The God in the Car: A Novel

Maggie Dennison's eyes sparkled. Behind the mockery in Semingham's jest, behind the only half make-believe homage which Detchmore's humorous glance at Ruston showed, she saw the reality of deference, the acknowledgment of power in the man she loved. For a brief moment she tasted the troubled joy which she had paid so high to win. For a moment her eyes rested on Willie Ruston as a woman's eyes rest on a man who is the world's as well as hers, but also hers as he is not the world's. She sipped the champagne, echoing in her low rich voice, so that the men but just caught the words, "Moriamur pro rege nostro" and gave the glass into Ruston's hand.

A sudden seriousness fell upon them. Detchmore glanced at Semingham, and thence, curiously, at Willie Ruston, whose face was pale and marked with a deep-lined frown. Mrs. Dennison had sunk back in her chair, and her heart rose and fell in agitated breathings. Then Willie Ruston spoke in cool deliberate tones.

"The King there was a Queen," he said. "You've drunk to the wrong person, Semingham. I'll drink it right," and, bowing to Maggie Dennison, he drained his glass. Looking up, he found Detchmore's eyes on him in overpowering wonder.

"If I tell you a story, Lord Detchmore," said he, "you'll understand," and, yielding his place by Maggie Dennison, he took Detchmore with him, and they walked away in talk.

It was an hour later when Lord Detchmore took leave of his host.

"Well, did you hear the story?" asked Semingham.

"Yes; I heard it," said Detchmore, "about the telegram, wasn't it?"

"Yes, and of course, you see, it explains the toast."

"That sounds like a question, Semingham."

"Oh, no. The note of interrogation was – a printer's error."

"It's a remarkable story."

"It really is," said Semingham.

"And – is it the whole story?"

"Well, isn't it enough to justify the toast?"

"It – and she – are enough," said Detchmore. "But, Semingham – "

Lord Semingham, however, took him by the arm, walked him into the hall, got his hat and coat for him, helped him on with them, and wished him good-night. Detchmore submitted without resistance. Just at the last, however, as he fitted his hat on his head, he said,

"You're unusually explicit, Semingham. He goes to Omofaga soon, don't he?"

"Yes, thank God," said Semingham, almost cheerfully.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CUTTING OF THE KNOT

"You can manage it for me?" asked Willie Ruston.

"I suppose I can," answered Carlin; "but it's rather queer, isn't it, Willie?"

"I don't know whether it's queer or not; but I must talk to her for half-an-hour."

"Why not at Curzon Street?"

Ruston laughed a short little laugh.

"Do you really want the reason stated?" he inquired.

Carlin shook his head gloomily, but he attempted no remonstrance. He confined himself to saying,

"I hope the deuce you're not getting yourself into a mess!"

"She'll be here about five. You must be here, you know, and you must leave me with her. Look here, Carlin, I only want a word with her."

"But my wife – "

"Send your wife somewhere – to the theatre with the children, or somewhere. Mind you're here to receive her."

He issued his orders and walked away. He hated making arrangements of this sort, but there was (he told himself) no help for it. Anything was better than talking to Maggie Dennison before the world in a drawing-room. And it was for the last time. Removed from her presence, he felt clear about that. The knot must be cut; the thing must be finished. His approaching departure made a natural and inevitable end to it; and her mad suggestion of coming with him shewed in its real enormity as he mused on it in his solitary thoughts. For a moment she had carried him away. The picture of her pale eloquent face, and the gleam of her eager eyes had almost led him to self-betrayal; the idea of her in such a mood beside him in his work and his triumphs had seemed for the moment irresistible. She could double his strength and make joy of his toil. But it could not be so; and for it to be so, if it could be, he must stand revealed as a traitor to his friend, and be banned for an outlaw by his acquaintance. He had been a traitor, of course, but he need not persist. They – she and he – must not stereotype a passing madness, nor refuse the rescue chance had given them. There was time to draw back, to set matters right again – at least, to trammel up the consequence of wrong.

When she came, and Carlin, frowning perplexedly, had, with awkward excuses, taken himself away, he said all this to her in stumbling speech. From the exaltation of the evening before they fell pitiably. They had soared then in vaulting imagination over the bristling barriers; to-day they could rise to no such height. Reality pressed hard upon them, crushing their romance into crime, their passion to the vulgarity of an everyday intrigue. This secret backstairs meeting seemed to stamp all that passed at it with its own degrading sign; their high-wrought defiance of the world and the right dwindled before their eyes to a mean and sly evasiveness. So felt Willie Ruston; and Maggie Dennison sat silent while he painted for her what he felt. She did not interrupt him; now and again a shiver or a quick motion shewed that she heard him. At last he had said his say, and stood, leaning against the mantelpiece, looking down on her. Then, without glancing up, she asked,

"And what's to become of me, Willie?"

The sudden simple question revealed him to himself. Put in plain English, his rigmarole meant, "Go your way and I'll go mine." What he had said might be right – might be best – might be duty – might be religion – might be anything you would. But a man may forfeit the right to do right.

"Of you?" he stammered.

"I can't live as I am," she said.

He began to pace up and down the room. She sat almost listlessly in her chair. There was an air of helplessness about her. But she was slowly thinking over what he had said and realising its purport.

"You mean we're never to meet again?" she asked.

"Not that!" he cried, with a sudden heat that amazed himself. "Not that, Maggie. Why that?"

"Why that?" she repeated in wondering tones. "What else do you mean? You don't mean we should go on like this?"

He did not dare to answer either way. The one was now impossible – had swiftly, as he looked at her, come to seem impossible; the other was to treat her as not even he could treat her. She was not of the stuff to live a life like that.

There was silence while he waged with himself that strange preposterous struggle, where evil seemed good, and good a treachery not to be committed; wherein his brain seemed to invite to meanness, and his passion, for once, to point the better way.

"I wish to God we had never – " he began; but her despairing eyes stifled the feeble useless sentence on his lips.

At last he came near to her; the lines were deep on his forehead, and his mouth quivered under a forced smile. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked up questioningly.

"You know what you're asking?" he said.

She nodded her head.

"Then so be it," said he; and he went again and leant against the mantelpiece.

He felt that he had paid a debt with his life, but knew not whether the payment were too high.

It seemed to him long before she spoke – long enough for him to repeat again to himself what he had done – how that he, of all men, had made a burden that would break his shoulders, and had fettered his limbs for all his life's race – yet to be glad, too, that he had not shrunk from carrying what he had made, and had escaped coupling the craven with his other part.