William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise

was true. Were there not something profoundly wrong, real or imaginary, Melville would have explained his situation to Rathbone, if not to Zillah Lambert.
    “Perhaps he is in love with somebody else?” Hester suggested.
    “Then why doesn’t he simply tell me?” Rathbone continued. “It is a plain enough thing to understand. I might not agree, but I would know what arguments I was facing.”
    Hester thought for a moment.
    “Cannot always have what you want just because you want it,” Athol observed sourly. “There is such a thing as duty.”
    “Maybe it is someone he cannot approach?” Hester looked up at Rathbone, who was still standing, as Athol was, because there was no suitable place to sit.
    “Cannot approach?” Rathbone repeated. “Why not? You mean someone already married? Perhaps a close friend of—” He stopped just before he mentioned the Lamberts’ name.
    “Why not?” she agreed. “Or …”
    “It happens,” he said, shaking his head. “That is not anything to be ashamed of. It is simply awkward, possibly embarrassing, but not worth this public disgrace.”
    “What about her mother?”
    “What?” Rathbone was incredulous. The idea was inconceivable.
    Athol misunderstood completely. “Don’t suppose the poor woman knows,” he put in. “Wouldn’t have brought the action if she did.” He shook his head, his face still bland and certain.
    “Hester means what if the man is in love with the girl’s mother,” Gabriel enlightened him. “And even if she did know, it wouldn’t stop her bringing the suit, because she will hardly be likely to tell the father, will she?”
    “Good God!” Athol was astounded.
    Rathbone collected his wits. “I suppose it’s possible,” he said slowly, remembering Delphine’s lovely face, her delicacy, the grace with which she moved. Melville would not be the first young man to fall in love with an older woman. It had never entered Rathbone’s thoughts, and even now he found it exceedingly difficult. Delphine had seemed so genuinely betrayed. But then maybe she had no idea.
    Hester’s mind was racing ahead. “Or perhaps the girl is in love with someone else and your client knows it,” she suggested. “It could be a matter of honor with him, the greatestgift to her he could give … and she dare not tell her parents, if this other person is unsuitable. Or on the other hand, it might be pride—he could not marry a woman he knew did not love him but did love someone else. I wouldn’t! No matter how willing he was to go through with it.”
    Rathbone smiled. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. But there is an optimism, or an arrogance, in many of us which makes us believe we can teach someone to love us if only we have the chance.” Then he wondered immediately if he should have said that. Was it not too close to the unspoken, vulnerable core of what lay inside himself? Did he not dream that with the chance, the time, the intimacy, Hester would learn to love him with the passion of her nature, not merely the abiding friendship? It had never occurred to him before that he might have anything in common with Melville beyond a terror of being trapped into a marriage he did not want. But perhaps he had?
    He found himself unable to meet her eyes. He looked away, at the curtains, through the window at the trees, then at Gabriel.
    He saw a flash of something in Gabriel’s face which could have been understanding. Gabriel was intelligent, sensitive, and before his injury he must have been remarkably handsome. His was a world of loss which made Melville’s situation, and even Zillah Lambert’s hurt feelings, seem so trivial, so easy to settle with a word or two of goodwill and an ability to forgive. If they were to smile and remain friends, society would talk about it for a brief while, but only until the next scandal broke.
    “I shall put it to him.” He turned to Hester at last. “Thank you for helping me to clarify my mind. I feel as if I have the case in better perspective.” He smiled at her, then looked again at Gabriel. “Thank you for your indulgence, Lieutenant Sheldon. You have been most gracious. I wish you a speedy return of health.”
    Gabriel bade him good-bye, as did Athol, and Hester rose and went with him to the door. Out on the landing, she looked at him gravely, studying his face. Was she imagining somethingpersonal rather than professional in his coming? He would very much rather she did not. He was not ready to commit himself