"I appeal to your generosity!--for the sake of other people. It
isn't only Alice who would be shocked, if it was found out. Lloyd, I
don't insist on living with you. Keep the marriage a secret, if you
want to; only, I must, I must be married!" She got up and came and
stood beside him, laying her hands on his arm, and lifting her
trembling face to his; he frowned, and shrugged her hands away.
"Go and sit down, Nelly. Don't get excited. I told you that I had a
prejudice in favor of keeping my word."
She drew back and sat down on the sofa, cowering a little in the
corner. "Do you suppose I have no pride?" she breathed. "Do you
suppose it is easy for me to--urge?" He saw her fingers tremble as,
with elaborate self-control, she pleated the crimson silk of her skirt
in little folds across her knee. For a moment they were both silent.
"Secrecy wouldn't do," he said, "To get married, and not tell, is only
whipping Satan round the stump as far as Alice is concerned.
Ultimately it would make double explanations. The marriage would come
out, somehow, and then the very natural question would be: 'Why the
devil were they married secretly?' No; you can't keep those things
hidden. And as for Alice, if she didn't think anything else, she'd
think I had fibbed to her. And that would nearly kill her; she has a
perfect mania about truth! You see, it leads up to the same thing:
Alice's discovery that I have been--like most men. No; if it's got to
be, it shall be open and aboveboard."
She gasped with relief; his look of cold annoyance meant, just for the
moment, nothing at all.
I shall tell her that I have met a lady with whom I was in love a long
time ago--"
"Was in love? Oh, Lloyd!" she broke in with a cry of pain; at which
intrusion of sentimentality Lloyd Pryor said with ferocity: "What's
that got to do with it? I'm going to pay the piper! I'll tell Alice
that or any other damned thing I please. I'll tell her I'm going to be
married in two or three months; I shall go through the form of an
engagement. Alice won't like it, of course. No girl likes to have a
stepmother; but I shall depend on you, Helena, to make the thing go as
well as possible. That's all I have to say."
He set his teeth and turning his back on her, threw his half-smoked
cigar into the fire, Helena, cowering on the sofa, murmured something
of gratitude, Mr. Pryor did not take the trouble to listen.