________________________________________________
_ I kept silence for a little while, thinking of what Stroeve
had told me. I could not stomach his weakness, and he saw
my disapproval. "You know as well as I do how Strickland lived,"
he said tremulously. "I couldn't let her live in those
circumstances -- I simply couldn't."
"That's your business," I answered.
"What would you have done?" he asked.
"She went with her eyes open. If she had to put up with
certain inconveniences it was her own lookout."
"Yes; but, you see, you don't love her."
"Do you love her still?"
"Oh, more than ever. Strickland isn't the man to make a woman happy.
It can't last. I want her to know that I shall never fail her."
"Does that mean that you're prepared to take her back?"
"I shouldn't hesitate. Why, she'll want me more than ever then.
When she's alone and humiliated and broken it would be
dreadful if she had nowhere to go."
He seemed to bear no resentment. I suppose it was commonplace
in me that I felt slightly outraged at his lack of spirit.
Perhaps he guessed what was in my mind, for he said:
"I couldn't expect her to love me as I loved her.
I'm a buffoon. I'm not the sort of man that women love.
I've always known that. I can't blame her if she's fallen
in love with Strickland."
"You certainly have less vanity than any man I've ever known,"
I said.
"I love her so much better than myself. It seems to me that
when vanity comes into love it can only be because really you
love yourself best. After all, it constantly happens that a
man when he's married falls in love with somebody else;
when he gets over it he returns to his wife, and she takes him
back, and everyone thinks it very natural. Why should it be
different with women?"
"I dare say that's logical," I smiled, "but most men are made
differently, and they can't."
But while I talked to Stroeve I was puzzling over the
suddenness of the whole affair. I could not imagine that he
had had no warning. I remembered the curious look I had seen
in Blanche Stroeve's eyes; perhaps its explanation was that
she was growing dimly conscious of a feeling in her heart that
surprised and alarmed her.
"Did you have no suspicion before to-day that there was
anything between them?" I asked.
He did not answer for a while. There was a pencil on the table,
and unconsciously he drew a head on the blotting-paper.
"Please say so, if you hate my asking you questions," I said.
"It eases me to talk. Oh, if you knew the frightful anguish
in my heart." He threw the pencil down. "Yes, I've known it
for a fortnight. I knew it before she did."
"Why on earth didn't you send Strickland packing?"
"I couldn't believe it. It seemed so improbable.
She couldn't bear the sight of him. It was more than improbable;
it was incredible. I thought it was merely jealousy.
You see, I've always been jealous, but I trained myself never
to show it; I was jealous of every man she knew; I was
jealous of you. I knew she didn't love me as I loved her.
That was only natural, wasn't it? But she allowed me to
love her, and that was enough to make me happy. I forced
myself to go out for hours together in order to leave them
by themselves; I wanted to punish myself for suspicions
which were unworthy of me; and when I came back I found they
didn't want me -- not Strickland, he didn't care if I was
there or not, but Blanche. She shuddered when I went to kiss her.
When at last I was certain I didn't know what to do;
I knew they'd only laugh at me if I made a scene.
I thought if I held my tongue and pretended not to see,
everything would come right. I made up my mind to get
him away quietly, without quarrelling. Oh, if you only
knew what I've suffered!"
Then he told me again of his asking Strickland to go.
He chose his moment carefully, and tried to make his request
sound casual; but he could not master the trembling of his voice;
and he felt himself that into words that he wished to
seem jovial and friendly there crept the bitterness of his
jealousy. He had not expected Strickland to take him up on
the spot and make his preparations to go there and then;
above all, he had not expected his wife's decision to go with him.
I saw that now he wished with all his heart that he had held
his tongue. He preferred the anguish of jealousy to the
anguish of separation.
"I wanted to kill him, and I only made a fool of myself."
He was silent for a long time, and then he said what I knew
was in his mind.
"If I'd only waited, perhaps it would have gone all right.
I shouldn't have been so impatient. Oh, poor child,
what have I driven her to?"
I shrugged my shoulders, but did not speak. I had no sympathy
for Blanche Stroeve, but knew that it would only pain poor
Dirk if I told him exactly what I thought of her.
He had reached that stage of exhaustion when he could not stop
talking. He went over again every word of the scene.
Now something occurred to him that he had not told me before;
now he discussed what he ought to have said instead of what he
did say; then he lamented his blindness. He regretted that he had
done this, and blamed himself that he had omitted the other.
It grew later and later, and at last I was as tired as he.
"What are you going to do now?" I said finally.
"What can I do? I shall wait till she sends for me."
"Why don't you go away for a bit?"
"No, no; I must be at hand when she wants me."
For the present he seemed quite lost. He had made no plans.
When I suggested that he should go to bed he said he could not
sleep; he wanted to go out and walk about the streets till day.
He was evidently in no state to be left alone.
I persuaded him to stay the night with me, and I put him into my
own bed. I had a divan in my sitting-room, and could very
well sleep on that. He was by now so worn out that he could
not resist my firmness. I gave him a sufficient dose of
veronal to insure his unconsciousness for several hours.
I thought that was the best service I could render him. _
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