The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Arthur W. Pinero (top 100 novels TXT) 📕

me leave to write. Returning to the writing-table. Ring for what you want, like a good fellow! Aubrey resumes his writing. Misquith To Drummle. Still, the fish and cutlet remain unexplained. Drummle Oh, the poor old woman was so weak that I insisted upon her taking some food, and felt there was nothing for it but to sit down opposite her. The fool! the blackguard! Misquith Poor Orreyed! Well, he’s gone under for a time. Drummle For a time! My dear Frank, I tell you he has absolutely ceased to be. Aubrey, who has been writing busily, turns his head towards the speakers and listens. His lips are set, and there is a frown upon his face. For all practical purposes you may regard him as the late George Orreyed. Tomorrow the very characteristics of his speech, as we remember them, will have become obsolete. Jayne But surely, in the course of years, he and his wife will outlive⁠— Drummle No, no, doctor, don’t try to upset one of my settled beliefs. You may dive into many waters, but there is one social Dead Sea⁠—! Jayne Perhaps you’re right. Drummle Right! Good God! I wish you could prove me otherwise! Why, for years I’ve been sitting, and watching and waiting. Misquith You’re in form tonight, Cayley. May we ask where you’ve been in the habit of squandering your useful leisure? Drummle Where? On the shore of that same sea. Misquith And, pray, what have you been waiting for? Drummle For some of my best friends to come up. Aubrey utters a half-stifled exclamation of impatience; then he hurriedly gathers up his papers from the writing-table. The three men turn to him. Eh? Aubrey Oh, I⁠—I’ll finish my letters in the other room if you’ll excuse me for five minutes. Tell Cayley the news. He goes out. Drummle Hurrying to the door. My dear fellow, my jabbering has disturbed you! I’ll never talk again as long as I live! Misquith Close the door, Cayley. Drummle shuts the door. Jayne Cayley⁠— Drummle Advancing to the dinner table. A smoke, a smoke, or I perish! Selects a cigar from the little cabinet. Jayne Cayley, marriages are in the air. Drummle Are they? Discover the bacillus, doctor, and destroy it. Jayne I mean, among our friends. Drummle Oh, Nugent Warrinder’s engagement to Lady Alice Tring. I’ve heard of that. They’re not to be married till the spring. Jayne Another marriage that concerns us a little takes place tomorrow. Drummle Whose marriage? Jayne Aubrey’s. Drummle Aub⁠—! Looking towards Misquith. Is it a joke? Misquith No. Drummle Looking from Misquith to Jayne. To whom? Misquith He doesn’t tell us. Jayne We three were asked here tonight to receive the announcement. Aubrey has some theory that marriage is likely to alienate a man from his friends, and it seems to me he has taken the precaution to wish us goodbye. Misquith No, no. Jayne Practically, surely. Drummle Thoughtfully. Marriage in general, does he mean, or this marriage? Jayne That’s the point. Frank says⁠— Misquith No, no, no; I feared it suggested⁠— Jayne Well, well. To Drummle. What do you think of it? Drummle After a slight pause. Is there a light there? Lighting his cigar. He⁠—wraps the lady⁠—in mystery⁠—you say? Misquith Most modestly. Drummle Aubrey’s⁠—not⁠—a very⁠—young man. Jayne Forty-three. Drummle Ah! L’age critique! Misquith A dangerous age⁠—yes, yes. Drummle When you two fellows go home, do you mind leaving me behind here? Misquith Not at all. Jayne By all means. Drummle All right. Anxiously. Deuce take it, the man’s second marriage mustn’t be another mistake! With his head bent he walks up to the fireplace. Jayne You knew him in his short married life, Cayley. Terribly unsatisfactory, wasn’t it? Drummle Well⁠—Looking at the door. I quite closed that door? Misquith Yes. Settles himself on the sofa; Jayne is seated in an armchair. Drummle Smoking, with his back to the fire. He married a Miss Herriott; that was in the year eighteen⁠—confound dates⁠—twenty years ago. She was a lovely creature⁠—by Jove, she was; by religion a Roman Catholic. She was one of your cold sort, you know⁠—all marble arms and black velvet. I remember her with painful distinctness as the only woman who ever made me nervous. Misquith Ha, ha! Drummle He loved her⁠—to distraction, as they say. Jupiter, how fervently that poor devil courted her! But I don’t believe she allowed him even to squeeze her fingers. She was an iceberg! As for kissing, the mere contact would have given him chapped lips. However, he married her and took her away, the latter greatly to my relief. Jayne Abroad, you mean? Drummle Eh? Yes. I imagine he gratified her by renting a villa in Lapland, but I don’t know. After a while they returned, and then I saw how woefully Aubrey had miscalculated results. Jayne Miscalculated⁠—? Drummle He had reckoned, poor wretch, that in the early days of marriage she would thaw. But she didn’t. I used to picture him closing his doors and making up the fire in the hope of seeing her features relax. Bless her, the thaw never set in! I believe she kept a thermometer in her stays and always registered ten degrees below zero. However, in time a child came⁠—a daughter. Jayne Didn’t that⁠—? Drummle Not a bit of it; it made matters worse. Frightened at her failure to stir up in him some sympathetic religious belief, she determined upon strong measures with regard to the child. He opposed her for a miserable year or so, but she wore him down, and the insensible little brat was placed in a convent, first in France, then in Ireland. Not long afterwards the mother died, strangely enough, of fever, the only warmth, I believe, that ever came to that woman’s body. Misquith Don’t, Cayley! Jayne The child is living, we know. Drummle Yes, if you choose to call it living. Miss Tanqueray⁠—a young woman of nineteen now⁠—is in the Loretto convent at Armagh. She professes to have found her true vocation in a religious life, and within a month or two will take final vows. Misquith He ought to have removed his daughter from the convent when the