The Imaginary Marriage | Page 9

the
lowest of all is yourself! I had hoped to have found rest and refuge here

for a little time, but you have driven me out. Oh, I did not believe that
anything so despicable, so unmanly as you could exist. I do not know
why you have done this, perhaps it is your idea of humour."
"Believe me--" he stammered, yet could say no more; and then a sense
of anger, of outraged honesty, came to him. Of course he had been
foolish, yet he had been misled. To hear this girl speak, one would
think that he had deliberately set to work to annoy and insult her, she of
whose existence he had not even known.
"My poverty," she said, and flung her head back as she spoke, "has
made me the butt, the object for the insolence and insult of men like
yourself, men who would not dare insult a girl who had friends to
protect her."
"You are ungenerous!" he said hotly.
She seemed to start a little. She looked at him, and her beautiful eyes
narrowed. Then, without another word, she turned towards the door.
The scene was over, yet he felt no relief.
"Miss Meredyth!"
She did not hear, or affected not to. She turned the handle of the door,
but hesitated for a moment. She looked back at him, contempt in her
gaze.
"You are ungenerous," he said again. He had not meant to say it; he had
to say something, and it seemed to him that her anger against him was
almost unreasonable.
She made no answer; the door closed on her, and he was left to try and
collect his thoughts.
And he had not even apologised, he reflected now. She had not given
him an opportunity to.
Pacing the room, Hugh decided what he would do. He would give her

time to cool down, for her wrath to evaporate, then he would seek her
out, and tell her as much as he could--tell her that the secret was not
entirely his own. He would appeal to the generosity that he had told her
she did not possess.
"Hugh!"
"Eh?" He started.
"What does this mean? You don't mean to tell me, Hugh, that all my
efforts have gone for nothing?"
Lady Linden had sailed into the room; she was angry, she quivered
with rage.
"I take an immense amount of trouble to bring two foolish young
people together again, and--and this is the result!"
"What's the result?"
"She has gone!"
"Oh!"
"Did you know she had gone?"
"No, I knew nothing at all about her."
"Well, she has. She left the house twenty minutes ago. I've sent
Chepstow after her in the car; he is to ask her to return."
"I don't suppose she will," Hugh said, remembering the very firm look
about Miss Joan Meredyth's mouth.
"And I planned the reconciliation, I made sure that once you came face
to face it would be all right. Hugh, there is more behind all this than
meets the eye!"
"That's it," he said, "a great deal more! No third person can interfere

with any hope of success."
"And you," she said, "can let a girl like that, your own wife, go out of
your life and make no effort to detain her!"
He nodded.
"For two pins," said Lady Linden, "I would box your ears, Hugh
Alston."
CHAPTER V
"PERHAPS I SHALL GO BACK"
Perhaps she was over-sensitive and a little unreasonable, but she would
not admit it. She had been insulted by a man who had used her name
lightly, who had proclaimed that he was her husband, a man who was a
complete stranger to her. She had heard of him before from Marjorie
Linden, when they were at school together.
Marjorie had spoken of this man in effusive admiration. Joan's lips
curled with scorn. She did not question her own anger. She did not ask
herself, was it reasonable? Had not the man some right to defend
himself, to explain? If he had wanted to explain, he had had ample
opportunity, and he had not taken advantage of it. No, it was a joke--a
cruel, cowardly joke at her expense.
Poor and alone in the world, with none to defend her, she had been
subjected to the odious attentions of Slotman. She was ready to regard
all men as creatures of the same type. She had allowed poverty to
narrow her views and warp her mind, and now--
"I beg your pardon, ma'am--"
She was walking along the road to the station. She turned, a man had
pulled up in a small car; he touched his hat.
"My lady sent me after you, Mrs. Alston."

Joan gripped her hands tightly. She looked with blazing eyes at the
man--"Mrs. Alston..." Even the servant!