Yes, it was revenge, surely. To send back to him this soiled and broken woman, bearing the mark he had put upon her--that was deviltry, thought out and shrewdly executed. During the next hour Anthony Cardew suffered, and made Elinor suffer, too. But at the end of that time he found himself confronting a curious situation. Elinor, ashamed, humbled, was not contrite. It began to dawn on Anthony that Jim Doyle's revenge was not finished. For--Elinor loved the man.
She both hated him and loved him. And that leering Irish devil knew it.
He sent for Grace, finally, and Elinor was established in the house. Grace and little Lily's governess had themselves bathed her and put her to bed, and Mademoiselle had smuggled out of the house the garments Elinor had worn into it. Grace had gone in the motor--one of the first in the city--and had sent back all sorts of lovely garments for Elinor to wear, and quantities of fine materials to be made into tiny garments. Grace was a practical woman, and she disliked the brooding look in Elinor's eyes.
"Do you know," she said to Howard that night, "I believe she is quite mad about him still."
"He ought to be drawn and quartered," said Howard, savagely.
Anthony Cardew gave Elinor sanctuary, but he refused to see her again. Except once.
"Then, if it is a boy, you want me to leave him with you?" she asked, bending over her sewing.
"Leave him with me! Do you mean that you intend to go back to that blackguard?"
"He is my husband. He isn't always cruel."
"Good God!" shouted Anthony. "How did I ever happen to have such a craven creature for a daughter?"
"Anyhow," said Elinor, "it will be his child, father."
"When he turned you out, like any drab of the streets!" bellowed old Anthony. "He never cared for you. He married you to revenge himself on me. He sent you back here for the same reason. He'll take your child, and break its spirit and ruin its body, for the same reason. The man's a maniac."
But again, as on the night she came, he found himself helpless against Elinor's quiet impassivity. He knew that, let Jim Doyle so much as raise a beckoning finger, and she would go to him. He did not realize that Elinor had inherited from her quiet mother the dog-like quality of love in spite of cruelty. To Howard he stormed. He considered Elinor's infatuation indecent. She was not a Cardew. The Cardew women had some pride. And Howard, his handsome figure draped negligently against the library mantel, would puzzle over it, too.