CHAPTER XXXI

REGINA SETS FOOT ON THE DOWN GRADE

There is a great deal of wisdom in the old saying "Truth will out."

Somehow those sables served to put Regina further from her husband instead of drawing her nearer to him. I'm sure that Alfred Whittaker himself would have been shocked had he known the effect that his gift had upon his spouse. Every day--nay, every hour tended to confirm her belief that the hussy she had seen dining with Alfred at the Trocadero had complete ascendancy over him, and yet those sables stopped her time after time from broaching the subject to him. They were, so to speak, a sop in the pot, and whenever Regina was on the point of laying her hand on Alfred's shoulder and saying to him, plump and straight, "Alfred, is your heart still mine?" a vision of dark sables seemed to rise up and choke the very words in her throat. Most women would love to have a danger-signal in the shape of dark sables, rich and elegant, soft and cosy, at once luxurious and comforting, but there were times when Regina almost hated her sables because they seemed to have raised an extra barrier between herself and Alfred.

"Mother," said Julia, one morning, when Regina was about to leave the house on one of her strictly-personal expeditions, "are you going to Dr. Money-Berry again?"

"Yes, dear, I am. Why?"

"Do you think he is doing very much good?"

"Oh, I do, indeed! I consider that he has set me free, body and soul, from the burden that I used to carry about with me."

"Oh--you mean--fat, darling? Don't you think it suits you to be a little fat?"

"I don't think it suits anybody to be fat," said Regina, with the enthusiasm of the recent convert.

"And yet I have heard you describe daddy as a man of commanding presence. How would you like it if daddy were to starve himself down until all the command of his presence disappeared into nothingness?"

"Ah, but I was gross," said Regina.

"I never knew you when you were gross," said Julia. "I thought at Maudie's wedding you looked lovely, and daddy said to me--"

"What did your father say to you?"

Julia drew a step nearer to her mother, and smoothed down, with tender yet nervous fingers, the stole of soft gray fur which was around her shoulders.

"Why don't you ever wear your sables?" she asked irrelevantly.

"My sables?" said Regina. "Oh, I don't like to wear them every day."

"But when you are going to town, among smart West-End physicians--that doesn't mean every day. I don't suggest that you should put them on to go up the village in. Don't you like them?"

"Oh, yes, no woman in the world would dislike them."

"That's what I thought. You know, mother dear, you're cooking up something about daddy."

"No, I would rather not discuss it with you, my darling."

"Sometimes," said Julia, still smoothing the stole up and down, "sometimes it's better to get it off your chest."

"What a very vulgar remark!" said Regina.

"Yes, perhaps, but very practical. Now, I've been watching you."

"I wish you wouldn't," said Regina.

"Yes, we all wish others wouldn't. You see, that night at the Trocadero let us all behind the scenes a little. Yes--I must speak, it's been trembling on the tip of my tongue for weeks past, but, somehow, you always put me off. I believe that daddy could explain it all."

"There is no necessity for explanation."

She looked very stern, very severe; but Julia was minded to speak, and when Julia was minded to speak she generally had her say.

"You are quite a different woman to what you were when Maudie was married. You're not fretting after her, that's certain--an outsider might think so, but I know better. You've never told daddy a word about our having seen him at the Trocadero that night. You didn't notice him very much; you resolutely kept your eyes away from him. I had no such delicacy of feeling, I watched him very closely. That woman is nothing to him. I don't know why he was dining with her, I don't know why he didn't tell you about it, but he was bored and annoyed. He was trying to pull something off, and he couldn't get what he wanted. If she ever had any sort of hold over him, that hold has long since ceased to be an attractive one--he was bored to death with her. I don't know that Maudie wasn't right."

"You have discussed it with Maudie?"

"I have, or rather she has discussed it with me. She was all for going down and tackling daddy right away, and I believe her instinct was right, and that daddy would rather you knew he was there."

"And Maudie thinks--?"

"Maudie? Oh, Maudie's mind works in quite a different way to mine--always did. Maudie thinks it is just an ordinary affair of that kind, and left alone she would have gone down and taxed him with it, but Harry wouldn't hear of it. But daddy was there and she was there--and a horrid-looking brute she was--but whoever she was, and whatever she may be, I am perfectly sure there is not the slightest occasion for you to worry about her, one way or the other."

"I don't--" Regina began, but Julia promptly cut her short.

"Oh, yes, darling, you do. You were quite a changed woman after that night--ah, and before that night, too. I know perfectly well that you are worrying, I could burst out crying sometimes to see the look on your face, and poor old daddy is quite unconscious, he hasn't the least idea why you are so quiet and so unlike yourself. He asked me quite anxiously the other day if I thought you were over-doing the treatment with Dr. Money-Berry."

"I believe," said Regina, who before all things was loyal to her Alfred, "I believe that all persons inclining to stoutness would be better in health, and in mind too, if they would take means to keep themselves to proper proportions. Oh, Dr. Money-Berry is quite right in saying that fat is a disease, and should be treated as such. I have been to him once or twice lately because I was not sure that my symptoms were desirable. I am really going to him to-day to say good-by for the second time. Don't worry about me, darling child, and don't discuss your father with Maudie. I have never entered into details of business and I never intend to. Your father distinctly told me that he was dining with somebody on business; it would be intolerable for him, placed as he is, if his wife were to worry him to death every time he spoke to another woman. Dear little girl, you'll be marrying one of these days, and you'll have a husband of your own; then you will realize that between husband and wife discretion is truly the better part of valor. And I wish you would put that incident right out of your head--regard it as a business matter--and not think of it every time you think I am not looking as gay as usual. You know, my darling, I have many thoughts busying to and fro in my brain. I have never been a mere machine for ordering dinner, and although I have given up public life, I have not given up all my thoughts--I still have an intellect. Your father is the best and noblest man I ever knew. One of these days he will explain what, so far, he has only told me in part. But I must be going, I am rather late already. Tell me, are you occupied all day?"

"Yes, that is to say, I am lunching with Maudie, and then I am going on to my club."

"No, come and have tea at mine. I shall expect you between half-past four and five."

"Right you are, mother."

And then Mrs. Whittaker went out, passed down the tessellated covered way and turned her face toward the station, conscious that she had that day graduated as a first-class liar. Well, if she had lied, she had lied in a good cause. If she had succeeded in restoring the faith of her child in husband and father, she had lied to some purpose, and surely the recording angel would drop showers of tears over the spot, and it would be blotted out forever. Her thoughts had reached this point when she reached the ticket office. She had to stand and wait for some time while two ladies fumbled with their purses, and while they discussed whether they would travel first or second.

"First-class to Baker Street--oh, yes, it's horrid on that line, I always go first to Baker Street--and, my dear, if I didn't meet him the very next day, walking along with a creature--oh! Twopence more? Thank you, I'm so sorry to give you so much trouble--yes, I met him walking with a bold, brazen hussy, and I never saw a man looking so crestfallen as Mr. Whittaker did when he saw me."

There was a little waiting-room hard by the ticket office and Regina turned sharply round and took refuge in this dingy little retreat.

"My dear!" said the lady who had been listening to the one who had mentioned Mr. Whittaker's name, "you have done the most awful thing you ever did in your life. Mrs. Whittaker was standing just behind you, and she heard every word you said."

"Poor woman! Did she, really? I _am_ sorry! Well, I never believe in making mischief between husband and wife, but it's a shame, and I do think that a man who is carrying on a double game ought to be found out."