<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XVII</h2>
<p class="pch">REBELLION</p>
<p class="drop-cap04">THERE was the situation; for Godfrey was
quick enough to see what had happened as
soon as he had read Arsenio’s letter; he finished
it, which was more than I had done, and so
found more lies than I had. We discussed the situation
far into the night, Godfrey still doing most
of the talking. He had come to Paris to see me
about it, to ask my advice or to put some question
to me; but he had not really got the problem clear
in his mind. On subsidiary points—or, perhaps, one
should rather say, on what seemed such to him—his
view was characteristic, and to me amusing. He
thought that most of Nina’s anger was due to the
fact that she had been “done” by Arsenio, that he
had got her money for Lucinda and for himself on
false pretenses; whereas Nina was really furious
with Lucinda herself for not having consciously
accepted her charity, and made comparatively little
of friend Arsenio’s roguery. He was much more
full of admiration of Lucinda for not minding being
discovered carrying a bandbox—and for laughing
at her encounter with Lady Dundrannan while she<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</SPAN></span>
was doing it—than of appreciation of her indignation
over the blue frock; he thought she made a
great deal too much of that. “Since she didn’t
know, what does it come to?” he asked. And he
wasted no reprobation on Arsenio. He had known
Arsenio for a rogue before—a rogue after his
money, and willing to use his wife as a bait to catch
it; that he now knew that Arsenio was more completely
a rogue all round—towards Nina as well as
towards him—was merely a bit of confirmatory evidence;
he saw nothing in the fact that Arsenio had,
after all, given Lucinda the blue frock, though he
would have been quite safe—as safe, anyhow—if
he had given her nothing. His whole analysis, so
far as it appeared in disjointed observations, of
the other parties to the affair, ran on lines of obvious
shrewdness, and was baffled only where they
appeared—as in Lucinda’s case—to diverge from
the lines thus indicated. Lucinda was a puzzle.
Why had she hidden herself from him? She could
“have it out” with Valdez, if she wanted to, without
doing that!</p>
<p>But he was not immensely perturbed at her temporary
disappearance; he could find her, if he
wanted to. “It’s only a matter of trouble and
money, like anything else.” And if she were furious
with Valdez, no harm in that! Rather the reverse!
Thus he gradually approached his own position,
and the questions which he was putting to himself,
and had found so difficult that he had been<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</SPAN></span>
impelled to come and talk them over. These really
might be reduced to one, and a very old one, though
also often a very big one; it may be variously conceived
and described as that between prudence and
passion, that between morality and love, that between
will and emotion, between the head and the
heart. For purposes of the present case it could
be personified as being between Nina and Lucinda.
As a gentleman, if as nothing more, he had been
obliged to own up to his engagement to lunch with
Lucinda and to stand by it. But that act settled
nothing ultimately. The welcome of a returning
Prodigal would await him at Villa San Carlo,
though the feast might perhaps be rather too highly
peppered with a lofty forgiveness; he was conscious
of that feature in the case, but minded it less than
I should have; Nina’s pupil was accustomed to her
rebukes, and rather hardened against her chastisement.
But if arms were open to him elsewhere—soft
and seducing arms—what then? Was he
to desert Nina?</p>
<p>Her and what she stood for? And really, in this
situation, she stood for everything that had, up to
now, governed his life. She stood (she would not
have felt at all inadequate to the demand on her
qualities) for prosperity, progress, propriety, and—as
a climax—for piety itself. Godfrey had been
religiously brought up (the figure of the white-haired
Wesleyan Minister at Briarmount rose before
my eyes) and was not ashamed to own that<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</SPAN></span>
the principles thus inculcated had influenced his doings
and were still a living force in him. I respected
him for the avowal; it is not one that men
are very ready to make where a woman is in question;
it had been implicit in his reason for knowing
nothing of women, given to me a long time ago—that
he had not been able to afford to marry.</p>
<p>Piety was the highest impersonation which Nina
was called upon to undertake. Was it the most
powerful, the most compelling? There were so
many others, whose images somehow blended into
one great and imposing Figure—Regularity, with her
cornucopia of worldly advantages, not necessarily
lost (Godfrey was quite awake to that) by a secret
dallying with her opposite, but thereby rendered
insincere—that counted with him—uneasy, and perpetually
precarious. He was a long-headed young
man; he foresaw every chance against his passion—even
the chance that, having first burnt up all he
had or hoped for, it would itself become extinct.
Then it was not true passion? I don’t know. It
was strong enough. Lucinda impersonated too; impersonated
things that are very powerful.</p>
<p>He spoke of her seldom and evasively. In the
debate which he carried on with himself—only occasionally
asking for an opinion from me—he generally
indicated her under the description of “the
other thing”—other (it was to be understood) from
all that Nina represented. Taken like that, the description,
if colorless, was at least comprehensive.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</SPAN></span>
And it did get Lucinda—bluntly, yet not altogether
wrongly. He saw her as an ideal—the exact opposite
of the ideal to which he had hitherto aspired,
the ideal of regularity, wealth, eminence, reputation,
power, thirty per cent., and so on (including,
let us not forget, piety). So seen, she astonished
him in herself, and astonished him more by the lure
that she had for him. Only he distrusted the lure
profoundly. In the end he could not understand
it in himself. I do not blame him; I myself was
considerably puzzled at finding it in him. To say
that a man is in love is a summary, not an explanation.
Jonathan Frost—old Lord Dundrannan—had
been a romantic in his way; Nina too in hers,
when she had sobbed in passion on the cliffs—or
even now, when she cherished disturbing emotions
about things and people whom she might, without
loss of comfort or profit, have serenely disregarded.
There was a thread of the romantic meandering
through the more challenging patterns of the family
fabric.</p>
<p>Half a dozen times I was on the point of flying
into a rage with him—when he talked easily of
“buying Valdez,” when he assumed Lucinda’s assent
to that not very pretty transaction, when he
hinted at the luxury which would reward that assent,
and so on. But the genuineness of his conflict, of
his scruples on the one hand, of his passion on the
other, made anger seem cruel, while the bluntness
of his perception seemed to make it ridiculous. Perhaps<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</SPAN></span>
on this latter point I exaggerated a little—asking
from him an insight into the situation to
which I was helped by a more intimate knowledge
of the past and of the persons; but at all events
he was, as I conceived, radically wrong in his estimate
of the possibilities. At last I was impelled
to tell him so.</p>
<p>It was very late; in disregard of his “Don’t go
yet, I haven’t finished,” I had actually put on my
coat, and taken my hat and stick in my hand. I
stood like that, opposite to where he sat, and expounded
my views to him. I imagine that to a
cool spectator I should have looked rather absurd,
for by now I too was somehow wrought up and
excited; he had got me back into my pre-Paris state
of mind, the one in which I had been when I intimated
to Nina that I must hunt the Riviera for
Lucinda and find out the truth about her at all
costs. The Conference on Tonnage was routed,
driven pell-mell out of my thoughts.</p>
<p>“You can’t buy Valdez,” I told him, “not in the
sense that you mean. He’ll sell himself, body and
soul, for money—to you, or me, or Nina, or all of
us, or anybody else. But he won’t sell Lucinda. He
sells himself for money, but it’s because of her that
he must have the money—to dazzle her, to cut a
figure in her eyes, to get her back to him. He used
her to tempt you with, to make you shell out—just
as he did, in another way, with Nina. But he knew
he was safe; he knew he’d never have to deliver<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</SPAN></span>
what he was pretending to sell. She’s not only the
one woman to him, she’s the one idea in his head,
the one stake he always plays for. He’d sell his
soul for her, but he wouldn’t sell her in return for
all you have. You sit here, balancing her against
this and that—now against God, now against Mammon!
He doesn’t set either of them for a moment
in the scales against her.”</p>
<p>If what I said sharpened his perception, it blunted
his scruples. The idea of Valdez’s passion was a
spur to his own.</p>
<p>“Then it’s man against man,” he said in a sullen,
dogged voice. “If I find I can’t buy her, I’ll take
her.”</p>
<p>“You can try. If she lets you, she’s a changed
woman. That’s all I can say. I need hardly add
that I shall not offer you my assistance. Why,
hang it, man, if she’s to be got, why shouldn’t I
have a shot at her myself?”</p>
<p>He gave a short gruff laugh. “I don’t quite associate
the idea with you, but of course you’d be
within your rights, as far as I’m concerned.”</p>
<p>I laughed too. “There’s fair warning to you,
then! And no bad blood, I hope? Also, perhaps,
enough debate on what is, after all, rather a delicate
subject—a lady’s honor—as some scrupulous
people might remind us. By way of apology to
the proprieties, I’ll just add that in my private opinion
we should neither of us have the least chance
of success. She may not be Valdez’s any more—as<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</SPAN></span>
to that I express no opinion, though I have one—but
I don’t believe she’ll be any one else’s.”</p>
<p>“What makes you say that?” he grumbled out
surlily.</p>
<p>“She herself makes me say it; she herself and
what I know about her. And, considering your condition,
it seems common kindness to tell you my
view, for what it’s worth. Now, my friend, thanks
for your dinner, and—good-night!”</p>
<p>“Are you staying here—in Paris—much longer?”</p>
<p>“I shall be for a week—possibly a fortnight—I
expect.”</p>
<p>“Then good-by as well as good-night; I shall go
back to-morrow.”</p>
<p>“To Villa San Carlo?”</p>
<p>“No, I don’t know where I shall go. It depends.”</p>
<p>“To where you can test the value of my view,
perhaps?” He had now risen, and I walked across
to him, holding out my hand. He took it, with
another gruff laugh.</p>
<p>“This sort of thing plays hell with a man; but
there’s no need for us to quarrel, Julius?”</p>
<p>“Not at present, at all events. And it looks as
if you had a big enough quarrel on your hands already.”</p>
<p>“Nina? Yes.” It was on that name, and not on
the other, that at last we parted. And I suppose
that he did “go back” the next day; for I saw him
no more during the rest of my stay in Paris.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>But a week later—our “labors” being “protracted”
to that extent and longer—I had an encounter
that gave me indirect news of him, as well
as direct news of other members of the Rillington-cum-Dundrannan
family. To my surprise, I met
my cousin Waldo in the Rue de la Paix. Nina and
he—and Eunice—were on their way home. In the
first place, Sir Paget had written that Aunt Bertha
was seedy and moping, and wondering when they
would be back. In the second, Nina had got restless
and tired of Mentone, while he himself was
so much better that there was no longer any reason
to stay there on his account.</p>
<p>“In fact, we got a bit bored with ourselves,”
Waldo confessed as he took my arm and we walked
along together, “after we lost you two fellows.
Dull for the ladies. Oh, I know you couldn’t help
yourself, old fellow; this job here was too big to
miss. But we lost Godfrey too.” His voice fell
to a confidential pitch, and he smiled slyly as he
pressed my arm. “Well, you know, dear Nina is
given to making her plans, bless her! And she’s
none too pleased when they don’t come off, is she?
I rather fancy that she had a little plan on at the
Villa—Eunice Unthank, you know—and a nice girl
she is—and that Godfrey didn’t feel like coming
up to the scratch. So he tactfully had business at
the works that kept him away from the Villa. Do
you see what I mean?”</p>
<p>“Well, I suppose he was better away if he didn’t<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</SPAN></span>
mean to play up. If he’d stayed, it might have put
ideas in the girl’s head that——”</p>
<p>“Exactly, old chap. Though we were awfully
sorry he went, still that was the view Nina took
about it. I think she was right.”</p>
<p>Facts had supplied a sufficient explanation of my
disappearance from Villa San Carlo; here plainly
was the official version of Godfrey’s. In order to
cover a great defeat, Lady Dundrannan, with her
usual admirable tactics, acknowledged a minor one.
It was a quite sufficient explanation to offer to unsuspecting
Waldo; and it was certainly true, so far
as it went; the Eunice-Godfrey project had miscarried.</p>
<p>“I liked the girl and I’m sorry,” said Waldo.
“But there’s lots of time, and of course, the world
being what it is, he can always make a good marriage.”
He laughed gently. “But I suppose women
always like to manage a man’s future for him, if they
can, don’t they?”</p>
<p>His ignorance of the great defeat was evidently
entire; his wife had looked after that. But it was
interesting to observe that—as a concomitant, perhaps,
of his returning physical vigor—his mind gave
hints of a new independence. He had not ceased
to love and admire his wife—there was no reason
why he ever should—but his smile at her foible was
something new—since his marriage, I mean. The
limit thus indicated to his Dundrannanization was
welcome to me, a Rillington. What the smile<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</SPAN></span>
pointed to was, the next moment, confirmed by the
sigh with which he added, pursuing what was to
him apparently the same train of thought, “Nina’s
against our living at Cragsfoot when I succeed.”</p>
<p>“Well, if you will marry thumping heiresses, with
half a dozen palaces of their own——”</p>
<p>“Yes, I know, old man. Still—well, I can’t expect
her to share my feeling about it, can I?” He
smiled again, this time rather ruefully. “In fact,
she’s pressing me to settle the matter now.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean? Sir Paget’s still alive!
Is she asking for a promise, or what?”</p>
<p>“She wants me to sell my remainder—subject to
my father’s life-interest. Nina likes things definitely
settled, you see. She doesn’t like Cragsfoot.” To
my considerable surprise, he accompanied these last
words with a very definite wink. A smile, a sigh,
a wink—yes, Waldo was recovering some independence
of thought, if not of action. But in this
affair it was his action that mattered, not his
thoughts. Still, the fact remained that his wink
was an unmistakable reference to the past—to Lucinda.</p>
<p>“Sir Paget wouldn’t like it, would he?” I suggested.</p>
<p>“No, I’m afraid not—not the idea of it, at first.
But a man is told to cleave to his wife. After
all, if I have a son to inherit it, he wouldn’t be
Rillington of Cragsfoot, he’d be Dundrannan.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“Of course he would. I’d forgotten. But does
it make much difference?”</p>
<p>“And amongst all the rest of it, Cragsfoot
wouldn’t be much more than an appendage. I love
Nina, Julius, but I wish sometimes that she wasn’t
quite so damned rich! Don’t think for an instant
that she ever rams it down my throat. She never
would.”</p>
<p>“My dear chap, I know her. I’m sure she’d be
incapable of——”</p>
<p>“But there the fact is. And it creates—well, a
certain situation. I say, I’m not keeping you? My
ladies are shopping, and I’ve an hour off, but if
you——”</p>
<p>“I’ve time to hear anything you want to say.
And you’re not tired?”</p>
<p>“Strong as a horse now. I enjoy walking. Look
here, old chap. Of course, there are lots of these
‘new rich,’ as the papers call them, who’d pay a
long price for Cragsfoot, but——”</p>
<p>“Thinking of anybody in particular?” I put in.</p>
<p>“Never mind!” He laughed—almost one of his
old hearty laughs. “Well, yes. Have you ever
had any reason——? I mean, it’s funny you should
ask that.”</p>
<p>“Something a certain friend of ours once let fall
set me thinking.”</p>
<p>“Well, if that idea took shape, if Nina wanted
it——”</p>
<p>Perhaps in the end she wouldn’t! I was thinking<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</SPAN></span>
that possibly the course of events might cause
Lady Dundrannan not to wish to see her cousin—and
his establishment—at Cragsfoot.</p>
<p>“If she did—and he did,” Waldo went on, “well,
I should be in a tight corner. Because, of course,
he could outbid practically everybody, if he chose—and
what reason for objecting could I give?”</p>
<p>“You seem to have something in your mind.
You’re looking—for you—quite crafty! Out
with it!”</p>
<p>“Well, supposing I’d promised that, if I sold, I’d
give you first offer?”</p>
<p>Waldo had delivered himself of his idea—and it
seemed nothing less than a proposal to put a spoke
in the wheel of his wife’s plans as he conceived them!
Decidedly rebellion was abroad—open and covert!
It worked mightily in Godfrey; it was working even
in Waldo.</p>
<p>“I don’t like your selling,” I said. “You’re the
chief—I’m a cadet. But if you’re forced—I beg
your pardon, Waldo! If you decide”—he pressed
my arm again, smiling at my correction, but saying
nothing—“to go, there’s nothing I should like so
much as to settle down there myself. But I can’t
outbid——”</p>
<p>“A man doesn’t ask his own kinsman more than
a fair price, when the deal’s part of a family arrangement,”
said Waldo. “May I speak to my
father, and write you a proposal about it? And
we’ll let the matter stand where it does till we know<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</SPAN></span>
what he thinks and till you’ve had an opportunity of
considering.”</p>
<p>“All right,” said I, and we walked on a little
way in silence. Then I felt again the slight pressure
on my arm. “Well, here’s where we’re staying. I
promised to meet them at tea. Will you come in?”</p>
<p>I shook my head, murmuring something about
business. He did not press the point. “We’re off
again early to-morrow, and dining with some friends
of Eunice’s to-night. See you again soon at Cragsfoot—we’re
going to Briarmount. Good-by!”</p>
<p>But that was not quite his last word. He gave
my arm a final squeeze; and he smiled again and
again a little ruefully. “I rather think that, in
his heart, the old pater would prefer what I’ve
suggested even to our—to any other arrangement,
Julius.”</p>
<p>It was quite as much as it was diplomatic to say
about his father’s feelings on that point. Like the
one which had been discussed by Godfrey and myself,
it might be considered delicate.</p>
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