? Working at accounts in a restaurant.""Do you remember that I was not half your age?"Soames broke off the hard encounter of their eyes, and went back to the David Cox.
"I am not going to bandy words. I require you to give up this--friendship. I think of the matter entirely as it affects Fleur.""Ah!--Fleur!""Yes," said Soames stubbornly; "Fleur. She is your child as well as mine.""It is kind to admit that!""Are you going to do what I say?"
"I refuse to tell you."
"Then I must make you."
Annette smiled.
"No, Soames," she said. "You are helpless. Do not say things that you will regret."Anger swelled the veins on his forehead. He opened his mouth to vent that emotion, and could not. Annette went on:
"There shall be no more such letters, I promise you. That is enough."Soames writhed. He had a sense of being treated like a child by this woman who had deserved he did not know what.
"When two people have married, and lived like us, Soames, they had better be quiet about each other. There are things one does not drag up into the light for people to laugh at. You will be quiet, then;not for my sake for your own. You are getting old; I am not, yet.
You have made me ver-ry practical"
Soames, who had passed through all the sensations of being choked, repeated dully:
"I require you to give up this friendship.""And if I do not?""Then--then I will cut you out of my Will."Somehow it did not seem to meet the case. Annette laughed.
"You will live a long time, Soames."
"You--you are a bad woman," said Soames suddenly.
Annette shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not think so. Living with you has killed things in me, it is true; but I am not a bad woman. I am sensible--that is all. And so will you be when you have thought it over.""I shall see this man," said Soames sullenly, "and warn him off.""Mon cher, you are funny. You do not want me, you have as much of me as you want; and you wish the rest of me to be dead. I admit nothing, but I am not going to be dead, Soames, at my age; so you had better be quiet, I tell you. I myself will make no scandal; none.
Now, I am not saying any more, whatever you do."She reached out, took a French novel off a little table, and opened it. Soames watched her, silenced by the tumult of his feelings. The thought of that man was almost making him want her, and this was a revelation of their relationship, startling to one little given to introspective philosophy. Without saying another word he went out and up to the picture-gallery. This came of marrying a Frenchwoman!
