Love's Logic and Other Stories/The Necessary Resources
THE NECESSARY RESOURCES
THE affair had three obvious results: the marriage of Prince Julian, Sir Henry Shum's baronetcy, and the complete renovation of Lady Craigennoch's town house. Its other effects, if any, were more obscure.
By accident of birth and of political events Prince Julian was a Pretender, one of several gentlemen who occupied that position in regard to the throne of an important European country: by a necessity of their natures Messrs. Shum e Byers were financiers: thanks to a fall in rents and a taste for speculation Lady Craigennoch was hard put to it for money and had become a good friend and ally of Mr. Shum; sometimes he allowed her to put a finger into one of his pies and draw out a little plum for herself. Byers, hearing one day of his partner's acquaintance with Lady Craigennoch, observed, "She might introduce us to Prince Julian." Shum asked no questions, but obeyed; that was the way to be comfortable and to grow rich if you were Mr. Byers' partner. The introduction was duly effected; the Prince wondered vaguely, almost ruefully, what these men expected to get out of him. Byers asked himself quite as dolefully whether anything could be made out of an indolent, artistic, lazy young man like the Prince; Pretenders such as he served only to buttress existing Governments.
"Yes," agreed Shum. "Besides, he's entangled with that woman."
"Is there a woman?" asked Byers. "I should like to know her."
So, on his second visit to Palace Gate, Mr. Byers was introduced to the lady who was an inmate in Prince Julian's house, but was not received in society. Lady Craigennoch however, opining, justly enough, that since she had no girls she might know whom she pleased, had called on the lady and was on friendly terms with her. The lady was named Mrs. Rivers, and was understood to be a widow. "And surely one needn't ask for his death certificate!" pleaded Lady Craigennoch. Byers, as he took tea in Mrs. Rivers' boudoir, was quite of the same mind. He nursed his square chin in his lean hand, and regarded his hostess with marked attention. She was handsome; that fact concerned Byers very little; she was also magnificently self-confident; this trait roused his interest in a moment. He came to see her more than once again; for now an idea had begun to shape itself in his brain. He mentioned it to nobody least of all to Mrs. Rivers. But one day she said to him, with the careless contempt that he admired,
"If I had all your money, I should do something with it."
"Don't I?" he asked, half-liking, half-resenting her manner.
"Oh, you make more money with it, I suppose."
She paused for a moment, and then, leaning forward, began to discuss European politics, with especial reference to the condition of affairs in Prince Julian's country. Byers listened in silence; she told him much that he knew, a few things which had escaped him. She told him also one thing which he did not believe—that Prince Julian's indolent airs covered a character of rare resolution and tenacity. She repeated this twice, thereby betraying that she was not sure her first statement had carried conviction. Then she showed that the existing Government in the Prince's country was weak, divided, unpopular, and poor; and then she ran over the list of rival Pretenders and proved how deficient all of them were in the qualities necessary to gain or keep a throne. At this point she stopped, and asked Mr. Byers to take a second cup of tea. He looked at her with interest and amusement in his shrewd eyes; she had all the genius, the native power, with none of the training, none of the knowledge of men. He read her so easily; but there was a good deal to read. In one point, however, he read her wrongly; almost the only mistakes he made were due to forgetting the possible existence of unselfish emotion.
Prince Julian had plenty of imagination; without any difficulty he imagined himself regaining his ancestral throne, sitting on it in majesty, and establishing it in power. This vision Mrs. Rivers called up before his receptive mind by detailing her conversation with Mr. Byers. "You want nothing but money to do it," she said. And Byers had money in great heaps; Shum had it too, and Shum was for present purposes Byers; so were a number of other persons, all with money. "I believe the people are devoted to me in their hearts," said Prince Julian; then he caught Mrs. Rivers by both her hands and cried, "And then you shall be my Queen!"
"Indeed I won't," said she; and she added almost fiercely, "Why do you bring that up again now? It would spoil it all." For, contrary to what the world thought. Prince Julian had offered several times to marry the lady who was not received nor visited (except, of course, by Lady Craigennoch). Stranger still, this marriage was the thing which the Prince desired above all things, for, failing it, he feared that some day (owing to a conscience and other considerations) Mrs. Rivers would leave him, and he really did not know what he should do then. When he imagined himself on his ancestral throne, Mrs. Rivers was always very near at hand; whether actually on the throne beside him or just behind it was a point which he was prone to shirk; at any cost, though, she must be very near.
As time went on there were many meetings at Palace Gate; the Prince, Mr. Shum, and Lady Craigennoch were present sometimes; Mrs. Rivers and Byers were never wanting. The Prince's imagination was immensely stimulated in those days; Lady Craigennoch's love for a speculation was splendidly indulged; Mr. Shum's cautious disposition received terrible shocks. Mrs. Rivers discussed European politics, the attitude of the Church, and the secret quarrels of the Cabinet in Prince Julian's country; and Byers silently gathered together all the money of his own and other people's on which he could lay hands. He was meditating a great coup; and just now and then he felt a queer touch of remorse when he reflected that his coup was so very different from the coup to which Mrs. Rivers' disquisitions and the Prince's vivid imagination invited him. But he believed in the survival of the fittest; and, although Mrs. Rivers was very fit, he himself was just by a little bit fitter still. Meanwhile the Government in the Prince's country faced its many difficulties with much boldness, and seemed on the whole safe enough.
The birth and attributes of Rumor have often engaged the attention of poets; who can doubt that their rhetoric would have been embellished and their metaphors multiplied had they possessed more intimate acquaintance with the places where money is bought and sold? For in respect of awakening widespread interest and affecting the happiness of homes, what is the character of any lady, however high-born, conspicuous, or beautiful, compared with the character of a Stock? Here indeed is a field for calumny, for innuendo, for hints of frailty, for whispers of intrigue; the scandal-mongers have their turn to serve, and the holders are swift to distrust. When somebody writes Sheridan's comedy anew, let him lay the scene of it in a Bourse; between his slandered Stock and his slandered dame he may work out a very pretty and fanciful parallel.
Here, however, the feats can be set down only plainly and prosaically. On all the Exchanges there arose a feeling of uneasiness respecting the Stock of the Government of Prince Julian's country; selling was going on, not in large blocks, but cautiously, continually, in unending dribblets; surely on a system and with a purpose? Then came paragraphs in the papers (like whispers behind fans), discussing the state of the Government and the country much in the vein which had marked Mrs. Rivers' dissertations. By now the Stock was down three points; by pure luck it fell another, in mysterious sympathy with the South African mining market. Next there was a riot in a provincial town in the Prince's country; then a Minister resigned and made a damaging statement in the Chamber. Upon this it seemed no more than natural that attention should be turned to Prince Julian, his habits, his entourage, his visitors. And now there were visitors: nobles and gentlemen crossed the Channel to see him; they came stealthily, yet not so secretly but that there was a paragraph; these great folk had heard the rumors, and hope had revived in their breasts. They talked to Mrs. Rivers; Mrs. Rivers had talked previously to Mr. Byers. A day later a weekly paper, which possessed good, and claimed universal, information, announced that great activity reigned among Prince Julian's party, and that His Royal Highness was considering the desirability of issuing a Manifesto. "Certain ulterior steps," the writer continued, "are in contemplation, but of these it would be premature to speak." There was not very much in all this, but it made the friends of the Stock rather uncomfortable; and they were no more happy when a leading article in a leading paper demonstrated beyond possibility of cavil that Prince Julian had a fair chance of success, but that, if he regained the throne, he could look to hold it only by seeking glory in an aggressive attitude toward his neighbors. On the appearance of this luminous forecast the poor Stock fell two points more: there had been a sauve qui peut of the timid holders.
Then actually came the Manifesto; and it was admitted on all hands to be such an excellent Manifesto as to amount to an event of importance. Whoever had drawn it up—and this question was never settled—he knew how to lay his finger on all the weak spots of the existing Government, how to touch on the glories of Prince Julian's House, what tone to adopt on vexed questions, how to rouse the enthusiasm of all the discontented. "Given that the Prince's party possess the necessary resources," observed the same leading journal, "it cannot be denied that the situation has assumed an aspect of gravity." And the poor Stock fell yet a little more; upon which Mr. Shum, who had a liking for taking a profit when he saw it, ventured to ask his partner how long he meant "to keep it up."
"We'll talk about that to-morrow," said Mr. Byers. "I'm going to call in Palace Gate this afternoon." He looked very thoughtful as he brushed his hat and sent for a hansom. But, as he drove along, his brow cleared and he smiled triumphantly. If the Prince's party had not the necessary resources they could do nothing; if they did nothing, would not the drooping Stock lift up her head again? Now nobody was in a position to solve that problem about the necessary resources so surely or so swiftly as Mr. Byers.
A hundred yards from Prince Julian's house he saw Lady Craigennoch walking along the pavement, and got out of his cab to join her. She was full of the visit she had just paid, above all of Ellen Rivers,
"Because she's the whole thing, you know," she said. "The adherents—good gracious, what helpless creatures! I don't wonder the Republicans upset them if that's what they're all like. Oh, they're gentlemen, of course, and you're not, Byers"—(Mr. Byers bowed slightly and smiled acquiescently)—"but I'd rather have you than a thousand of them. And the Prince, poor dear, is hardly better. Always talking of what he'll do when he's there, never thinking how he's going to get there!"
Byers let her run on; she was giving him both instruction and amusement.
"And then he's afraid—on, not of the bullets or the guillotine or whatever it is—because he's a gentleman too, you know. (Or perhaps you don't know! I wonder if you do? Shum doesn't; perhaps you do.) But he's afraid of losing her. If he goes, she won't go with him. I don't mean as—as she is now, you know. She won't go anyhow, not as his wife even. Well, of course, if he married her he'd wreck the whole thing. But one would hardly expect her to see that; or even to care, if she did. She's very odd." Lady Craigennoch paused a moment. "She's fond of him too," she added. "She's a very queer woman."
"A lady?" asked Mr. Byers with a touch of satire.
"Oh yes," said Lady Craigennoch, scornful that he needed to ask. "But so odd. Well, you've seen her with him—just like a mother with her pet boy! How hard she's worked, to be sure! She told me how she'd got him to sign the what's-its-name. He almost cried, because he'd have to go without her, you know. But she says it's all right now; he won't go back now, because he's given his word. And she's simply triumphant, though she's fond of him, and though she won't go with him." Again Lady Craigennoch paused. "People won't call on that woman, you know," she remarked after her pause. Then she added, "Of course that's right, except for a reprobate like me. But still"
"She's an interesting woman," said Byers in a perfunctory sympathy with his companion's enthusiasm.
Lady Craigennoch cooled down, and fixed a cold and penetrating glance on him.
"Yes, and you're an interesting man," she said. "What are you doing, Mr. Byers?"
"Vindicating Right Divine," he answered.
Lady Craigennoch smiled. "Well, whatever it is," she said, 'Shum has promised that I shall stand in." Again she paused. "Only," she resumed, "if you're making a fool of that woman" She seemed unable to finish the sentence; there had been genuine indignation in her eyes for a moment; it faded away; but there came a slight flush on her cheeks as she added, "But that doesn't matter if it's in the way of business, does it?"
"And Shum has promised that you shall stand in," Byers reminded her gravely.
Lady Craigennoch dug her parasol into the streak of earth that showed between pavement and curbstone.
"Anyhow I'm glad I called on her," she said. "I'm not much, Heaven knows, but I'm a woman to speak to."
"To cry to?" he hazarded.
"How do you know she cried? Think what she'd been through, poor thing! Oh, you won't find her crying."
"I hope not," said Mr. Byers with a perfect seriousness in his slightly nasal tones; and when they parted he said to himself, "That woman hates having to know me." But there were many people in that position; and he spent much time in increasing the number; so the reflection caused him no pain, but rather a sense of self-complacency; when people know you who hate having to know you, you are somebody. The thought passed, and the next moment he found himself being glad that Ellen Rivers had a woman to speak to—or to cry to—even though it were only Lady Craigennoch.
She was not crying when she received Mr. Byers. She was radiant. She told him that her part was done; now he must do his part; then the Prince would do his: thus the great enterprise would be accomplished. That odd pang struck Byers again as he listened; he recollected the beginning of Lady Craigennoch's unfinished sentence, "if you're making a fool of that woman—" That was just what he was doing. He escaped from the thought and gratified his curiosity by turning the talk to Mrs. Rivers herself.
"Accomplished, eh?" said he. "And it's a crown for the Prince!"
"Yes, and great influence for you."
"And you'll be"
"I shall be nothing. I shall go away." She spoke quickly and decisively; the resolution was there, but to dwell on it was dangerous.
"Where to?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Anywhere."
"Back to your people?"
She looked at him for a moment. He had allowed himself to sneer. Her manner, as she went on without taking any notice of his question, proved that Lady Craigennoch had been right in saying that she was a lady.
"My work will be done," she said. "From the first moment I knew the Prince I determined to use my influence in this way. He only—he only needed a little encouragement."
"And a little money?"
"I gave him one, you're giving him the other. We shall both be repaid by his success."
"You're a very strange woman," he said. Probably he did not know how straight and hard his eyes were set on her; they could not leave her. What a pity it was that she would not go with the Prince—as his wife, or even (to use Lady Craigennoch's charitably evasive phrase) as she was now. To set the Prince on the seat of his ancestors was not an exploit that appealed to Mr. Byers; but to set this woman on a throne would be worth—well, how much? Mr. Byers detected this question in his own heart; he could not help reducing things to figures. "Why don't you go with him?" he asked bluntly.
"It would prejudice him," she answered simply, folding her hands in her lap.
Then she stretched out a hand toward him and said suddenly, with a sudden quiver in her voice, "I talk to you like this, and all the time I'm wanting to go down on my knees and kiss your hands, because you're doing this."
The lean hand held the square jaw; the attitude was a favorite one with Mr. Byers; and his eyes were still on her.
"Yes, that's what I want to do," she said with a nervous laugh. "It's so splendid of you." Her breath came fast; her eyes were very bright. At that moment Mr. Byers wished that the quick breath and the bright eyes were for him himself, not for the helper of the Prince; and for that moment he forgot Mrs. Byers and the babies in Portland Place; it was years since he had had any such wish about any woman; he felt a sympathy with Prince Julian, who had almost cried when he signed the Manifesto, because, if he mounted the throne, Ellen Rivers would leave him.
"We want money now, directly," she went on. "We want the Manifesto in every house. I can manage the distribution. And we must pay people—bribe them. We must sow seed. It'll soon come up. And the Prince will act at the proper time."
"How much do you want now?" he asked.
"Half-a-million now, and another next month," she said.
"And more before the end?"
"Yes, most likely. You can get it, you know."
"And shall I ever get it back?"
"The Prince has given his word." Mr. Byers assumed a doubtful air. "Oh, you're not as stupid as that; you believe him," she added almost contemptuously. "Do you mean it's a speculation? Of course it is. I thought you had courage!"
"So I have," said Byers. And he added, "I may want it all too!" What he would want it for was in his mind, but he did not tell her.
He thought a great deal about the matter that evening as he sat by the fire opposite to Mrs. Byers, who knitted a stocking and said nothing; she never broke in upon his thoughts, believing that a careless interruption might cost a million. Millions were in his mind now, and other things than millions. There was his faith with his associates; they were all waiting his word; when he gave it, rumors would die away, reports be contradicted, the Manifesto pooh-poohed; there would be buyings, the Stock would lift up her head again, confidence would revive; and the first to buy, the first to return to faith in the Stock, would be Mr. Byers and his associates; the public would come in afterwards, and when the public came in he and his associates would go out again, richer by vast sums. The money and his good faith—his honor among financiers—bound him; and the triumph of his brains, the beauty of his coup the admiration of his fellows, the unwilling applause of the hard hit—all these allured him mightily. On the other side there was nothing except the necessity of disappointing Mrs. Rivers, of telling her that the necessary resources were not forthcoming, that the agitation and the Manifesto had served their turn, that the Prince had been made a fool of, that she herself had been made a fool of too. Many such a revelation had he made to defeated opponents, calmly, jestingly perhaps, between the puffs of his cigar, not minding what they thought. Why should he mind what Mrs. Rivers thought? She would no longer wish to kiss that lean strong hand of his; she might cry (she had Lady Craigennoch to cry to). He looked across at his wife who was knitting; he would not have minded telling anything to her. But so intensely did he mind telling what he had to tell to Ellen Rivers that the millions, his good faith, the joy of winning, and the beauty of the coup all hung doubtful in the balance against the look in the eyes of the lady at Prince Julian's. "What an infernal fool I am!" he groaned. Mrs. Byers glanced up for a moment, smiled sympathetically, and went on with her knitting; she supposed that there must be some temporary hitch about the latest million; or perhaps Shum had been troublesome; that was sometimes what was upsetting Mr. Byers.
The next morning Mr. Shum was troublesome; he thought that the moment for action had come; the poor Stock had been blown upon enough, the process of rehabilitation should begin. Various other gentlemen, weighty with money, dropped in with their hats on the back of their heads and expressed the same views. Byers fenced with them, discussed the question rather inconclusively, took now this side and now that, hesitated, vacillated, shilly-shallied. The men wondered at him; they knew they were right; and, right or wrong, Byers had been wont to know his own mind; their money was at stake; they looked at one another uncomfortably. Then the youngest of them, a fair boy, great at dances and late suppers, but with a brain for figures and a cool boldness which made him already rich and respected in the City, tilted his shining hat still further back and drawled out, "If you've lost your nerve, Byers, you'd better let somebody else engineer the thing."
What her fair fame is to a proud woman the prestige of his nerve was to Mr. Byers. The boy had spoken the decisive word, by chance, by the unerring instinct which in any sphere of thought is genius. In half-an-hour all was planned, the Government of the Prince's country saved, and the agitation at an end. The necessary resources would not be forthcoming; confidence would revive, the millions would be made, the coup brought off, the triumph won.
So in the next fortnight it happened. Prince Julian looked on with vague bewilderment, reading the articles and paragraphs which told him that he had abandoned all thought of action, had resigned himself to wait for a spontaneous recall from his loving subjects (which might be expected to assail his ears on the Greek Kalends), that in fact he would do nothing. Mrs. Rivers read the paragraphs too, and waited and waited and waited for the coming of Mr. Byers and the necessary resources; she smiled at what she read, for she had confidence in the Cause, or at least in herself and in Mr. Byers. But the days went on; slowly the Stock rose; then in went the public with a rush. The paragraphs and the articles dwindled and teased; there was a commotion somewhere else in Europe; Prince Julian and his Manifesto were forgotten. What did it mean? She wrote a note, asking Mr. Byers to call.
It was just at this time also that Henry Shum accepted the invitation of the Conservative Association of the Hatton Garden Division of Holborn Bars to contest the seat at the approaching General Election, and that Lady Craigennoch gave orders for the complete renovation of her town house. Both these actions involved, of course, some expense; how much it is hard to say precisely. The house was rather large, and the seat was very safe.
Prince Julian sat in his library in Palace Gate and Mrs. Rivers stood beside him, her hand resting on the arm of his chair. Now and then the Prince glanced up at her face rather timidly. They had agreed that matters showed no progress; then Mrs. Rivers had become silent.
"Has Byers thrown us over?" the Prince asked at last.
"Hush, hush," she answered in a low voice. "Wait till he's been; he's coming to-day." Her voice sank lower still as she whispered. "He can't have; oh, he can't!"
There was silence again. A few minutes passed before the Prince broke out fretfully, "I'm sick of the whole thing. I'm very well as I am. If they want me, let them send for me. I can't force myself on them."
She looked down for a moment and touched his hair with her hand.
"If this has come to nothing I'll never try again. I don't like being made a fool of."
Her hand rested a moment on his forehead; he looked up smiling.
"We can be happy together," he murmured. "Let's throw up the whole thing and be happy together." He caught her hand in his. "You'll stay with me anyhow?"
"You want me still?"
"You'll do what I ask?" he whispered.
"That would put an end to it, indeed," she said, smiling.
"Thank Heaven for it!" he exclaimed peevishly.
A servant came in and announced that Mr. Byers was in the drawing-room.
"Shall I come too?" asked the Prince.
"Oh no," she answered with a strange little laugh. "What's the use of bothering you? I'll see him."
"Make him say something definite," urged Prince Julian. "Let's have an end of it one way or the other."
"Very well." She bent down and kissed him, and then went off to talk to Mr. Byers.
The fair boy with the business brains might have been seriously of opinion that th;e was something wrong with Byers' nerve had he sen him waiting for Mrs. Rivers in the drawing-room, waiting to tell her that the necessary resources were not forthcoming; he hoped that he need tell her no more than that; he wished that he had not come, but he could not endure the self-contempt which the thought of running away had brought with it; he must face her; the woman could do no more than abuse him. One other thought he had for a moment entertained—of offering to let her stand in, as Mr. Shum had let Lady Craigennoch; there was hardly any sum which he would not have been glad to give her. But long before he reached the house he had decided that she would not stand in. "By God, I should think not," he said to himself indignantly.
But he had one phrase ready for her. He reminded her of the paragraphs, the rumors, and the Manifesto. "We have by these means felt the pulse of the public," he said. He paused, she said nothing. "The result is not—er—encouraging," he went on. "The moment is not propitious."
"You promised the money if the Prince signed the Manifesto," she said.
"Promised? Oh, well, I said I'd"
"You promised," said Mrs. Rivers. "What's the difficulty now?"
"The state of public feeling—" he began.
"I know that. We want the money to change it. She smiled slightly. "If the feeling had been with us already we shouldn't have wanted the money." She leaned forward and asked, "Haven't you got the money? You said you had."
"Yes, I've got it—or I could get it."
"Yes. Well then—! Why have you changed your mind?"
He made no answer, and for a while she sat looking at him thoughtfully. She did not abuse him, and she did not cry.
"I want to understand," she said presently. "Did you ever mean to give us the money?"
"Yes, upon my honor I"
"Are you sure?" She forced him to look her in the face; he was silent. She rose, took a Japanese fan from a side table, and sat down again; the lower part of her face was now hidden by the fan; Byers saw nothing but her eyes. "What did you mean?" she asked. "You've made us all—the Prince, and his friends, and me—look very silly. How did that help you? I don't see what you could get out of that."
She was looking at him now as though she thought him mad; she could not see what he had got out of it; it had not yet crossed her mind that there had been money to be got out of it; so ignorant was she, with all her shrewdness, with all her resolution.
"And I understood that you were such a clever far-seeing man, she went on. "Lady Craigennoch always told me so; she said I could trust you in anything. Do tell me about it, Mr. Byers."
"I can't explain it to you," he began. "You—you wouldn't"
"Yes, I should understand it if you told me," she insisted.
If he told her he was a liar and a thief, she would understand. Probably she would. But he did not think that she would understand the transaction if he used any less plain language about it. And that language was not only hard to use to her, but struck strangely on his own head and his own heart. Surely there must be other terms in which to describe his part in the transaction? There were plenty such in the City; were there none in Palace Gate?
"It's a matter of business—" again he began.
She stopped him with an imperious wave of the fan. Her eyes grew animated with a sudden enlightenment; she looked at him for a moment or two, and then asked, "Have you been making money out of it somehow?" He did not answer. "How, please?" she asked.
"What does that matter?" His voice was low.
"I should like to hear, please. You don't want to tell me? But I want to know. It—it'll be useful to me to understand things like this. "
It seemed to Mr. Byers that he had to tell her, that this was the one thing left that he could do, the one obligation which he could perform. So he began to tell her, and as he told her, naturally (or curiously, since natures are curious) his pride on the great coup revived—his professional pride. He went into it all thoroughly; she followed him very intelligently; he made her understand what an "option" was, what "differences," what the "put," and what the "call." He pointed out how the changes in public affairs might make welcome changes in private pockets, and would have her know that the secret center of great movements must be sought in the Bourses, not in the Cabinets, of Europe; perhaps he exaggerated here a little, as a man will in praising what he loves. Finally, carried away by enthusiasm, he gave her the means of guessing with fair accuracy the profit that he and his friends had made out of the transaction. Thus ending, he heaved a sigh of relief, she understood, and there had been no need of those uncivil terms which lately had pressed themselves forward to the tip of his tongue so rudely.
"I think I'd better not try to have anything more to do with politics," she said. "I—I'm too ignorant." There was a little break in her tones. Byers glanced at her sharply and apprehensively. Now that his story was ended, his enthusiasm died away; he expected abuse now. Well, he would bear it; she was entitled to relieve her mind.
"What a fool I've been! How you must have been laughing at me—at my poor Prince and me!" She looked across to him, smiling faintly. He sat twisting his hat in his hands. Then she turned her eyes toward the fireplace. Byers had nothing to say; he was wondering whether he might go now. Glancing at her for permission, he saw that her clear bright eyes had grown dim; presently a tear formed and rolled down her cheek. Then she began to sob, softly at first, presently with growing and rising passion. She seemed quite forgetful of him, heedless of what he thought and of how she looked. All that was in her, the pang of her dead hopes, the woe for her poor Prince, the bitter shame of her own crushed pride and helpless folly, came out in her sobs as she abandoned herself to weeping. Byers sat by, listening always, looking sometimes. He tried to defend himself to himself; was it decent of her, was it becoming, wasn't it characteristic of the lack of self-control and self-respect that marks the sort of woman she was? It might be open to all these reproaches. She seemed not to care; she cried on. He could not help looking at her now; at last she saw him looking, and with a little stifled exclamation—whether of apology or of irritation he could not tell—she turned sideways and hid her face in the cushions of the sofa. Byers rose slowly, almost unsteadily, to his feet.
"My God!" he whispered to himself, as he stood for a moment and looked at her. Then he walked over to where she lay, her head buried in the cushions.
"It doesn't make all that difference to you," he said roughly. "You wouldn't have gone with him."
She turned her face to him for a moment. She did not look her best; how could she? But Mr. Byers did not notice that.
"I love him; and I wanted to do it."
Byers had "wanted to do it" too, and their desires had clashed. But in his desire there had been no alloy of love; it was all true metal, true metal of self. He stood over her for a minute without speaking. A strange feeling seized him then; he had felt it once before with regard to this woman.
"If it had been for you I'd have damned the money and gone ahead," he blurted out in an indistinct impetuous utterance.
Again she looked up, there was no surprise, no resentment in her face, only a heartbreaking plaintiveness. "Oh, why couldn't you be honest with me?" she moaned. But she stopped sobbing and sat straight on the sofa again. "You'll think me still more of a fool for doing this," she said.
Was the abuse never coming? Mr. Byers began to long for it. If he were abused enough, he thought that he might be able to find something to say for himself.
"You think that because—because I live as I do, I know the world and—and so on. I don't a bit. It doesn't follow really, you know. Fancy my thinking I could do anything for Julian! What do I know of business? Well, you've told me now!"
"If it had been for you I'd have risked it and gone ahead," said Byers again.
"I don't know what you mean by that," she murmured vaguely. Byers did not try to describe to her the odd strong impulse which had inspired his speech. "I must go and tell the Prince about it," she said.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded.
"Do? What is there to do? Nothing, I suppose. What can we do?"
"I wish to God I'd—I'd met a woman like you. Shall you marry him now?"
She looked up; a faint smile appeared on her face.
"Yes," she said. "It doesn't matter now; and he'll like it. Yes, I'll marry him now."
Two visions—one was of Mrs. Byers and the babies in Portland Place—rose before Byers' thoughts.
"He hasn't lost much then," he said. "And you? You'll be just as happy."
"It was the whole world to me," said she, and for the last time she put her handkerchief to her eyes. Then she stowed it away in her pocket and looked expectantly at her visitor; here was the permission to go.
"Will you take the money?" said he.
"What money?"
"What I've made. My share of it."
"Oh, don't be silly! What do I care what money you've made?"
He spoke lower as he put his second question.
"Will you forgive me?" he asked.
"Forgive you?" She laughed a little, yet looked puzzled. "I don't think about you like that," she explained. "You're not a man to me."
"You're a woman to me. What am I to you then?"
"I don't know. Things in general—the world—business—the truth about myself. Yes, you're the truth about myself to me." She laughed again, nervously, tentatively, almost appealingly, as though she wanted him to understand how he seemed to her. He drew in his breath and buttoned his coat.
"And you're the truth about myself to me," he said. "And the truth is that I'm a damned scoundrel."
"Are you?" she asked, as it seemed half in surprise, half in indifference. "Oh, I suppose you're no worse than other people. Only I was such a fool. Good-by, Mr. Byers." She held out her hand. He had not meant to offer his. But he took hers and pressed it. He had a vague desire to tell her that he was not a type of all humanity, that other men were better than he was, that there were unselfish men, true men, men who did not make fools of women for money's sake, yes, of women whose shoes they were not worthy to black. But he could not say anything of all this, and he left her without another word. And the next morning he bought the "call" of a big block of the Stock; for the news of Prince Julian's marriage with Mrs. Rivers would send it up a point or two. Habit is very wrong.
When he was gone, Mrs. Rivers went up-stairs to her room and bathed her face. Then she rejoined Prince Julian in the library. Weary of waiting, he had gone to sleep; but he woke up and was rejoiced to see her. He listened to her story, called Mr. Byers an infernal rogue, and, with an expression of relief on his face, said:
"There's the end of that! And now, darling"
"Yes, I'll marry you now," she said. "It doesn't matter now."
Thus, as has been said, the whole affair had only three obvious effects—the renovation of Lady Craigennoch's town house, a baronetcy for Sir Henry Shum (services to the Party are a recognized claim on the favor of His Majesty), and the marriage of Prince Julian. But from it both Mrs. Rivers and Mr. Byers derived some new ideas of the world and of themselves. Shall women weep and hard men curse their own work without result? The Temple of Truth is not a National Institution. So, of course, one pays to go in. Even when you are in, it is difficult to look at more than one side of it at once. Perhaps Mrs, Rivers did not realize this; and Mr. Byers could not while he seemed still to hear her crying; he heard the sobs for so many evenings, mingling oddly with the click of his wife's knitting-needles.