"Don’t thank me. I loved getting the best of her. Faith, if ever she comes back, I stand ready for another bout!"
"If only we had some way of finding out if she really goes to New York and if she sails from there!"
"We have!" said Adeline triumphantly. "Thomas D’Arcy and Michael Brent will tell us".
"D’Arcy and Brent!" cried Wilmott, stiffening. "How could they know anything of the matter?"
"I gave her their address so she could find out all the truth about your trip to Mexico from them".
"You must have been mad!" shouted Wilmott. "What do they know of this affair?"
"Nothing. But I shall write post-haste and tell them to expect her. I know those two Irishmen. D’Arcy is a rip and Brent a regular playboy. They’ll like nothing so well as to tell fairy-tales to Henrietta for my sake".
"You place yourself in a strange light", said Wilmott. "What will they think of you?"
"There you go, wondering what people will think! I say people will think ill of you no matter what you do. It’s human nature".
"I would not have taken a thousand pounds and had those two told this of me".
"Then I shall not write to them".
"Have you no reasoning power?"
"No. I have only instinct. Why?"
"Naturally they will have to know everything-now you have sent Henrietta to them".
"You need not care. You will never see them again".
"I possibly never shall. But will Messrs. D’Arcy and Brent refrain from telling this good story to their friends after dinner?"
"I will swear them to secrecy, James".
"Do you think they will remember to be secret when they have drunk well? No! All their friends will hear this story".
"You need not care. You are dead".
"I had better be", he returned bitterly.
They eyed each other coldly. Then Adeline exclaimed in exasperation, "What in the name of heaven did you expect? Did you expect me to meet Henrietta with a full-fledged plan in my head, with no weak spots in it? I think I have done very well-but what thanks does one ever get for interfering between husband and wife?"
"She is no wife to me, nor has been for five years".
"Then why worry about her now that she is far away? I may add that Hettie doesn’t want you back".
Wilmott stared. "Was Hettie there?" he asked incredulously.
"She was. And showed no desire for a reunion with her papa".
Wilmott exploded in bitter laughter. "What a family we are! And how unworthy of your interest in us!"
She gave him a piercing look. "If you still say us about yourself and those two, I wash my hands of you".
"I don’t!" he exclaimed. "I announce myself free. I have never been so happy in my life as I have been here. I shall trust in a beneficent Providence and go on being happy".
"Just trust in me", she returned.
Wilmott turned to her, his features working, his eyes full of sudden tears. "If I am happy here", he said, "it is because you are near me".
Adeline gave a little laugh. "Come with me", she said, "to Jalna. I will not leave you alone".
He looked about him. "It doesn’t seem too much for a man to ask to have this log house in peace and yet I cannot feel at all convinced that I shall".
"You shall not stay here alone today", she returned. "We’ll go to Jalna and see the staircase. The men are just building it and Philip has found a wood-carver who is carving a beautiful newel-post for it. The newel-post is to be of walnut and done in a design of grapes and their leaves, with a grand bunch at the top. Shouldn’t you like to see it, James?"
"I should like nothing better".
He got his hat. He no longer wore the woodsman’s clothes he had affected when he first arrived but he had kept his word about taking off his whiskers. Adeline again remarked the improvement in his appearance.
"I declare", she said, "you look very distinguished, now that you have got rid of those whiskers".
"As a matter of fact they were quite small ones", he returned.
"All whiskers are too large. Don’t you want me to say that you look distinguished?"
"Everything you say is so important to me that I am bound to criticise it".
"You are a character, James, as we say in Ireland, and sometimes I could find it in my heart to pity Henrietta".
They went through the intricate paths that led to Jalna, he leading her horse, she with the long skirt of her habit thrown across her arm. They found Colonel Vaughan with Philip. They clustered about the stairway, discussing the width of the treads, the curve of the banister, the design of the proposed newel-post. Adeline declared that, for ease of mounting, the steps had never been equalled. She could run up and down them all day, she said, with a baby on either arm.
Colonel Vaughan invited Wilmott to join his other guests at dinner. Wilmott was invited to Vaughanlands less frequently than he might have been had Mrs. Vaughan liked him better. She had on several occasions heard him express views on religion and politics which were antagonistic to her. She had seen that her husband admired him. She felt that he was a dangerous companion for Robert. What she disliked still more about him was the admiration for Adeline which she had glimpsed alight in his eyes. She thought it was reckless of Adeline to visit his home alone and so make herself the subject of gossip. She thought it lax of Philip to allow her to do so. She said as much to Adeline the same afternoon before dinner.
"Dear Mrs. Vaughan", said Adeline, smiling, a little dangerously, "please don’t take me to task for something entirely innocent".
"I am not taking you to task, Mrs. Whiteoak. I am only warning you".
"Warning me of what?"
"That you will find yourself talked about".
"You mean that I am already talked about?"
"You must acknowledge that what you are doing is unconventional".
"Philip and I are unconventional people. We don’t care a fig what gossips or busybodies say".
"But these people are not gossips or busybodies. They are nice people and your future neighbours, you must remember".
"Oh, Mrs. Vaughan, please don’t take a chiding tone with me!" Adeline’s cheeks were scarlet but she added more calmly, "While I am here with you I shall not go again alone to Mr. Wilmott’s house. I hope that will satisfy everyone".
She went off to dress for dinner, feeling the constriction of a prolonged visit. She stopped at the children’s door and opened it. Nicholas had just been given his bath and was sitting on his nurse’s knee, wet and shining as a shell just lifted from the sea. His hair flew upward in moist waves from his forehead. His eyes had a look of infant hilarity and daring. He had thrown the sponge to the floor and now, on Matilda’s knee, reached for his slippery pink toes. She, with the prideful fatuous smile of the nurse, looked up at Adeline as though to say, "You may have borne him but just now he is mine, mine".
Nicholas did not care whose he was. He took a large, magnanimous view of life. His chief occupation was to destroy what was nearest.
"You angel!" cried Adeline. "Oh, Nurse, how he grows! Aren’t his dimples enchanting?"
"They are indeed, Ma’am", answered the nurse, as smugly as though she had put them in with her own finger.
Gussie came forward carrying a doll Wilmott had given her. It had a pink-and-white face and black curls painted on its china head. It wore only a chemise.
"Look", said Gussie, holding up the doll.
"Oh, how pretty!" said Adeline, but her eyes returned at once to Nicholas.
"Look", said Gussie, drawing back the doll’s chemise and displaying its body.