The Mischief Maker | Page 5

moment. She found herself even wondering, as she swung the letter idly between her thumb and fore-finger, whether she would have been a different woman if she had had a different manner of husband.
"The letter!" he repeated.
She laid it calmly on the desk before him.
"Of course," she said coldly, "if you find the contents affectionate you must remember that I am in no way responsible. This was your scheme. I have done my best."
The man's fingers trembled slightly as he broke the seal.
"Naturally," he agreed, pausing for an instant and looking up at her. "I knew that I could trust you or I would never have put such an idea into your head."
She laughed; a characteristic laugh it was, quite cold, quite mirthless, apparently quite meaningless. Carraby turned back to the letter, tore open the envelope and spread it out before them. He read it out aloud in a sing-song voice.
_Downing Street. Tuesday_
MY DEAREST MABEL,
I had your sweet little note an hour ago. Of course I was disappointed about luncheon, as I always am when I cannot see you. Your promise to repay me, however, almost reconciles me.
The man looked up at his wife.
"Promise?" he repeated hoarsely. "What does he mean?"
"Go on," she said, with unchanged expression. "See if what you want is there."
The man continued to read:
I am going to ask you a very great favor, Mabel. When we are alone together, I talk to you with absolute freedom. To write you on matters connected with my office is different. I know very well how deep and sincere your interest in politics really is, and it has always been one of my greatest pleasures, when with you, to talk things over and hear your point of view. Without flattery, dear, I have really more than once found your advice useful. It is your understanding which makes our companionship always a pleasure to me, and I rely upon that when I beg you not to ask me to write you again on matters to which I have really no right to allude. You do not mind this, dear? And having read you my little lecture, I will answer your question. Yes, the Cabinet Council was held exactly as you surmise. With great difficulty I persuaded B---- to adopt my view of the situation. They are all much too terrified of this war bogey. For once I had my own way. Our answer to this latest demand from Berlin was a prompt and decisive negative. Nothing of this is to be known for at least a week.
I am sorry your husband is such a bear. Perhaps on Monday we may meet at Cardington House?
Please destroy this letter at once.
Ever affectionately yours,
JULIEN.
The man's eyes, as he read, grew brighter.
"It is enough?" the woman asked.
"It is more than enough!"
Slowly he replaced it in its envelope and thrust it into the breast-pocket of his coat.
"What are you going to do with it?" she inquired.
"I have made my plans," he answered. "I know exactly how to make the best and most dignified use of it."
He rose to his feet. Something in his wife's expression seemed to disturb him. He walked a few steps toward the door and came back again.
"Mabel," he said, "are you glad?"
"Naturally I am glad," she replied.
"You have no regrets?"
Again she laughed.
"Regrets?" she echoed. "What are they? One doesn't think about such things, nowadays."
They stood quite still in the centre of that very handsome apartment. They were almost alien figures in the world in which they moved, Carraby, the rankest of newcomers, carried into political life by his wife's ambitions, his own self-amassed fortune, and a sort of subtle cunning--a very common substitute for brains; Mrs. Carraby, on whom had been plastered an expensive and ultra-fashionable education, although she was able perhaps more effectually to conceal her origin, the daughter of a rich Yorkshire manufacturer, who had secured a paid entrance into Society. They were purely artificial figures for the very reason that they never admitted any one of these facts to themselves, but talked always the jargon of the world to which they aspired, as though they were indeed denizens therein by right. At that moment, though, a single natural feeling shook the man, shook his faith in himself, in life, in his destiny. There was Jewish blood in his veins and it made itself felt.
"Mabel," he began, "this man Portel--you've flirted with him, you say?"
"I have most certainly flirted with him," she admitted quietly.
"He hasn't dared--"
A flash of scorn lit her cold eyes.
"I think," she said, "that you had better ask me no questions of that sort."
Carraby went slowly out. Already the moment was passing. Of course he could trust his wife! Besides, in his letter was the death warrant of the man who stood between him and his ambitions.