He paused, half expecting some outburst of feeling from Jennie, but she only looked at him fixedly, her eyes clouded with surprise, distress, unhappiness. Now she understood. Lester was sacrificing his fortune for her. His recent commercial venture was an effort to rehabilitate himself, to put himself in an independent position. The recent periods of preoccupation, of subtle unrest, and of dissatisfaction over which she had grieved were now explained. He was unhappy, he was brooding over this prospective loss, and he had never told her. So his father had really disinherited him!
Mr. O’Brien sat before her, troubled himself. He was very sorry for her, now that he saw the expression of her face. Still the truth had to come out. She ought to know.
“I’m sorry,” he said, when he saw that she was not going to make any immediate reply, “that I have been the bearer of such unfortunate news. It is a very painful situation that I find myself in at this moment, I assure you. I bear you no ill will personally—of course you understand that. The family really bears you no ill will now—I hope you believe that. As I told your—ah—as I told Mr. Kane, at the time the will was read, I considered it most unfair, but, of course, as a mere executive under it and counsel for his father, I could do nothing. I really think it best that you should know how things stand, in order that you may help your—your husband”—he paused, significantly—”if possible, to some solution. It seems a pity to me, as it does to the various other members of his family, that he should lose all this money.”
Jennie had turned her head away and was staring at the floor. She faced him now steadily. “He mustn’t lose it,” she said; “it isn’t fair that he should.”
“I am most delighted to hear you say that, Mrs.—Mrs. Kane,” he went on, using for the first time her improbable title as Lester’s wife, without hesitation. “I may as well be very frank with you, and say that I feared you might take this information in quite another spirit. Of course you know to begin with that the Kane family is very clannish. Mrs. Kane, your—ah—your husband’s mother, was a very proud and rather distant woman, and his sisters and brothers are rather set in their notions as to what constitute proper family connections. They look upon his relationship to you as irregular, and—pardon me if I appear to be a little cruel—as not generally satisfactory. As you know, there had been so much talk in the last few years that Mr. Kane senior did not believe that the situation could ever be nicely adjusted, so far as the family was concerned. He felt that his son had not gone about it right in the first place. One of the conditions of his will was that if your husband—pardon me—if his son did not accept the proposition in regard to separating from you and taking up his rightful share of the estate, then to inherit anything at all—the mere ten thousand a year I mentioned before—he must—ah—he must pardon me, I seem a little brutal, but not intentionally so—marry you.”
Jennie winced. It was such a cruel thing to say this to her face. This whole attempt to live together illegally had proved disastrous at every step. There was only one solution to the unfortunate business—she could see that plainly. She must leave him, or he must leave her. There was no other alternative. Lester living on ten thousand dollars a year! It seemed silly.
Mr. O’Brien was watching her curiously. He was thinking that Lester both had and had not made a mistake. Why had he not married her in the first place? She was charming.
“There is just one other point which I wish to make in this connection, Mrs. Kane,” he went on softly and easily. “I see now that it will not make any difference to you, but I am commissioned and in a way constrained to make it. I hope you will take it in the manner in which it is given. I don’t know whether you are familiar with your husband’s commercial interests or not?”
“No,” said Jennie simply.
“Well, in order to simplify matters, and to make it easier for you, should you decide to assist your husband to a solution of this very difficult situation—frankly, in case you might possibly decide to leave on your own account, and maintain a separate establishment of your own I am delighted to say that—ah—any sum, say—ah—”
Jennie rose and walked dazedly to one of the windows, clasping her hands as she went. Mr. O’Brien rose also.
“Well, be that as it may. In the event of your deciding to end the connection it has been suggested that any reasonable sum you might name, fifty, seventy-five, a hundred thousand dollars”—Mr. O’Brien was feeling very generous toward her—”would be gladly set aside for your benefit—put in trust, as it were, so that you would have it whenever you needed it. You would never want for anything.”
“Please don’t,” said Jennie, hurt beyond the power to express herself, unable mentally and physically to listen to another word. “Please don’t say any more. Please go away. Let me alone now, please. I can go away. I will. It will be arranged. But please don’t talk to me any more, will you?”
“I understand how you feel, Mrs. Kane,” went on Mr. O’Brien, coming to a keen realization of her sufferings. “I know exactly, believe me. I have said all I intend to say. It has been very hard for me to do this—very hard. I regret the necessity. You have my card. Please note the name. I will come any time you suggest, or you can write me. I will not detain you any longer. I am sorry. I hope you will see fit to say nothing to your husband of my visit—it will be advisable that you should keep your own counsel in the matter. I value his friendship very highly, and I am sincerely sorry.”
Jennie only stared at the floor.
Mr. O’Brien went out into the hall to get his coat. Jennie touched the electric button to summon the maid, and Jeannette came. Jennie went back into the library, and Mr. O’Brien paced briskly down the front walk. When she was really alone she put her doubled hands to her chin, and stared at the floor, the queer design of the silken Turkish rug resolving itself into some curious picture. She saw herself in a small cottage somewhere, alone with Vesta; she saw Lester living in another world, and beside him Mrs. Gerald. She saw this house vacant, and then a long stretch of time, and then—
“Oh,” she sighed, choking back a desire to cry. With her hands she brushed away a hot tear from each eye. Then she got up.
“It must be,” she said to herself in thought. “It must be. It should have been so long ago.” And then—”Oh, thank God that papa is dead Anyhow, he did not live to see this.”
CHAPTER LIII
The explanation which Lester had concluded to be inevitable, whether it led to separation or legalization of their hitherto banal condition, followed quickly upon the appearance of Mr. O’Brien. On the day Mr. O’Brien called he had gone on a journey to Hegewisch, a small manufacturing town in Wisconsin, where he had been invited to witness the trial of a new motor intended to operate elevators—with a view to possible investment. When he came out to the house, interested to tell Jennie something about it even in spite of the fact that he was thinking of leaving her, he felt a sense of depression everywhere, for Jennie, in spite of the serious and sensible conclusion she had reached, was not one who could conceal her feelings easily. She was brooding sadly over her proposed action, realizing that it was best to leave but finding it hard to summon the courage which would let her talk to him about it. She could not go without telling him what she thought. He ought to want to leave her. She was absolutely convinced that this one course of action—separation—was necessary and advisable. She could not think of him as daring to make a sacrifice of such proportions for her sake even if he wanted to. It was impossible. It was astonishing to her that he had let things go along as dangerously and silently as he had.
When he came in Jennie did her best to greet him with her accustomed smile, but it was a pretty poor imitation.
“Everything all right?” she asked, using her customary phrase of inquiry.
“Quite,” he answered. “How are things with you?”
“Oh, just the same.” She walked with him to the library, and he poked at the open fire with a long-handled poker before turning around to survey the room generally. It was five o’clock of a January afternoon. Jennie had gone to one of the windows to lower the shade. As she came back he looked at her critically. “You’re not quite your usual self, are you?” he asked, sensing something out of the common in her attitude.