“But Gibbie … Gibbie …”
“It’s no use, Philomena.”
“Can’t you understand that it’s all over. I’ve given it up. Nothing’s happened. Don’t look at me so angrily. I’ve done you no wrong.”
“Yes, you have. You’ve made a fool of me.”
“I’ve always been quite frank with you.”
“That has nothing to do with it. You’ve made a fool of me.”
“How?”
“To him. And you can’t undo that. First you’ll go. And then you won’t go. What does he think I am?”
“Gibbie! Don’t be childish. I’ve done nothing.”
“Nothing? You’ve only told him and God knows whom else that I can’t keep you in order …”
“Keep me in order. I’m not a child.”
“You behave like one.”
Philomena sat down in front of her dressing-table and buried her face in her hands. She felt that it ought to be quite easy to dispose of Gibbie, but she was shaken by that awful, outrageous scene downstairs. She must have a little time for recovery before she could deal with this new mood of Gibbie’s.
“Let’s talk about it when we go home,” she said faintly. “I’m too tired. I can’t go into it to-night.”
“But I’m not going home. I’ve told you. I’m not going to live with you again.”
“You’re mad. I’ve done nothing. I’ve been absolutely faithful.”
“That has nothing to do with it. Plenty of men can manage to be happy with unfaithful wives. But nobody can live with a woman who makes a laughing stock of him. At least you might have kept up the decent fiction that I’d kick him if I found out.”
“Oh well. Forget it. You’ve not been the only person to suffer, I can assure you.”
Gibbie shook his head stubbornly.
“You don’t understand, Philomena. I’ve been thinking it out all day. I’ve been trying to get it clear.”
“That you weren’t going to let me go, you mean? Well, I’m not going and that’s that.”
“No. Your going has nothing to do with it really. You can go or not as you please. I’m not going to live with you any more.”
“But what have I done?”
“You’ve wrecked our marriage. That’s what you’ve done. You’ve made it impossible for me to respect myself. You don’t seem to understand in the least what a man expects from his wife. He doesn’t merely want a sort of permanent concubine. He wants a woman who’ll share whatever prestige, standing, honour … you can call it what you like … that he’s been able to win for himself out of the pack. That’s why she takes his name.
“He has to trust her. She gets to know things about him. She knows his weaknesses. But as long as she helps him to keep his own end up she’s a good wife …”
“You talk as if I’d given you nothing. I’ve had your children. I’ve taken risks for you. I’ve loved you.”
“A mistress might do that much. That’s a matter of our private life. It’s our public life I’m talking about. Marriage is a public contract. You’ve let me down.”
Even yet she could not take him seriously. His manner was too didactic. He was off again on his eternal theorising. A man who is about to break up his home does not trouble to distinguish between the private and the public life. She shrugged her shoulders.
“You’ve argued yourself into thinking that you ought to leave me. A nice point in moral philosophy. For once you’ve decided what the Good Man does.”
“Yes,” agreed Gibbie. “For once I have decided that.”
“But you’ve forgotten one thing.”
“What?”
“That you love me.”
“No. I haven’t forgotten that. I do love you, unfortunately. But I’m going to leave you for all that. Too much can be sacrificed for love.”
“Oh Gibbie!”
It was nonsense, but his air of resolution began to frighten her. That solid structure of home, marriage and security, which she herself had always put first, must not be attacked, even in theory.
“Please don’t say such things. I can’t bear it.”
“I want you to understand why it is that I can’t forgive you. You thought you knew how to get round me, and you very nearly did. But you oughtn’t to have told him. If you’d simply deceived me I shouldn’t feel that you had brought me so low.”
“Please, Gibbie …”
She got up and would have gone to him, but he held her off.
“It’s no use, Philomena. I know my own mind now. I ought to have known it yesterday, I admit. But you did try to rush me, didn’t you?”
“But Gibbie … Gibbie …”
He turned away from her and went into his dressing-room. The manuscript which he had been trying to read lay strewn about on the writing-table. He switched on the reading lamp and picked up the next chapter.
“Poor thing,” he thought. “She didn’t understand a single word that I said.”
To-morrow he would go to sleep at his club until their separation could be arranged. And after that he did not know what he would do. But a kind of triumph upheld him. He had for once made his decision by the light of reason, as all decisions ought to be made. He had argued out his case with himself as though it belonged to another man. And now he had only to act upon it. Having once acted he believed that his whole life would become quite different. He would himself be the Good Man.