Now I am sure that the debates in Parliament impressed you just as they did me?"George said nothing, but she went on eagerly. It never occurred to her that he could be bored by her impressions in these greatest days of her life. "To see a half-dozen well-groomed young men settle the affairs of India and Australia in a short, indifferent colloquy! How shy and awkward they were, too! They actually stuttered out their sentences in their fear of posing or seeming pretentious. So English! Don't you think it was very English, George?""I really did not think about it at all. I have had very different things to occupy me," said George, coldly superior to all mothers and Parliaments. This is the church."The cab stopped before an iron door between two shops in the most thronged part of Bishopsgate Street. He pushed it open, and they passed suddenly out of the hurrying crowd into the solemn silence of an ancient dingy building. A dim light fell through a noble window of the thirteenth century upon cheap wooden pews. The church was empty, and had that curious significance and half-spoken message of its own which belongs to a vacant house.
"I remember," whispered Frances, awestruck. "This was built by the first Christian convert, St. Ethelburga.""You believe every thing, mother!" said George irritably.
She wandered about, looking at the sombre walls and inscriptions, and then back uneasily, to his moody face.
Suddenly she came up to him as he stood leaning against a pillar. "Something has happened!" she said. "You did not bring me here to look at the church. You have something to tell me."The young man looked at her and turned away. "Yes, Ihave. It isn't a death," he said, with a nervous laugh.
"You need not look in that way. It is--something very different. I--I was married in this church yesterday to Lisa Arpent."Frances did not at first comprehend the great disaster that bulked black across her whole life, but, woman-like, grasped at a fragment of it.
"You were married and I was not there! Yesterday! My boy was married and he forgot me!""Mother! Don't look like that! Here, sit down,"grabbing her helplessly by the arms. "I didn't want to hurt you. I brought you here to tell you quietly. Cry!
Why don't you cry if you're worried! Oh! I believe she's dying!" he shouted, staring around the empty church.
She spoke at last.
"You were married and I couldn't say God bless you! You forgot me! I never forgot you, George, for one minute since you were born.""Mother, what fool talk is that? I only didn't want a scene. I kept away from Lisa for weeks so as not to vex you. Forget you! I think I have been very considerate of you under the circumstances. You have a dislike to Lisa, a most groundless dislike----""Oh, what is Lisa? " said Frances haughtily. "It is that you have turned away from me. She has nothing to do with the relation between you and me. How can any woman come between me and my son?" She held up her hands. "Why, you are my boy, Georgy. You are all I have!"He looked at the face, curiously pinched and drawn as if by death, that was turned up to his, and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Now this is exactly what I tried to escape yesterday. Am I never to be a man, nor have the rights of a man? You must accept the situation, mother. Lisa is my wife, and dearer to me than all the world beside."He saw her lips move. "Dearer? Dearer than me!"She sat quite still after that, and did not seem to hear when he spoke. Something in her silence frightened him.
She certainly had been a fond, indulgent mother, and he perhaps had been abrupt in cutting the tie between them.
It must be cut. He had promised Lisa the whole matter should be settled to-day. But his mother certainly was a weak woman, and he must be patient with her.
Secretly he approved the manliness of his patience.
"The cab is waiting, dear," he said. She rose and walked to the street, standing helpless there while the crowd jostled her. Was she blind and deaf? He put her into the cab and sat down opposite to her. "Half Moon Street," he called to the driver.
"Mother," touching her on the knee.
"Yes, George."
"I told him to drive to Half Moon Street. I will take you to Clara Vance. We may as well arrange things now, finally. You do not like my wife. That is clear. For the present, therefore, it is better that we should separate. I have consulted with Lisa, and she has suggested that you shall join Clara Vance's party while we go our own way."She stared at him. "Do you mean that you and I are not to see London together? Not to travel through Europe together?"He pitied her a little, and, leaning forward, kissed her clammy lips. "The thing will seem clearer to you to-morrow, no doubt. I must leave you now. Go to Clara and her girls. They all like to pet and make much of you. I will bring Lisa in the morning, to talk business a little. She has an uncommonly clear head for business.
Good-by, dear!" He stopped the cab, jumped out, and walked briskly to the corner where his wife was waiting for him.
"You have told her?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes. It's over."
"That we must separate?"
"Yes, yes. I told her you thought it best."
"And she was not willing?"
"Well, she did not approve very cordially," said George, evading her eye.
"But she shall approve!" hanging upon his arm, her burning eyes close to his face. "You are mine, George!
I love you. I will share you with nobody!" She whistled shrilly, and a hansom stopped.
"What are you going to do, darling?"
"Follow her. I will tell her something that will make her willing to separate. Get in, get in! "
