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Mannering for a moment hesitated. One of the two young men who were talking to his wife he recognized as a former acquaintance of hers—one of a genus whom he had little sympathy with and less desire to know. While he stood there Blanche laughed at some remark made by one of her companions, and the laugh, too, seemed somehow to remind him of the old days. He moved slowly forward.
The young men strolled off almost at once. Mannering took a vacant chair by his wife's side.
"I have only just heard," he said, "how much I have to thank you for. I took it for granted somehow that it was the Duchess who had discovered our friend Borrowdean's little scheme and sent that telegram. Why didn't you sign it?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"It was the Duchess who made him chuck it up," she said. "I could never have made him do that. I was an idiot to let Parkins stay in England at all."
"I always understood," he said, "that he was dead."
"I let you think so," she answered. "I thought you might worry. But seriously, if he told the truth, now, after all these years, would any one take any notice of it?"
"Very likely not," he said, "so far as regards any criminal responsibility. But our political life is fenced about by all the middle-class love of propriety and hatred of all form of scandal. Parkins's story, authenticated or not, would have lost me my seat for Leeds."
"Then I am very glad," she said, "that I happened to see the telegram. Do you know where Parkins is now?"
"One of my supporters," he said, "a queer little man named Richard Fardell, has him in tow. He is bringing him up to London, I think."
She nodded.
"What are you doing this afternoon?" he asked.
She looked at him curiously.
"Mr. Englehall has asked me to go out in his car," she said. "I am rather tired of motoring, but I think I shall go."
Mannering lit a cigarette which he had just taken from his case.
"I don't think I should," he remarked.
She turned her head slowly, and looked at him.
"Why not?" she asked. "How can it concern you? Your plans for the afternoon are, I presume, already made!"
"It may not concern me directly," he answered, "but I have an idea that Mr. Englehall is not exactly the sort of person I care to have you driving about with."
She laughed hardly.
"I am most flattered by your interest in me," she declared. "Pray consider Mr. Englehall disposed of. You have some other plans, perhaps?"
"If you care to," he said, "we will walk down to the club for lunch and come home by the sea."
"Alone?"
"Certainly! Unless you choose to bring Hester."
She rose slowly to her feet.
"No," she said. "Let us go alone. It will be almost the first time since we were married, I think. I am curious to see how much I can bore you! Will you wait here while I find a hat?"
She disappeared inside the hotel. Mannering watched her absently. In a vague sort of way he was wondering what it was that had made their married life so completely a failure. He had imagined her as asking very little from him, content with the shelter of his name and home, content at any rate without those things of which he had made no mention when he had spoken to her of marriage. And he was becoming gradually aware that it was not so. She expected, had hoped for more. The terms which he had zealously striven to cultivate with her were terms of which she clearly did not approve. The signs of revolt were already apparent.
Mannering became absorbed in thought. He remembered clearly the feelings with which he had gone to her and made his offer. He went over it all again. Surely he had made himself understood? But then there was her confession to him, the confession of her love. He had ignored that, but it was unforgetable. Had he not tacitly accepted the whole situation? If so, was he doing his duty? The shelter of his name and home, what were those to a warm-hearted woman, if she loved him? He had married her, loving another woman. She must have known this, but did she understand that he was not prepared to make any effort to accept the inevitable? He was still deep in thought when Berenice came out.
"What are you doing there all by yourself?" she asked. "Where is your wife?"
"She has gone to get a hat," he answered. "We thought of going to the club for déjeuner ."
She nodded.
"A delightful idea," she said. "Do invite me, and I will take you in the car. Mrs. Mannering likes motoring, I know."
"Of course!" he said. "We shall be delighted!"
She beckoned to her chauffer, who was in the courtyard. Just then Blanche came out. She had changed her gown for one of plain white serge, and she wore a hat of tuscan straw which Mannering had once admired.
"You won't mind motoring, Mrs. Mannering?" Berenice said, as she approached. "I have invited myself to luncheon with you, and I am going to take you round to the club in the car."
Blanche stood quite still for a moment. The sun was in her eyes, and she lowered her parasol for a moment.
"It will be very pleasant," she said, quietly, "only I think that I will go in and change my hat. I thought that we were going to walk."
She retraced her steps, walking a little wearily. Berenice came and sat down by Mannering's side.
"I hope Mrs. Mannering does not object to my coming," she said. "It occurred to me that she was not particularly cordial."
"It is only her manner," he answered. "It is very good of you to take us."
"Your wife doesn't like me," Berenice said. "I wonder why. I thought that I had been rather decent to her."
"Blanche is a little odd," Mannering answered. "I am afraid that it is my fault. Here are the Redfords. I wonder if they would join us."
"Three," she murmured, "is certainly an awkward number."
In the end the party became rather a large one, for Lord Redford met some old friends at the club who insisted upon their joining tables. In the interval, whilst they waited for luncheon, Mannering contrived to have a word alone with his wife.
"I am not responsible," he said, "for this enlargement of our party. The Duchess invited herself."
"It does not matter," she declared, listlessly. "What are you doing afterwards?"
"Playing golf, I fancy," he answered. "You heard what Redford said about a foursome."
"And you are returning—when?"
"I must leave here at six to-morrow morning."
They were leaning over the white palings of the pavilion, looking out upon the last green. She seemed to be watching the approach of two players who were just coming in.
"It is a long way to come," she remarked, "for so short a time."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"The aftermath of a contested election is a thing to escape from," he said. "I felt that I wanted to get as far away as possible, and then again I wanted to find out who it was who had sent that telegram."
They sat apart at luncheon, and Blanche was much quieter than usual. The others were all old friends. It seemed to her more than ordinarily apparent that she was present on sufferance, accepted as Mannering's wife, as an evil to be endured, and, so far as possible, ignored. Mannering himself spoke to her now and then across the table. Lord Redford, always good-natured, made a few efforts to draw her into the conversation. But it seemed to her that she had lost her confidence. The freemasonry of old acquaintance which existed between all of them left her outside an invisible but very real circle. Words came to her with difficulty. She felt stupid, almost shy. When she made an effort to break through it she was acutely conscious of her failure. Her laugh was too hard, it lacked sincerity or restraint. The cigarette which she smoked out of bravado with her coffee, seemed somehow out of place. When at last luncheon was over Mannering left his place and came over to her.
"The Duchess and I," he said, "are going to play Lord Redford and Mrs. Arbuthnot. Won't you walk round with us? The links are really very pretty."
"Thanks, I hate watching golf," she answered, rising and shaking out her skirt. "Hester and I will walk home."
"Do take the car, Mrs. Mannering," Berenice said. "It will simply be waiting here doing nothing."
"Thank you," Blanche answered. "I shall enjoy the walk."
The foursome was played in very leisurely fashion. There was plenty of time for conversation.
"I don't quite understand your wife," Berenice said to Mannering. "Her dislike of me is a little too obvious. What does it mean? Do you know?"
He shook his head. He was looking very pale and tired.
"I am not sure that I know anything about it at all," he said. "I am beginning to distrust my own judgment."
"Your marriage—" she began, thoughtfully.
"Don't let us talk about it," he interrupted. "I tried to pay a debt. It seems to me that I have only incurred a fresh one."
They were silent for some time. Then their opponents lost a ball and displayed no particular diligence in attempting to find it. Berenice sat down upon a plank seat.
"Your marriage," she said, "seemed always to me a piece of quixotism. I never altogether understood it."
"It was an affair of impulse," he said, slowly. "Life from a personal point of view had lost all interest to me. I did not dream after my—shall we call it apostacy?—that I could rely upon even a modicum of your friendship. I looked upon myself as an outcast commencing life afresh. Then chance intervened. I thought I saw my way to making some atonement to a woman whose life I had certainly helped to ruin. That was where the serious part of the mistake came. I thought what I had to offer would be sufficient. I am beginning now to doubt it."
"And what are you going to do?" she asked, looking steadily away from him.
"Heaven knows," he answered, bitterly. "I cannot give what I do not possess."
Was it his fancy, or was there a gleam of satisfaction about her still, pale face? He went on.
"I don't want to play the hypocrite. On the other hand I don't want all that I have done to go for nothing. Can you advise me?"
"No, nor any one else," she answered, softly.
"Yet I can perhaps correct a little your point of view. I think that you overestimate your indebtedness to the woman whom you have made your wife. Her husband was a weak, dissipated creature and he was a doomed man long before that unfortunate day. It is even very questionable whether that scene in which you figured had anything whatever to do in hastening his death. That is a good many years ago, and ever since then you seem to have impoverished yourself to find her the means to live in luxury. I consider that you paid your debt over and over again, and that your final act of self-abnegation was entirely uncalled for. What more she wants from you I do not know. Perhaps I can imagine."
There was a moment's silence. She turned her head and looked at him—looked him in the eyes unshamed, yet with her secret shining there for him to see.
"There may be others, Lawrence," she said, "to whom you owe something. A woman cannot take back what she has given. There may be sufferers in the world whom you ought also to consider. And a woman loves to think that what she may not have herself is at least kept sacred—to her memory."
"Fore!" cried Lord Redford, who had found his ball. "Awfully decent of you people to wait so long. We were afraid you meant to claim the hole!"
Mannering rose to play his shot.
"The Duchess and I, Lord Redford," he said, lightly, "scorn to take small advantages. We mean to play the game!"