For, in Lichfield at all events, everyone's house has at least a pane or so of glass in it; and, if indiscriminate stone-throwing were ever to become the fashion, there is really no telling what damage might ensue. And so had Mrs. Ashmeade been a younger woman—had time and an adoring husband not rendered her as immune to an insanity à deux as any of us may hope to be upon this side of saintship or senility—why, Mrs. Ashmeade would most probably have remained passive, and Mrs. Ashmeade would never have come into this story at all.
As it was, she approached Rudolph Musgrave with a fixed purpose this morning as he smoked an after-breakfast cigarette on the front porch of Matocton. And,
"Rudolph," said Mrs. Ashmeade, "are you blind?"
"You mean—?" he asked, and he broke off, for he had really no conception of what she meant.
And Mrs. Ashmeade said, "I mean Patricia and Charteris. Did you think I was by any chance referring to the man in the moon and the Queen of Sheba?"
If ever amazement showed in a man's eyes, it shone now in Rudolph Musgrave's. After a little, the pupils widened in a sort of terror. So this was what Clarice Pendomer had been hinting at.
"Nonsense!" he cried. "Why—why, it is utter, preposterous, Bedlamite nonsense!" He caught his breath in wonder at the notion of such a jest, remembering a little packet of letters hidden in his desk. "It—oh, no, Fate hasn't quite so fine a sense of humor as that. The thing is incredible!" Musgrave laughed, and flushed. "I mean——"
"I don't think you need tell me what you mean," said Mrs. Ashmeade. She sat down in a large rocking-chair, and fanned herself, for the day was warm. "Of course, it is officious and presumptuous and disagreeable of me to meddle. I don't mind your thinking that. But Rudolph, don't make the mistake of thinking that Fate ever misses a chance of humiliating us by showing how poor are our imaginations. The gipsy never does. She is a posturing mountebank, who thrives by astounding humanity."
Mrs. Ashmeade paused, and her eyes were full of memories, and very wise.
"I am only a looker-on at the tragic farce that is being played here," she continued, after a little, "but lookers-on, you know, see most of the game. They are not playing fairly with you, Rudolph. When people set about an infringement of the Decalogue they owe it to their self-respect to treat with Heaven as a formidable antagonist. To mark the cards is not enough. They are not playing fairly, my dear, and you ought to know it."
He walked up and down the porch once or twice, with his hands behind him; then he stopped before Mrs. Ashmeade, and smiled down at her. Without, many locusts shrilled monotonously.
"No, I do not think you are officious or meddling or anything of the sort, I think you are one of the best and kindest-hearted women in the world. But—bless your motherly soul, Polly! the thing is utterly preposterous. Of course, Patricia is young, and likes attention, and it pleases her to have men admire her. That, Polly, is perfectly natural. Why, you wouldn't expect her to sit around under the trees, and read poetry with her own husband, would you? We have been married far too long for that, Patricia and I. She thinks me rather prosy and stupid at times, poor girl, because—well, because, in point of fact, I am. But, at the bottom of her heart—Oh, it's preposterous! We are the best friends in the world, I tell you! It is simply that she and Jack have a great deal in common—"
"You don't understand John Charteris. I do," said Mrs. Ashmeade, placidly. "Charteris is simply a baby with a vocabulary. His moral standpoint is entirely that of infancy. It would be ludicrous to describe him as selfish, because he is selfishness incarnate. I sometimes believe it is the only characteristic the man possesses. He reaches out his hand and takes whatever he wants, just as a baby would, quite simply, and as a matter of course. He wants your wife now, and he is reaching out his hand to take her. He probably isn't conscious of doing anything especially wrong; he is always so plausible in whatever he does that he ends by deceiving himself, I suppose. For he is always plausible. It is worse than useless to argue any matter with him, because he invariably ends by making you feel as if you had been caught stealing a hat. The only argument that would get the better of John Charteris is knocking him down, just as spanking is the only argument which ever gets the better of a baby. Yes, he is very like a baby—thoroughly selfish and thoroughly dependent on other people; only, he is a clever baby who exaggerates his own helplessness in order to appeal to women. He has a taste for women. And women naturally like him, for he impresses them as an irresponsible child astray in an artful and designing world. They want to protect him. Even I do, at times. It is really maternal, you know; we would infinitely prefer for him to be soft and little, so that we could pick him up, and cuddle him. But as it is, he is dangerous. He believes whatever he tells himself, you see."
Her voice died away, and Mrs. Ashmeade fanned herself in the fashion addicted by perturbed women who, nevertheless, mean to have their say out—slowly and impersonally, and quite as if she was fanning some one else through motives of charity.
"I don't question," Musgrave said, at length, "that Jack is the highly estimable character you describe. But—oh, it is all nonsense, Polly!" he cried, with petulance, and with a tinge—if but the merest nuance —of conviction lacking in his voice.
The fan continued its majestic sweep from the shade into the sunlight, and back again into the shadow. Without, many locusts shrilled monotonously.
"Rudolph, I know what you meant by saying that Fate hadn't such a fine sense of humor."
"My dear madam, it was simply thrown out, in the heat of conversation—as an axiom——"
For a moment the fan paused; then went on as before. It was never charged against Pauline Ashmeade, whatever her shortcomings, that she was given to unnecessary verbiage.
Colonel Musgrave was striding up and down, divided between a disposition to swear at the universe at large and a desire to laugh at it. Somehow, it did not occur to him to doubt what she had told him. He comprehended now that, chafing under his indebtedness in the affair of Mrs. Pendomer, Charteris would most naturally retaliate by making love to his benefactor's wife, because the colonel also knew John Charteris. And for the rest, it was useless to struggle against a Fate that planned such preposterous and elaborate jokes; one might more rationally depend on Fate to work out some both ludicrous and horrible solution, he reflected, remembering a little packet of letters hidden in his desk.
Nevertheless, he paused after a while, and laughed, with a tolerable affectation of mirth.
"I say—I—and what in heaven's name, Polly, prompted you to bring me this choice specimen of a mare's-nest?"
"Because I am fond of you, I suppose. Isn't one always privileged to be disagreeable to one's friends? We have been friends a long while, you know."
Mrs. Ashmeade was looking out over the river now, but she seemed to see a great way, a very great way, beyond its glaring waters, and to be rather uncertain as to whether what she beheld there was of a humorous or pathetic nature.
"Rudolph, do you remember that evening—the first summer that I knew you—at Fortress Monroe, when we sat upon the pier so frightfully late, and the moon rose out of the bay, and made a great, solid-looking, silver path that led straight over the rim of the world, and you talked to me about—about what, now?"