第85章
"Now observe! I waited till she had finished, and then I said, 'What have I to do with this?' Lady Janet has one merit--she speaks out.'You are to do as I do,' she answered.'You are to consider that no explanation is required, and you are to consign the whole matter to oblivion from this time forth.' 'Are you serious?' I asked.'Quite serious.' 'In that case I have to inform your ladyship that you insist on more than you may suppose: you insist on my breaking my engagement to Miss Roseberry.Either I am to have the explanation that she has promised me, or I refuse to marry her.' How do you think Lady Janet took that? She shut up her lips, and she spread out her hands, and she looked at me as much as to say, 'Just as you please! Refuse if you like; it's nothing to me!'"He paused for a moment.Mercy remained silent, on her side: she foresaw what was coming.Mistaken in supposing that Horace had left the house, Julian had, beyond all doubt, been equally in error in concluding that he had been entrapped into breaking off the engagement upstairs.
"Do you understand me so far?" Horace asked.
"I understand you perfectly."
"I will not trouble you much longer," he resumed."I said to Lady Janet, 'Be so good as to answer me in plain words.Do you still insist on closing Miss Roseberry's lips?' 'I still insist,' she answered.'No explanation is required.If you are base enough to suspect your betrothed wife, I am just enough to believe in my adopted daughter.' I replied--and I beg you will give your best attention to what I am now going to say--I replied to that, 'It is not fair to charge me with suspecting her.I don't understand her confidential relations with Julian Gray, and I don't understand her language and conduct in the presence of the police officer.I claim it as my right to be satisfied on both those points--in the character of the man who is to marry her.' There was my answer.I spare you all that followed.I only repeat what I said to Lady Janet.She has commanded you to be silent.If you obey her commands, I owe it to myself and I owe it to my family to release you from your engagement.Choose between your duty to Lady Janet and your duty to Me."He had mastered his temper at last: he spoke with dignity, and he spoke to the point.His position was unassailable; he claimed nothing but his right.
"My choice was made," Mercy answered, "when I gave you my promise upstairs."She waited a little, struggling to control herself on the brink of the terrible revelation that was coming.Her eyes dropped before his; her heart beat faster and faster; but she struggled bravely.With a desperate courage she faced the position."If you are ready to listen," she went on, "I am ready to tell you why I insisted on having the police officer sent out of the house."Horace held up his hand warningly.
"Stop!" he said; "that is not all."
His infatuated jealousy of Julian (fatally misinterpreting her agitation) distrusted her at the very outset.She had limited herself to clearing up the one question of her interference with the officer of justice.The other question of her relations with Julian she had deliberately passed over.Horace instantly drew his own ungenerous conclusion.
"Let us not misunderstand one another," he said."The explanation of your conduct in the other room is only one of the explanations which you owe me.You have something else to account for.Let us begin with that , if you please."She looked at him in unaffected surprise.
"What else have I to account for?" she asked.
He again repeated his reply to Lady Janet.
"I have told you already," he said."I don't understand your confidential relations with Julian Gray."Mercy's color rose; Mercy's eyes began to brighten.
"Don't return to that!" she cried, with an irrepressible outbreak of disgust."Don't, for God's sake, make me despise you at such a moment as this!"His obstinacy only gathered fresh encouragement from that appeal to his better sense.
"I insist on returning to it."