`Now, Helen,' said he, emphatically, half rising from his recumbent posture, `if you bother me with another word, I'll ring the bell and order six bottles of wine--and, by Heaven, I'll drink them dry before I stir from this place!'
I said no more but sat down before the table and drew a book towards me, `Do let me have quietness at least!' continued he, `if you deny me every other comfort,' and sinking back into his former position, with an impatient expiration between a sigh and a groan, he languidly closed his eyes as if to sleep.
What the book was, that lay open on the table before me, I cannot tell, for I never looked at it. With an elbow on each side of it, and my hands clasped before my eyes, I delivered myself up to silent weeping.
But Arthur was not asleep: at the first slight sob, he raised his head and looked round, impatiently exclaiming--`What are you crying for, Helen? What the deuce is the matter now?'
`I'm crying for you, Arthur,' I replied, speedily drying my tears; and starting up, I threw myself on my knees before him, and, clasping his nerveless hand between my own, continued: `Don't you know that you are a part of myself? And do you think you can injure and degrade yourself, and I not feel it?'
`Degrade myself, Helen?'
Yes, degrade! What have you been doing all this time?'
`You'd better not ask,' said he, with a faint smile.
`And you had better not tell--but you cannot deny that you have degraded yourself miserably. You have shamefully wronged yourself, body and soul--and me too; and I can't endure it quietly--and I won't!'
`Well, don't squeeze my hand so frantically and don't agitate me so, for Heaven's sake! Oh, Hattersley! you were right; this woman will be the death of me, with her keen feelings and her interesting force of character--There, there, do spare me a little.'
`Arthur, you must repent!' cried I, in a frenzy of desperation, throwing my arms around him and burying my face in his bosom. You shall say you are sorry for what you have done!'
`Well, well, I am.'
`You are not! you'll do it again.'
`I shall never live to do it again, if you treat me so savagely,' replied he, pushing me from him. `You've nearly squeezed the breath out of my body.' He pressed his hand to his heart, and looked really agitated and ill.
`Now get me a glass of wine,' said he, `to remedy what you've done, you she-tiger! I'm almost ready to faint.'
I flew to get the required remedy It seemed to revive him considerably.
`What a shame it is,' said I, as I took the empty glass from his hand, `for a strong young man like you to reduce yourself to such a state!'
`If you knew all, my girl, you'd say rather, "What a wonder it is you can bear it so well as you do!" I've lived more in these four months, Helen, than you have in the whole course of your existence, or will to the end of your days, if they numbered a hundred years;--so I must expect to pay for it in some shape.'
`You will have to pay a higher price than you anticipate, if you don't take care--there will be the total loss of your own health, and of my affection too--if that is of any value to you.'
`What, you're at that game of threatening me with the loss of your affection again, are you? I think it couldn't have been very genuine stuff to begin with, if it's so easily demolished. If you don't mind, my pretty tyrant, you'll make me regret my choice in good earnest, and envy my friend Hattersley his meek little wife--she's quite a pattern to her sex, Helen; he had her with him in London all the season, and she was no trouble at all. He might amuse himself just as he pleased, in regular bachelor style, and she never complained of neglect; he might come home at any hour of the night or morning, or not come home at all; be sullen sober, or glorious drunk; and play the fool or the madman to his own heart's desire without any fear or botheration. She never gives him a word of reproach or complaint, do what he will. He says there's not such a jewel in all England, and swears he wouldn't take a kingdom for her,'
`But he makes her life a curse to her.'
`Not he! She has no will but his, and is always contented and happy as long as he is enjoying himself,'
`In that case, she is as great a fool as he is; but it is not so. I have several letters from her, expressing the greatest anxiety about his proceedings, and complaining that you incite him to commit those extravagances--one especially, in which she implores me to use my influence with you to get you away from London, and affirms that her husband never did such things before you came, and would certainly discontinue them as soon as you departed and left him to the guidance of his own good sense.'
`The detestable little traitor! Give me the letter, and he shall see it as sure as I'm a living man.'
`No, he shall not see it without her consent; but if he did, there is nothing there to anger him--nor in any of the others. She never speaks a word against him; it is only anxiety for him that she expresses. She only alludes to his conduct in the most delicate terms, and makes every excuse for him that she can possibly think of--and as for her own misery, I rather feel it than see it expressed in her letters.'
`But she abuses me; and no doubt you helped her.'
`No; I told her she overrated my influence with you, that I would gladly draw you away from the temptations of the town if I could, but had little hope of success, and that I thought she was wrong in supposing that you enticed Mr Hattersley or anyone else into error. I had, myself, held the contrary opinion at one time, but I now believed that you mutually corrupted each other; and, perhaps, if she used a little gentle, but serious remonstrance with her husband, it might be of some service, as though he was more roughhewn than mine, I believed he was of a less impenetrable material.'
`And so that is the way you go on--heartening each other up to mutiny, and abusing each other's partners, and throwing out implications against your own, to the mutual gratification of both!'