'Do you think----' she began, and broke off as he stopped to listen.
'What?' he inquired, standing still.
'Would it make it any better if--if I married again?' She asked the
question with hesitation.
'How? I don't understand.' 'They always say that marriage is so respectable,' Madame Bonanni
answered, in a matter-of-fact tone. 'I don't know why, I'm sure, but
everybody seems to think it is, and if it would help matters--I mean,
if Miss Donne would consider that a respectable marriage with a solid,
middle-class man would settle the question, I suppose I could manage
it. I could always divorce, you know, if it became unbearable!' 'Yes,' Lushington answered. 'Marriage is the first step to the divorce
court. For heaven's sake, don't talk in this way! I've made up my mind
that I cannot marry, and that ends it. Let it alone. We each know what
the other thinks, and we are each trying to make the best of what can't
be undone. Talking about it can do no good. Nothing can. It's the
inevitable, and so the least said about it, the better. Sometimes you
say that I am ungrateful, mother, but I'm not, you don't mean it
seriously. If I've made my own way, it is because you started me right,
by making me work instead of bringing me up at your apron-strings, to
live on your money. You did it so well, too, that you cannot undo it,
now that you would like to make me rich. Why aren't you proud of that,
mother? It's the best thing you ever did in your life--God bless you!
And yet you say I'm ungrateful!' At this, there was a convulsion of the white furs; Madame Bonanni
suddenly emerged, erect, massive and seething with motherly emotion;
throwing her arms round her son she pressed him to her with a strength
and vehemence that might have suffocated a weaker man. As it was,
Lushington was speechless in her embrace for several seconds, while she
uttered more or less incoherent cries of joy.
'My child! My own darling Tommy! Oh, you make me so happy!' Lushington let her print many heavy kisses on his cheeks, and he gently
patted her shoulder with his free hand. He was very patient and
affectionate, considering the frightful dilemma with regard to her in
which he had lived all his life; for, as his mother, he loved her, but
as a woman, he knew that he could never respect her, whatever she might
do to retrieve her past. He could find excuses for the life she had
led, but they were only palliatives that momentarily soothed the
rankling sore in his heart, which nothing could heal. In his own world
of literature and work and publicity, he had a name of his own, not
without honour, and respected by every one. But to himself, to the few
trusted persons who knew his secret, above all to Margaret Donne, he
was the son of that 'Bonanni woman,' who had been the spoilt plaything
of royalty and semi-royalty from London to St. Petersburg, whose lovers
had been legion and her caprices as the sand on the sea-shore. There
were times when Lushington could not bear to see her, and kept away
from her, or even left the city in which they were together. There were
days when the natural bond drew him to her, and when he realised that,
with countless faults, she had been to him a far better mother than
most men are blessed with.