Hitherto he had been walking up and down the room, but as he concluded he came to a full stop before Mrs. Mayhew, who, rising and stretching out her plump white hands towards him with a gesture of dismay, said: “Are you mad, Reginald, to talk like this? You do not know _what_ you are saying. It is very easy to repudiate your wife to _me_; but when you do it publicly what will people say? Have you thought of that? What would you yourself say of a young couple who married for love, separated almost in their honeymoon, the husband to go to India, the wife to shut herself up in the country?” “I would say nothing,” he interrupted. “Why should I?” “Wait! I have not finished,” she continued hastily. “The husband, after an absence of three years, returns; comes to London, mixes freely in society, but never goes to see his young wife. You must remember,” she pursued, literally button-holing him by his mess-jacket, “that you are Alice’s guardian as well as her husband; she has no father or mother, nor any relation in the world to protect her good name except yourself and Geoffrey, and he is only a boy.” “Geoffrey!” he exclaimed contemptuously. “You don’t know what you are doing, Regy,” she pleaded. “If you go abroad, as you have arranged, without seeing Alice, you will do her a great injury in the eyes of the world. Your friends know that there is an estrangement between you; at least for the sake of appearances, patch up a truce at any rate.” “I am not a hypocrite, and I will do nothing of the kind,” he muttered angrily, drawing back and endeavouring to release himself from his cousin’s grasp. It was useless; she was a pertinacious woman, and she _would_ be heard. “Do not go,” she entreated. “I never see you alone now, and I must gain my point--I must indeed. You _will_ hear me. It is all very well to say you have ceased to think of Alice as your wife--which I do not believe--but, at any rate, you cannot forget that she is the mother of your child, can you?” she asked, with an air and emphasis that would not have disgraced Mrs. Siddons. No reply. “Silence gives consent, I see,” she nodded triumphantly as she continued; “and as the mother of your child, surely you would wish her to be honoured and respected, if not for her own sake at least for his?” An impatient gesture of assent was all his reply. “Think of the life of retirement and seclusion she has led; surely that has been punishment enough?” “Who is talking of punishment?” he exclaimed, forcibly removing Helen’s hand. “Alice is her own mistress, to come and go as she pleases.” “She has never left home nevertheless, in spite of all our invitations, with the exception of a short visit this spring. You don’t know the _furore_ she created; we used to be quite mobbed walking in the Row.” A very unamiable scowl was the only notice he deigned to this remark. “You have no idea how lovely she is,” she urged impressively. “Have I not?” he replied dryly.