Chapter XXXV

THE END OF IT ALL

A woman who can prove herself generous and wide-minded is the woman who gets the greatest advantage in every circumstance of life.

“How is it,” said Regina, “that she is here with you?”

The words dropped out one by one. There was a world of torture and suffering, tinged with reproach and bitterness, in Mrs. Whittaker’s tones. Alfred Whittaker gave a great start, and drew his wife down to her seat.

“Queenie,” he said, “you haven’t had it in your mind that that creature is anything to me?”

“I’m afraid I have,” said Regina, and under the comfort of the word “creature” her voice took a softer tone.

“That mixture of fire and vulgarity! Oh, my dear!—Come, come, you’ve been traveling all night, you must have your breakfast. Here is the finest omelette in Paris. I say, waiter, garçon, try if you can’t get madame a few strawberries to follow the bifteck Chateaubriand.—I’m sure, Queenie,” he went on as the waiter whisked the cover off and betook himself away, “that a good breakfast is more important to you at this moment than even the state of my morals. You see, I’ve had my breakfast, so you can hear all about Madame Raumonier while you are taking yours. Now, what could have put it into your head, since you knew I was over here on her business—”

“But I didn’t,” said Regina.

“Then what made you come?”

The omelette was good and hot, and Regina took two mouthfuls before she answered.

“Alfred,” she said, “this has been going on for a long time. I know everything.”

“Then you are a clever woman. Now, what do you know?”

“You bought her a bracelet.”

“I? I’ve never bought a bracelet for anyone but you in my life.”

“Well, Templeton told me so.”

At this Alfred Whittaker burst out laughing. “I did buy a bracelet, you are quite right, but it was for Mrs. Chamberlain.”

“You gave a bracelet to Mrs. Chamberlain?” said Regina.

“No, no, no, I didn’t do anything of the kind. I bought the bracelet for Chamberlain to give his wife. Chamberlain had been in an extremely ugly corner for some time past. I didn’t tell you anything about it, because I thought it more than likely that Mrs. Chamberlain might come round pumping you. If you didn’t know anything, I felt you wouldn’t be able to tell her anything.”

“Surely you might have trusted me?”

“It isn’t that I couldn’t trust you, for I can and always have done. As it happened, Mrs. Chamberlain was, as you know, by way of being an heiress, and Chamberlain was ridiculously in love.”

“Can a man be ridiculously in love?” put in Regina.

“Yes, very much so. When I married you I told you everything that had happened to me, good, bad and indifferent—Chamberlain didn’t, and Mrs. Chamberlain is possessed of a demon of jealousy. She got fixed in her silly little head that Chamberlain had been a sort of King Arthur until she met him. A moment’s reflection would have told the silly little fool that the less she inquired into her husband’s past the better, and Chamberlain was so much in love with her, and in such a hurry to catch the little heiress, that he did not completely sever ties that he had contracted previously, and trusted to luck to go on shelling out to this Frenchwoman who had had an affair with him lasting some years before his marriage. The French lady did not like being put on short commons, still less did she like being pensioned off, and she began to make herself unpleasant. Poor old Chamberlain got himself into an awful muddle, and confided everything to me. I thought him a fool, and I told him so very plainly; but he’s my partner, and I couldn’t refuse to help him out. The day that I went to Templeton’s and bought that bracelet, Chamberlain went in quite a different direction to have an interview with Madame Raumonier and try to bring her to reason. At that time Mrs. Chamberlain used to make stringent inquiries as to how he had spent every moment of his time. As a matter of fact she had come to the office for him that very day, and was told that he had already gone. When he got home she was told some necessary and harmless lies to the effect that he had been to Templeton’s to buy her a bracelet. Heaven only knows what would have happened if she had found out that Chamberlain had never been near Templeton’s.”

“But why were you dragged into it?”

“Oh, I was trying to get a settlement.”

“Why did you bring her to Paris?”

“Well, it was like this. Chamberlain and I finally agreed between ourselves that the only way to get a settlement of the affair was to provide Madame Raumonier with an income sufficient to live upon for the rest of her life. He didn’t grudge that, he’s not a mean man, and he offered to settle five pounds a week upon her on one condition: that she cleared out of England and never crossed the Channel again.”

“Oh, I see. But why did you have to come to Paris to settle that?”

“My dear child, Madame Raumonier is no fool. She had no notion of being cut adrift from Chamberlain and left stranded at her age—she must be at least five-and-thirty—without the certainty of a provision being made for her. I took her out to dinner one night—dined at the Trocadero—”

“Yes, I saw you,” said Regina.

“What!”

“I was there.”

“You were dining at the Trocadero the night I took Madame Raumonier there?”

“I was.”

“And you never told me!”

“No, Alfred, I never told you.” Regina finished the last bit of omelette with relish, and sat back in her chair and waited for the rest of the story.

“You never told me!” repeated Alfred. “You cooked it up—you mean to tell me that you thought I was dining with her on my own account?”

“What else was I to think?”

“Who were you dining with?”

“I was not dining with a gentleman, at least not by myself,” said Regina. “Julia and I were dining with Maudie and Harry.”

“And they saw—?”

“They did.”

“And they thought—?”

“They did.”

“That I was dining on my own with that creature! I never felt so insulted in my life.”

“Insulted, Alfred?”

“Insulted, Queenie. When I take to dining ladies on my own, they shall be women who are something to look at. Damn it all!” he went on, “I’ve been accustomed to taking a smart woman about. This creature wasn’t even amusing, and what’s more, she’s the least French of any Frenchwoman I ever came across in my life.”

“Well, go on. You were telling me—?”

“Oh, I don’t know what I was telling you—I don’t know what I was telling you. Oh, well, I know, I was telling you about dining her at the Trocadero. Yes, she was willing enough to have the settlement, she was willing enough to go back to her beloved France; she hated London and everything in it—didn’t know why she ever left sunny France. But like all Frenchwomen, she was a woman of business, and she didn’t mean to leave go her hold upon poor old Chamberlain unless her settlement was perfectly secure. My dear, if she had been a lawyer fifty times over she couldn’t have been sharper at her job.”

“I don’t blame her,” said Regina, “I never blame a woman for getting the better of a man.”

“Yes, I know, my dear, you always held that opinion. But the long and the short of it was that she would accept nothing but a definite settlement in Paris, and I can tell you, even when you come over with the money in your hand, it’s not such a simple matter as it would seem to arrange a bit of business in this land of liberty, equality and brotherhood. From the way these people have spun it out one would have thought that I was getting something out of them, instead of making an ample settlement on one of their countrywomen. And the funniest part of the whole thing has been that every one of them thinks that Chamberlain and I are one and the same person. Gad! You thought so too! My dear,” putting his hand on the papers again, “this is the final note; this will be signed this afternoon; I shall hand Madame Raumonier bank-notes for a hundred pounds, and then I shall wash my hands of her altogether for good and all.”

For a moment Regina did not speak, but applied her attention entirely to the very excellent bifteck on her plate. Then she looked up at her husband with penitent eyes.

“Alfred,” she said, “I really feel I ought to apologize to you.”

“Apologize?” said Alfred, “apologize? Nay, if any apology is needed it is from me to you for having apparently given you cause for uneasiness; but, thank God! Queenie, there is no need of apology on either side. There’s been a little misapprehension, but it’s all over now, and we are as much together again as we were when we set out on our honeymoon. Did it make you very miserable, Queenie?” He laid his hand on hers as he spoke, and Regina looked up at him with shining eyes.

“I’ve been so miserable, Alfred,” she said, “that I almost wished I could die, and I think I should have died or put myself out of the road—or something—if I hadn’t resolved to win you back at any cost.”

“But you are satisfied now?”

“Satisfied! Oh, I’m so happy—so happy. I’ll never let such a cloud come between us—next time I’ll tell you the very first suspicion that crosses my mind.”

“There isn’t going to be a next time,” said Alfred. “Poor old Chamberlain! he’s come to the end of his tether now.”

“Alfred,” said Regina, after a long pause, “I don’t think I would waste any pity on ‘poor old Chamberlain’; it seems to me that he has met with more than his deserts. If I have any feeling of pity for any of the three it is for the unfortunate Frenchwoman who trusted him where he was not fit to be trusted. These people in the hotel thought I was going to spring a mine upon you; I saw the landlady frown at the waiter when he said you were breakfasting together. I have always been a wide-minded woman, Alfred, and I am a very happy one this morning. Let us ask Madame Raumonier to join us to-night by way of celebrating the settlement of her affairs.”

For a moment Alfred did not—indeed, could not—speak.

“Queenie,” he said, “I have always admired you, I have always loved you, but this morning, at this moment, I feel that, compared with you in your benevolence, your real wide-mindedness, I am a mere worm.”

“My noble Alfred!” said Regina, “my noble Alfred!”

THE END