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In as far as such a tale can be told with decent ambiguity it was so told by this man of whose refinement Coxeter had formed so poor an opinion, but still the fact that he was telling it remained and it was a fact which to such a man as Coxeter constituted an outrage on the decencies of life. Mrs.
Archdale was not only reckless of her health; she was also reckless perhaps uncaring would be the truer word of something which John Coxeter supposed every nice woman to value even more than her health or appearance, that is the curiously intangible, and yet so easily frayed, human vesture termed reputation.
But the Rendels pushed forward, and finally both found places in this, the last boat but one. Victor Munich was still standing close to John Coxeter, and Mrs. Archdale, glancing at his sallow, terror-stricken face, felt a thrill of generous pity for the man. "Mr. Coxeter," she whispered, "do give him that life-saver! Did he not ask you for it just now? We don't want it."
Although he was unconscious of it, John Coxeter was a very material human being, and this no doubt was why this woman had so compelling an attraction for him; for Nan Archdale appeared to be all spirit, and that in spite of her eager, sympathetic concern in the lives which circled about hers. And yet?
Nan had done what she had done, had taken her in and sheltered her, going to the Court with her every day, simply because there seemed absolutely no one else willing to do it. When he had first heard of what Mrs. Archdale was undertaking to do, Coxeter had been so dismayed that he had felt called upon to expostulate with her. Very few words had passed between them.
The eavesdropper was well aware that such stories are among the everyday occurrences of life, but his knowledge was largely theoretical; John Coxeter was not the sort of man to whom other men are willing to confide their shames, sorrows, or even successes in a field of which the aftermath is generally bitter.
He felt her trembling, shuddering against him, what she had just seen had loosed fear from its leash. "I'm frightened," she moaned. "Oh, Mr. Coxeter, I'm so horribly frightened of those men! Are they all gone?" "Yes," he said grimly, "most of them managed to get into the boat. Don't be frightened. I think we're safer here than we should be with those ruffians."
Archdale was now receiving very untoward confidences confidences which Coxeter had always imagined were never made save under the unspoken seal of secrecy by one man to another. This objectionable stranger was telling Nan Archdale the story of the woman who had seen him off at the station, and whose absurd phrase, "Adieu, mon petit homme adoré," had rung so unpleasantly in his, Coxeter's, ears.
But if John Coxeter were incapable of love, she now knew him to be a good friend, and it was the friend so she believed, and was grateful to him for it, who had asked her to accept what he had quixotically supposed would be the shelter of his name when she had done that thing of which he had disapproved. To-night Nan could not help wondering if he would ever again ask her to marry him.
As to being unlike herself, you and I would probably be very unlike ourselves if we had gone through what this poor lady had just gone through!" "You see, I was with her on the boat. We were not travelling together," Coxeter corrected himself hastily, "I happened to meet her merely on the journey. My name is Coxeter." The other man's manner entirely altered. He slackened in his quick walk.
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