Mrs. Majendie was so calm that Lady Cayley fancied that, after all, this was not the first time she had heard that rumour.

"Let them say it," said she. "n.o.body'll believe it."

"Everybody believes it. I came to you because I was afraid you'd be the first."

"To believe it? I a.s.sure you, Lady Cayley, I should be the last."

"What was to prevent you? You didn't know me."

"No. But I know my husband."

"So do I."

"Not _now_" said Mrs. Majendie quietly.

Lady Cayley's bosom heaved. She had felt that she had risen to the occasion. She had achieved a really magnificent renunciation. With almost suicidal generosity, she had handed Majendie over intact, as it were, to his insufferable wife. She was wounded in several very sensitive places by the married woman's imperious denial of her part in him, by her att.i.tude of indestructible and unique possession. If _she_ didn't know him she would like to know who did. But up till now she had meant to spare Mrs. Majendie her knowledge of him, for she was not ill-natured.

She was sorry for the poor, inept, unhappy prude.

Even now, seated in Mrs. Majendie's drawing-room, she had no impulse to wound her mortally. Her instinct was rather to patronise and pity, to unfold the long result of a superior experience, to instruct this woman who was so incompetent to deal with men, who had spoiled, stupidly, her husband's life and her own. In that moment Sarah contemplated nothing more outrageous than a little straight talk with Mrs. Majendie.

"Look here, Mrs. Majendie," she said, with an air of finely ungovernable impulse, "you're a saint. You know no more about men than your little girl does. I'm not a saint, I'm a woman of the world. I think I've had a rather larger experience of men--"

Mrs. Majendie cut her short.

"I do not want to hear anything about your experience."

"Dear lady, you shan't hear anything about it. I was only going to tell you that, of all the men I've known, there's n.o.body I know better than your husband. My knowledge of him is probably a little different from yours."

"That I can well believe."

"You mean you think I wouldn't know a good man if I saw one? My experience isn't as bad as all that. I can tell a good woman when I see one, too. You're a good woman, Mrs. Majendie, and I've no doubt that you've been told I'm a bad one. All I can say is, that Walter Majendie was a good man when I first knew him. He was a good man when he left me and married you. So my badness can't have hurt him very much. If he's gone wrong now, it's that goodness of yours that's done it."

Anne's lips turned white, but their muscles never moved. And the woman who watched her wondered in what circ.u.mstances Mrs. Majendie would display emotion, if she did not display it now.

"What right have you to say these things to me?"

"I've a right to say a good deal more. Your husband was very fond of me.

He would have married me if his friends hadn't come and bullied me to give him up for the good of his morals. I loved him--" She suggested by an adroit shrug of her shoulders that her love was a thing that Mrs.

Majendie could either take for granted or ignore. She didn't expect her to understand it--"And I gave him up. I'm not a cold-blooded woman; and it was pretty hard for me. But I did it. And" (she faced her) "what was the good of it? Which of us has been the best for his morals? You or me?

He lived with me two years, and he married you, and everybody said how virtuous and proper he was. Well, he's been married to you for nine years, and he's been living with another woman for the last three."

She had not meant to say it; for (in the presence of the social sanct.i.ties) you do not say these things. But flesh and blood are stronger than all the social sanct.i.ties; and flesh and blood had risen and claimed their old dominion over Sarah. The unspeakable depths in her had been stirred by her vision of the things that might have been. She was filled with a pa.s.sionate hatred of the purity which had captured Majendie, and drawn him from her, and made her seem vile in his sight. She rejoiced in her power to crush it, to confront it with the proof of its own futility.

"I do not believe it," said Mrs. Majendie.

"Of course you don't believe it. You're a good woman." She shook her meditative head. "The sort of woman who can live with a man for nine years without seeing what he's like. If you'd understood your husband as well as I do, you'd have known that he couldn't run his life on your lines for six months, let alone nine years."

Mrs. Majendie's chin rose, as if she were lifting her face above the reach of the hand that had tried to strike it. Her voice throbbed on one deep monotonous note.

"I do not believe a word of what you say. And I cannot think what your motive is in saying it."

"Don't worry about my motive. It ought to be pretty clear. Let me tell you--you can bring your husband back to-morrow, and you can keep him to the end of time, if you choose, Mrs. Majendie. Or you can lose him altogether. And you will, if you go on as you're doing. If I were you, I should make up my mind whether it's good enough. I shouldn't think it was, myself."

Mrs. Majendie was silent. She tried to think of some word that would end the intolerable interview. Her lips parted to speak, but her thoughts died in her brain unborn.

She felt her face turning white under the woman's face; it hypnotised her; it held her dumb.

"Don't you worry," said Lady Cayley soothingly. "You can get your husband back from that woman to-morrow, if you choose." She smiled. "Do you see my motive now?"

Lady Cayley had not seen it; but she had seen herself for one beautiful moment as the benignant and inspired conciliator. She desired Mrs.

Majendie to see her so. She had gratified her more generous instincts in giving the unfortunate lady "the straight tip." She knew, perfectly well, that Mrs. Majendie wouldn't take it. She knew, all the time, that whatever else her revelation did, it would not move Mrs. Majendie to charm her husband back. She could not say precisely what it would do.

Used to live solely in the voluptuous moment, she had no sense of drama beyond the scene she played in.

"Your motive," said Mrs. Majendie, "is of no importance. No motive could excuse you."

"You think not." She rose and looked down on the motionless woman. "I've told you the truth, Mrs. Majendie, because, sooner or later, you'd have had to know it; and other people would have told you worse things that aren't true. You can take it from me that there's nothing more to tell.

I've told you the worst."

"You've told me, and I do not believe it."

"You'd better believe it. But, if you really don't, you can ask your husband. Ask him where he goes to every week in that yacht of his. Ask him what's become of Maggie Forrest, the pretty work-girl who made the embroidered frock for Mrs. Ransome's little girl. Tell him you want one like it for your little girl; and see what he looks like."

Anne rose too. Her faint white face frightened Lady Cayley. She had wondered how Mrs. Majendie would look if she told her the truth about her husband. Now she knew.

"My dear lady," said she, "what on earth did you expect?"

Anne went blindly towards the chimney-piece where the bell was. Lady Cayley also turned. She meant to go, but not just yet.

"One moment, Mrs. Majendie, please, before you turn me out. I wouldn't break my heart about it, if I were you. He might have done worse things."

"He has done nothing."

"Well--not much. He has done what I've told you. But, after all, what's that?"

"Nothing to you, Lady Cayley, certainly," said Anne, as she rang the bell.

She moved slowly towards the door. Lady Cayley followed to the threshold, and laid her hand delicately on the jamb of the door as Mrs. Majendie opened it. She raised to her set face the tender eyes of a suppliant.

"Mrs. Majendie," said she, "don't be hard on poor Wallie. He's never been hard on you. He might have been." The latch sprang to under her gentle pressure. "Look at it this way. He has kept all his marriage vows--except one. You've broken all yours--except one. None of your friends will tell you that. That's why _I_ tell you. Because I'm not a good woman, and I don't count."

She moved her hand from the door. It opened wide, and Lady Cayley walked serenely out.

She had said her say.

CHAPTER x.x.xII