第64章

"Davidson was aware of some constraint in his domestic relations.

But at the best of times she was not demonstrative; and perhaps that very coldness was part of her charm in the placid Davidson's eyes.Women are loved for all sorts of reasons and even for characteristics which one would think repellent.She was watching him and nursing her suspicions.

"Then, one day, Monkey-faced Ritchie called on that sweet, shy Mrs.

Davidson.She had come out under his care, and he considered himself a privileged person - her oldest friend in the tropics.He posed for a great admirer of hers.He was always a great chatterer.He had got hold of the story rather vaguely, and he started chattering on that subject, thinking she knew all about it.

And in due course he let out something about Laughing Anne.

"'Laughing Anne,' says Mrs.Davidson with a start.'What's that?'

Ritchie plunged into circumlocution at once, but she very soon stopped him.'Is that creature dead?' she asks.

"'I believe so,' stammered Ritchie.'Your husband says so.'

"'But you don't know for certain?'

"'No! How could I, Mrs.Davidson!'

"'That's all wanted to know,' says she, and goes out of the room.

"When Davidson came home she was ready to go for him, not with common voluble indignation, but as if trickling a stream of cold clear water down his back.She talked of his base intrigue with a vile woman, of being made a fool of, of the insult to her dignity.

"Davidson begged her to listen to him and told her all the story, thinking that it would move a heart of stone.He tried to make her understand his remorse.She heard him to the end, said 'Indeed!'

and turned her back on him.

"'Don't you believe me?' he asked, appalled.

"She didn't say yes or no.All she said was, 'Send that brat away at once.'

"'I can't throw him out into the street,' cried Davidson.'You don't mean it.'

"'I don't care.There are charitable institutions for such children, I suppose.'

"'That I will never do,' said Davidson.

"'Very well.That's enough for me.'

"Davidson's home after this was like a silent, frozen hell for him.

A stupid woman with a sense of grievance is worse than an unchained devil.He sent the boy to the White Fathers in Malacca.This was not a very expensive sort of education, but she could not forgive him for not casting the offensive child away utterly.She worked up her sense of her wifely wrongs and of her injured purity to such a pitch that one day, when poor Davidson was pleading with her to be reasonable and not to make an impossible existence for them both, she turned on him in a chill passion and told him that his very sight was odious to her.

"Davidson, with his scrupulous delicacy of feeling, was not the man to assert his rights over a woman who could not bear the sight of him.He bowed his head; and shortly afterwards arranged for her to go back to her parents.That was exactly what she wanted in her outraged dignity.And then she had always disliked the tropics and had detested secretly the people she had to live amongst as Davidson's wife.She took her pure, sensitive, mean little soul away to Fremantle or somewhere in that direction.And of course the little girl went away with her too.What could poor Davidson have done with a little girl on his hands, even if she had consented to leave her with him - which is unthinkable.

"This is the story that has spoiled Davidson's smile for him -which perhaps it wouldn't have done so thoroughly had he been less of a good fellow."Hollis ceased.But before we rose from the table I asked him if he knew what had become of Laughing Anne's boy.

He counted carefully the change handed him by the Chinaman waiter, and raised his head.

"Oh! that's the finishing touch.He was a bright, taking little chap, as you know, and the Fathers took very special pains in his bringing up.Davidson expected in his heart to have some comfort out of him.In his placid way he's a man who needs affection.

Well, Tony has grown into a fine youth - but there you are! He wants to be a priest; his one dream is to be a missionary.The Fathers assure Davidson that it is a serious vocation.They tell him he has a special disposition for mission work, too.So Laughing Anne's boy will lead a saintly life in China somewhere; he may even become a martyr; but poor Davidson is left out in the cold.He will have to go downhill without a single human affection near him because of these old dollars."Jan.1914.

Footnotes:

(1) The gallows, supposed to be widowed of the last executed criminal and waiting for another.

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