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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33519-8.txt b/33519-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f9d6c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/33519-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7072 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A +Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and The Masterpiece + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +Release Date: August 23, 2010 [EBook #33519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEST *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, H. V., Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE NEST + +THE WHITE PAGODA + +THE SUICIDE + +A FORSAKEN TEMPLE + +MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE + +BY ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK + +(MRS. BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT) + +AUTHOR OF "TANTE," "FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE," "A FOUNTAIN SEALED," "THE +SHADOW OF LIFE," ETC. + + +NEW YORK +THE CENTURY CO. +1913 + +Copyright, 1902, 1904, 1912, 1913, by +The Century Co. + +Copyright, 1898, by Charles Scribner's Sons + +_Published, January, 1913_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +It seemed suitable, when making a selection of short stories for +publication in book form, to include my first attempt with my last, and +therefore the very juvenile production--"Miss Jones and the +Masterpiece"--finds a place with the others. + +My thanks are due to the Editors of the _Century Magazine_, _Scribners' +Magazine_, and the _English Review_, for allowing me to republish the +stories that appeared in their pages. + +_November, 1912._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE NEST + +THE WHITE PAGODA + +THE SUICIDE + +A FORSAKEN TEMPLE + +MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE + + + + +THE NEST + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +He seemed to have had no time for thinking before he sank into a corner +of the railway carriage and noted, with a satisfaction under the +circumstances perhaps trivial, that he would have it to himself for the +swift hour down to the country. Satisfactions of any sort seemed +inappropriate, an appanage that he should have left behind him for ever +on stepping from the great specialist's door in Wimpole Street two hours +ago. When a man has but a month--at most two months--to live, small +hopes and fears should drop from him: he should be stripped, as it were, +for the last solitary wrestle in the arena of death. + +But the drive, from the doctor's to the city and from there to +Paddington, had seemed unusually full of life's solicitations. The soft, +strained eyes of an over-laden horse, appealing in patience from the +shade of dusty blinkers; the dismal degradation of a music-hall +poster--a funny man with reddened nose and drunken hat, as appealing in +his slavery as the horse; the vaporous blue-green silhouettes of the +Park on a silvery sky;--he had found himself responding to these with +pity, repugnance and pleasure as normally as if they meant for him now +what they always would have meant. That such impressions were so soon to +cease must change all their meaning,--at least, so one would have +supposed; he began to think of that and to wonder a little over the +apparent stoicism of those intervening hours; but, while the mood had +lasted, the fact that he had come to the end of things, that there was a +pit dug across his path, had done hardly more than skim on the outskirts +of his alert yet calm receptivity. He seemed never to have noticed more, +never to have been more conscious of the outer world and so little +conscious of himself. + +Now, in the train, the outer world, wraith-like in a sudden summer +shower, became the background as it sped on either side, and thoughts +were in the foreground, thoughts of himself as doomed, and of the life +that he had loved and worked in, as measured into one shallow cupful at +his lips. Even yet it was almost absurd, the difficulty he found in +realising it. The doomed figure detached itself, became that of a +piteous, a curious alien, whom one watched respectfully and from a +distance. From a safe shore he observed the tossing of the rapidly +sinking skiff with its helpless occupant. It required a great pull, +push, and effort of his whole being, like that of awakening from a +half-dream, in order to see, in order to say to himself, really +believing it, that he was the man. Wonder, rather than dread or sorrow, +was still the paramount feeling, though, oppressively, as if he picked +his steps about the verge of an echoing cavern, turning away his eyes, +there lurked behind all that he felt the sense of sudden emptiness and +dark. + +It was wonderful, immensely absorbing and interesting, this idea of +being himself doomed. Self-conscious, observant, sensitive as he was, he +still thought more than felt. It was at last credible and indubitable +that he _was_ the man, and he was asking himself how he would take it; +he was asking himself how he would bear it. He was amused to observe +that the pathetic old human vanity, by no means stunned, was pushing its +head above the tossing surface in order to assure him again and again +that he would bear it very well. It should be a graceful and gallant +exit. If there were to be dark moments, moments when the cavern sucked +him in and had him, if he was to know horror and despair, no one else, +at all events, should know that he knew them; no one else should share +his suffering. Up to the edge of extinction he would keep silence and a +stoic cheerfulness. The doctor had promised him that there would be +little pain; there would be knowledge only to conceal. + +This vanity, and there was satisfaction in it for all his ironic +insight, was not so selfish as it seemed; the next turn of thought led +him to this. For no one had a right to share his suffering; or perhaps +it would be more magnanimous to say that the some one of whom he was +thinking had a right to be spared the sharing of it. He shared so few of +the things that mattered with Kitty that she might well claim immunity. +His wife's figure, since the very beginning, had been hovering near his +thoughts, not once looked at directly. It might be horribly painful to +look at it, but he suspected that it would not be so painful as to look +at the other near thing that he must leave behind: his work; the work +that with all its grind and routine--so hard to harness to at first--had +now become so much a part of himself. The fact that he might come nearer +to despair, nearer to the crumbling edge of the cavern, when he thought +of leaving his work than when he thought of leaving his wife, was in +itself a pain; but it was an old pain in a new guise. Kitty had for so +long been one of the things that counted for less than his work. Vanity +even raised its voice high enough to say ruefully that they might get on +badly without him at the Home Office; the country itself might suffer. +He smiled; but the dart told; it was perhaps feathered with truth. Yes, +everything most essential in him, everything that most counted, was +answered, called forth in his work. It was in that that he would most +truly die. For, of course, in the many other, the young, the ardent, the +foolish hopes, he was dead already. And it was round the figure of his +wife, that light and radiant figure, sweet, soft, appealing, that those +dead hopes seemed to gather, like mist about a flower. + +Poor, lovely little Kitty: the sight of the rain-dimmed meadow-sweet, by +the brookside in a passing field, brought her before him in this aspect +of innocent disillusioner. For nothing essential, nothing that counted +in him, was answered or called forth by Kitty except a slightly ironic +tenderness. He didn't judge life from his own failure to find splendid +mutual enterprise and sacred mutual comprehension where his lover's +blindness had thought to find it. Nor did he judge Kitty. His own +blindness was the fault, if fault there were, and even that blindness he +could now see tolerantly. The dart and pang had gone from his memory of +young love; his smile for it was indulgent; he was even glad that the +memory was there, glad that he had known the illusion, even if it were +at the price of failure in that happy realm of life. Little of the +sadness could have been Kitty's; she had not known the bitterness of his +slow awakening; she was easily contented with the tame terms of +unillumined life. A charming home; a fond husband; a pretty, diligent +part to play in the political and social life of the countryside; the +nicest taste to show in dress and friends;--Kitty, he imagined, thought +of her life as completely successful. And why not? He himself saw love +as an episode and contentedly accepted the fact that for the flower-like +woman and the man who works there can be, eventually, no deeper bond. + +He knew two or three other women who interested him more than Kitty ever +could; to them he went when he wanted to talk about anything he cared +for. Kitty was sweet to see; she made him very comfortable; she rarely +irritated him. With friends and Kitty what did he want of women more? +Outside these domestic and drawing-room circles was the world of men and +ideas in which he lived, in which his real life had its roots. + +Yet, as the train neared the little country station, as familiar lanes +and meadows glided slowly past the windows, he became aware that his +thoughts had more and more slid from this outside life, this world of +work and reality, and that from thinking of the little part that Kitty +played in it he had come to thinking of Kitty and to the thought that he +was to see her for the last time.--Yes; that crashed in at last. At last +something seemed to come to him which, in the pain of it, was completely +adequate to the situation. It was the Kitty of six years ago that he saw +most clearly, the girl he had fallen in love with, his bride; but there +were all the other memories too, the little silent memories, the +nothings, the everythings of daily life together; small joys, small +sorrows. The breakfast-table, Kitty behind the coffee, reading aloud to +him some scrap of her morning budget; the garden, Kitty showing him how +a new flower was thriving; Kitty riding beside him in the dew to an +early meet; and, suddenly, among all the trivial memories, the solemn +one that hardly seemed to go with Kitty at all,--Kitty's face looking up +at him, disfigured with grief and pain, as he told her that their +child--it had died at birth--was dead. + +The other women, the interesting ones, the women who, more or less, knew +their way about his mind and soul, were forgotten, blotted out +completely by the trivial and the solemn memories. He felt no desire to +see them, no desire at all to say good-bye to them; that would be to +bring them near. But he did want to see Kitty, at once. She was not near +mind or soul; but she was near as life is near; near like the pulse of +his heart; and, with all the other things, he felt, suddenly, that Kitty +was his child, too, and that paternal yearning was mingled with the +crying out of his whole nature towards her. For it was crying out; and, +if she was his child, in what deep strange sense was he not her child, +too. + +The wide world, the real world, the outside world of work and +achievement, collapsed like a crumpled panorama; he was covering his +eyes; he was shuddering; he was stumbling back to the nest, wounded to +death, there to fold himself in darkness, in oblivion, in love.--How +near we are to the animal, he thought, smiling, with trembling lips, as +he saw the station slide outside the windows at last, saw the face of +the station-master--he had never before known that the station-master +was such a lovable person--he seemed so near the nest that he must be +lovable--saw, beyond the flower-wreathed palings, the dog-cart waiting +for him. But his deeper self rebuked the cynical side-glance. The +trembling smile, he knew, had more of truth:--how near we are to the +divine. The pain and ecstasy of this moment of arrival made it one of +the most vivid and significant of his life. Almost worth while to know +that one is to die in a month if the knowledge brings with it such +flashes of beauty of vision. The whole earth seemed transfigured and +heavenly. + +Dean, the coachman, gave acquiescent answers to his questions on the +homeward drive. He heard the sound of his own voice and knew that he was +speaking as he wanted to be sure of speaking for these next weeks, with +ease and lightness. He would be able to keep up before Kitty. Until the +very end she should be spared everything; there was joy in the thought, +and no longer any vanity. He would see her, be with her, and she should +not know. He would see her happy for their last month together. He +clasped the thought of her happiness--with her--to his heart. + +Like all ecstasies, it faded, this rapture of his return. By the time +the house was reached, the lovely little Jacobean house that they had +found together, the buoyancy was gone and what was left was a sweetness +and a great fatigue. He was to see her; that was well; and here was the +nest; that was well, too. But he wanted to fold his wings and sleep. + +Mrs. Holland was not in the house, the butler told him, she and Sir +Walter had gone down to the river together. Holland felt that he would +rather not go after them. He would wait so that he should see Kitty +alone when he first saw her. He liked Sir Walter, their friend and +neighbour; it would not be difficult to act before him, and he knew that +he could begin acting at once; but, for this first meeting of the new, +short epoch, he must see Kitty alone. So he had his tea in the +library--queer to go on having tea, queer to find one still liked +tea--and looked over some papers, and saw, outside, the afternoon grow +stiller and more golden, and knew that all dreads were in abeyance and +that the somnolence, as of a drugged sweetness and fatigue, still kept +him safe. + +He was conscious at last of a purely physical chill; the library was +cool and he stepped into the sunlight on the lawn, walking up and down +among the flowers and, presently, across the grassy terraces, to the +lower groups of trees, vaguely directing his steps to the little +summer-house that faced the west and was as full of sunlight at this +hour as a fretted shell of warm, lapping sea-water. They could not see +him, on their way up from the river, nor he them, from here, and after a +half-hour or so of dreamy basking it would be time to dress for dinner, +Sir Walter would have gone and Kitty would be at the house again. + +He followed the narrow path, set thickly with young ashes and sycamores, +and saw beyond the trees the roof of the summer-house heaped with +illumined festoons of traveller's-joy, and then, when he was near, he +heard voices within it, Kitty's voice and Sir Walter's. + +Hesitating, half-turning to go back, it was as if a childish panic of +shyness seized him, so that he smiled at himself as he stood there, in +the arrested attitude of an involuntary eavesdropper. But the smile +faded. A look of bewilderment came to his face. Kitty was weeping and +Sir Walter was pleading with her, and so strange was Sir Walter's voice, +so strange what he was saying to Kitty, that all the strangeness of the +day found now its culminating moment. + +He walked on, slowly, unwillingly, helplessly, walked on, as he now +knew, into some far other form of suffering than any that had been +foreseen by him that afternoon. + +A rustic seat ran round the summer-house. On the side most hidden he +sank down. He did not choose the hidden side. He had no feeling of will +or choice; had they come out upon him he would have looked at them with +the same bewildered eyes. But, dully, he felt that he must +know,--know,--why Kitty was unhappy. + +Sunken on the seat, among the traveller's-joy, exhausted, yet alert, his +head dizzy and his heart stilled, as it were, to listen, it was this +amazement and curiosity that Holland felt rather than anger, jealousy, +or grief. + +Kitty was unhappy; Sir Walter loved her, and she loved Sir Walter. Sir +Walter was imploring her to come away with him. "But you do love me," +was the phrase that he repeated again and again, the strong protest of +fact against her refusal. + +The dizziness lifting, the heart beating more normally, Holland knew +more. Kitty was unhappy and loved Sir Walter, but, deeper than that, was +the truth that she was happy in her knowledge of his love, deeper than +that--though this depth was of thankfulness in her husband's heart--was +the truth that the love was as yet a beautiful pastime; there was joy +for her in her own sadness, drama in her pain; she was a child with a +strange toy in her hand; it charmed her and she had not learned to dread +it. + +Her husband's comprehension of her, of her childishness, her fluidity, +her weakness, actually touched with respect his comprehension of Sir +Walter; for Sir Walter's strength was reverent, even in his recklessness +there was dignity. Holland knew that he spoke the truth when he said to +Kitty that she might trust him for life. + +It was the real thing with Sir Walter. With Kitty the real thing could +be little more than the response to reality in others. There was the +danger that her husband steadied himself to look at, as he sat in the +sunlight outside the summer-house and listened. + +The dizziness was quite gone. He had never felt a greater mental +clarity. He knew that he must be suffering; but suffering seemed +relegated to some region of mere physical sensation. He saw and +understood so many things that he had never seen or understood before. +He felt no jealousy, not a pang of the defrauded, injured male, not a +throb of the broken-hearted lover; yet it was not indifference to Kitty +that gave him his immunity; he had never cared more for Kitty; it was, +perhaps, in a tenderer key, as he cared for the station-master, as he +cared, now, for Sir Walter. He was himself soon to die and, as +personalities, as related to his own life, people had ceased to count; +but as lives that were to go on after he was dead, they counted as they +had never done till then; and Kitty most of all. It was this intense +consciousness of her youth, of all the years of life she had to live, +that pressed with such clearness and such fear upon him. She had all her +life before her and she held in her hands a terrible, a beautiful toy +that, suddenly transformed to an engine of destruction, might shatter +her. + +Sir Walter was going. He said that he would come again to-morrow. + +"Nicholas will be here," said Kitty. She no longer wept. Her voice, now +that the stress of the situation was over, had regained its pensive +sweetness. + +"Yes," said Sir Walter, "that's what's so odious, darling; he will +always be here and everything will be twisted and horrible. I like your +husband." + +"He is a strange man; I sometimes think that he cares for nothing but +his work; he is all thought and no heart. I don't believe that he would +really mind if I were to go away with you. He would smile, sadly and +ironically, and say: 'Poor, silly child.' And then he would turn to his +papers. I'm nothing to him but a doll, a convenient, domestic doll. And +he doesn't care for playing with dolls except for a little while now and +then." Kitty spoke with a sober pathos that did not veil resentment. + +"Ah, you can say all that to me--and expect me to go on bearing seeing +you wasted and thrown away!" Sir Walter broke out. "What stands between +us? Why must we go on suffering like this?" + +"Isn't it a great joy--to know that the other is there, +understanding--and caring?" + +"A killing sort of joy." + +"How cruel, how wrong you are," Kitty murmured; but her husband knew +that for her, indeed, the joy was deep, and that it was in such moments +of power over an emotion she could rouse yet dominate that she had her +keenest sense of it. + +"I can't help it," said Sir Walter. "I shall always want you to come +away with me." + +"Good-bye:--for to-day." + +"It's you who are cruel." + +At that, silence following, Holland knew that Kitty's quiet tears fell +again. + +Sir Walter was subjugated. He pleaded for pardon; promised not to +torment her--to try not to torment her. A trysting-place was fixed on +for next day and Holland felt another chill of fear at Kitty's swift +resource and craft in planning it. The child knew how to plot and lie. +It thought itself nobly justified, no doubt, and that its fidelity to +duty gave it the right to every liberty of conscience. And before Sir +Walter went there was a moment of relenting that showed how near was the +joy of yielding to the joy of ruthlessness, "For this once,--for this +once only--" Kitty murmured. And Holland knew that Sir Walter held her +in his arms and kissed her. + +After his departure Kitty sat on for some moments in the summer-house. +She sighed deeply once or twice and Holland fancied, from her light +movements, that she had leaned her arms on the table and rested her head +on them. He heard presently, that she was softly saying a prayer, and at +the sound, tears filled his eyes. Then, rising, she collected her basket +of flowers, her parasol, her books, and walked away with slow steps +along the path leading to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Two facts stood clear before Holland's eyes. He had been culpably blind +and Kitty was in danger. He asked himself if he had not been culpably +selfish too, for Kitty's summing up of his attitude towards her would +have hurt had he not been beyond such hurts; but, looking back, he could +not see that he had ever pushed Kitty aside nor relegated her to the +place of plaything. No; the ship of his romance, all its sails set to +fairest, sweetest hopes, had been well-ballasted by the most serious, +most generous of modern theories as to the right relations of man and +wife. And the shock and disillusion had been to find, day by day, that +it was, so to speak, only the sails that Kitty cared for. The cargo, the +purpose of their voyage, left her prettily, vaguely indifferent. Again +and again, he remembered, it had been as if he had led her down into the +busy heart of the ship, explained the chart to her, pointed out all the +interesting wares. Kitty had shown a graceful interest, but with the +manner of a lovely voyager, brought down from sunny or starlit +contemplations on deck to humour the dry tastes of the captain. She +didn't care a bit for the cargo, or the purposes; she didn't care a bit +for any of his interests nor wish to share them; his interests, in so +far as specialized and unrelated to their romance, were, she intimated, +by every retreating grace--as of gathered-up skirts and a backward smile +for the captain in his prosy room--the captain's own particular manly +business; her business was to be womanly, that is, to be charming, to +feel the breeze in the sails, and to gaze at the stars. And though, now +for the first time he saw it, Kitty was not the happy, facilely +contented woman he had thought her, it was really as if the ship, with +weightier cargoes to carry, more distant ports to reach, had undergone a +transformation; throbbing and complicated machinery moved instead of +sails, and on its workaday decks Kitty strolled wistfully, missing the +sails, missing the romance, but missing only that. + +He had accepted, helplessly, her interpretation of their specialised +existences, hoping only that hers might assume the significance that +would, perhaps, justify the old-fashioned separation of interests; but +no children came after the first, the child that died at birth, the +child that his heart ached over still; and he could not believe that +Kitty felt the lack, could hardly believe that she shared his hope for +other children. She had suffered terribly in the birth of the one, more, +perhaps, than in its death--though that had temporarily crushed her--and +she had been horribly frightened by the cruelties and perils of +maternity. So, though he had come to think of her as essentially +womanly, it was in a rather narrow sense; the term had by degrees lost +many, even, of its warm, instinctive associations, and as he now sat +thinking, near the summer-house, it took on its narrowest, if most +piteous meaning. Kitty was essentially womanly. She needed some one to +be in love with her. Her husband had ceased to be in love--though he had +not ceased to be a loving husband--and she responded helplessly to a +lover's appeal. Sir Walter's appeal was very persuasive. A ship of +snowy, wing-like sails, a fairy ship, rocked on the waves at the very +edge of Kitty's sheltered life. Only a shutting of the eyes, a holding +of the breath, and she would be carried across the narrow intervening +depth to the deck, to freedom, to safety--she would believe--to sails +trimmed for an immortal romance. Would Kitty's cowardice, and Kitty's +prayers--they were interwoven he felt sure--keep her for one month from +running away with Sir Walter? In only a month's time she could respond +and not be shattered: in only a month's time the ship of romance would +be really safe, she might walk on board with no shutting of the eyes or +holding of the breath. Holland gazed, and the facts became clearer and +more ominous. For the lack of a knowledge that was his, Kitty and Sir +Walter might wreck their lives. All the motives for the concealment of +his secret, the vanity, the bravery, the cherishing tenderness that had +inspired him, were scattered to the winds. The nest was a tattered, +wind-pierced ruin. And he, already, was a ghost. Kitty should not lack +the knowledge. + +The dew was falling, and he had grown chilly. He walked back quickly to +the house that he had left a little while ago so vividly aware of the +sweetness that the shallow cup might hold. The cup was empty. Not a drop +of self was left to hope or live for. + + * * * * * + +He waited till the next day to tell her. He did not feel a tremor, he +felt too deep a fatigue. + +Their meeting at dinner was a placid gliding over the depths; two hooded +gondolas floating side by side, each with its shrouded secret. But +skill and vigilance were his. Kitty's gondola drifted with the current, +knowing no need of skill, secure of secrecy. The eyes she quietly lifted +to her husband were unclouded. He guessed the inner drama that held her +thoughts, the tragically beautiful _role_ that she herself played in it. +It was as a heroine that she saw herself. Why not, indeed. No heroine +could have played her part more gracefully and worthily, and a heroine's +innocent eyes could not be expected to see as far as his "ironic" ones. + +It was the sense of distance, from her, from everything, that grew upon +him during the long intervals of the night when he lay awake and watched +the stars slowly cross his open window. He was no longer divided from +himself, no longer groping, as in the train, to find a clue between the +doomed man and the watcher. The self that he had found was adrift upon a +sea, solitary indeed, and saw pigmy figures moving in the shifting +lights and shadows of the shore. His mild preoccupation was with one +figure, light, fluttering, foolish: she was walking near the verge of +the cliff and her foothold might give way. He intended to signal to her +and to point out a safe road through the cornfields, before he turned +himself again to loneliness, the sky, and the sea that was soon to +engulf him. + + * * * * * + +This self-obliterating immensity of mood was contracted and ruffled next +morning by the trivial difficulties that stood in the way of his +determination. He went to Kitty's boudoir--and, in spite of immensities, +he knew that his heart beat heavily under the burden of its project, how +careful he must be, how delicate--to find her interviewing the cook. In +the garden, she was talking to the gardener, and afterwards, in her +room, she was trying on a tea-gown before the mirror. Actually he felt +some irritation. + +"When can I see you, Kitty?" he asked. + +Her eyes in the glass met his with surprise at his tone; but surprise +was all. "See me? Here I am. What is it?--No, Cécile, the sash must +knot, so; tie it more to the side." + +"I want to talk over something with you." + +"I'm rather busy this morning. Will after lunch do? Don't you see, +Cécile, like this." + +"No, it won't. I must see you now," said Holland, almost querulously. + +She turned her head to look at him and a shadow crossed her face. +Suddenly, he saw it, she was a little frightened. + +"Of course, directly. I'll come to the library." + +Seeing that fear, and smitten with compunction, a rather silly impulse +made him smile at her and say:--"Don't bother to hurry. I can wait." But +he did want her to hurry. He felt that he could wait no longer. + +He walked up and down the library. The weariness of the day before was +gone; the sweetness, of course, was gone, and the inhuman immensity was +gone too. He felt oddly normal and reasonable, detached yet implicated; +almost like a friendly family doctor come to break the fatal news to the +ignorant wife. It was just the anxiety that the doctor might feel, the +grave trouble and the twinge of awkwardness. + +He had only waited for ten minutes when Kitty appeared in the doorway. + +Kitty Holland was still a young woman and looked younger than her years. +The roundness and blueness and steady gaze of her eyes, the bloom of her +cheeks and innocent lustre of her golden hair gave an infantile quality +to her loveliness. She was not a vain woman, but she was conscious of +these advantages and the consciousness had touched the childlike +candour and confidingness with a little artificiality, for long apparent +to her husband's kindly but dispassionate eye. To other people Mrs. +Holland's manner, the whispering vagueness of her voice, the wistful +dwelling of her glance, was felt to be artificial only as the gold +embroideries and serrated edges on the robes of a Fra Angelico angel are +felt as something added and decorative. Kitty was far too intelligent to +try to look like a Fra Angelico angel; she was picturesque as only the +extremely fashionable can be picturesque; but Holland knew she was +conscious that she reminded people of an angel, and of a child, and that +she reminded herself continually of all sorts of exquisite things, +partly because she was dreamily self-conscious and keenly aware of +exquisiteness, and partly because he had, in their first year, the year +of sails and breezes, so impressed these things upon her attention. + +He himself had grown accustomed to--perhaps a little tired of--the lily +poise of the head, the long, gentle hands, the floating step, quite the +step of an angel aware of flower-dappled grass beneath its feet and the +flutter of embroidered draperies. But Kitty, though accustomed to these +graces, in herself, had not grown tired of them, they had, indeed, more +and more filled the foreground of her delicate and decorative life, so +that he could guess at how much his own indifference had helped to +alienate her. + +And now, as he turned to look at her, these half ironic, half +affectionate impressions hovered as a background, and, sharply drawn +upon it, with the biting acid of his new perceptions, he saw something +else in Kitty's face that he had never seen before. + +Already he had seen her as a womanly woman, as that in its narrowest +sense. He saw her now as a type of the woman who live in and through and +for their affections, and this with their sensations rather than with +their intelligences. Vividly his memory struck them out;--the faces of +the satisfied women, taking on, as years pass over them, as experience +detaches from the craving, sentimental self, and frees the instincts to +push, climb, cling in roots and tendrils for other selves, a vegetable +serenity and simplicity;--and, more vividly, with discomfort in the +memory, the faces of the unsatisfied; the womanly married woman whose +romance is over, the spinster who has missed romance; faces chiselled to +subtlety by dreams and frustration. + +On Kitty's face he saw it now, that look of a subtlety childlike, +innocent, of flesh rather than of spirit, yet, in its very +unconsciousness, almost sinister. For a moment, as the lines of the +sharp new perception etched themselves, lines gossamer-like in fineness, +floating, transforming shadows rather than lines, he was afraid of his +wife, afraid of the alien, mysterious force he guessed in her. + +For the delicately sinister subtlety was remote from his understanding, +was a subtlety that no man's face can show, capable as it is of a +grossness and corruption merely animal by contrast; open and obvious. +Kitty's subtlety did not make her animal: it made her more than ever +like an angel; but an ambiguous angel; and to feel that he did not +understand her made her strange. It was no clue to feel that she did not +understand herself; it was only a further depth of mystery. + +He was ashamed of his own folly in another moment, ashamed of an insight +distorted and distorting, so he told himself. Over and above all such +morbidities was the fact that Kitty was looking at him with the eyes of +a frightened child--a real child. + +The reaction from his fear, the recognition of her fear, stirred in him +a love more personal than any of the vast benevolences that he had +felt. He went to her and led her to the window-seat where, sitting down +himself, holding both her hands in his and looking up at her standing +before him, he said with the quiet of long-prepared words: "Kitty, dear, +I have something that I want to tell you and that will make you, I +think, a little sad. We have had happy times together, haven't we? It +isn't all regret. You and I are going to part, Kitty." + +She gazed at him and terror widened her eyes. She could not speak. She +did not move. Her hands in his hands seemed dead. + +He saw in a moment what the fear was that showed itself in this torpor +of apprehension, and he hastened on so that she should not, in her +dread, reveal the secret that need never be spoken. + +"I'm going to die, Kitty," he said, "I had my sentence yesterday, from +Dr. Farebrother. I never dreamed that it was anything serious, that +complaint of mine, you know,--never dreamed it even when it began to +trouble me a good deal, as it has of late. But it's not what I thought. +It's fatal; and it will gallop now. He gives me one month--at the very +most, two months." He spoke deliberately, though swiftly, and, as he +finished, he smiled up at her, a reassuring smile. His wife's dilated +eyes, fixed on him, made him flush a little in the ensuing pause. He +felt that the smile had been inept. He had spoken too much from the +height of his detachment, and the placidity of his words might well seem +horrible to her. + +She was finding it horrible. She seemed to be breathing the icy air of a +vault that he had opened before her; heavy, slow, painful breaths, those +of a sleeper oppressed by nightmare; the sound of them, the sight of her +labouring breast hurt him. He put his arms around her and smiled now, as +one smiles at a child to console it. "I've frightened you," he said; +"forgive me. You see, one gets used to it, so soon, for oneself. Dear +little Kitty, I'm so sorry." + +Still she did not speak. Still it was that torpid terror that gazed at +him. And the terror was not for what he had thought it was; it was for +what he had said. It was a contagious terror. She cared. In some +unexplained, unforeseen way she cared terribly; and his projects +crumbled beneath her gaze; bewilderment drifted in his mind; her fear +gained him. + +"What is the matter? What is it?" he asked. + +The change and sharpness in his voice brought them near at last. Kitty +seized his hands and lifted them from her; yet grasping, clinging as she +held him off. He would not have thought her face capable of such +fierceness and demand. She was hardly recognisable as she said: "Do you +want to die? Don't you mind dying?" + +"Mind?--I should rather not, of course. I care for my life. But one must +face it; what else is there to do?--And,--what is it Kitty? What have I +done to you?" + +And now, her head fallen back, her eyes closed, tears ran down her face, +as piteously, agonised and stricken, she asked: + +"Don't you love me at all? Don't you mind leaving me at all?" + +His astonishment was so great that for a moment it bereft him of words. +He had risen and was holding her; her eyes were closed and she sobbed +and sobbed, her head fallen back. And her passion of sorrow and despair, +her loveliness, too, and youth, seized and shook him; so that all the +things he had not felt yet, all the hovering, dreadful things, the dark +forms of the cavern, encompassed, pressed upon him; despair and longing, +the horror of annihilation, the agonising sweetness of life. It was as +if a hidden wound had been opened and that his blood was gushing forth, +not to peace, but to pain and torment. He felt his own sobs rising; she +cared; how much she cared. It was as if her caring gave him back the +self that yesterday had blotted out; in her pain he knew his own; in her +self he saw and mourned his own doomed and piteous self. His head leaned +to hers and his lips sought hers, when, suddenly, a furious memory came, +and indignation suffocated him. + +He thrust her violently away, holding her by the shoulders. "How dare +you! how dare you!" he cried. "You don't love me. You don't mind my +dying. How dare you torture me like this--when it's not real,--when I +was at peace." + +It was like a wild, impossible dream. Their faces stared at each other; +their hands seized each other; they spoke, their voices clashing, and +shaken by strangling sobs. + +"How dare you say that to me! You have broken my heart! You haven't +cared for years--for years!" Kitty cried. "I've longed--longed. It is +too horrible. How dare you come and tell me that you are going to die +and that it will make me a little sad. Oh! I love you--and you are +horrible to me." + +"You are lying, Kitty--you are lying!" + +"That too! You can say that! To me! To me!" + +"It's true. You know you lie. I haven't loved you as I did. But I've +cared--good God! I see now how much.--It is you who have ceased to +care." + +At these words Kitty was transfigured. Joy, joy unmistakable, flamed up +in her. It mounted to her eyes and lips, revivifying her ravaged face, +beaming forth, inundating him, unfaltering, assured, absolute. +"Darling--darling--you love me? you do love me?--Oh, you shan't die--I +won't let you die. My love will keep you with me. We will forget all +these years when we haven't understood--when we've forgotten. We will +forget everything--except that we love each other and that that is all +there is to live for in the world." + +"And--Sir Walter?--" he said, simply and helplessly. + +Kitty's arms were about his neck, her transfigured face was upturned to +him. Worshipped by those eyes, held in that embrace, his words, in his +own ears, were absurd. Yet he hadn't been dreaming yesterday. Kitty +might make the words seem absurd; but even Kitty's eyes and Kitty's arms +could not conjure away the facts of the sunlit summer-house, the tears, +the parting kiss. What of Sir Walter? What else was there left to say? + +But after he had said them, and stood looking at her, it was as if his +words released the last depths of her rapture. She did not flush or +falter or show, even, any shock or surprise. Her arms about him, her +eyes on his, it was a stiller, a more solemn joy that dwelt on him and +enfolded him. + +"You know?" she said. + +"I heard you last evening," Holland answered. "I was sitting outside the +summer-house. You said you loved him. You let him kiss you." + +"You will forgive me," said Kitty. They were looking at each other like +two children. "I thought I loved him, because I was so unhappy, and he +is so dear and kind and loves me so much. I must love some one. I must +be loved. I was so lonely. And you seemed not to care at all any more. +You were only my husband, you weren't my lover.--And you don't know all. +He doesn't know it. But I know it now. And I must tell you +everything--all the dreadful weakness--you must understand it all. +Perhaps, if this hadn't come, perhaps, if you hadn't been given back to +me like this, I might have gone away with him, Nicholas. It wasn't that +I had ceased to love you; it was that I had to be loved and was weak +before love. It is dreadful;--I believe all women are like that. And I +did struggle, oh, I did. Nicholas, you will forgive me?" + +"I knew it, dear, and I forgave you." + +"You knew it? You loved me so much that you forgave?" + +"That was why I told you, Kitty. I hadn't meant to tell you; I had meant +to keep it from you, this sadness, and to make our last month together a +happy one for you. I was coming back to you with such longing, dear. And +then I heard; and then I was afraid that you might go away before you +would be free." + +"You loved me so much? You did it because you loved me so much?--Oh! +Nicholas--Nicholas!" + +"That was why I said those horrible things. I wanted you to be happy. I +didn't think you could be more than a little sad when you knew that you +were going to be free. Foolish, darling Kitty--you are sure it's me you +do love?" + +Again she could not speak, but it was her joy that made her silent. She +was no more to be disbelieved than an angel appearing in the vault, +irradiating the darkness. Flowers sprang beneath her footsteps; her +smile was life. And the memory of his own cynical vision of her smote +him with a self-reproach that deepened tenderness. She was only subtle, +only sinister, when shut away, unloved. She was womanly, meant for love +only, and her folly made her the more lovable. Love was all that was +left him. One month of love. His hands yielded to her hands; his eyes +answered her eyes. The fragrance of the flowers was in the air, the +flutter of heavenly garments. One month of life; but how flat, how mean, +how dusty seemed the arduous outer world of the last years; how deep the +goblet of enchantment that the unambiguous angel held out to him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +There were two cups to drink, for he had to put the cup of death to her +lips. He told her all as they walked in the garden that afternoon; of +the growing gravity of symptoms, the interview with the great specialist +to whom his own doctor, unwilling to pronounce a final verdict, had sent +him. He begged her to spare him further interviews. He was to die, that +was evident; and doctors could do nothing for him. If pain came he +promised that he would take what relief they had to give. + +She leaned her head against his shoulder, weeping and weeping as they +walked. + +They were two lovers again, lovers shut into the straitest, most +compassed paradise. On every side the iron walls enclosed them; there +were no distances; there was no horizon. But within the circle of doom +blossomed the mazy sweetness; the very sky seemed to have narrowed to +the roofing of a bower. + +To be in love again; to feel the whole world beating like a doubled +pulse of you-and-I to and fro between them. She must weep, and he, with +this newly born self, must know to the full the pang and bitterness; but +the moments blossomed and smiled over the dread; because the dread was +there. Sir Walter passed away like a shadow. Kitty saw him and came to +her husband from the interview with a composure that almost made him +laugh. It would have hurt her feelings for him to laugh at her, and he +listened gravely while she told him that Sir Walter, now, was going to +accept the big post in India that, for her sake, he had been on the +point of refusing. He was going away that very night. She had been +perfectly frank with him; she had explained to him--"quite simply and +gently" said Kitty--that she had been very foolish and had let her +friendship for him, her fondness, and her loneliness mislead her; yes, +she had told him quite simply that he would always be a dear, dear +friend, but that she was in love with her husband. + +The poor toy. The child, with placid hands and unpitying eyes, had +snapped it across the middle and walked away from it. He didn't need her +to say it again; he saw that she had ceased completely to love Sir +Walter. "And weren't you sorry for him at all?" he asked. + +"Sorry? Of course, dear, how can you ask?" said Kitty. "I was as tender +as possible. But you know, I can't but feel that he deserved punishment. +Oh, I know that I did, too!--don't think me hard and self-righteous. But +see--see, darling, what you have saved me from! Remember what he wanted +me to do. Oh--it was wrong and cruel of him. I shall never be able to +forgive him, just because I was so weak--just because I did listen." + +"Ah, do forgive him--just because you were so strong that you never let +him guess that you were weak," said Holland. He was very sorry for Sir +Walter. And he was conscious, since he might not smile outwardly, of +smiling inwardly over the ruthlessness of women towards the man, loved +no longer, who has tarnished their image in their own eyes. The angel +held him fast in Paradise, but something in him, a mere sense of humour, +the humour of the outer world, perhaps, escaped her at moments, looked +down at her, at himself, at Paradise, and accepted comedy as well as +tragedy. It was only to these places of silence, loneliness and +contemplation that Kitty did not come. + +She shared sorrow and joy. She guessed too well at the terrors; she +would be beside him, her very heart beating on his, through all the +valley of the shadow; he would be able to spare her nothing, and even in +death he would not be alone. And she was joy. The years of pining and +lassitude, the toying with danger, the furnace of affliction that, in +the library, had burned the dross from her soul, all had made another +woman of Kitty from his girl-bride of six years before. She was joy; she +knew how to make it, to give it. She surprised him continually with her +inventiveness in rapture. When fear came upon them, she folded it from +him with encircling arms. When fear passed, she seemed to lead him out +into the dew and sunlight of early morning and to show him new paths, +new flowers, new bowers of bliss. All artifice, all self-centred +dreaminess, all the littler charms, dropped from her. She was as candid, +as single-minded, as passionate as a newly created Eve, and she seemed +dowered with a magic power of diversity in simplicity. There was no +forethought or plan in her triumph over satiety. Like a flower, or an +Eve, she seemed alive with the instinctive impulse that grows from +change to change, from beauty to further beauty. Holland, summer-day +after summer-day, was conscious only of joy and sorrow; of these, and of +the still places where, sometimes, he seemed to hover above them. The +serpent of weariness still slept. + + * * * * * + +"Tell me, dearest," said Kitty one day--how they talked and talked about +themselves, recapturing every mutual memory, analysing long-forgotten +scenes and motives, explaining themselves, accusing themselves, for the +joy of being forgiven--"Tell me; you loved me so much that you were +willing to give me up to him, to make me happy, and to save me;--but, if +you hadn't been going to die--oh darling!--then you would have loved me +too much to give me up, wouldn't you?" + +His arm was about her, a book between them--unread, it usually was +unread--and they were sitting in the re-consecrated summer-house; Kitty +had insisted on that punishment for herself, had knelt down before her +husband there and, despite his protest, had kissed his hands, with +tears; the summer-house had become their sweetest retreat. + +He answered her now swiftly, and with a little relief for the obvious +answer: "But then I couldn't have set you free, dear." + +"No;" Kitty mused. "I see. But--would the fear of losing me have made +you _re-fall_ in love with me? You know you only re-fell, darling, only +knew how much you cared when you thought I was deceiving you, lying to +you, in saying that I loved you; but you would have loved me--not in +that dreadful, big, inhuman way--but loved _me_, just _me_--loved me +enough to fight for me, wouldn't you?" + +He looked into her adoring, insistent eyes and a little shadow of memory +crossed his mind. Was she an altogether unambiguous angel? Was it there, +the subtlety, in her eyes, her smile; something sweet, insinuating, +insatiable? And as she fondled him, leaning close and questioning, it +was as though a little eddy of dust from the outer world blew into +Paradise through an unguarded gate. Well, why should not the dear angel +have a little dust on its shining hair? It was a foolish angel, as he +knew; and it lived for love, as he knew; and women who did that and who +didn't get loved enough grew to look subtle--he remembered the swift +train of thought. But Kitty was loved enough, so that there must be no +subtlety to make her beauty stranger and less sweet, and in Paradise one +forgot the outer world and need not consider it again; it was done with +him and he with it, so that he answered, smiling, "I would have loved +you for yourself; I would have fought for you." + +"And won me," she murmured, hiding her face on his breast. "Oh, Nick, if +only it had been sooner, sooner." + +Her suffering sanctified even the shadow; but he remembered it; +remembered that the dust had blown in. It lay, though so lightly, on the +angel's hair, on the blossoms, on the bowers, and it made him think, at +times, of the outer world, of his old judgments and values. He would +have had to fight for her, of course; he would have had to save her; but +it wouldn't have been because he had "re-fallen." That was a secret that +he kept from Kitty; it belonged to the contemplative region of thought, +where he was alone. And in Paradise, it seemed, one was forced to tell +only half-truths. + +Their ties with the outer world were all slackened during these days. No +one knew the secret of the doomed honeymoon. The one or two friends who +dropped in upon them for a night seemed like quaint marionettes crossing +a stage that now and then they agreed to have set up before the bower. +These figures, their own relation to them, quickened the sense of +secrecy and love. Their eyes sought each other past unconscious eyes; +they had lovers' dexterities in meeting unobserved by their guests, gay +little escapades when they would run away for an hour drifting on the +river or wandering in the woods. And the formalities and chatter of +social life--all these queer people interested in queer things, people +who used the present only for the future, who were always planning and +looking forward,--made the hidden truths the sharper and sweeter. +Nothing, for the two lovers, was to go on. That was the truth that made +the marionettes so insignificant and that made their love so deep. There +was, for them, no looking forward, no adapting of means to ends. There +were no ends, or, rather, they were always at the end. And there was +nothing for them to do except to love each other. + +"I feel sometimes as if we had become a Pierrot and a Pierrette," +Holland said to her. "It's for that, I suppose, that a Pierrot is such +an uncanny and charming creature;--the future doesn't exist for him at +all." + +Kitty, who had always been a literal person, and whose literalness had +now become so beautifully appropriate,--for what is literalness but a +seeing of the fact as standing still?--Kitty tried to smile but begged +him not to jest about such things. + +"I'm not jesting, darling. I'm only musing on our strange state. It's +like a fairy-tale, the life we lead." + +She turned her head, with the pathetic gesture grown habitual with her +of late, and hid her eyes on his shoulder. "Oh, darling," she said, "do +you hate to leave me!" + +She had felt the moment of detached fancy as separative, and he had now +to soothe her passionate weeping. + +He found that there was a certain pendulum-swing of mood in Paradise. +Emotion was the being of this mood, and to keep emotion one must swing. + +Either he must soothe Kitty or Kitty must soothe him, or they must +transcend the dark necessities of their case by finding in each other a +joy including in its ecstasy the sorrow it obliterated. This pendulum +swung spontaneously during those first weeks, it swung as their hearts +beat, from need to response. And, at the beginning of the third week, it +was not so much a faltering in the need or the response that Holland +knew, as a mere lessening of the swing;--it didn't go quite so fast or +carry him quite so far. He became conscious of an unequal rhythm; Kitty +seemed to swing even faster and further. + +She saw him as dead; that was the urgent vision that lay behind her +demonstrations and ministrations; she saw him as more dead with every +day that passed, and every moment of every day was, to her, of +passionate significance. No one had ever been idealised as he was +idealised, or clung to as he was clung to. The sense of desperate +tendrils enlacing him was almost suffocating, and each tendril craved +for recognition; a lapse, a look, an inattention was the cutting of +something that bled, and clung the closer. Every moment was precious, +and any not given to love was a robbery from her dwindling store. As the +time grew less her need for significance grew greater. Her sense of her +own tragedy grew with her sense of his, and he must share both. +Resignation to his fate was a resignation of her, and a crime against +their love. Holland by degrees grew conscious of keeping himself up to a +mark. + +It was then that the blossoms began to look a little over-blown, the +paths to become monotonous, the bowers to grow oppressive with their +heavy sweetness as though a noonday sun beat down changelessly upon +them. The dew was gone, and though Kitty remained a primitive Eve, he +himself knew that in his conscious ardour there hovered the vague +presence of something no longer pure, something unwholesome and +enervating. + +She saw him as dead, and the thought of death, always with her, renewed +her pity and her adoration; he knew that his own background lent a charm +enthralling and poignant to his every word, look and gesture. But for +him this charm and this renewal were lacking. He could not feel such +pity, either for her or for himself. She was to live, poor little Kitty, +and, by degrees, the tragedy would fade and the beauty of their last +weeks together would remain with her. There was no cavern yawning behind +Kitty's figure; life, inexorably, showed him her smiling future. + +And, for himself; well, if it was tragic to have to die, it was a +tragedy one got used to. He might have felt it more if only Kitty hadn't +been there to feel it so superabundantly for him. No: he could keep up; +he could see to it that the pendulum didn't falter; but he couldn't hide +from himself that its swing was growing mechanical. + +By the end of the third week the serpent was awake and walking in +Paradise. Holland was tired; profoundly tired. + +He found his wife's eyes on him one day as they sat with books under the +trees on the lawn. He tried to read the books now, though in a casual +manner that would offer no offence to Kitty's unoccupied hands and eyes. +He wanted very much to read and to forget himself--to forget Kitty--for +a little while. It was difficult to do this when such a desultory air +must be assumed, when he must be ready to answer anything she said at a +moment's notice, and must remember to look up and smile at her or to +read some passage aloud to her at every few pages. But he had been +trying thus to combine oblivion and alertness when a longer interval +than usual of the first held him beguiled, and alertness, when it +returned, returned too late. Kitty's eyes made him think of the eyes she +had gazed with on the day of revelation in the library. They were +candid, they were frightened; the eyes of the real child. Now, as then, +they were drinking in some new knowledge; a new fear and an old fear, +come close at last, were pressing on her. He felt so tired that he would +have liked to look away and to have pretended not to see; but he was not +so tired as to be cruel, and he tried to smile at her, as, tilting his +hat over his eyes so that they were shadowed, he asked her what she was +thinking of. + +She rose and came to him, kneeling down beside his chair and putting her +hands on his shoulders. + +"What is the matter, Kitty?" he asked her, as he had asked on that +morning three weeks before. + +"Nicholas--Nicholas--are you feeling worse?" she returned. + +Holland was surprised and almost relieved. It was no new demand, it was +merely a sharper fear. And perhaps she was right, perhaps he was feeling +worse and the end was approaching. If so, any languor would be taken as +symptomatic of dissolution and not of indifference, and he might relax +his hold. Actually a deep wave of satisfaction seemed to go lapping +through him. + +"I don't feel badly, dear," he said, smoothing back her hair. "You know, +I shall suffer hardly any pain; but I do feel very tired." + +"In what way tired?" Another alarm was in her voice. + +"Bodily fatigue, dear. Of course, one doesn't die without fading." + +He felt, when he had said it, that the words, in spite of his care, were +cruel; that she would feel them as cruel; he had gone too fast; had +tried to grasp at his immunity too hastily. + +"Nicholas!" she gasped. "You speak as if I were accusing you!" + +"Accusing me, darling! How could you be! Of what?" + +"Oh, Nick," she sobbed, hiding her face on his breast,--"Am _I_ tiring +you? Do you sometimes want me to go away and to leave you more alone?" + +His heart stood still. Over her bowed head he looked at the sunlit trees +and flowers, the hazy glory of the summer day, a phantasmagoric setting +to this knot of human pain and fear, and he said to himself that unless +he were very careful he might hurt her irremediably; he might rob her of +the memory that was to beautify everything when he was gone. + +He had found in a moment, he felt sure, just the right quiet tone, +expressing a comprehension too deep for the fear of any misunderstanding +between them. "There would be no me left, Kitty, if you went away. I am +you--all that there is of me. You are life itself; don't talk of robbing +me of any of it; I have so little left." + +She was silent for a moment, not lifting her face, no longer weeping. +Then in a voice curiously hushed and controlled she said: "How quiet you +are; how peaceful you are--how terribly peaceful." + +"You want me to be at peace, don't you, dear?" + +"You don't mind leaving life. You don't mind leaving me," she said. + +"Kitty--Kitty----" + +She interrupted his protest: "I've nothing to give you but love; I've +never had anything to give you but love. And you are tired of that. You +are going, you are going for ever. I shall never see you again. And you +don't mind! You don't mind!" She broke into dreadful sobs. + +Helpless and tormented he held her, trying to soothe, to reassure, to +convince, recovering, even, in the vehemence of his pity, the very tones +of passionate love, the personal note that her quick ear had felt +fading. She sobbed, and sobbed, but answered him at last, in the +pathetic little child language of their first honeymoon that they had +revived and enriched with new, sweet follies. But he felt that she was +not really comforted, that she tried to delude herself. + +"You _do_ feel tired--in your body--only in your body?--not in your +soul?" she repeated. "It isn't _I_, it's only _you_." + +"It's only I who am dying," he almost felt that, with grim irony, he +would have liked to answer for her complete reassurance. The funny, +ugly, pathetic truth peeped out at him; she would rather have him die +than have him cease to love her. + +Soulless sylvan creatures, dryads, nymphs, seemed to gaze from green +shadows among branches; the mocking faces of pucks and elves to tilt and +smile in the breeze-shaken flowers;--that subtle gaze, that sinister +smile, of what did it remind him? All Nature was laughing at him, +cruelly laughing; yet all Nature was consoling him. + +His love and Kitty's was a flower rooted in death and contradiction. Not +affinity, not the growing needs of normal life had brought them +together; only the magic of doom and the craving to be loved. + +Poor Kitty; she did not know. It was his love she loved, his love she +clung to and watched for and caressed. She did not know it, but she +would rather have him dead than have him loveless. That was the truth +that smiled the sinister smile. One might summon one's courage to smile +back at it, but one was rather glad to be leaving it--and Kitty. + +And, in the days that followed, when from the pretence of passion he +could find refuge only in the pretence of dying, disgust crept into the +weariness, he began to wonder when the pretence would become reality. He +began to want to die. + +This weariness, this irritation, this disgust belonged to life rather +than to death; it was a sharp longing to escape from consciousness of +Kitty--Kitty, alert and agonised in her suspicion. It was a nostalgic +longing for the old, tame, dusty life, his work, his selfless interests. +The month was almost up, and yet he was no worse; was he really going to +last for another month? + +He said to Kitty one morning that he must go up to town. Her face grew +ashen. "The doctor! You are going to the doctor, Nicholas?" + +"No, no; it's only that Collier is passing through. I heard from him +this morning. He wants to see me." + +"Why should you bother and think about work now, darling?" + +"Why, dearest, I must be of any use I can until the end." + +He tried to keep lightness in his voice and patience out of it. + +"Let him come down here. I'll write myself and ask him." She, too, was +assuming something. She, too, was afraid of him, as he of her. + +"He hasn't time. He is on his way to the Continent." + +"It will be bad for you to travel now. And London in August!" Her voice +was grave, reproachfully tender. + +"No, dear, I promise you I will run no risk." + +"Promise as much as you will"--now, gaily, sweetly, falsely, but how +pathetically, she clasped her hands about his arm;--"but I couldn't +think of letting you go alone: you didn't really believe I'd let you go +alone, darling: I'll come too, of course. Won't that be fun!--Oh, Nick, +you _want_ me to come! You don't want to get away!"--The falsity broke +down and the full anguish of her suspicion was in her voice and eyes. It +was this sincerity that pierced him and made him helpless--sick and +helpless. He was able now to blindfold its dreadful clear-sightedness by +swift resource: he acted his delight, his gratitude: he hadn't liked to +ask his dearest--all the bother for only a day and night; he had thought +it would bore her, for he must be most of the time with Collier; but, +yes, they would go together, since she petted him so; they would do a +play; he would help her choose a new hat; it would be great fun. + +Yet, while he knotted the handkerchief around her eyes, turned her +about and confused her sense of direction, as if in a merry game, he +knew that fear and suspicion lurked for them both in their playing. + +He had, indeed, meant to go to the doctor, but now that must be +postponed. The meeting with Collier, his chief at the Home Office, was +his only gulp of freedom. At the hotel Kitty waited, and his heart smote +him when he found her sitting just as he had left her, mute, white, +smiling and enduring. She hadn't even been to her dressmaker's or done +any shopping as she had promised him to do. "I know I am absurd;--I know +you think me, silly;--but I can't--I can't do anything--think +anything--but you!" she said, her lips trembling. + +"Absurd, darling, indeed!" he answered, "as if you couldn't think of me +and order a new dress at the same time! You know I told you I wanted to +see you in a pale blue lawn--isn't lawn the pretty stuff?--And what of +the hat? You do want one?--Come, let us go out and I'll help you to +choose it." + +But she did not want to go out; she only wanted to sit near him, lean +her head against him, have him make up to her for the hours of +loneliness. He knew that night at the play that she hardly heard a word, +and that when once or twice, he was lured from his absorption and made +to laugh, really forgetting, really amused, his laughter hurt her. She +gazed at the stage with wide, vacant eyes. He felt the strain of being +in town with this desperate devotion beside him worse than the strain of +being shut up with it in the country; for there Kitty need hide and +repress nothing, and his danger of hurting her by forgetfulness was not +so great. He was like a prisoner led about by his gaoler, manacles on +his wrists and ankles and a yoke on his neck; there was a certain relief +in going back to prison where, at all events, one wasn't so tormented by +the sights and sounds of freedom, nor so conscious of chains and the +watchful eye upon one. + +"This is the end," he thought, as, in the train, they sat side by side, +holding hands and very silent, but that, from time to time, when their +eyes met, she would smile her doting, hungry smile and murmur: +"Darling." + +After this, the prison again; the high walls and stifling sweetness of +Paradise, and then, thank goodness, release. + +How strange a contrast to the journey a month ago, when, stunned, shot +through, he had only felt the bliss of home-coming, the longing for the +nest. It was all nest now; there was no space for the fear of death. He +was shut in, smothered by this panting breast of love. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He knew that evening that Kitty was horribly frightened from the fact +that she was horribly careful. She did not once press for assurances or +demonstrations of love. She foresaw all his needs, even his need of +silence. Delicately assiduous, she pulled his chair near the lamp for +him, lit his cigar, cut the pages of his review, even brought a +footstool for his feet, saying, when he protested, "You are tired, +darling; you must let me wait on you." + +"And won't you read, or sew,--or do something, dear?" he asked, as she +drew her low chair near his. + +"I only want to sit here quietly, and look at your dear face," she said. + +And she sat there, quietly, not moving, not speaking, only mutely, +gently, fiercely watching him. Holland felt his hand tremble as he +turned the pages. + +A full hour passed so. Accurately, punctually, he turned the pages; he +had not understood one page; and he had not once looked up. + +It was almost a sense of nightmare that grew upon him, as if he were +going to sit there for ever, hearing the clock tick, hearing Kitty +breathe, knowing that he was watched. Fear, pity, and repulsion filled +his soul. + +He longed at last to hear her voice. He did not dare to hear his own; +something in it would have broken and revealed him to her; but if she +would but speak the nightmare might pass. And, with the longing, +furtively, involuntarily, he glanced round at her. + +Her eyes were on him, fixed, shining. How horrible;--how ridiculous. +Their gaze smote upon his heart and shattered something,--the nightmare, +or the repulsion. An hysterical sob and laugh rose in his throat. He +dropped the review, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head +in his hands, and the tears ran down his face. + +She was there, of course, poor creature, there, close, holding him, +moaning, weeping with him. He could do nothing but yield to her arms, +feel his head pillowed on her breast, and mingle his tears with hers; +but horribly, ridiculously, he knew that laughter as well as weeping +shook him. + +And he heard her saying "Oh, my darling--my darling--is it because you +must leave me?"--and heard himself answering "Yes, because I must leave +you." + +"You love me--so much--so much----" + +"So much," he echoed. + +And, her voice rising to a cry, he knew how dead, as if sounded from the +cavern, his echo had been: "You are not dying! Not now!" And it was +again only the echo he could give her: "Not now," it came. Why not now? +Why could it not be, mercifully now? When in heaven's name was he going +to die? + +A strong suspicion rose in him and seemed to pulse into life with the +strong beat of his heart. How strong a beat it was; how faint and far +any whispers of the old ill. What if he were not going to die? What if +he were to go on loving Kitty for a lifetime? + +And at that the mere hysterics conquered the tears; he burst out +laughing. There, on Kitty's breast, he laughed and laughed, helpless, +cruel and ridiculous. + +Terrified, she tried to still him. When he lifted his face he saw that +hers was ashen, set to meet the tragedy of imminent parting. Did she +think it the death rattle? + +He flung his head back from her kisses, flung himself back from her +arms. Still laughing the convulsive laugh he got up and pushed away the +chair. + +"I'm tired--I'm so tired, Kitty," he said. + +She sat, her hands fallen in her lap, staring at him. + +"You are tired, too," he went on; "it's been a tiring day, hasn't +it?--we have been through a lot, haven't we, poor Kitty? Poor Kitty:--do +go to bed now. Will you go to bed, and leave me here to rest a little?" + +"Nicholas, are you mad--what has happened to you?" she murmured, +spellbound, not daring to move. + +"Why, I'm ill, you know; I'm very ill. I'm not mad--I'm only so +abominably tired. You mustn't ask questions; I can't stand it,--I can't +stand it----" And, leaning his arms on the back of the chair, resting +his face on them, with tears of sheer fatigue, tears untouched by +laughter--"I'm so tired. I want to be alone," he sobbed. + +The abominable moments that followed were more full of shame for him +than any he had even known:--of shame, and of relief. He had torn his +way, with his words, out of the nest; he had fallen to the ground. He +was ashamed and horrified, yet--oh, the joy, the deep joy of being on +the ground, out in the cold, fresh world, out of the nest. + +At last he heard her speak, slowly, softly, with difficulty, as though +she were afraid of angering him. "Shall I go away, Nicholas?" + +His face was still hidden. "Yes, do go to bed," he answered. + +"I can do nothing for you?" + +"Nothing, dear." + +"You are not dying?" + +"No; I'm not feeling in the least ill." + +"You would--send for me--if you were dying?" + +"Dear Kitty,--of course." + +"And----" she had risen, not daring to draw near, he knew that the +trembling voice came through tears:--"And, you love me? you love me a +little?" + +"Dear Kitty--of course I love you." + +It was over. She was gone. She had not asked for his good-night kiss. It +was like a sword between them. + +He drew a long breath, lifting his head. + +Alone. There was ecstasy in the thought. + +He walked out into the garden and looked up at the stars as he walked. +There had been no stars in the nest. + +He didn't think of death. There had been too much thinking of death; +that was one of the things he was tired of. Still less did he want to +think of Kitty or of himself. + +He looked at the stars and thought of them, but not in any manner +emotional or poetical; he thought of astronomical facts, dry, sound, +delightful facts: he looked at the darkened trees and dim flowers and +thought of botany: the earth he trod on was full of scientific interest; +the Pierrots, the fairies and the angels--yes, the angels too--were +vanished. He hungered for impersonal interests and information. + +Kitty would, indeed, have thought him mad; after the calming walk he +came in, lit a cigar and sat for hours studying. + +Before Kitty was up next morning he was on his way back to London to see +the great specialist. + +It was a long visit he paid, an astonishing visit, though the +astonishment, really, was not his; life had seemed deeply to have +promised something when he had ceased to think of death--when he had +ceased to want death, even. That strong beating of his heart had been a +mute forestalling. The astonishment was the good, great doctor's, and it +was reiterated with an emphasis that showed something of wounded +professional pride beneath it. It was, indeed, humiliating to have made +such a complete mistake, to have seen only one significance in symptoms +that, to far-sightedness clairvoyant enough, should have hinted, at all +events, at another, and, as a result, to have doomed to speedy death a +man now obviously as far from dying as oneself: "I can't forgive myself +for robbing you of a month of life," the doctor said. "A month with +death at the end of it can't be called a month of life." + +"Very much of life," said Holland. "So much so that I hardly know yet +whether I am glad or sorry that you were mistaken." + +He indeed hardly did know. All the way down in the train he was thinking +intently of the new complicated life that had been given back to him, +and of what he should do with it. At moments the thought seemed to +overwhelm him, to draw him into gulfs deeper than death's had been. + +All through that month life had meant the moment only. The vistas and +horizons seemed now to open and flash and make him dizzy. How could he +take up again the burden of far ends and tangled purposes? The dust of +coming conflicts seemed to rise to his nostrils. Life was perilous and +appalling in its fluctuating immensity. + +But, with all the disillusion and irony of his new experience, with all +the unwholesome languor that had unstrung his will, some deeper wisdom, +also, had been given him. He could turn from the nightmare vision that +saw time as eternity. + +The walk in the night had brought a message. He could not say it, nor +see it clearly, but the sense of its presence was like the coolness and +freshness of wings fanning away fevers and nightmare. Somewhere there it +hovered, the significance of the message, somewhere in those allied yet +contrasted thoughts of eternity and time. + +There had been his mistake, his and Kitty's, the mistake that had meant +irony and lassitude and corruption. To heap all time into the moment, to +make a false eternity of it, was to arrest something, to stop blood from +flowing, thought from growing, was to create a nightmare distortion, a +monstrous, ballooned travesty of the eternity that, in moving life, +could never be more, could never be less, than the ideal life sought +unceasingly. + +As for Paradise, what more grotesque illusion than to see it with walls +around it, what more piteous dream than to feel it narrowed to a nest? + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +He found Kitty alone in the drawing-room, alone, with empty hands and +empty, waiting eyes. He saw that she had wept, and that his departure, +only a brief note to break it to her, had added deep indignation to her +sorrow. She was no longer timid, nor cowed by the change she felt in +him. She had cast aside subtlety and appeal. It was a challenge that met +him in her eyes. + +He had intended to tell her his news at once and the preparatory smile +was on his lips as he entered, a smile, though he did not know this, +strangely like that smile of reassurance and consolation that had met +her in the library a month ago. + +But she gave him no time for a word. + +Leaping from her chair she faced him, and with a vision still clearer +than that which had showed him subtlety a month ago, he saw now her +pettiness, her piteousness, her girlish violence and weakness. "Cruel! +Cruel! Cruel!"--she cried. + +He remained standing at a little distance from her, looking at her sadly +and appealingly. Her words of reproach rushed forth and overwhelmed him +like a frenzied torrent. + +"To leave me without a word, after last night! You treat me like a dog +that one kicks aside because it wearies one with its love. You have no +heart--I've felt it for days and days!--No heart! You hate me! You +despise me! And what have I done to deserve it but love--love--love +you--like the poor dog! But I know--I know--It is Sir Walter. You can't +forgive me that--It has poisoned everything--that ignorant folly of +mine. At first you thought you could forgive, and then you grew to hate +me. And I--I--" her voice choked, gasped into sobs;--"I have only loved +you--loved you--more and more----" + +"Kitty, you are mistaken," said Holland. "I've never given Sir Walter a +thought." It was a reed she grasped at in the torrent, he saw that +well;--a desperate hope. + +"It's false!" she cried. "You have! You thought at first that you would +be magnanimous and save me,--you could be magnanimous because you were +going to die--it's easy enough to be magnanimous if you are going to +die! easy enough to be peaceful and sad--and to stand there and smile +and smile as if you were only sorry for me. But you found out that you +were alive enough to be jealous after all, and that you could not really +forgive me, and then you hated me." + +"Kitty--you know that you do not believe what you are saying." + +"Can you deny that if you had been going to live you would not have +forgiven me?" + +"I can. I could have forgiven. But then, as I said to you--that day, +Kitty, on the lawn,--it would have been more difficult to save you." + +"Your love, then, was a pretence to save me!" + +"Nothing was pretence, at first," he answered her patiently. "At first I +was only glad for your sake that I was going to be out of the way so +soon; and when I found that you could care for me again I was glad that +I had still a month to live with you." + +His words smote on her heart like stones. He saw it and yearned over her +pain; but such yearning, such dispassionate tenderness was, he knew, the +poison in her veins that maddened her. + +She looked, now, at last, at the truth. He had not put it into words, +but with the abandonment of her specious hope she saw and spoke it. + +"It was, then, because it was only for a month." + +He hesitated, seeing, too. "That I was glad?" + +"That you loved me." + +Across the room, in a long silence, they looked at each other. And in +the silence another truth came to him, cruel, clear, salutary. + +"Wasn't it, perhaps, for both of us, because it was only for a month?" + +The shock went as visibly through her as though it had, indeed, +been a stone hurled at her breast. "You mean--you mean--" she +stammered--"Oh--you don't believe that I love you--You believe that it +could pass, with me, as it has with you!" She threw herself into the +chair, casting her arms on the back, burying her face in them. + +Holland, timidly, approached her. He was afraid of the revelation he +must make. "I believe that you do love me, Kitty, and that I love you; +but not in the way we thought. We neither of us could go on loving like +that; it was because it was only for a month that we thought we could. +It wasn't real." + +"Oh," she sobbed, "that is the difference--the cruel difference. You +love me in that terrible way--the way that could give me up and not +mind; but I am in love with you;--that's the dreadful difference. Men +get over it; but women are always in love." + +Perhaps Kitty saw further than he did. Holland was abashed before the +helpless revelation of a mysterious and alien sorrow. For women the +brooding dream; for men the active dusty world. Yet even here, on the +threshold of a secret, absurd, yet perhaps, in its absurdity, lovelier +than man's sterner visions, he felt that, for her sake, he must draw her +away from the contemplation of it. That was one thing he had learned, +for Kitty. She, too, must manage to fly--or fall--out of the nest; she +must get, in some way, more dust into her life. He had forgotten the +news he was to tell her; he had forgotten all but her need. + +"Perhaps that is true, dear Kitty," he said; "but isn't it, in a way, +that women are _merely_ in love. It's not with anybody; or, rather, it +is with anybody--with me or with Sir Walter; I mean, anybody who seems +to promise more love. Horrible I sound, I know. Forgive me. But I wish I +could shake you out of being in love. I want you to be more my comrade +than you have been. Don't let us think so much of love." + +But Kitty moaned: "I don't want a comrade. I want a lover." + +And, in the silence that followed, lifting her head suddenly, she fixed +her eyes on him. + +"You talk as if we could be comrades," she said. "You talk as if we were +to go on living together. What did the doctor say? I don't believe that +you are going to die." + +He felt ridiculous now. The real tragedy was there, between them; but +the tragedy upon which all their fictitious romance had been built was +to tumble about their ears. + +It was as if he had all along been deceiving, misleading her, acting on +false pretences, winning her love by his borrowed funereal splendour. +Almost shamefacedly, looking down and stammering over the silly +confession, he said: "It was all a mistake. I'm not going to die." + +He did not look at her for some moments. He was sure that she was deaf +and breathless with the crash and crumbling. + +Presently, when he did raise his eyes, he found that she was staring at +him, curiously, intently. She had found herself: she had found him; +and--oh yes--he saw it--he was far from her. The stare, essentially, was +one of a hard hostility. She had been betrayed and robbed; she could +not forgive him. + +"Kitty," he said timidly, "are you sorry?" + +Her sombre gaze dwelt on him. + +"Tell me you're not sorry," he pleaded. + +She answered him at last: "How dare you ask me that? How dare you ask me +whether I am sorry that you are not going to die? You must know that it +is an insult." + +"I mean--if I disappointed--failed you so--" + +"I must wish you dead? You have a charming idea of me." + +How her voice clashed and clanged with the hardness, the warfare, the +uproar of the outer world. After the hush, the gentleness of Paradise, +it was like being thrown, dizzy and bewildered, among the traffic and +turmoil of a great city. + +"Don't be cruel," he murmured. + +"I? Cruel!" she laughed. + +She got up and walked up and down the room. A fever of desperate, +baffled anger burned in her. He saw that she did not trust herself to +speak. She was afraid of betraying, to herself and to him, the ugly +distortion of her soul. + +He was not to die; he was not her lover; and Kitty was the primitive +woman. She could be in love, but she could not love unless pity were +appealed to. His loss of all passion had killed her romance. His loss of +all pathos had, perhaps, killed even human tenderness. For it was he who +had drawn away. She was humiliated to the dust. + +And that she made a great effort upon herself, so that to his eyes the +ugliness might not be betrayed, he guessed presently when, looking +persistently away from him and out at the garden--their garden! +alas!--where a fine rain fell silently, she said: "I am glad that your +sorrow is over. I hope that you will find happier things--and realler +things--than you have found in this month. I will remember all that you +have said to-day. I think that you have cured me for ever. I shall not +be in love again." + +"Kitty! Kitty!" he breathed out. She hurt him too much, the poor child, +arming its empty heart against him. "Don't speak like that. +Remember--the month has been beautiful." + +The tears rose in her eyes, but the hostility did not leave them. +"Beautiful? When it has not been real?" + +"Can't we remember the beauty--make something more real?" he now almost +wept. But there it was, the shallow, the hard child's heart. He was not +in love with her. And, like a nest of snakes, the memory of all her +humiliations--her appeals, her proffered love, his evasions and +withdrawals--was awake within her. She smiled, a smile that, seeking +magnanimity, found only bitterness. "You must speak for yourself, dear +Nicholas. For me it was real, and you have spoiled the beauty." + +The servants came in while she spoke and she moved aside to make way for +the placing of the tea-table. Traces of the fever were upon her yet; her +delicate face was flushed, her eyes sparkled. But she had regained the +place she meant to keep. She would own to no discomfitures deeper than +those that were creditable to her. Moving here and there, touching the +flowers in a vase, straightening reviews scattered on a table, she was +even able to smile again at him a smile almost kind, and keeping, before +him, as well as for the servants, all the advantage of composure. + +That smile would often meet him throughout life, and so he would see +her, moving delicately and gracefully, making order and comeliness about +her, for many years. She set the key. It was the key of their future +life together, Holland knew, as he heard her say: "Do sit down and rest. +You must want your tea after that tiresome journey." + + + + +THE WHITE PAGODA + + +The drama of the drawing-rooms had begun years ago, but Owen Stacpole +did not come into it until the day on which his cousin Gwendolen, after +examining the box of bric-ŕ-brac, remarked, refolding the last pieces of +china in their dusty newspapers, that they were rubbish, and silly +rubbish, too, of just the sort that Aunt Pickthorne had always +unerringly accumulated. The box had arrived that morning, a legacy from +this deceased relative; it had been brought up to the drawing-room and +placed upon a sheet near the fire, so that Mrs. Conyers might examine +its contents in comfort, and Owen, while he wrote at the black lacquer +bureau in the window, had been aware of Gwendolen's gibes and +exclamations behind him. Now, when she asserted that she would send the +whole futile collection down to Mr. Glazebrook and see if he would give +her enough for it to buy a pair of gloves with, Owen rose and limped to +join her and to look down at the wooden box into which she was +thrusting, with some vindictiveness, the dingy parcels. + +"Have you looked at them all?" he inquired. "I forget--was your Aunt +Pickthorne a Mrs. or a Miss? And how long has it been since she died?" + +"About six months, poor old thing. And these treasures have evidently +never been dusted since. She was a Mrs. Her husband was old Admiral +Pickthorne--don't you remember?--and they lived, after he retired, at +Cheltenham. Two more guileless Philistines I've never known. It used to +make me feel quite ill to go and stay with them when I was a girl. I've +hardly been at all since then, and that's probably why she selected all +the most hideous objects in her drawing-room to leave me. How well I +remember that drawing-room! Crocheted antimacassars; and a round, +mahogany centre-table on which a lamp used to stand in the evening; and +the wall-paper of frosted robin's-egg-blue, with stuffed birds in cases, +and terracotta plaques framed in ruby plush, hanging upon it--a +perfectly horrible room. Half a dozen of the plaques are in there; the +birds she spared me. She had one or two lovely old family things which +I'd allowed myself to hope for; a Spode tea-set I remember. But, no; +there's nothing worth looking at." + +Mrs. Conyers lightly dusted her hands together, and rose from her knees. +She was, at thirty-eight, a very graceful woman; tall, of ample form, +and attired with fashionable ease and fluency. Fashion had been a late +development with Gwendolen. In her gaunt and wistful girlhood she had +worn her hair in drooping Rossettian masses, and her throat had been +differently bare. Now she was as accurate as she was easy. Her hair was +even a little too sophisticatedly distended, and her long pearl +ear-rings, though they became the tender violet of her eyes, emphasized, +as her former Pre-Raphaelite ornaments had not seemed to do, a certain +genial commonplaceness in the contours of her cheek and chin. But almost +fat and decisively unpoetical as she had become, it was undeniable that +this last phase of dress and, in especial, these widow's weeds, with +sinuous lines of jet and lustrous falls of fringes, became her better +than any in which Owen remembered to have seen her. + +Gwendolen's drawing-room, too, had undergone, since the days of her +girlhood, as complete a metamorphosis as she had. When she had married +and left the big house in Kensington where Owen had spent many a happy +holiday--when she had married crabbed old Mr. Conyers, the Chislebridge +dignitary, and gone to live in Chislebridge, her convictions had at once +expressed themselves luxuriantly in large-patterned wall-papers and +deep-cushioned divans and in Eastern fabrics draping the mantelpiece or +cast irrelevantly over carved Indian screens. Her teas had been brought +in on trays of Indian beaten brass, and the mosque-like opening between +the front and back drawing-room had been hung with translucent curtains +of beaded reeds, through which one had to plunge as though through a +sheet of dropping water. Owen well remembered their tinkle and rattle +and the perfume of burning Eastern pastilles that greeted one when, +emerging, one found oneself in the dim, rich gloom among the divans and +the brasses and the palms. In those days Gwendolen had been draped +rather than dressed, and the gestures and attitudes of her languid arms +and wrists seemed more adapted to a dulcimer than to a tea-pot. But she +dispensed excellent tea, and though her eyes were appropriately +yearning, her talk was quite as reassuringly commonplace as Owen had +always found it. + +It was only in the course of years that the reed curtains and the +carved Indian screens and the divans ebbed away; but the change was +complete at last, and he found Gwendolen, with undulated hair puffed +over a frame, and a small waist,--large waists not having then come +in,--receiving her visitors in the most clear, calm, austere of rooms, +with polished floor, Sheraton furniture, and Japanese colour-prints +framed in white hanging on pensive spaces of willow-leaf-green wall. +Gwendolen talked of Strauss's music and of the New English Art Club, was +indignant at the prohibition of "Monna Vanna," and to some no longer apt +remark of an aspiring caller answered that to speak so was surely to +Ruskinize. He realized on this occasion that Gwendolen had become the +arbiter of taste in Chislebridge. He followed her into several +drawing-rooms and observed that she had set the fashion in furniture and +wall-paper; that some were pushing their way toward Japanese prints, and +some were even beginning to babble faintly of Manet. Five years had +passed since then, and now, on this his first visit to Chislebridge +since old Mr. Conyers's death, another change had taken place. +Gwendolen's hips were compressed, her waist was large once more, though +of a carefully calculated largeness, and only in a fine bit of the old +furniture here and there did a trace of the former green drawing-room +remain. This was certainly the most interesting room that Gwendolen had +yet achieved. There had been little character, if much charm, in the +green drawing-room; one knew so many like it. With a slight +self-discipline, its harmonies were really easy to attain. But it was +not easy to attain a mingled richness and austerity; to be recondite, +yet lovely; to set such cabinets of rosy old lacquer near such Chinese +screens or hang subtle strips of Chinese painting on just the right +shade of dim, white wall. It took money, it took time, it took knowledge +to find such delicate cane-seated settees framed in black lacquer, and +to pick up such engraved glass, such white Chinese porcelain and white +Italian earthenware. Melting together in their dim splendour and shining +softness, they had so enchantingly arrested Owen the night before that, +pausing on the threshold, he had said with a whole-heartedness she had +never yet heard from him, "Well, Gwen, yours is the loveliest room I've +ever seen." + +It was indeed triumphantly lovely, although, examining it more +critically by the morning light, he had found slight dissatisfactions. +It was perhaps a little too much like an admirably sophisticated +curiosity-shop. It was an object to be examined with delight, hardly a +subject to be lived with with love. And it almost distressed him to see +the touch of genial commonplaceness expressing itself pervasively in the +big bowls and jars and vases of pink roses that burgeoned everywhere. +They showed no real sense of what the lacquer and glass and porcelain +demanded; for they demanded surely a more fragile, less obvious flower. +And one or two minor ornaments, though evidently selected with +scrupulous conscientiousness, seemed to him equally at fault. Still, he +had again that morning, before seating himself to write, repeated in all +sincerity, "This is really the loveliest room," and Gwendolen, from +where she knelt above Aunt Pickthorne's box, had answered, following his +eyes, "I am _so_ glad you like it, dear Owen." + +Gwendolen was very fond of him, and her fondness had never been so +marked. It was of that he had been thinking as he wrote. He had never +felt fonder of Gwendolen. Her drawing-room was lovely, her widow's weeds +became her, and she was, as she had always been, the kindest of +creatures. In every sense the house would be a pleasanter one to stay at +than in old Mr. Conyers's lifetime. Owen had not liked old Mr. Conyers, +who had had too much the air of thinking himself an historical figure +and his breakfast historical events, who snubbed his wife and quoted +Greek and Latin pugnaciously, and took the cabinet ministers and +duchesses who sometimes sojourned under his roof, with an unctuousness +that made more marked the aridity of his manner toward less illustrious +guests. The Conyers had come to count in the eyes of Chislebridge and +the surrounding country as the social figure-heads of the studious old +town, and Owen had found himself, as Gwendolen's crippled, writing, +cousin, year by year of relatively less importance in the eyes of +Gwendolen's husband. Actually, as it happened, he had during those years +become almost illustrious himself; but his austere distinction, such as +it was, had been as moonrise rather than dawn, and had left him as +gently impersonal as before, and even more impoverished. +Negligible-looking as he knew he was, he had sometimes been amused to +note old Mr. Conyers's bewilderment when a cabinet minister or a duchess +manifested their pleasurable excitement in meeting him. As for +Gwendolen, her essential loyalty and kindness had always remained the +same since the days when she had protected him from the sallies of her +boisterous brothers and sisters in the Kensington family mansion--the +same till now. Last night and to-day he had recognised a difference. He +wondered whether he was a conceited fool for imagining in Gwendolen a +dwelling tenderness, a brooding touch, indeed, of reminiscent +wistfulness. Was it to show an unbecoming complacency if he allowed his +mind to dwell upon the possibilities that this development in Gwendolen +presented to his imagination? He was delicate and poor and, despite a +large visiting-list, he was lonely. He was fond of Gwendolen and of her +two nice, dull boys. She amused him, it was true, as she had always +amused him; for though her drawing-room had become interesting, though +she had developed a sense of humour, or at least the intention of +humorousness, though she often attempted playfulness and even irony, she +was still at heart as disproportionately earnest as she had been in +youth. But Gwendolen would make no romantic demands upon him, and she +would not expect him to take even red lacquer as seriously as she did, +or to follow with the same breathlessness the erratic movements of +modern ćstheticism. She was accustomed to his passive unresponsiveness, +and would resent it no more in the husband than in the friend. +Altogether, as he sat there writing at Gwendolen's lovely bureau, he +knew that a sense of homely magic grew upon him. + +Next morning, wandering about the pleasant streets of the old town, he +found himself before the window of Mr. Glazebrook's curiosity-shop--a +shop well known to more than Chislebridge. He paused to look at the +objects disposed with a dignified reticence against a dark background, +and his eye was attracted by a very delightful red lacquer box that at +once made him think of Gwendolen's drawing-room. Just the thing for her, +it was. But as he entered the shop, Mr. Glazebrook leaned from within +and took it from its place in the window. He was showing it to another +customer. + +Owen now quite vehemently longed to possess the box, which, he saw, as +Mr. Glazebrook displayed it, was cunningly fitted with little inner +segments, beautifully patterned in gold. Feigning an indifferent survey +of the shop, he lingered near, hoping that his rival would relinquish +her opportunity. + +"Five pounds! O dear, that is too much for me, I'm afraid," he heard her +say, and, at the voice, he turned and looked at her. The voice was +unusual--a rapid, rather husky voice that made him think of muffled +bells or snow-bound water, gay in rhythm, yet marred in tone, almost as +though the speaker had cried a great deal. She was an unusual figure, +too, though he could not have said why, except that her dress seemed to +recall bygone fashions quaintly, though without a hint of dowdiness or +affectation. She wore a skirt and jacket of soft gray, with pleated lawn +at neck and wrists, and her small gray hat was wreathed with violets. +She held the lacquer box, and her face, rosy, crisp, decisive, and +showing, like her voice, a marred gaiety, expressed her reluctant +relinquishment and her strong desire. Owen had seen a child look at a +forbidden fruit with just such an expression and he suddenly wished that +he could give the box to her rather than to Gwendolen, to whom five +pounds was a matter of small moment. + +"I think I mustn't," she repeated, after a further hesitation, and +setting the box down with cherishing care. "Not to-day. And I have so +much red lacquer. It's like dram-drinking." + +Mr. Glazebrook smiled affably. He was evidently on old-established terms +with his customer. "Perhaps you'd like to look round a bit, Mrs. +Waterlow," he suggested. "There are some nice pieces of old glass in the +inner room, quite cheap, some of them--a set of old champagne glasses." +Mrs. Waterlow, saying that she wanted some old champagne glasses, moved +away. + +"Do you think the lady has given up that box?" Owen asked. "I don't want +to buy it if there's a chance of her changing her mind." + +Mr. Glazebrook said that there was no such chance, the lady being one +who knew her own mind; so the box was bought and Owen ordered it to be +sent to Gwendolen. He said then that he would like to have a look round, +too. He really wanted to have another look at the lady with the rosy +face and the small gray hat trimmed with violets. He peered into +cabinets ranged thickly with old glass and china, examined the Worcester +tea-set disposed upon a table and the case of Chinese tear-bottles and +Japanese netzukés, and presently made his way into the smaller, dimmer +room at the back. + +"Oh, Mr. Glazebrook," said the lady in gray. She had heard his step, but +had not turned. She was kneeling before an open packing-case and holding +an object that she had drawn from it. Owen suddenly recognised the case. +It was the one that Gwendolen yesterday had sent down to Mr. Glazebrook. +He called this person, raising his hat, and the lady looked round at +him, too preoccupied to express her recognition of her mistake by more +than a vague murmur of thanks. "Mr. Glazebrook," she said, holding up a +whitish object, "may I have this? Is it expensive?" + +"Well, really, I only glanced over the box. A customer sent it down to +me to dispose of, and I didn't think there was anything in it worth +much. Let me see, Mrs. Waterlow; it's a pagoda, I take it, a Chinese +pagoda. We've had them from time to time, in ivory and smaller than +this." + +"This is in porcelain," said the lady, "and beautifully moulded." + +"I see, I see," said Mr. Glazebrook, taking the fragile top segment of +the disjointed pagoda in his hand, and rather at a loss; "and it's +slightly damaged." + +The lady in gray evidently was not a shrewd bargainer. "Only a little," +she said. "One or two bits have been chipped out of the roofs, and it's +lost one or two of its little crystal rings; but I think it's in quite +good condition, and I have it all here." She was placing one segment +upon the other. "They are all made to fit, you see, with the little +openings in each story." + +She had built it up beside her as she knelt on the floor, and it stood +like a fragile, fantastic ghost, with the upward tilt of its tiled +roofs, its embossed patterns, and the crystal rings trembling from each +angle of the roofs like raindrops. "What a darling!" said Mrs. Waterlow. +"How much do you ask for it, Mr. Glazebrook?" + +Mr. Glazebrook, adjusting his knowledge of the limitations of Mrs. +Waterlow's purse to his present appreciation of the pagoda and of her +desire for it, said genially, after a moment, that from an old customer +like herself he would ask only forty-five shillings. + +"Well, I think it's a great bargain, Mr. Glazebrook," said Mrs. +Waterlow. "And I'll have it." + +"Shall I send it round?" Mr. Glazebrook asked. + +"Yes, please; or, no, it isn't heavy,"--she lifted it with both hands, +rising with it and looking like a Saint Barbara holding her tower,--"I +can manage it to just round the corner. Wrap it up for me, and I'll +carry it off myself." + +When Owen saw his cousin again at lunch, the red lacquer box had not yet +arrived, and, with a touch of friendly mockery, he said: + +"Well, you have been unlucky, my dear Gwen. There was the most charming +piece of old Chinese porcelain in that scorned Cheltenham box, and I saw +Mr. Glazebrook sell it this morning to a lady who wasn't to be put off +by dust and newspapers and plush-framed plaques. She carried it off in +triumph, saying that it was a great bargain. And so it was; but she +might have had it for half the money if she hadn't informed Mr. +Glazebrook of its probable value." + +Gwendolen fixed her mild, violet eyes upon him. "A piece of old Chinese +porcelain? Do you mean that silly white pagoda?" + +"You did see it, then?" + +"See it? Haven't I seen it all my life? It stood on a purple worsted mat +on a little bamboo table between the Nottingham lace curtains in one of +Aunt Pickthorne's drawing-room windows, and looked like some piece of +childish gimcrackery bought at a bazaar, where, I'll wager, she did buy +it." + +"Well, Mrs. Waterlow evidently didn't think it gimcrackery, or, if she +did, she didn't mind. It looked to me, I confess, an exquisite thing. +But her admiration may have lent it its enchantment." + +Gwendolen's eyes now fixed themselves more searchingly than before. + +"Mrs. Waterlow? Did Mrs. Waterlow buy it? How did you know it was Mrs. +Waterlow? I thought you'd never met her." + +"I haven't; but I heard Mr. Glazebrook call her by her name. She'd +wanted to buy a red lacquer box that I spotted in the window and had +gone in to get for you, my dear Gwen. It was too expensive for her,--so +that it is yours,--and she went rummaging into the back shop and found +your box with the things just as you and Mr. Glazebrook had left them, +and in no time she'd disinterred the pagoda." + +Gwendolen apparently was so arrested by his story that she forgot for +the moment to thank him for the lacquer box. + +"Do you know her?" he asked. + +"Know her? Know Cicely Waterlow? Why, I've known her since she first +came to live here, years ago. She's a very dear friend of mine," +Gwendolen said, adding: "How much did she pay for it? That wretched man +gave me only fifteen shillings for the lot." + +"He made her pay forty-five shillings for the pagoda. I suspect myself +that it's worth ten times as much. Does she care for things, +too--lacquer and engraved glass?" + +Gwendolen still showed preoccupation and, he fancied, a touch of +vexation. + +"Care for them? Yes; who with any taste doesn't care for them? Cicely +has very good taste, too, in her little way. She doesn't know anything, +but she picks up ideas and puts them together very cleverly. I can't +help thinking that she'd never have given the pagoda a thought if my +white porcelain hadn't educated her. I really can't believe that it's +good, Owen." + +Owen waived the point. + +"Who is Mr. Waterlow?" he asked. + +"He has been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. He died only a year +after their marriage. A very delightful man, so people say who knew him. +And Cicely lost her little girl, to whom she was passionately devoted, +five years ago; she has never really recovered from that. She used to be +so pretty, poor Cicely! She's lost it all now. She cried her very eyes +out. She has a little money and lives with her mother-in-law, old Mrs. +Waterlow, who is very fond of her. They don't entertain except in the +quietest way, or go out much, and I do what I can to give Cicely a good +time. I often have her here to tea when I have interesting people +staying." + +"Oh, that's good. Do count me as interesting enough and ask her while +I'm here." + +"Interesting enough, my dear Owen! I don't suppose that Cicely often has +a chance of meeting such an interesting man as you. Of course I'll ask +her," said Gwendolen. Then, remembering his gift: "It _was_ nice of you +to get me a red lacquer box, Owen. I adore red lacquer, and I'm quite +sure, whatever you and Cicely Waterlow may say, that it's worth a +hundred of your white pagodas." + +Mrs. Waterlow came to tea next afternoon, the last of Owen's stay. The +drawing-room was crowded, and Owen, when she was announced, was enjoying +a talk with a dismal-looking old philosopher who had plaintive, white +hairs on his nose and trousers that bagged irremediably at the knees. + +"Yes, indeed, I know her well," said Professor Selden, as Owen +questioned him. "I play chess with her once a week. Her little girl was +a great pet of mine. You never saw the little girl?" + +"Never, and I've not yet met Mrs. Waterlow. She is most +charming-looking." + +"The little girl was so much like her," said Professor Selden, sadly. +"Yes, she is a charming woman. Don't let me keep you from meeting her. I +am going to sit down here while our young friend Dawkins plays. You +know Dawkins? Between ourselves, Mrs. Conyers thinks too highly of +him." + +Mrs. Waterlow's eyes turned upon him as he limped up to her and +Gwendolen, and smiling, she said, "Why, I saw you yesterday in Mr. +Glazebrook's shop." + +"Yes," said Owen, "and there is the red lacquer box." + +"And you, Cicely, bought my pagoda," said Gwendolen. + +"Your pagoda?" Mrs. Waterlow questioned, her eyes, that seemed to open +with a little difficulty, resting on her hostess with some surprise. +"Was the pagoda yours?" + +"Yes, mine," said Gwendolen. "It came in a box of rubbish,--you saw the +kind of rubbish,--a legacy from an old aunt, and I bundled it off to +Glazebrook. Owen says it is really good. Is it?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Waterlow. + +"I'm sure it is," said Owen, "and I liked the accuracy with which you +fell in love with it at first sight." + +"I did fall in love with it, good or bad," said Mrs. Waterlow. "Don't +tell me that you want it back again, Gwendolen. But if it was a mistake, +of course----" + +He recognised in her the note of guilelessness and, with some decision, +for he actually perceived an eagerness in Gwendolen's glance, interposed +with, "But Gwendolen thinks it gimcrackery, and wouldn't have it at any +price. Isn't it so, Gwendolen?" + +Poor Gwendolen was looking a little glum; but she was the most +unresentful of creatures. + +"Indeed, it is," she said. "I did think it gimcrackery; but, to tell the +truth, I never really saw it at all. I can't believe you'd have seen it, +Cicely, standing on its worsted mat in my Aunt Pickthorne's +drawing-room. But I wouldn't dream, of course, of taking it back; and if +it's really good, I'm more glad than I can say that my loss should be +your gain. Now, won't you and Owen sit down here and listen to my +wonderful Perceval Dawkins? Oh, he is going to astonish the world some +day." + +Mrs. Waterlow and Owen, in the intervals of the ensuing music, talked +together. Seen more closely, he found that her face, though not +beautiful, was even more singularly delightful than he had thought it. +She had eyes merry, yet tired, like those of a sleepy child, and sweet, +small, firm lips and a glance and smile at once very frank and very +remote. There was about her none of that aroma of sorrow that some +women distil from the tragedies of their lives, and wear, even if +unconsciously, like an allurement. He felt that in Mrs. Waterlow sorrow +had been an isolating, a bewildering, a devastating experience, making +her at once more ready to take refuge in the trivialities of life and +more unable to admit an intimacy into the essentials. Yet the spring of +vitality and mirth was so strong in her that in all she said he felt a +quality restorative, aromatic, fragrant, as if he were walking in spring +woods and smelt everywhere the rising sap and the breath of violets. She +was remote, blighted, yet buoyant. When she rose to go, he realised with +sudden dismay that to-day was his last in Chislebridge and that he +should not see her again for who knew how long. + +"Is the pagoda placed?" he asked her. "Does it fulfil your +expectations?" + +"Yes, indeed," she said. "I spent two hours yesterday in washing and +mending it. It is immaculate now, as lovely as a pearl." + +"I wish I could see it," said Owen. + +"Why, pray, then, come and see it. Can you come to tea with me and my +mother-in-law to-morrow?" + +"I'm going away to-morrow," said Owen, dismally. And then he bethought +him. "Can't I walk back with you now? Is it too late? Only +five-thirty." + +"Not in the least too late. Mamma will still be having tea, and she +loves people to drop in. But ought you to come away?" Mrs. Waterlow +glanced round the crowded room. + +"I'll not be missed," he assured her with some conscious speciousness. + +Gwendolen, indeed, had time only for a little stare of surprise when he +told her that he was going to look at the pagoda with Mrs. Waterlow. She +was receiving new guests, richly furred and motor-veiled ladies who had +come in from the country and were expatiating over the beauties of the +red lacquer cabinets, Gwendolen's latest acquisitions. + +"That will be delightful," she said; "and now Owen will see that sweet +drawing-room of yours, dearest. You have made it so pretty!" + +Owen observed that Mrs. Waterlow, while maintaining all the suavities of +intercourse, did not address Gwendolen as dearest. + +It was not far to Mrs. Waterlow's, and he said, in reply to her +question, that he liked walking, if she didn't mind going slowly on his +account. He found himself telling her, then, about his lameness. A bad +fall while skating in boyhood had handicapped him for life. The lamps +had just been lighted and the evening of early spring was blurred with +mist. Catkins hung against a faintly rosy sky, and in the gardens that +they passed the crocuses stood thickly. Owen had a sense of adventure +poignant in its reminiscent magic. Not for years had he so felt the +savour of youth. He realised, with a deep happiness, that Mrs. Waterlow +liked him; sometimes she laughed at things he said, and once or twice +when her eyes turned on him he fancied in them the same expression of +happy discovery with which she had looked at the pagoda. Well, he +reflected, if she thought him delightful, too, she had had to get +through a great many dusty newspapers to find him. + +Mrs. Waterlow lived, away from the gardened houses of Chislebridge, in a +small but rather stately house with a Georgian façade which stood on one +of the narrower, older streets. They went up two or three stone steps +from the pavement and knocked at a very bright and massive knocker, and +the door was opened by a middle-aged Quakerish maid. The drawing-room +was on the ground floor, and Mrs. Waterlow led him in. + +Owen's astonishment, when he entered, prompted him to stand still and +to gaze about him; but luckily he could not yield to the impulse, for he +had to cross to the fire, near which, behind her tea-table, old Mrs. +Waterlow sat, and had to be presented to her and to the middle-aged, +academic-looking lady who was having tea with her. He was glad of the +respite, for he had received a shock. + +Old Mrs. Waterlow had dark, authoritative eyes and white hair much +dressed under black lace, and the finest of hands, decorated with old +seals and old diamonds. She must, he felt, be a companion at once +inspiriting and disquieting, for she had the demeanour of a naughty, +haughty child, and, as she held Owen in talk for some moments, he +perceived that her conversation was of a sort to cause alarm and +amusement in her listeners. Poor old Professor Selden, who was +mentioned, offered her an opportunity for the frankest witticisms, +and,--when her daughter-in-law protested,--"Yes, dear, I know you are +fond of him," the old lady replied, "and so am I; but he is, all the +same, very like a damp potato that has begun to sprout." + +"Now look at my pagoda, Mr. Stacpole," said young Mrs. Waterlow, +laughing, yet, he saw, not pleased, and turning from the fire where she +had been standing with her foot on the fender. + +"Does Mr. Stacpole care for bric-ŕ-brac, too?" old Mrs. Waterlow +inquired. "Cicely came home with this last treasure in as much triumph +as if some one had left her a fortune. I resent the pagoda because it +means that she will go without a spring hat. She is always coming home +in triumph and always doing without hats; and I sit here without an atom +of taste, and get the credit for hers. Frankly, Sybilla, my dear," she +addressed the academic lady, "I'd be quite content to sit upon red reps +and to cover my tea-pot with a pink satin cosy with apple-blossoms +painted on it. I had such a cosy given to me this Christmas; but Cicely +wouldn't let me use it." + +Owen had risen to face his ordeal. Mrs. Waterlow, he had seen it in the +first astonished glance, had, like everybody else in Chislebridge, been +imitating Gwendolen, and his whole conception of her was undergoing a +reconstruction. He followed her to the table on which the white pagoda +stood, glancing about him and taking in deep drafts of disillusion. Red +lacquer and Japanese prints, white porcelain and dimly shining jars of +old Venetian glass--it was a replica, even to its white walls, of +Gwendolen's drawing-room, but hushed and saddened, as it were, humbly +smiling, with folded hands and no attempt at emulation. And in the +midst, beautifully in place on its little black lacquer table, was the +pagoda, offering him not a hint of help, but seeming rather, to smile at +him with a fantastic and malicious mirth. He was aware, as from the +pagoda he brought his eyes back to young Mrs. Waterlow, that he was +dreadfully sorry. In another woman he would not have given the naďve +derivativeness a thought; but in her, whom he had felt so full of savour +and independence? One thing only helped him, beside the effortless +atmosphere of the room, and that was the fact--he clung to it--that the +glasses set everywhere among the red and black and white were filled +not, thank goodness! with pink roses, but with poppy anemones, white and +purple and rose. And the first thing he found to say of the pagoda to +Mrs. Waterlow was, "It looks lovely in here," and then, turning to the +nearest bowl of delicate colour, he added, "and how beautifully these +flowers go with your room!" + +He wondered, as their eyes met over the anemones, whether Mrs. Waterlow +guessed his discomfiture. + +When he saw Gwendolen that evening she asked him at once whether he +liked old Mrs. Waterlow. She did not ask him how he liked young Mrs. +Waterlow's drawing-room, and he reflected that this was really very +magnanimous of her. + +"She seems a witty old lady," he said. "Her daughter-in-law can't be +dull with her." + +"She's witty, but I always feel her a little spiteful, too," said +Gwendolen. "We never get on, she and I. I hate hearing my neighbours +scored off, and she has such an eye for people's foibles. I don't think +that Cicely always quite likes it, either; but they are devoted to each +other. If it weren't for old Mrs. Waterlow, I'd try to see a great deal +more of Cicely; I'm really fond of her." + + * * * * * + +He did not go to Chislebridge for another six months. Gwendolen asked +him very pressingly on various occasions, but twice he was engaged and +once ill and too depressed and jaded to make the effort. It was the time +of all others when Gwendolen and her ministrations would have been most +acceptable, but he shrank from submitting himself to their influences, +feeling that in his very need he might find too great a compulsion. The +thought of Gwendolen and of her possible place in his life must be +adjourned--adjourned until she was well out of her mourning and he was +able to meet it more impartially. + +He saw Gwendolen in London and gave her and her boys tea at his rooms, +the dingily comfortable rooms near Manchester Square from which for many +years he had not had the initiative to move. There was more potency, he +found, in the imaginary Gwendolen than in the real one. The sight of her +brought back vividly the thought of Mrs. Waterlow. Curiously, they +seemed to have spoiled each other. Gwendolen had all the ethical +advantages and even, if it came to that, all the ćsthetic ones; yet, +ambiguous as the image of the other had become, its charm challenged +Gwendolen's virtues and Gwendolen's achievements. He even felt that he +could be sure of nothing until he next stayed with Gwendolen, when he +must see Mrs. Waterlow and weigh the possible friendship with her, +tarnished though it were, against the comfortable solutions that +Gwendolen held out to him. Again, curiously, he knew that the two could +not be combined. + +Gwendolen, however, was gone away to the south of France when he wrote +to her in November and asked if he might stop a day and night on his way +through Chislebridge to a country week-end. But he had a two-hours' +wait at the station, and he suddenly determined, when he found himself +on the platform, to go and have tea with Mrs. Waterlow. + +He drove up to the peaceful street where, above the college wall that +ran along its upper end, a close tracery of branches showed against the +sky, and he found that a welcoming firelight shone in the spacious +windows of the Georgian house. His dismay, therefore, was the more +untempered when the mildly austere maid told him that Mrs. Waterlow was +away. His pause there on the threshold expressed his condition, and the +maid suggested that he might care to come in and see old Mrs. Waterlow. +This, he felt, was indeed better than not to go in at all. So he was led +for a second time into the drawing-room. + +He had been obliged on the former visit to conceal astonishment; but now +he found himself alone, and no concealment was needed. And the former +astonishment was slight compared with this one. He felt almost giddy as +he gazed about him. Nothing was the same. Everything was fantastically, +incredibly different, except--his eye caught it with a sharpened pang of +wonder--the white pagoda; for there, in the centre of the room, upon a +round, mahogany table, with heavily bowed and richly carven legs, the +white pagoda stood, and under it an old bead mat,--a mat of faded, old +blue beads,--his eyes were riveted on the pagoda and its setting,--of +white and gray and blue beads dotted with pink rosebuds. At regular +intervals, raying out from the centre, books were placed upon the +table--small, sober books bound in calf. + +So the pagoda stood, the pivot of an incredible room; yet, inconceivable +as it seemed, as right there, all its exquisite absurdity revealed, as +it had been right in the other. It was the one link that joined them, +the one thread in the labyrinth of his astonishment; and it seemed, with +its ambiguous, fantastic smile, to symbolize its absent owner. Was it an +exquisite, extravagant, elaborate joke that she and the pagoda were +having together? + +For the whole room was now a joke. It was furnished with a suite of +black satin--sofas, easy-chairs, little chairs with carved, excruciating +backs, all densely buttoned and richly fringed. Over the backs of the +easy-chairs were laid antimacassars of finely crocheted white lace. Upon +two tall pieces of mahogany, ranged up and down with knobbed drawers and +recalling in their decorous solidity the buttoned bodices of +mid-Victorian matrons, stood high-handled, white marble urns. An oval +gilt mirror hung above the mantelpiece, and upon it stood two lustres +ringed with prisms of glass and a little clock of gilt and marble, +ornamented with two marble doves hovering over a gilt nest wherein lay +marble eggs. Between the clock and the lustres, on either side, was a +vase of Bohemian glass, each holding a small nosegay of red and white +roses. Mahogany footstools with bead-worked tops stood before the fire, +and upon the walls hung, exquisite in their absurdity, like the pagoda, +a whole botanical series of flat, feeble old flower-pieces, neatly +coloured drawings, as accurate and as lifeless as vigilant, uninspired +labour could make them. + +No, it was a dream, an insane, delightful dream; for, with it all, above +it all, how and why he could not say, the room was delightful. It seemed +to set one free from some burden of appreciation that all unconsciously +one had been carrying and had been finding heavy. One could live in it, +laughing at and with it. For it all laughed--surely yes; and the elfish +chorus was led by the white pagoda, standing like a Chinese Pierrot, at +the centre of the revels. + +Old Mrs. Waterlow at last came sailing in, and her black lace shawl and +lace-draped head looked as appropriate in the room as everything else +seemed to do. Her eyes dwelt on him with a certain fixity, and in them +he seemed to read further significances. They held an intention, gay, +precise, such as he had felt in the room; and they held, too, it might +be, a touch of light-hearted cruelty. + +"Yes, isn't it changed?" she said, and he knew that his state of +astonishment had spoken from his face. + +He stared round him again, smiling. + +"It makes me feel," he said, "like the old woman in the nursery rhyme +whose skirts were cut up to her knees while she was asleep. One says, +'If I be I.'" + +"And I'm the little dog," said Mrs. Waterlow; "but one who doesn't bark +at you, so that you can be assured of your identity. I am really more +aware of my own in this room than in any I've lived in for years. It is +like one of the rooms of my girlhood. Rooms weren't so important then as +they are now, and the people who lived in them, I sometimes think, were +more so. It amuses me nowadays," said the old lady moving to her +tea-table and seating herself, "to observe the way in which people are +assessed by their tastes and their belongings. You say of some one that +she is a dull or a disagreeable woman, and the answer and rebuke you +receive is, 'Oh, but she has such wonderful Chinese screens!' Sit down +here, Mr. Stacpole. It is very nice to see you again." + +"But tell me, where is the other room?" Owen asked, drawing his chair to +the table, "Is it disbanded, dissolved, gone for ever?" + +Mrs. Waterlow looked at him with an air of half-malicious mystery. + +"That is a secret, my own little secret, just as this room is, in a way, +a little joke which, for my sake, Cicely has made for me. It was +finished last week, by the way, and you are the first person to see it. +Your cousin is in the south of France, isn't she?" said Mrs. Waterlow, +with bland inconsequence. + +"Yes; I'm only passing through. Gwendolen's been gone for nearly a +month." + +"Yes; I know," Mrs. Waterlow pursued, still with the genial blandness. +"And as to our little joke, Mr. Stacpole, this room, in fact, is in many +ways a room of my girlhood. The furniture was my mother's, and Cicely, +when the idea struck her, had it brought from the garret of my old home, +where it has stood in disgrace for many a year. She has been clever +about it, hasn't she?" + +"It's genius," said Owen, "What made her think of it?" And then, with a +pang, he wondered whether Gwendolen had thought of it first. Was it +imaginable that Gwendolen could have turned away from beauty and plunged +herself into such gay austerities of ugliness? + +"Well, things are in the air, you know," said Mrs. Waterlow, pouring out +the tea,--"that's what Cicely always says, at all events,--reactions, +repulsions, wearinesses. This room is, she says, a discipline." + +"Things in the air": had Gwendolen felt them first, and Mrs. Waterlow +felt them after her? This question of priority became of burning +interest for him. + +"The trouble is that one may get too much of any discipline," he +commented, "if it ceases to be self-inflicted and is imposed upon us. +How would your daughter like it if all Chislebridge took to buttoned +black satin and old flower-pieces? It's as an exception that it has its +charm and its meaning. But if it became a commonplace?" + +"Well, that's the point," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "Will it? It has very +much vexed me for years to watch Chislebridge picking Cicely's brains. +And I said to her that I wondered whether it would be possible for her +to make a room that wouldn't be copied, and she said that she believed +she could. If she could achieve ugliness, she said--downright ugliness, +she believed they would fall back. The room is a sort of wager between +us, for I am not at all convinced that she will succeed. Sheep, you +know, will leap into the ditch if they see their leader land there." + +Owen's head was whirling. It was as though suddenly the little crystal +rings of the pagoda had given out a sportive, significant tinkle. This, +then, was what it meant? It was a jest, a game; but it was also a trap. +For whom? Chislebridge, on old Mrs. Waterlow's lips, could mean only +Gwendolen. He did not know quite what he hoped or feared, but he knew +that he must conceal from old Mrs. Waterlow his recognition of her +meaning. + +"I felt from the first moment that I saw her in the curiosity-shop that +Mrs. Waterlow was the sort of person who would always find the white +pagodas," he said, smiling above his perturbation; "but I shouldn't have +supposed that Chislebridge was intelligent enough, let us put it, to +realise it, too, and to follow her lead." + +"It's not that they realise it," the old lady interpreted, salting her +scone; "it's something deeper than realisation. It's instinct--the +instinct of the insignificant for aping the significant. They would +probably be annoyed if they were told that they aped Cicely. They hardly +know they do it, I will say that for them, if it's anything to their +credit. And then since she is poor and they--some of them--rich, their +copies are seen by a hundred to the one who sees her original, and +Cicely, to some people, I've no doubt of it, seems the ape. It has very +much vexed me," Mrs. Waterlow repeated. + +Owen, for all his loyal feint of unconsciousness, was growing rather +angry with Gwendolen. + +"I don't wonder that it should," he said. "It vexes me to hear about it. +Has it gone on for long?" + +"Ever since we came to live here after my son's death. People at that +time had draped, crowded drawing-rooms,--you remember the dreadful +epoch. The more pots and pans and patterns and palms they could squeeze +into them, the better they were pleased. Cicely had simple furniture and +quiet spaces and plain green wall-paper when no one else in +Chislebridge had. She fell in love with Japanese prints in Paris and +bought them when no one else in Chislebridge thought of doing so.--It's +wrong, now, I hear, to like them. Chinese paintings are the correct +thing.--Chislebridge stared at them and at her empty room, and wondered +how she could care for those hideous women. They stared only for a year +or two. When they saw that she was quite indifferent to their opinion +and intended to remain in the ditch, they jumped in after her. I was +amused when I first saw Japanese prints on some one else's green walls +and heard the Goncourts and Whistler being quoted to Cicely. Then by +degrees Cicely got tired of green paper, especially since everybody in +Chislebridge by then had it, and she put, with her white walls, the red +lacquer and the glass and that beautiful old set of cane-seated +furniture that you saw; and no one else in Chislebridge at that time had +white walls or a scrap of lacquer. She shifted and rearranged like a +bird building its nest, and Chislebridge stared again and said that the +white walls were like a workhouse; and then they began to look for +lacquer and to put up white paper. Her very grouping has been copied, +the smallest points of adjustment. It's not," Mrs. Waterlow pursued, +"that I mind people imitating, if they do it frankly and own themselves +plagiarists. We must all see the things we like for the first time. But +it's not because they like the things that they have them; they have +them because some one else likes them. They dress themselves in other +people's tastes and make a fine figure as originators." The vexation of +years was crystallized in the lightness and crispness of her voice. + +Poor, stupid Gwendolen! After all, one must not be too hard on her. He +felt Mrs. Waterlow to be so hard that he reacted to something +approaching pitying tolerance, Gwendolen could be stupid in such good +faith. There was nothing, when he came to think of it, surprising in +this revelation of her stupidity, nothing painful, as there had been in +suspecting Cicely Waterlow of stupidity. Gwendolen was so sincerely +unaware of having no ideas of her own. He wondered, as he said good-bye +to old Mrs. Waterlow and told her that he felt convinced that she had at +last reached a haven, whether she guessed that she had made him happy +rather than unhappy. + +She had made him so happy, with his recovered ideal, that as he drove +away it was with a definite thrust of fear that he suddenly remembered +Gwendolen's kindly criticism of old Mrs. Waterlow. Was it not possible, +after all, that she had been indulging in sheer malice at Gwendolen's +expense? Wasn't it possible that Gwendolen and Cicely Waterlow had had +the same inspirations independently? But no two people could stumble at +once on such a drawing-room as that he had just left. Horrid +thought--what if Gwendolen's drawing-room at this moment showed just +such a singular reversion to ugliness? After his delicious relief, he +could not bear the doubt. + +He drove to Gwendolen's. Yes, the old housekeeper, who knew him, said he +could of course go up and look at the red lacquer. The red lacquer! He +could almost have embraced her for the joy her words gave him. Gwendolen +would not have retained red lacquer with a black satin suite. And on the +threshold of Gwendolen's drawing-room he received full reassurance. The +lovely room was intact. The blacks and whites and reds and golds were +all there, unchanged, not a breath of the ambiguous discipline upon +them. And in the midst of them all it was not Gwendolen, but Cicely +Waterlow, whom he seemed to see smiling upon him, merry, tired, and +tolerant. She had, as it were, demonstrated her claim not only to her +present, but to her past. For if she had not copied Gwendolen in the +mid-Victorian backwater, why should she have copied her in this? She had +been first in both, and in her backwater she was now safe. + + * * * * * + +Many months passed before he saw Gwendolen's drawing-room again. He was +felled early in the winter by a long and dangerous illness. When he was +able to crawl about, he went to the south of France and stayed there for +over a year. He was so ill, so tired, and so weak that, if Gwendolen and +the boys hadn't joined him, if she hadn't nursed and amused and +encouraged him from day to day, he felt that he should probably have +died and made an end of it. Gwendolen was more than kind. She was at +once tender and tactful, and the only claim she made was that of her +long-standing solicitude on his account. Upon this, as upon a +comfortable, impersonal cushion that she adjusted for his weary head, +she invited him to lean, and upon it for months of dazed invalidism and +dubious convalescence he did lean. Lapped round by this fundamental +kindness, the flaws and absurdities of Gwendolen's character +disappeared. The long pearl ear-rings dangled now over the most +delicious beef-teas, which she herself made for him; the graceful hands +could perform efficient tasks. Of how very little importance it was that +a woman should not show originality in her drawing-room when she could +show in taxing daily intercourse such wisdom and resource and sweetness! +Life had contracted about them, and on these simple and elementary terms +he found that Gwendolen neither bored nor ruffled him. When she at last +left him he knew that the bond between them, unspoken as it remained, +was stronger than it had ever yet been, and that when he next saw her he +would probably find it the most natural of things to ask her to marry +him, and to take care of him for ever. Poor, good, kind Gwendolen! It +was with a pensive humility and mirth that he resigned himself to the +thought of the bad bargain she would make. + +He came back to England in the spring following that in which he had +left it, and went at once to Chislebridge. It was late afternoon when he +drove, in a twilight like his own mood of meditative acceptance, to the +well-known house. Ample and benignant it stood behind its walls and +lawns and trees, and seemed to look upon him with eyes of unresentful +patience. + +He limped in and Gwendolen met him in the hall. + +"My dear, dear Owen, how are you? Yes, I had your wire this morning. +Good; I see that the journey has done you no harm. But you are tired, +aren't you? Will you go to your own room or have tea with me at once? +It's just been brought in." + +He said that he would have tea with her. She did not actually help him +up the stairs, but as, with skill impaired, he swung himself from step +to step, the touch of her tactful and ready hand was upon his arm, a +caress rather than a sustainment. Passing the hand through his arm, she +led him into the drawing-room. + +Owen looked about him. He stood for a long moment in the door and +looked. He then allowed himself a cautious, side-long glance at +Gwendolen. Her eyes, unaware in their bland complacency, had followed +his and rested upon her room. + +"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten that you hadn't seen my new drawing-room," she +said. "We've had great changes." + +Even in his horror, for it was hardly less, he was touched to realize +that Gwendolen was thinking far less of her drawing-room than of him. +She might have forgotten that it had changed, had he not so helplessly +displayed his amazement. + +"Yes, indeed," he said. He limped to the fire and sank heavily into the +deep, black satin easy-chair drawn before it. He leaned his elbow on his +knee and rested his head on his hand, and as he did so he observed that +before the fire stood a mahogany footstool with a bead-worked top. + +"You are tired, dear Owen. Do you feel ill?" Gwendolen hovered above his +chair. + +"I do feel a little giddy," he confessed. "I'm not all right yet, I +see." + +He raised his head. It was to face the mantelpiece, with its oval, gilt +mirror and crystal lustres and gilt-and-marble clock. No, there were not +doves and a nest upon it. This was a finer clock than the one with the +doves, and the lustres were larger, and the flowers that stood between +were mauve orchids. Gwendolen always went astray over her flowers. + +"Here is tea," she said, seating herself at a little mahogany table with +bowed and decorated legs. "Of course you're bound to feel tired, dear +Owen, after your journey. Tea will be the very thing for you." + +He turned now a furtive eye along the wall. Flower-pieces, dim, flat, +old flower-pieces and arid steel-engravings and tall pieces of mahogany +furniture with marble vases upon them--no mistakes had been made here, +for if the vases were not urns, they were of marble and in their places. + +"How do you like it in this phase?" Gwendolen asked him, tactfully +turning from the question of his weakness. "I love it myself, I own, +though of course Chislebridge thinks I've lost my wits. To tell you the +truth, Owen, I was tired of beauty. One may come to that. One may feel," +said Gwendolen, pouring out the tea, "that one needs a discipline. This +room is my discipline, and after it I know that I shall find +self-indulgence almost vulgar." + +No; his mind was working to and fro between the present and the past +with the rapidity and accuracy of a shuttle threading an intricate +pattern--no, he had never mentioned to Gwendolen that late autumnal +visit of his to Chislebridge eighteen months ago. Had that been because +to mention it and the transformation he had been the first to witness in +Mrs. Waterlow's drawing-room would have been, in a sense, to give +Gwendolen a warning? And had he not, in his deepening affection for her, +conceived her to be above the need of such warnings? Yes; for though he +had been glad to recover his ideal of young Mrs. Waterlow, though he had +been more than willing that Gwendolen should occupy the slightly +ridiculous and humiliating position that he had imagined to be Mrs. +Waterlow's, he had never for a moment imagined that Gwendolen's +disingenuous docility would go as far as this. So many people might love +red lacquer and old glass with a clear conscience, once they had been +brought to see them; but who, with a clear conscience, could love black +satin furniture and marble vases? + +"It is a very singular room," he found at last, in comment upon her +information. "How--and when--did you come to think of it?" He heard the +hollow sound of his own voice; but Gwendolen remained unaware. The fact +of her stupidity cast a merciful veil of pitifulness over her. + +"I hardly know," she said, handing him his tea and happy in her theme. +"These things are in the air at a given time--reactions, repulsions, +wearinesses--I think. It grew bit by bit; I've brought it to this state +only since my return from the Riviera. The idea came to me, oh, long +ago--long before your illness. Alec Chambers is perfectly entranced with +it, and vows it is the most beautiful--yes, beautiful--room in +existence. It is witty as well as beautiful, he says, and he is going to +paint it for the New English Art Club. Rooms have a curious influence +upon me, you know, Owen. I really do feel," said Gwendolen busying +herself hospitably with his little plate and hot, buttered toast, "that +I've grown cleverer since living in this one." + +Owen, while she talked and while he drank his tea, had been more frankly +looking about him. Flagrant as was the plagiarism, Gwendolen, as before, +had protected herself by a more illustrious achievement. It was a +stately, not a staid room; it carried the idea higher, and thereby +missed it. It was not an amusing room, nor witty, to any one who had +seen the original. It was impressive, oppressive, almost forbidding. +Gwendolen, for one thing, had had more space to fill. The naďveté of +mere flower-pieces would not furnish her walls, and she had lapsed into +sheer ugliness with the large and admirably accurate steel-engravings. +Caution, too, had been mistakenly exercised here and there; the black +satin furniture had no antimacassars and the centre-table no ornament +except a vase of orchids and calf-bound books. + +Owen felt no indignation; he would always remain too fond of Gwendolen, +too tolerant of her folly, to feel indignant with her; it was with a +mild but final irony that he brought his eyes back at last to his +unconscious and hapless cousin. And he wondered how far Gwendolen had +gone, how far she could be made to go. "There's only one thing that it +lacks," he said. "Shall I tell you?" + +"Oh, _do_" she urged, beaming over her tea. "You know how much I value +your taste." + +"Oh, I haven't much taste," said Owen, "I've never gone in for having +taste. And doesn't your room prove that taste is a mistake if indulged +too far? It's more a sense of literary fitness I allude to. Yours is +meant to be a soulless room, isn't it? That's your intention?" + +"Exactly," said Gwendolen, with eager apprehension; "that is just it--a +soulless room. One is sick of souls, just as one is sick of beauty." + +"Exactly," Owen echoed her. "But, since you have here a travesty of +beauty, what you need to complete your idea is a travesty of soul. You +need a centre that draws it all into focus. You need something that, +alas! you might have had, and have lost for ever. The white pagoda, +Gwendolen, that Mrs. Waterlow found. Your room needs that, and only +that, to make it perfect." + +He spoke in his flat, weak invalid's voice, but he was wondering, almost +with ardour, if Gwendolen, this touchstone applied, would suspect or +remember and, from penitence or caution, redeem herself by a confession. +For a moment, only a moment, she looked at him very earnestly; and he +was aware that he hoped that she was going to redeem herself--hoped it +almost ardently, not for his own sake--those sober hopes were dead for +ever--but for the sake of the past and what it had really held of +fondness and sympathy and essential respect. + +Gwendolen looked at him earnestly; it was as though a dim suspicion +crossed her; and then, poor thing! she put it aside. Yes, he was very +sorry for her as he listened to her. + +"Owen, that is clever of you," she said, "but very, very clever. That is +precisely what I've been saying to myself ever since the idea came to +me. I can't forgive myself for that piece of stupidity--my only one, I +will say, in regard to such recognitions and perceptions. I may be a +stupid woman about a great many things, but I'm not stupid about rooms. +The horror of Aunt Pickthorne's room dulled my eyes so that in all truth +I can say that I never saw that pagoda. And from the moment I've had my +idea I've moaned--but literally moaned--over having lost it. Of course +it is what the room needs, and all that it needs--the travesty of a soul +standing on that mahogany table." + +"Yes, the centre-table is the place for it," said Owen. + +"It _is_ clever of you to feel it just as I do, Owen, dear," she went +on. "The pagoda was meant for this room and for this room only; for, you +know, I didn't think Cicely Waterlow at all happily inspired in placing +it as she had." + +"As she had?" He rapped the question out with irrepressible quickness. + +"Yes, among all that rather trashy lacquer and glass in that rather +gimcrackery little drawing-room of hers. The pagoda looked there, what +it had always looked in Aunt Pickthorne's room--a gimcrack itself." + +"Looked?" he repeated. "How does it look now? How has she placed it +now?" + +And, for the first time in all their intercourse, he saw that Gwendolen +was suddenly confused. He had hardly trapped her. She had set the trap +herself, and inadvertently had walked into it. A faint colour rose to +her cheek. She dropped for a moment her eyes upon the fire. Then, +covering her self-consciousness with a show of smiling vivacity, she +knelt to poke the logs, saying: + +"I don't know, I really don't know, Owen. Cicely is always changing her +room, you know. She is very quick at feeling what's in the air--as quick +as I am really--and I haven't seen her for ages. She has gone to live in +London--oh, yes, didn't you know? Yes, she came into a little money over +a year ago, and she and old Mrs. Waterlow have taken a house in Chelsea, +and are coming back to Chislebridge only for two or three months in +every year. They are very fond of Chislebridge. So I haven't an idea of +what her drawing-room is like now." + +"Perhaps it's like yours," Owen suggested. "The one I saw was rather +like yours, I remember." + +Gwendolen opened kind and repudiating eyes. + +"Do you think so, Owen? Like mine? Oh, only in one or two superficial +little things. She hadn't a Chinese screen or a lacquer cabinet or a +piece of Chinese painting to bless herself with, poor little Cicely! No, +indeed, Owen; I don't think it would be at all fair to say that Cicely +copied me. These things are in the air." + + * * * * * + +Before he left Chislebridge he asked Gwendolen for Mrs. Waterlow's +London address, and observed that she did not flinch in giving it to +him. He inferred from this that Mrs. Waterlow's black satin suite had +not left Chislebridge and that Gwendolen knew that she had nothing to +fear from a London visit. Would she indeed fear anything from any visit? +Her placid self-deception was so profound that it would be difficult to +draw a line fairly between skilful fraud and instinctive +self-protection. Gwendolen, without doubt, conceived herself completely +protected. She would never suspect him of suspecting her. + +He felt, when he got back to London, a certain reluctance in going to +see Mrs. Waterlow. It was not only that he shrank from reading in old +Mrs. Waterlow's malicious eyes the recognition of his discovery; in +regard to young Mrs. Waterlow there was another shrinking that was +almost one of shyness. She had been wronged, grossly wronged, by some +one to whom he must show the semblance of loyalty, and the consciousness +of her wrongs affected him deeply. A fortnight passed before he made his +way one afternoon to Chelsea, a fortnight in which the main +consciousness that filled his sense of renewal was that of his merciful +escape. Mrs. Waterlow's house was in St. Leonard's Terrace, one of the +narrow, old houses that face the expanse of the Royal Hospital Gardens. +The spring sun, as he limped along, was shining upon their +façades--dull, old brick and dim, white paint-like slabs of ancient +wedding-cake with frosted edging. + +After all the expense of his illness, he was very poor in these days, +and had come with difficulty in a 'bus. As he opened the gate and went +into the flagged garden, where white tulips grew, he glanced up and saw +young Mrs. Waterlow standing looking out at the drawing-room window. Her +eyes met his in surprise, they had not seen each other for so long a +time; then, as lifting his hat he smiled at her, he thought he saw in +them a sudden pity and gravity. He did of course look so much more +battered than when she had last seen him. The nice, middle-aged maid let +him in--he was glad of that--and, as he followed her up the narrow +staircase, with its white, panelled walls, he wondered which +drawing-room it was to be, and felt his heart sink strangely at the +thought that perhaps, after all, Mrs. Waterlow had transplanted her +discipline to London. + +But, no; like a soft gush of sunlight, like bells and clear, running +water, the first room greeted him in a medley of untraceable +associations. It was the first room, with the delicate cane-seated +chairs and settees, the red lacquer and the glass, all looking lovelier +than ever against the panelled white, all brighter, sweeter, happier +than in the rather dim room on the ground floor in Chislebridge. And +touches of green, like tiny flakes of vivid flame, went through it in +the leaves of the white azaleas that filled the jars and vases. He saw +it all, and he saw, as Mrs. Waterlow came toward him, that the white +pagoda stood on its former little black lacquer table in one of the +windows. + +Mrs. Waterlow shook his hand and her eyes examined him. + +"You have been ill. I was so sorry to hear," she said. + +"Yes, I've been wretchedly ill; for years now, it seems," he replied. + +They sat down before the fire. Old Mrs. Waterlow, she told him, was away +on a visit to Chislebridge, from which she was to return that evening at +six o'clock. It was only four. He had two hours before him, and he felt +that in them he was to be very happy. They talked and talked. He saw +that she liked him and expected him to stay on and talk. All the magic +and elation and sense of discovery and adventure was with him as on +their first encounter. She knew him, he found, so much better than he +could have guessed. She had read everything he had written. She +appreciated so finely; she even, with a further advance to acknowledged +friendship, criticized, with the precision and delicacy expressed in all +that she did. And the fact that she liked him so much, that she was +already so much his friend, gave him his right to let her see how much +he liked her. The two hours were not only happy; they were the happiest +he had ever known. + +The clock had hardly struck six when old Mrs. Waterlow's cab drove up. + +"Don't go; mamma will so like to see you," said Mrs. Waterlow. "She so +enjoyed that little visit you paid her over a year ago, you know." + +This was the first reference that had been made to the visit. He +wondered if she guessed what it had done for their friendship. + +Old Mrs. Waterlow came in, wearing just such a delightful, flowing black +satin cloak and deep black satin bonnet as he would have expected her to +wear. And seeing him there with her daughter-in-law, she paused, as if +arrested, on the threshold. Then, her eyes passing from the tea-table +and its intimacy of grouping with the two chairs they had risen from, +and resting brightly on her daughter's face, where she must read the +reflection of his happiness, Owen saw that she cast off a scruple, came +to a decision, and renewed the impulse that had brought her up the +stairs, he now realised, at an uncharacteristic speed. + +"My dear Cicely," she exclaimed, after she had greeted him, "you've lost +your wager!" + +Cicely Waterlow gazed at her for a moment and then she flushed deeply. + +"Have I, mamma?" she said, busying herself with the kettle. "Well, that +pleases you, and doesn't displease me. You'll want some tea, won't you?" + +"Yes, indeed, I want some tea. But you'll not put me off with tea, my +dear. I want to talk about my wager, too; and Mr. Stacpole will want to +hear about it, for it was his wager as well. You did say that you felt +convinced that I was safe in my haven, didn't you, Mr. Stacpole? Well, +I've lost it, and I'm not at all pleased to have lost it. I'm +triumphant, if you will, but savage, too. You'll forgive me, I know, Mr. +Stacpole, if I'm savage with your cousin when I tell you that she has +been inspired with a black satin suite and mahogany furniture and +bead-work since seeing Cicely's new drawing-room in Chislebridge." + +"Mamma!" Cicely protested. "Two people can perfectly well have the same +idea at the same time! There's no reason in the world why Gwendolen +shouldn't feel just my fancy for funny, old, ugly things." + +"She didn't show any fancy for them when she saw them a year ago, did +she, dear?" said the intractable old lady, seating herself at the +tea-table. "She was very guarded, very mute, though very observant. Yes; +people may have the same idea, but they'll hardly have the same black +satin furniture and the same beaded footstools, will they?" + +Seeing the deep embarrassment in which his friend was plunged, Owen now +interposed. + +"Don't try to defend Gwendolen on my account," he said. "She really +can't be defended. I know it, for I've seen her drawing-room." + +"You have seen it? And what do you think of it?" asked old Mrs. +Waterlow. + +"I thought, as I told her," said Owen, "that it lacked but one thing, +and that was the travesty of a soul. It lacked the white pagoda." + +"You told her that? It was what she told me. She told me that she could +not forgive herself for having parted with the pagoda, for it was the +travesty of a soul that her room still needed. 'You mean,' I said, 'the +pagoda placed as Cicely placed it on the centre-table in her new room?' +She gazed at me and laid her hand on my arm and asked: 'But, dear Mrs. +Waterlow, how had Cicely placed the pagoda? I really don't remember. I +really don't remember at all what Cicely's new room was like, except +that it was mid-Victorian, and had old water-colours on the walls. +Surely you don't think that I've copied Cicely?' + +"'My dear Mrs. Conyers,' I said to her, 'I don't think, but know, that +you've done nothing else since you came to Chislebridge. But in this +case you are farther from success than usual, for Cicely's drawing-room +is gay, and yours is _grand sérieux_.'" + +Mrs. Waterlow's bomb seemed to fill the air with a silvery explosion, +and, as its echoes died, in the ensuing stillness, the eyes of Cicely +and Owen met beneath the triumphant gaze of the merciless old lady. It +was from his eyes that hers caught the infection. To remain grave now +was to be _grand sérieux_, and helpless gaiety was in the air. Owen +broke into peals of laughter. + +"Oh--but--" Cicely Waterlow protested, laughing, too, but still flushed +and almost tearful--"it isn't fair. It's as if we had taken her in. She +doesn't know she does it, really she doesn't; she is so well-meaning--so +kind." + +"She knows now," said old Mrs. Waterlow, who remained unsmiling, but +with a placidity full of satisfaction; "and she'll hardly be able to +forget." + +"I'm quite sure," said Cicely, "that she really believes that she cares +for the new drawing-room. People can persuade themselves so easily of +new tastes. And why shouldn't they have them? I believe that Gwendolen +does like it." + +"Yes, she does indeed," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "She says so. She says +she never cared for any room so much and that she intends to live and +die with it. Her only refuge now is to go on faithfully loving it. So +there she is, buttoned into her black satin for ever!" + + * * * * * + +Until now Mrs. Conyers has remained faithful, and her consistency is +still made good to her; for none of her drawing-rooms has brought her +such appreciation. Chislebridge has never dared to emulate it; Mr. +Chambers and his friends have often painted it, and Mrs. Waterlow's +original, like a gay jest, uttered and then gone for ever, is no longer +in existence to vex and perplex her with its mocking smile. Moreover, +her own drawing-room no longer lacks its travesty of a soul. Owen +married Cicely Waterlow in the autumn, and Gwendolen, magnanimous, and +burning her bridges behind her, sent them for their wedding-present her +two lovely and unique red lacquer cabinets. One stands in the front, and +one in the back drawing-room in the little house in St. Leonard's +Terrace, and Cicely said to Owen on the day they arrived that any wrong +of the past, if wrong there had been, was now atoned for. And when they +married and went round the world for their wedding-trip, they found in +China a white pagoda, unflawed, larger, more sublimely elegant than the +old one. This they brought back to Gwendolen, and with unfaltering +courage she has placed it upon her mahogany centre table. + + + + +THE SUICIDE + +A COMEDY + + +She took the bottle from its wrappings and looked at it--at its apparent +insignificance and the huge significance of the glaring word "Poison" +printed across it. She looked resolutely, and as resolutely went with it +to the other side of the room, and locked it away in the drawer of her +dressing-table. She paused here, and her eyes met her mirrored eyes. The +expression of her face arrested her attention. Did people who were going +to die usually look so calm, so placid? Really, it was a sort of +placidity that gazed back at her, so unlike the disfigured, tear-blinded +reflection that had been there that morning--when she had read the +paper. After the tempest of despair, the frozen decision, the nightmare +securing of the means of death (if any one should guess! stop her!) it +was indeed a sort of apathy that drenched her being, as if already the +drug had gone through it. The face in the mirror was very young and +very helpless and very charming. It was like the face of a little +wind-blown ghost, with its tossed-back hair and wide, empty, gazing +eyes. The sweetness of the wasted cheeks and soft, parted lips suddenly +smote on the apathy, and tears came. She pressed her hands over her +eyes, struggled, and mastered herself again. Her own pathos must not +unnerve, and her unbearable sorrow must nerve, her. + +She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Just three. She could give +herself ample time for writing the letter; then she must go and post it. +Before five she would be back here--locked in her room. Before six-- + +She went to the writing-table, unlocked a drawer,--the key hung on a +ribbon around her neck, under her bodice,--and took out a thick packet +of closely written papers. Sitting there, hesitating a moment, she +wondered if she would look back at those records of hope and +suffering--more than a whole year of beautiful suffering, beautiful +hope. The rising of tears again warned her that such a retrospect would +make her more unfit for writing the last letter as it must be +written--with full possession of her best and deepest meaning. She must +be her most courageous self to write now. The writer of those past +records seemed a little sister half playing with her grief, beside the +self that sat here now, stricken and determined. + +Drawing pen and paper to her, she wrote: + + MY DEAREST--MY BEST BELOVED: This is the last of the letters. I + am going to send them all to you now, so that you may know all. + I read this morning in the paper that you were to be married. + And now there is nothing left for me but to die. When you read + this I shall be dead. + + You must not blame me, or think me too cowardly. I am a fragile + person, I know, and my life hung on you. Without hope it can't + go on; it's too feeble to find anything else to live for. And + you could never, never blame yourself. How could you have + helped it? How could you have dreamed that I loved you? If you + had you could have done nothing but be sorry--and irked. But it + comforts me in dying to let you know how I have loved you; it + is like a dying gift I make you,--do you see?--all the love + that I have hidden. If I had lived I could never have made the + gift. Had you guessed, or had I told you, it would have been a + burden, a ludicrous burden. But as you read this, knowing that + I am dead, my love must come to you as a blessing; you must + feel it as something, in its little way beautiful, and care for + it; for any love that only gives and makes no claim is + beautiful, is it not? I think I find dying so much easier than + living because in dying I can give you the gift. + + All these letters, written from the first day I met you, almost + a year and a half ago, will tell you step by step what I have + felt. Don't let the hopes that flickered up sometimes hurt you; + the strength of my feeling made the flame, nothing that you + ever said or did. + + How I remember that first day, in the country, at the + Ashwells', when mamma and I came on to the lawn where you were + all sitting, and mamma laughed at me for stumbling over a + chair--and you smiled at me. From the moment I saw you then, I + loved you. You were like some dream come true. You never knew + what joy it gave me (only joy; the pain was in not being with + you) when we walked together and talked; the letters will tell + you that. But to-day it all comes back, even the little things + that I hardly knew I was seeing or hearing--the late white + roses in the garden; and the robin sitting on the garden wall + (we stopped to look at it, and it sat still, looking at us: I + wonder if you remember the robin); and the distant song some + labourers were singing in the fields far away. + + And here in London, the dinners we met at, the teas you came + to, the one or two books you gave me and that we wrote + about--what I felt about it all, these meteors through my gray + life, I have written it all down. Did I not act well? You could + never have guessed, under my composure and cheerfulness, could + you? I am a little proud of myself when I think of it. + + And that this is no sudden rocking of my reason you will see, + too, from the growing hopelessness, of emptiness in the last + months, when I have not seen you. In the bottom of my heart I + had always the little hope that some day I might give you these + myself, that we might read them together, you and I, smiling + over my past sorrow. And if I had died, and you had not loved + me, you were to have had them, as I told you, for I wanted to + give you my love; I could not bear that it should go out and + that you should never know. + + I wish that I could have died, and need not have killed myself; + I am so afraid that that may give you pain, though it ought not + to, if you think justly of it all. + + Of course you will be sorry for me--I am afraid that I want you + to be _sorry_; but don't be too sad. I am so much happier in + dying than I could have been in living; and in loving you I + have felt so much, I have lived so much--more perhaps than many + people in a whole lifetime. + + See the gift you have given _me_, dearest one. Good-bye. + Good-bye. + + ALLIDA. + +It was over,--the last link with life, her last word spoken or +written,--and the echo of it seemed to come to her already as across a +great abyss that separated her from the world of the living. + +With the signing of her name she had drawn the shroud over her face. + +Only the mechanical things now remained to be done: dying was really +over; she really was dead. + +She wrapped this last letter around all the others, kissed it, and +sealed it in a large envelope; then, putting on her hat and coat and +holding the letter in her ulster pocket, she left her room and went down +the stairs. + +The house was a typically smart, flimsy London house, of the cheaper +Mayfair sort--a narrow box set on end and fitted with chintz and gilt +and white mouldings; a trap to Allida's imagination--an imagination that +no longer shrank from the contemplation of the facts of her life; for +they, too, were seen from across that abyss. + +In the drawing-room, among shaded lamps, cushions, and swarming +bric-ŕ-brac, her mother had flirted and allured--unsuccessfully--for how +many years? She had felt, since the time when, as a very little girl, +she had gone by the room every day coming in from her walk at tea-time +with her governess, and heard inside the high, smiling, artificial +voice, with its odd appealing quality, its vague, waiting pauses, the +shrinking from her mother and her mother's aims. Later on the aims had +been for her, too, and their determination had been partly, Allida felt, +hardened by the fact of a grown-up daughter being such a deterrent--so +in the way of a desperate, fading beauty who had never made the +brilliant match she hoped for. That she had never, either, made even a +moderate match for her, Allida, the girl felt, with a firmer closing of +her hand on the letter, she perhaps owed to _him_. What might her +weakness and her hatred of her home not have urged her into had not that +ideal--that seen and recognized ideal--armed her? The vision of old +Captain Defflin, his bruised-plum face and tight, pale eyes, rose before +her, and the vacuous, unwholesome countenance of young Sir Alfred Cutts. +How often had she been dexterously left alone with them in the +drawing-room! Thank God! all that was far, far behind her. Death was +dignified, sweet-smelling in its peace, when she thought of all that the +gilt-and-chintz drawing-room stood for in her memories. Death was sweet +when life was so ugly. + +Now she was in the street, the door closed behind her, and no servant +had seen her. + +It was a foggy afternoon, and the soiled white houses opposite were +dim. A thin, stray cat rubbed against the area railings and mewed as +Allida stood, pausing for a moment, on the steps. + +Which was the nearest pillar-box? At the end of the street, just round +the corner. The plaintive, nasal cry of the cat caught her attention. +Poor creature! She ought to spare some poison for it. The irony of the +idea almost made her smile as she stooped and patted the dingy head. The +cat, leaning like a ship in a stiff wind, walked to and fro across her +dress, looking up at her as it still plaintively, interrogatively mewed. +Its appeal put aside for a moment the decision as to which pillar-box. +She picked up the cat and returned to the door. The maid answered her +ring. + +Allida was a little sorry that she must speak once more, after all, on +this mundane plane. The finish of her tragedy seemed slightly marred by +this episode. But she heard her calm voice telling the maid to feed the +cat--"And keep it until you can find a home for it. Cook won't mind, +will she?" + +"Oh, no, miss; cook is fond of cats. Poor thing, then," said the maid, +who was tender of heart. + +Again the door was shut, and again the pillar-box was the last act but +one of her drama. + +She walked swiftly down the street, thinking, oddly, more about the cat +than about her destination or the letter she held clutched in her +pocket. The stripes on the cat's head, its rough, sooty fur, the sharp +projection of its backbone and the grotesque grimace of its mew--her +mind dwelt on these trivial details; and under all was a funny added +contentment at this further proof of the mercilessness and ugliness of +the world she was leaving. + +The corner of the street was reached and turned. There, in the fog, +stood the red shaft of the pillar-box. Beyond it a street lamp, already +lighted, made a blur of light in the thick air and cast upward a long +cone of shadow. + +Allida's heart suddenly shrank and shuddered. + +The lamp and the pillar-box looked horrible. Death was horrible. To see +him no more was horrible. She felt only horror as mechanically she took +out the letter and dropped it into the box. + +The heavy sound of its fall turned her shuddering heart to ice. + +She had felt horror, she had been prepared for horror, but not for such +horror as this. It would all be like this now, she knew, until the end. +Let her hurry through it, then; let her escape quickly; and, at all +events, her own room, her familiar little room, with its fire, its +books, its quiet white bed, would be a refuge after this terrible, empty +street. She thought only of her room,--the thought blotting out what +would happen in it,--knowing only that she longed to be there, with a +longing like a wounded child's for its mother's arms. And yet she still +stood staring at the slit in the pillar-box. + +"Miss Fraser," a voice said beside her. + +It was a voice of carefully quiet greeting, guarded interrogation, +guarded expostulation. + +She looked up, feeling something shatter in her, fearing that she was +going to faint. It was almost like the crash of death and like a +swooning into a new consciousness. She only dimly, through the swooning +sense of change, recognized the face that looked at her, smiling, but so +puzzled, so pained--so pained that she guessed that her own face must +show some strange terror. + +She had seen the face, in the chintz-and-gilt drawing-room,--it had +seemed out of place there,--she had seen it often; but memory was +blurred. Had he not taken her down to dinner somewhere only the other +day? Yes; she knew him well; only she was dead, a ghost, and reality, +familiar reality, looked different. + +"Mr. Haldicott," she said, putting out her hand. Her voice was +normal--she heard that; she felt that she could almost have smiled. Yet +something was fearfully shattered, some power in herself that had +directed her so resolutely till now. The cat had been disconcerting, but +the appearance of this man, whom she knew quite well, who might talk, +might question her, might walk back beside her, seemed fatally +disconcerting. For could she act? Could she still speak on normally? And +further delay, now that every link was broken, now that to all real +intents and purposes she was dead, was a torture too fearful to be +contemplated. Yet how evade it? She felt that her hand, which he still +held, held very tightly, was trembling. + +"You are ill," he said. + +She shook her head. + +"No; not at all. I only came out for a little walk. And I must go back +to tea." + +"Your mother is at home?" + +"No; she is out of town. She doesn't get back till to-morrow." + +"You are going to have tea all alone?" + +Allida gazed at him. How should she evade him if he offered to come +back? + +"I haven't had my walk yet. I came out for a little walk," she repeated. + +By the blurred light of the street lamp he still looked at her, still +held her trembling hand. His face showed his perplexed indecision. +Suddenly he drew the hand within his arm. + +"Let us have the little walk, then," he said, "only you must let me come +with you. You are in some great trouble. Don't bother to deny it. Don't +say anything. Your face showed me that something dreadful was happening +to you. Don't speak--I saw it as I was passing on the other side of the +street. The lamp was just lighted, else I shouldn't have recognised you. +Now walk quietly on like this. Don't even think. I'm not a meddling +idiot; I know I'm not. You are desperate about something, and anything, +any one, even a complete stranger, and I'm not that, who steps in +between desperation and an act is justified--perhaps a Godsend." + +He was walking beside her, half leading her, talking quickly, as if to +give her time to recover, and glancing at her stricken, helpless face. + +As they walked they heard behind them the rattling fall of letters into +a postman's bag; the pillar-box had been emptied. + +The youth of the face, its essential childishness, the web of soft hair +that hung disarranged over her cheek, made her look like a very little +girl, and was in strange contrast with the look of terror. + +They walked on and on, down streets, across wide, phantasmal squares. + +Haldicott held the hand on his arm,--he did not speak,--and Allida felt +herself moving with him through the fog like an Eurydice led by Orpheus, +a shade among the shades. And all the while there hovered before her +thoughts the vision of that quiet room, that white bed, still waiting +for her. Suddenly she broke into sobs. She stopped. She leaned +helplessly against his arm. + +"Good heavens! you will tell me now," Haldicott exclaimed. "Cross the +road here. Lean on me. We will go into the park. No one can see you." + +She stumbled on blindly beside him, both hands clutching his arm. + +All she knew was that she had left life behind her, and yet that she +must go back to that room, and that the room now was more horrible than +the pillar-box had been. She had left life behind her, and yet she +still clung to it--here beside her. Life! life! warm, kind life! + +In the park he led her into a deserted path. A bench stood beneath a +tall, leafless tree, its branches stencilled flatly on the yellow-gray +fog. Haldicott and Allida sat down side by side. + +"Now tell me. You can trust me utterly. Tell me everything," said +Haldicott. + +His fine face, all competence and mastery, studied hers, its shattered +loveliness. She leaned her head back against the bench. Life was there, +and a great peace seemed to flow through her as the mere consciousness +of its presence filled her. As long as he held her hand she could not be +frightened; and since she was only a ghost, since all her past seemed to +have dropped from her, she could look at it with him, she could tell him +what he asked. As if exhausted, borne along by his will, she said, "I am +going to commit suicide." + +Haldicott made no ejaculation and no movement. Her eyes were closed, and +he studied her face. Its innocent charm almost made him smile at her +words; and yet the expression he had seen from across the street, as she +dropped that letter into the box and stood frozen, had gone too well +with such words. He reflected silently. He had long known Allida Fraser, +never more than slightly; and yet from the frequency of slight knowledge +he found that he had accumulated, quite unconsciously, an impression of +her, distinct, sweet, appealing. He saw her, silent and gentle, in her +tawdry mother's tawdry house; he heard her grave quiet voice. He had +thought her, not knowing that he thought at all, charming. He had always +been glad to talk to her, to make her gravity, the little air of chill +composure that he had so understood, and liked, in the daughter of a +desperate, faded flirt, warm into confident interest and smiles. +Thinking of that quiet voice, that gentle smile, the poise and dignity +of all the little personality, he could not connect them with hysterical +shallowness. But he had, he now recognized, thought of her as older, +more tempered to reality. There was a revelation of desperate youth, and +youth's sense of the finality of desperation, on her face; and, with all +the rigid resolve he had seen, he could guess in it youth's essential +fluidity. She was resolved, and yet all resolves in a soul so young were +only moods, unless circumstances let them stand still, stagnate, and +finally freeze. She was not frozen yet. It was only a mood standing +still; shake it, and it would fluctuate into surprising changes. Allida +opened her eyes while he reflected, and many moments had gone by since +her words. + +"How amazing that I should tell you, calmly tell you, isn't it?" she +said. "And yet I can't feel it as amazing. Nothing could amaze me. I +seem to have passed beyond any feeling of that sort. But since I am so +really dead already, that I can tell you, you must respect my confidence +in you. You must not try to prevent me. I trust you." + +"I shan't prevent you," said Haldicott. + +Again she closed her eyes. "Thanks. It is almost a comfort to be able to +tell some one. I know now how fearfully lonely I have been. And yet--I +wish I hadn't met you--or I will wish it. Now I can wish nothing, and +feel nothing--except that you are there, alive, and that I am going to +die. But it will be harder to do now. Everything seems so vague, +everything seems left behind. The very sorrow that makes me do it seems +so far away--like a dream. I can't go through all the realization again, +and when I do it now, it will seem to be for something unreal." Her +voice trailed off. + +"Are you sure you are going to do it?" Haldicott asked presently. + +They spoke very slowly, with long pauses, as though a monotony of +leisure were about them; as though, in some quiet, dim place of departed +spirits, time had ceased. + +"Yes; quite sure. I have bought it--the poison--I had a doctor's +prescription--I have thought it all out carefully. It's in the top +drawer of my dressing-table." + +She would, he saw, tell him everything. + +Again he paused. + +"Is it an irremediable sorrow that makes life impossible, or is it life +itself, in general, that you can't go on with?" + +"Both--both," said Allida. + +Again a long, long silence grew; every moment, Haldicott felt, a drop in +the deep cup of oblivion that, unconsciously, she was drinking, that +would make the past more and more unreal, until from oblivion she woke +into the sane world of struggle and life. + +"Yet you are so young," he said at last, "with everything before +you--real joys as well as--forgive me!--realer sorrows; they would +balance better if you would live a little longer. You know, if you +waited for just one year, let us say, you would look back with wonder +at this, with thankfulness that you hadn't." + +"Perhaps," she said. "Only I don't want to live that year." + +"And when were--when are you going to do it?" + +"This evening. I had meant to do it long before this. Mamma is away. +There could be no better time. Besides, it must be this evening. I've +written." + +"To her? To tell her?" + +"No," Allida answered; "not to her." And she added, "I don't love her." + +"Your mother?" + +"This is my dying confession, so I will say the truth. No, I don't love +her. She has made me so unhappy--made life so ugly." + +"Then you wrote to some one whom you do love?" + +"Yes," said Allida, after another pause. Her hat had loosened as she +leaned her head back, and her disordered hair was about her face; she +still kept her eyes closed with her expression of weary abandonment to +the peace of confession. + +He looked at her keenly, with most intent interest, most intent pity, +and yet with a flicker of amusement in the look. She could do it. He +believed her. Yet it would be as absurd as it would be tragic if she +did. It wasn't a face made for tragedy; it had strayed into it by +mistake. + +"This some one you love," he said gently, "will it not hurt them +terribly? Have you thought of that?" + +He saw the tears come. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. She faintly +whispered: + +"He doesn't love me." + +Haldicott could feel no amusement now, the pity was too great. He put +his other hand on the hand he held. + +"Used he to love you?" he asked. + +"No," said Allida; "he never loved me." + +For a moment Haldicott struggled with a half-nervous wish to laugh; +relief was in the wish. + +"And he knows that you love him?" he controlled his voice to ask. + +"He will--when he gets my letter." + +"Poor devil!" ejaculated Haldicott. + +"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Allida. She opened her eyes and sat +upright, drawing her hand from his. "How could you understand? You think +it's a sort of vengeance I'm taking--for his not loving me. I can't drag +myself through explanations, indeed I can't. Of course I see that my +tragedy to you must be almost farce. I must go. Why should I have told +you anything? I am desecrating it all, making it all grotesque, by being +still alive." + +"No, no; you mustn't go yet," said Haldicott, seizing her hand firmly, +yet with not too obvious a restraint. "You mustn't go, not at peace with +me. You have all the evening still before you,--it's not six yet,--and +it doesn't take long to kill one's self with poison. Trust me. You must +trust me. Don't think about its being grotesque; most things are in +certain aspects. I think that we are both behaving very naturally, +considering the circumstances. The circumstances, I grant you, are a +little grotesque--not the circumstance of your being still alive, but of +your wishing to die. But, indeed, I shall understand, you poor child, +poor sweet child, if you will explain." + +Again the mirage sense of compulsion, of peace in yielding to it, of +letting this ghost-like consciousness shut out the long past and the +short future, crept over her. She sank back again beside him. + +"But how can I explain? Where shall I begin?" + +"Listen to me now, dear Allida--we can use Christian names, I think, in +a case of last dying confession like this. I am not going to prevent +you, or put any constraint upon you; but I want you to explain as +clearly and fully as you can, so that, in trying to make me see, you may +see yourself, clearly and fully, what you are doing, where you are. +Probably you are in a condition of absolutely irrational despair. Let us +look at it together. I may be able to show you something else. Begin +with him. Who is he?" + +Allida had leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She dropped her face +into her hands as she answered: + +"Oliver Ainslie." + +"Yes; I know him." + +"Yes; you know him." + +"He is--a charming fellow," said Haldicott. + +"I met him over a year ago," said Allida. "I am very miserable at home. +I have grown up alone. My mother and I have never been at all +sympathetic. I hardly saw her when I was growing up. She only wanted to +marry me off as soon as possible, and--she hasn't found it easy to marry +me off. I haven't money--or looks in particular--oh, but I can't go into +all that! You know mamma. I have hated my life with her." + +"Yes, yes. I understand." + +"Not that there is any harm in mamma," Allida amended, with a weary +exactitude; "everybody understands that, too. Only she is so utterly +silly, so utterly selfish. This all sounds horrible." + +"I understand." + +"I met him. I had never seen any one so dear, so sympathetic. I seemed +to breathe with happiness when he was there. It was like morning +sunlight after a hot, glaring ballroom, being with him. He never cared +one bit for me; but--the first time I saw him he smiled at me, and he +was kind and dear to me,--as he would be to any one,--and from that +first moment I loved him--oh, loved him!" + +She paused, a sacred sweetness in the pause. + +Haldicott, sitting beside her in the fog, felt the presence of something +radiant and snowy. + +"And I sometimes thought and hoped--that he would care for me. I wrote +to him all the time, letters I never sent; but I wrote as if he were to +see them--some day. It's almost strange to me to think that such love +didn't bring him to me by its very force and yearning. One hears, you +know, of thoughts making themselves felt--becoming realities. I wonder +where all those thoughts of mine went!" + +He saw them all--those white, innocent thoughts--flying out like birds, +like a flock of white birds, and disappearing in the darkness. How could +a soul not have felt them fluttering about it, crying vainly for +admittance? He almost shared Allida's wonder. + +"And to-day, I sent all the letters with the last one telling of my +death. For--I saw it this morning--he is engaged. So I couldn't go on. I +could never love any one else; I shouldn't want to. My heart broke when +I read the paper; really it broke. And I explained it all to him, so +that it could not hurt him, that I was dying because life had become +worthless to me--and yet that there was joy in dying because I could, in +dying, tell him. There had been beauty and joy in loving him; he must +not be too sorry; and he must care for my love. It was a gift--a gift +that I could give him only in going away for ever myself." + +She was silent. The evening was late by now, and the fog about them shut +them into a little space, a little island just large enough for their +bench, a bit of path, a dim border of railing opposite, and a branch of +tree overhead. The muffled sound of cautious traffic was far away. They +were wonderfully alone. + +Haldicott took one of the hands on which she leaned, and raised it to +his lips. + +"Sweet, foolish child!" he said. + +She turned her head and looked at him; it was almost as if she saw him +for the first time--the man, not only Life's personification. They could +still see quite clearly each other's faces, and for a long time, +gravely, they looked into each other's eyes. + +"Don't you see that it's all a dream?" said Haldicott. + +"A dream?" Allida repeated. "The reality of a whole year?" + +And yet it was a dream to her; even while she had told him of that year +it was as if she told of something far behind her, lived through long, +long ages ago, in another, a different life. + +But she struggled to hold the vanishing pain and beauty of it all--the +reality that, unreal, would make her whole being seem like a little +handful of thin cloud dying away into emptiness. + +"This is a dream," she said, still looking at him, "_this, this_. What +am I doing here?" She rose to her feet, gasping now. "Oh! he will get +the letter--and I shall not be dead! I must go at once--at once!" + +"To save yourself from being ridiculous? You are going to kill yourself +so as to keep a tragic attitude that you've taken before this man who +doesn't care for you--an attitude that's really disarranged? +Dear--pitiful--enchanting little idiot!" said Haldicott. + +He had risen too, and, holding her hands, he still, but not too +obviously, kept her near him. + +His words were almost cruel in their lightness; his voice had a feeling +that, more than any words, any supplication or remonstrance, made her +past life seem illusory, and she herself, with it, disappearing into +pure nothingness. The world rocked with her. Only the feeling in that +voice seemed real. + +"Are you sure, are you sure," he said, "that you can never love anybody +else? Won't you wait a year to find out? Won't you wait a month? Allida, +won't you wait a day?" + +"Why do you try to humiliate me?" she gasped, and the tears fell down +her face. He almost feared that he had been brutal, that she was going +to faint. + +"I am not trying to humiliate you. I am trying to wake you. Perhaps the +truth will wake you. Will you wait a day, an hour, Allida, and see?" + +"See what?" + +"That this is a dream; that you wove it out of nothing to fill the +emptiness of your sad life; that it would have gathered round the first +'dear sympathetic' person who smiled at you. And after you see that, +will you wait and see----" he paused. + +"What?" she repeated. + +"How much I can make you love me," said Haldicott. + +"Why do you mock me?" Allida said. "Why, unless you think me mad?" + +"Well, of course you _are_ mad, in a sense; any coroner's inquest would +say so. But _mock_ you! I love you, Allida." + +Her face had now as wild, as frozen a look on it as the one he had seen, +not three hours before, after she had slipped the letter into the +pillar-box; but it was with another wildness--of wonder rather than of +despair. + +"But how can you?" she faltered. + +"I can tell you how, but you must wait an hour--more than an hour--to +hear. You will wait--Allida?" + +"It is pity, to save me." + +"To save you? Why, I'd hand you over to the nearest policeman if I only +wanted to save you. I _do_ want to save you--for myself." + +There drifted through her mind a vision of her little room, where, by +this time, she might have been lying on the bed, the empty bottle of +poison near her. And that vision of death was now far away, across an +abyss, and she was in life, and life held her, claimed her. + +"But I can't understand. How is it possible?" She closed her eyes. "My +letter," she whispered. + +Haldicott put his arm around her and led her down the path. + +"Ainslie is a dear fellow," he said. "We will write him another letter +as soon as we get in." + +She was hardly aware of the walk back to the little house in Mayfair, +back to the doorstep where, such aeons ago, she had paused to look at +the crying cat. If she had not paused, if she had gone a little earlier +to the pillar-box, before the lamp was lighted----Her mind was blurred +again. All--all was dream, except that life, near her, was claiming her. + +Now they were in the drawing-room, among the shaded lamps, the gilt, the +chintz and bric-ŕ-brac. + +Haldicott sent for wine and made her drink. He said to the maid that +Miss Fraser had felt faint during her walk. For a long time Allida +leaned back in the chair where he had put her, shading her eyes with her +hand. + +"Can you write to Ainslie now?" Haldicott asked at last. "We will send +your letter by special messenger." + +"Yes, yes; let me write." She drew off her gloves, and Haldicott put +paper and pen before her. + +She looked up at him. + +"What shall I say?" she asked. + +This time, uncontrollably, he wanted to laugh; if he did not laugh he +must burst out crying; he leaned his elbows on the table as he sat +beside her, burying his face on his arms, his shoulders shaking. + +Allida sat with the pen in her hand, gazing at him. The nightmare, after +all, was too near for her to share his dubious amusement; but that she +saw its point as well as he did was evinced in her next question, asked +in still the faltering voice: + +"Shall I say that I've decided to wait a day?" + +Haldicott looked up. + +"Thank Heaven, you _have_ a sense of humour. It was my one anxiety about +you--all through. Say, dearest Allida, that you are awake." + +She looked at him, and now, though she did not smile, her wan face was +touched by a pale, responsive radiance. + +"It is so strange--to be awake," she murmured, bending to her paper. + +But hardly had the first slow line been written when running steps were +heard outside, the door was flung open before the amazed maid could +reach it, and Oliver Ainslie, white and distraught, darted into the +room. + + * * * * * + +He did not glance at Haldicott. The distraction of his look had only +time to break into stupefied thanksgiving before the same rush that had +brought him in carried him to Allida. He fell on his knees before her. +Clasping her round the waist, he hid his face, crying, "Thank God!" + +Allida sat, still holding her pen. She did not look at Ainslie, but +across the room at Haldicott, and again, before her look, as of one +confronted with her own utter inadequacy to deal with the situation, +Haldicott could almost have laughed. But the moment for light +interpretations had gone. Anything amusing in the present situation was +only grimly so for him. The fairy prince had turned up--a real fairy +prince, for a wonder, and three hours of everyday reality had no chance +of counting against a year of fairy-tale with such a lasting chapter. +After all, it was very beautiful; he was able to see that, thank +goodness! Yet Allida's perfectly blank look held him. She was evidently +unable to deal single-handed with her dilemma--to explain to her fairy +prince why he found her alive rather than dead. Haldicott turned to the +mantelpiece and moved, unseeingly, the idiotic silver ornaments upon it, +waiting for an opportunity to strike a blow for her deliverance. + +Ainslie had lifted his face to hers. + +"It was a mistake, that announcement: it's my cousin who is to be +married; we have the same name. Oh, Allida! darling Allida! if I had not +come in time! That I should have found you--_you_! And only just in +time!" + +He became now, perhaps from the blankness of her face, aware more fully +of Haldicott's unobtrusive presence. + +To the silent query of his eyes she answered: + +"He knows--everything." + +"He prevented you! He met you and prevented you! I see it all. +Haldicott, it _is_ you, isn't it----" + +Haldicott reluctantly turned to him. + +"My dear fellow, can I ever thank you enough? My dear Haldicott, it's +all too astonishing. You know? And _why_ she was going to? The poor, +darling child!" He had risen, and, with his arm around Allida's +shoulders, was gazing at her. + +"I saw Miss Fraser posting her letter to you, and guessed from her +expression that something very bad was up," said Haldicott. "I forced +her to walk a little with me, and I made her tell me the story; and then +I made her see that the truer love for you would be shown in living. She +had just recognised that,"--Haldicott smiled at her,--"and she was going +to write, and see if she couldn't waylay that letter--spare you the pain +of it and, at all events, tell you that she wasn't going to burden you +with unfair remorse for the rest of your days. That's about the truth of +it all, isn't it?" And he so believed it to be, now, the only essential +truth, or, at least, the half-truth that she had better believe in, that +his smile had not a touch of bitterness. + +Allida still held her pen and still gazed at him. + +"Ah! thank God for it all--for the fact that the letter wasn't waylaid, +and for the fact that you _were_, Allida! When I think of it--that gift +coming to me--your gift, Allida--and not too late--not too late!" + +The young man, in his rapturous thankfulness, indifferent to the +guardian presence, raised her hand to his lips, kissing it with a +fervour where tears struggled with smiles. + +"I'll go now," Haldicott said gently. "I'm so--immensely glad for you +both." + +But Allida, at this, started from her helpless apathy. + +"No, no! Don't--don't go!" she cried. "I can't think. It's all so +impossible. Do you mean," and her eyes now went to Ainslie while she +drew her hand from his--"do you mean that you love me?" + +"Love you, darling Allida? Don't you see it?" + +"Because you got the letter," Allida said, as if linking in her mind a +chain of evidence. "If you hadn't got it--you would not love me now." + +"Forgive me, dearest, for my blindness! I should not have known you if I +had not got it." + +Allida still looked at him. + +"You are just as dear--even dearer than I thought you; you are even more +worthy of any love than I dreamed," she said. Her face had lost all +apathy, all helplessness. It was with the stricken resolution that it +could so strangely show that she pushed back her chair and rose, moving +away from the young man, who, enchantingly a fairy prince, gazed at her +with adoring eyes. + +"It was written in a dream," said Allida, clasping her hands and +returning his gaze. "It was written in a dream," she repeated. "It was +all--all the whole year--a dream--only a dream." + +The trust of his gaze was too deep for understanding to sink through it. + +"I am awake now," said Allida; "you are dearer than I ever dreamed, but +I am awake." + +"When reality comes, the past always seems rather dream-like," Ainslie +said. He felt and understood as well, as truly as the other had done. +"Darling Allida, I can never be worthy of such a love as yours, but I +will try. And now that you are awake, you will find how much better +waking is than any dream." + +She gasped at this, and retreated before him. + +"But I am horrid; I am unbelievable. There isn't any reality. There +isn't any love to be worthy of," she cried, and covered her face with +her hands. + +Ainslie, from her attitude of avowal and abasement, looked his +stupefaction at Haldicott, and, for all answer, got a stupefaction as +complete. + +"What _does_ she mean?" the younger man at length inquired. + +"I don't think she knows what she means," Haldicott answered. "I think +she is, naturally, overwrought. All feeling, all meaning, is paralyzed. +She probably won't mean anything worth listening to for a good while." + +They were speaking quite as if Allida, standing there with her hidden +face, were a lunatic, the diagnosis of whose harmless case was as yet +impossible in the absence of fresh symptoms. But a symptom was +forthcoming. + +"I mean _that_," she said. "I don't understand. I can't explain. It's as +if something were broken in me. There isn't any love; there never will +be. If you can ever forgive me, please tell me so--when you do. It +mustn't be more than a dream for you, too--a dream only an hour long." + +The two men again exchanged glances, but now with more hesitation. + +"But, Allida,"--Ainslie spoke with gentle pain--"I love you. I am not +dreaming. Do you mean to say that you can't love me? Do you mean to say +that if I had loved you, with no letter to awaken me, you would have +thought your love a dream, merely because it was answered?" + +"It isn't that. I can't explain. Something broke. You came too late. +It's as if I had died--and become almost another person. I know it's +unbelievable; I don't understand it myself; but it is true. It is all +over, really." + +"All over?" dazedly Ainslie repeated. "But why? After those letters? +After what you were going to do? Allida!" + +She dropped her hands, and once more her eyes went to Haldicott in that +look--the appeal of incompetence. But there was more in it: suffering +and shame, and a strength that strove to hide them from him. + +"Perhaps, my dear Ainslie, you had better go," said Haldicott, "for the +present at least." But, in its wonder, his answering look now appealed +and was helpless in its incomprehension. + +Ainslie stared at her. + +"Good-bye," he said at last. + +"Oh, good-bye," said Allida, with a fervor of relief that all her +humility and pity could not dissemble. + +"Good-bye," he repeated, holding her hand, "sweet, strange, cruel +Allida." + +She put her hand over his and looked clearly at him. + +"Remember," she said--"remember how absurd I am." + +He was gone. Allida did not turn to Haldicott. She remained looking at +the door that had closed on the exit of her "best beloved." + +"But _why_?" said Haldicott. He repeated Ainslie's broken words almost +faintly. "When the dream came true--why didn't you take it?" + +She made no reply. + +"I never meant that because it had been a dream it couldn't become a +reality," he went on. + +She looked vaguely round the room. Indeed, things swam to her; the +nearest support was the mantelpiece. She leaned against it, looking +down. + +"It's not anything I said--in my efforts to shake you awake? You _were_ +in love with him, you know. Weren't you in love with him, Allida?" + +"Yes; I suppose so. How can I tell you anything? All I know is that I +was dreaming." + +"But--why did the dream go?" + +"You killed it, perhaps," she said in a colourless voice, leaning her +forehead upon her hand, and still looking fixedly down. + +"I--_I_ killed it? You mean--that any one who had come then--would have +stopped you--made you see your own folly--waked you?" + +"They might have stopped me--they might have saved me," she said, and +she paused. + +"But only I could wake you? Only I could prevent the coming true of your +dream?" Again in his wondering, groping voice was the feeling that, like +a torch, had led her up from Tartarus--up through blackness to the sweet +air again. + +She still hid her eyes, not daring to look or trust. + +"Allida!" he supplicated. + +"Oh," she said in a voice so low that it did not shake--it was as if she +just dared to let it sound at all--"was your dream true, or was it only +the rope you threw out to me to drag me on shore with?" + +Haldicott stretched out his hand to her. + +"Do you mean that my three hours of reality count for more than +his--than his, backed by your whole year of dreaming? Allida, are you +really absurd enough to say that I count for more than Oliver Ainslie?" + +She put her weary, ashamed head down on the arm that leaned upon the +mantelpiece. She did not take his hand. + +"What can I say? Everything I say seems unbelievable. Can anything I say +be more absurd than anything else? Yes, you do count for more. You +count for everything. Did I love him--or did I only love love? I don't +know. I only know that what you said--and are--made it all a dream. And +now you will think that I am going to kill myself because _you_ don't +love me! But my absurdity is over, I promise you. Really, I am awake." + +"Allida, darling," said Haldicott--he went to her and took both her +hands, so that she must raise her head and look at him--"if I've made +fun of you when I was feeling horribly frightened, and called you +ridiculous when I found you as tragic and adorable as you were +grotesque, _that_ was the rope. Now I will take an hour, or a day, or a +whole week, if necessary, to make you believe it; but _I_ could have +committed suicide--I assure you I could--when I saw Oliver Ainslie come +into the room." + + + + +A FORSAKEN TEMPLE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MILLY + + +"It is the emptiness, the loneliness, the lack of response and +understanding," said Milly. "It is as if I were always looking at a face +that never really saw me or spoke to me. Such a mistake as I have +made--or as others have made for me--is irretrievable. An unhappy +marriage seems to ruin everything in you and about you, and you have to +go on living among the ruins. You can't go away and leave them behind +you, as you can other calamities in life." + +Milly Quentyn and Mrs. Drent were alone this afternoon in the +country-house where they had come really to know each other, and Milly, +acting hostess for her absent cousin, had poured out Mrs. Drent's tea +and then her own, leaving it untouched, however, while she spoke, her +hands falling, clasped together, in her lap, her eyes fixed on vacancy. +The contemplation of ruins for the last five years had filled these eyes +with a pensive resignation; but they showed no tearful repinings, no +fretful restlessness. They were clear eyes, large and luminous, and in +looking at them and at the wan, lovely little face where they bloomed +like melancholy flowers, Mrs. Drent's face, on the other side of the +tea-table, grew yet more sombre and more intent in its brooding +sympathy. "Why did you----" she began, and then changed the first +intention of her question to--"Why did you--love him?" This was more +penetrating than to ask Mrs. Quentyn why she had married him. + +The extreme lowness of Mrs. Drent's voice muffled, as it were, its +essential harshness; one felt in it the effort to be soft, as in her one +felt effort, always, to quell some latent fierceness, an eager, almost +savage energy. She was thirty years old, six years older than Milly +Quentyn. Her skin was swarthy, her eyes, under broad, tragically bent +eyebrows, were impenetrably black. Her features, had they not been so +small, so finely finished, would have seemed too emphatic, significant +as they were of a race-horse nervousness and of something inflexible in +the midst of an expression all flexibility. Her hands were curiously +slight and small, and as she now, in looking at her companion and in +asking her question, locked them together with a force that made them +tremble, they showed the same combination of an excessive strength +informing an excessive fragility. + +Milly Quentyn's gaze drifted to her and rested upon her in silence. + +Presently she smiled. + +"How kind you are to care so much, to care at all!" + +"I do care." + +"Are you, will you, be my friend, always?" asked Milly, leaning towards +her a little, and the smile seemed to flutter to the other woman like an +appealing and grateful kiss. + +"I am your friend; I will be your friend, always," Mrs. Drent replied, +in an even lower tone than before. + +The tears came softly into Milly's eyes while they looked at each other +she gently, Mrs. Drent still sombrely. Then leaning back again with a +sigh, she continued, "Why I loved him? I didn't love him. Isn't that the +almost invariable answer? I was nineteen; I had just left the +schoolroom; I was in love with my own ideal of love--you know, you must +know, the silly, pathetic, sentimental and selfish mixture one is at +nineteen;--and Mamma said that he was that ideal; and he said nothing; +so I believed her! Poor Dick! He was in love, I think, really, and not a +bit with himself, and with only enough articulateness to ask me to marry +him; and of course he was, and is, very good-looking. You know Mamma. +She has married us all off very well, they say; you know how they say +it. In her determination to ensconce the family type comfortably she is +as careless of the single life as nature itself. In this case what +appeared to be a very cosy niche offered itself for me and she shoved me +into it. I have grown up since then; that is all my story." + +"They are terrible, terrible, such marriages," said Mrs. Drent, looking +away. + +Her tone struck Milly, with all her consciousness of pathos, as perhaps +a little misplaced. "Terrible? No, hardly that, I think. I did believe +that I loved him. He did love me." + +"You were a child who did not know herself, nor what she was doing." + +"Yes; that is true." + +"And it is terrible for him if he still loves you." + +"Oh," said Milly, with another sigh, "if you can call it love. He is +rather dismayed by the situation; sorry that we don't hit it off better, +as he would express it; jocosely resigned to what he would call my +unkindness and queerness. But as for tragedy, suffering;--one can't +associate such perturbing things with imperturbable Dick. I haven't to +reproach myself with having hurt his life seriously, and, Heaven knows! +I don't reproach his simplicity and harmlessness for having broken mine. +Marriage and a wife were incidents--incidents only--to him, and if they +have failed to be satisfactory incidents, he has other far more +absorbing interests in his life to take his mind off the breakdown of +his domestic happiness. Indeed, domesticity, when he cares to avail +himself of it, is always there in its superficial forms and ceremonies. +I can't pretend to love him, but I take care of his money and his house, +I entertain his friends, I give him his tea at breakfast and a decorous +kiss when he comes back from shooting animals in some savage country. +One could hardly call us separated, so discreetly do I bridge the chasm +with all the conventional observances. Thank Heaven! the shooting is his +one great passion, so that he is usually wandering happily in distant +jungles and not requiring too many _tęte-ŕ-tętes_ at breakfast of me." + +"He is probably very good and kind," said Mrs. Drent, "but it is +incredible that such a man should be married to such a woman as you." + +Again Milly gazed for a moment, aware of inappropriateness. "You have a +very high ideal of marriage, haven't you?" she said. Mrs. Drent's +husband had died five years before, and her baby when it was born. She +wore black, exquisite and unobtrusive always, and, unobtrusively, she +was known to be inconsolable. Yet Milly had heard it whispered that +Gilbert Drent had married her for her money and that, charming person +though he had been, she had passionately idealized him. There was, +therefore, with these memories at the back of her mind, something +painful as well as pathetic to her in the voice in which Mrs. Drent, +crimsoning deeply, said: "My own marriage was ideal. I don't understand +marriage unless it is ideal." + +There was a silence after that for a moment and then Milly said, "It +must be wonderful to have such a memory. All I know is that I wish with +all my heart I had never married Dick, and I believe with all my heart +that one shouldn't marry unless everything is there." + +"That is it," said Mrs. Drent, "everything must be there for it to be +right;--affinity, and understanding, and devotion. Some women can find +enough in the mere fact of a home and a shared life to be satisfied +without them; but not a woman like you." + +"I think you idealize me," Milly said smiling a little sadly; "but I +believe in that too. I don't claim at all any remarkable individuality; +but what I have Dick doesn't understand at all, doesn't even see. He +goes blundering about the dullest, most distant parks and preserves of a +castle; that is as near as he ever gets to the castle, such as it is, of +my personality. And he doesn't really care about the castle; it hardly +worries him that he can't find it. There might be wonderful pictures on +its walls, and jewels in its cabinets, and music in its chambers; but +even if he got inside and were able to see and hear, he wouldn't care a +bit about them; he would say: 'Awfully nice,' and look for the +smoking-room. And there," said Milly, pressing her hands together while +her eyes filled suddenly with tears, "there is the little tragedy. For +of course every woman thinks that she has pictures and jewels and music, +and longs--oh longs!--to show them to the one, the one person who will +love to see and hear. And when she finds that no one sees or hears, or +knows, even, that there is anything to look for, then the music dies, +and the pictures fade, and the jewels grow dim, and at last everything +magical vanishes from life and she sees herself, not as an enchanted +castle, but as a first-class house in Mayfair, with all the latest +improvements;--as much a matter of course, as much a convenience, as +unmysterious and as unalluring as the telephone, the hot water pipes and +the electric lighting. It is only as if in a dream--a far, far +dream--that she remembers the castle, and feels, sometimes, within her, +the ruins, the empty ruins." + +"Oh--my dear!" breathed Mrs. Drent. It was as if she couldn't help it, +as if, shaken from her passionate reserve, she must show her very heart. +She leaned round the table and took one of Milly's hands. "Don't--don't +let the magic vanish! There's nothing else in life! All the rest is +death. It's only when we are in the castle--with our music and our +pictures and our jewels--that we are alive. You know it; you feel it; +it's what makes the difference between the real and the unreal people. +You are one of the real ones, I saw it at once; you aren't meant to +wither out and to become crisp and shallow. Don't cease to believe in +the pictures, the jewels, the music. They are there. _I_ see. _I_ hear." + +"How--_sweet_ of you!" faltered Milly. + +She was startled, she was touched, she, who rarely felt it, felt +shyness. She had known that this dark, still woman was observing her, +and had known, for all the other's reserve, that the observation was not +antagonistic. Something in Mrs. Drent had made her feel that it would be +easy, a relief, to talk to her about all one's miseries and desolations. +But the sudden leap of spiritual fire found her unprepared. She was a +little ashamed, as though her own reality were somewhat unreal beside +Mrs. Drent's belief in it. There had been something pleasant in the +tracing of her little tragedy, something sweet in the thought of that +sad castle of her soul, with its stilled music, its fading enchantments; +but Mrs. Drent had seen only the tragedy; and had felt the danger of +withering, of becoming acquiescent and commonplace, with an intensity of +which she herself was incapable. Such response, such understanding, +might well take one's breath away. + +This scene was the beginning of their long friendship. It was a charming +friendship. Milly Quentyn, for all the clouds of her background, was a +creature of sunshine, of sunshine in a mist, a creature of endearing +fluctuations. Indeed, Christina told her afterwards, when they analyzed +the beginnings, it had been her childlike radiance, her smiles, her air +as of rifts of blue over a rainy landscape--(for everybody knew that +Dick and Milly Quentyn didn't hit it off)--it had been these sweet, +these doubly pathetic qualities that had first attracted her. "I am not +easily attracted," said Christina. "Had there been a languishing hint of +the _femme incomprise_ about you, any air of self-pity, I should never +have so longed to take care of you, to try to help to make you happier. +But you were made for happiness and beauty, and if you didn't succeed in +keeping them one saw that it would hurt you dreadfully. It was that that +so appealed." + +And Milly confessed to Christina that she had been at first a good deal +afraid of her, as the distinguished young poetess, and had thought of +her as a sombre and humourless little personage, only reassuring in +being so enchantingly well-dressed. + +In Christina Drent's poetry the numbness that had descended upon her +after her husband's death had found a partial awakening. The poems were +not great things, but they were written without a touch of artifice. +They were sudden, spontaneous and swift, and it was as if, in reading +them, one heard a distant wail or saw across a bleak sky the flight of +an unknown bird. In her own little world of fashion they had made her a +tolerably famous figure. But it was an echo only of her regrets and +longings that Christina was able to put into her poems, all perhaps that +she chose to put; they were never intimate or personal. The essence of +her was that passionate reserve and, with it, that passionate longing to +devote herself, lavishly, exclusively, upon one idolized and, +inevitably, idealized object. She was full of a fervour of faith, once +the reserve was broken down, and her idol, high on a pedestal in its +well-built temple, was secure henceforth from overthrow. + +Such an idol her husband had been. Such an idol her child would have +been. The doors of that sanctuary were sealed for ever, the sacred +emptiness for ever empty; Christina could never have remarried. But +beside it rose a second temple, only less fair, and in it, lovingly +enshrined, stood Milly Quentyn. + +Happily Milly was an idol worthy of idealization, perhaps even worthy of +temple-building. She was sweet and tender, in friendship most upright +and loyal. She loved to be loved, to see her own tenderness blossom +about her in responsive tenderness. She was not vain, but she loved +those she cared for to find her exquisite, and to show her that they +did. Like a frail flower, unvisited by sunlight, she could hardly live +without other lives about her, fortifying, expanding her own. Her +disappointment in her husband had turned to something like a wan +disgust. His crude appreciations of her, which, in the first girlish +trust of her married life, she had taken as warrant of all the subtle, +manifold appreciations that she needed, were now offences. Poor Dick +Quentyn blundered deeper and deeper into the quagmire of his wife's +disdain. His was a boyish, unexacting nature. He asked for no great +things, and the lack of even small mercies left him serene. As he had +never thought about himself at all, it did not surprise him that his +wife thought very little of him; he did not, because of it, think less +well of himself. Milly's indifference argued in her a difference from +most women, facilely contented as they usually seemed. It did not change +or harm him or make him either assertive or self-conscious. + +He had soon discovered that the things he cared to talk about wearied +her--sport, the estate, very uncomplex politics or very uncomplex +books; and after a little while he discovered, further, that for him to +try to adapt himself to her, to try to talk about the things she cared +for, exasperated her. She listened, indeed, with a bleak patience, while +he admired, with a genial endeavour to do the right thing, all the wrong +pictures at the shows where they went together. She sat silent, her eyes +aloof, dimly smiling, while he tried to win her interest in a very jolly +book,--watered Dumas, as a rule, decantered into modern bottles. He saw +that she made an effort to care about the big game he shot--the hall and +dining-room bristled with trophies, one walked over them everywhere--and +she looked at pictures of them in the books of travel he eagerly put +before her; but it was as pictures that they interested her, remotely, +not as animals suitable for shooting. + +Dick Quentyn, with an unmysterious, undifficult wife, could have been a +very gracefully affectionate husband; his manners were as charming as +his mind was blundering; but with this chill young nymph any attempt at +marital pettings and caressings seemed clumsy and grotesque. With Milly, +he soon felt it, the barrier between their minds was inevitably a +barrier shutting him out from even these manifestations of tenderness. +He was not at all dull in feeling that; not at all dull in his quick +withdrawal before her passive distaste; not dull in knowing that if he +were not to withdraw the distaste would become more than negative. He +had now, cheerfully, it seemed, recognized that his marriage was a +failure and, as Milly had said, it did not seem, after an unpleasant +wrench or two when he did show an uncontrollable grimace of pain, to +make very much difference to him. She endured him; she did not dislike +him at all--at a distance; and, very gaily, with a debonair manner of +perfect trust, he kept at a distance. He travelled constantly, and it +was rarely that he required her to pour out his tea for him. + +Milly poured out his tea for a fortnight during Christina's first visit +to Chawlton House, the Quentyns' country-place. Christina looked forward +to meeting her friend's inappropriate husband almost with trembling. She +felt that she might be called to the great and happy mission of +reconciliation, that Milly might have been mistaken and Dick +undervalued. Milly's trust in her and dependence upon her had grown with +leaps and bounds, and she hoped that with tact and time she might do +much to rebuild the broken life, if there were materials with which to +build it. The first glance at Dick showed her the futility of such +hopes. He was a dear; that at once was obvious to her; and he was +delightful looking; his small head well set on broad shoulders, his +short nose expressive of courage and character; his grey eyes as free +from all malice and uncharitableness as they were from introspection. +But he was a boy, a kind, good boy, an ingenuous, well-mannered +materialist, living, as it were, by automatic functions, and as +incapable of spiritual initiative as he was of evil. What ground of +meeting could there be between him and her Milly, compact as she was of +subtleties, profundities and possibilities? No; Dick offered no +materials for the building of a shrine, and unless marriage was a shrine +Christina could not contemplate it. There had been a deep instinct, like +one of nature's cruel yet righteous laws, in Milly's withdrawal; to have +consented, to have compromised, would have been to stifle and stultify +herself. + +Christina so justified her, and yet it pained her that Milly, in her +treatment of her husband, should be almost unbeautiful. The streak of +hardness, almost of cruelty, like nature's own, showing itself in her +darling, distressed her. She did not care so much about Dick's very +problematic discomfort. He showed none; he talked with great good +spirits, made cheerful, obvious jokes and looked eminently sane, fresh +and picturesque in his out-of-door attire. Yet even he must know that +every fibre of Milly's face, every tone of her voice, expressed her +indifference and her oppression. "Really, dear, you are not kind," +Christina protested. Milly opened innocent eyes. "You think I'm wrong +about Dick?" + +"Not wrong about him; wrong to him. Surely, just because you are so +right in what you feel to be impossibility, you can afford to be kind." + +"You think I behave badly to Dick? Oh, Christina!--you are displeased +with me?" + +They were very sincere with each other, these two, and bared their souls +to each other relentlessly. + +"Only because you are so dear to me, Milly." Mrs. Drent flushed a little +as she looked tenderly at her friend. "Only because I want to see you +always right, exquisitely right. You make me uncomfortable when you are +not. He has done you no wrong. Why should you treat him as you did this +morning, using me as a foil to show him his own stupidity? Not that I +do find him stupid, Milly; only very, very simple." + +"I know it! Oh, I know it!" Milly wailed. "If only he had done me a +wrong it would be so much easier! He irritates me so unspeakably, and I +seem to feel it more, now that I have you. That laboured chaffing of you +at breakfast--how could you have borne it? I can't pretend amusement, +and chaff is his only conception of human intercourse. I know I'm +horrid--I know it; but it is the long, long accumulations of repressed +exasperation that have made me so--worse than exasperations. I remember, +during the first months of our married life, when I was becoming +dreadfully frightened, catching glimpses on every side of my awful +mistake--I remember once kissing him and saying something playful that +hid an appeal for comfort, comprehension, reassurance. And do you know, +he answered me with a chaffing jest--a stupid, stupid jest--some piece +of would-be gallant folly. It was like a dagger!" + +"Perhaps it pleased him so much, your kissing him, that it made him +shy," Christina suggested, but Milly said:--"Dick shy! Oh no, he is not +sensitive enough for shyness. He doesn't feel things at all as you, with +your exquisiteness, imagine. He isn't shy at all, and I'm afraid he is +sometimes immensely, hideously stupid." + +After all, as Christina came to see, Dick's inevitable loss was her own +gain. Milly, who could not be her husband's, was hers, almost as a child +might have been. Christina, for the first time in her life, knew the +intoxicating experience of being sought out and needed. It was Milly who +turned to her; Milly who put out appealing hands, like a lonely child; +who nestled her head on her shoulder, contentedly sighing, as she begged +her please, please not to go until she had to--and couldn't she, +wouldn't she, stay on until the winter? + +Why shouldn't she? Her own life was empty. It ended in her passing most +of the winter with Milly in the country after Dick had gone off to +India. It was a blissful winter, the happiest, in reality, that +Christina had ever known, though she was not aware of this nor aware +that it was the first time in her life that she was the recipient of as +much devotion as she gave. They read and rode and walked and talked and +carried on energetic reforms and charities in the village. Christina was +full of ardent enthusiasms which infected Milly. In spite of her +physical delicacy, for she had a weak heart, she showed an enterprise +and endurance that Milly was not capable of. The winter went by and life +was full of significance. + +Then Christina asked Milly to come and stay with her in London for the +spring, and so, by degrees, they both came to think of home as the being +together. Christina's little house in Sloane Street became a centre of +discriminating hospitality; they had an equal talent for selection and +recognition, and Milly possessed the irradiating attractive qualities +that Christina lacked. Together they became something of a touchstone +for the finer, more recondite elements in the vortex of the larger +London life. All their people seemed to come to them through some +pleasant affinity, the people who had done clever things; the people +who, better still, shone only with latent possibilities and were the +richer for their reticences; and dear, comfortable, unexacting people +who were not particularly clever, but responsive, appreciative and +genuine. + +Christina still wrote a little, but not so much. She and Milly studied +and travelled and, in the country, at the proper seasons, rusticated. +With all its harmony, their life did not want its more closely knitting +times of fear, as when Milly was dangerously ill and Christina nursed +her through the long crisis, or when Christina's heart showed alarming +symptoms and hurried them away to German specialists. + +There were funny little quarrels, too, funny to look back upon, though +very painful at the moment; for Milly could be fretful, and Christina +violent in reproach. The swift reconciliations atoned for all, when, +holding each other's hands, they laughed at each other, each eager to +take the blame. Certain defects they came to recognize and to take into +account, tolerant, loving comprehension, the ripest stage of affection, +seeming achieved. Milly was capricious, had moods of gloom and +disconsolateness when nothing seemed to interest her, neither books nor +music nor people, not even Christina, and when, sunken in a deep +armchair, she would listlessly tap her fingers on the chair-arms, her +eyes empty of all but a monotonous melancholy. These moods always hurt +Christina,--Milly herself seemed hardly aware of them, certainly was not +aware of their hurting,--and she hid the hurt in a gentle sympathy that +averted tactful eyes from her friend's retirement. But she did not quite +understand; for she never wished to retire into herself and away from +Milly. + +And Milly discovered that Christina could be unreasonable--so she +tolerantly termed a smouldering element in her friend's nature; +Christina, in fact, could be fiercely jealous. They shared all their +friends, many of them dear friends, but dear on a certain level, below +the illuminated solitude where they two stood in their precious +isolation. And Milly protested to herself that she was the last person +to wish that isolation disturbed. No one knew her, understood her, +helped and loved her as Christina did; there was no one like Christina, +no one so strong, so generous, so large-natured. Why then should +Christina, like a foolish school-girl, show unmistakably--her efforts to +hide it only making her look dim-eyed, white-lipped--a sombre misery if +Milly allowed anyone to absorb her? This really piteous infirmity was +latent in Christina; she did not show it at all during the first years +of their companionship; it grew with her growing devotion to Milly. +Milly discovered it when she asked little Joan Ashby to go to Italy with +them. Christina, at the proposal, had been all glad, frank acquiescence. +Unsuspectingly Milly petted and made much of the girl whose adoration +was sweet to her. She went about with her sight-seeing, when Christina +said that she was tired and did not care to see things, not remembering +that when they were alone together Christina had never seemed tired. She +laughed and talked till all hours of the night with Joan, when Christina +had gone to bed saying that she was sleepy. All had seemed peaceful and +normal. Milly was stupefied when, by degrees, a consciousness of a +difference in Christina crept upon her. + +Christina smiled much, was alert, crisply responsive; but ice was in the +smile, the response was galvanized. She was suffering--the realization +rushed upon Milly once her innocent eyes were opened, and all her +strength went to hiding the suffering. Milly, watching, felt a helpless +alarm, really a shyness, gaining upon her in the face of this +development. She found Christina sobbing in her room one night when she +cut short her talk with Joan and came upon her unexpectedly. + +Milly's tender heart rose at a bound over alarm and shyness. But when +she ran to her, Christina pushed her fiercely away. "You know! Of course +you know! Go back to her if you like her better!" + +She was like a frantic child. Milly could have laughed, had not the +exhibition in her grave, staunch Christina frightened her too much, +made her too terribly sorry and almost ashamed for her. + +Later, when Christina, laughing quiveringly at her own folly, yet +confessing her own powerlessness before it, put her arms around her neck +and begged for forgiveness, Milly in all her soft, humorous reproaches +daring now to tease and rally, had yet the chill of a new discovery to +reckon with. A weight seemed to have come upon her as she realised how +much Christina cared. It was as if Christina had confessed that she +cared so much more than she, Milly, could ever do. She had not before +thought of their friendship as a responsibility. It was too dear, and +silly and pathetic in Christina, but it seemed to manacle her. + +She must be very careful to like no Joans too much in the future. +Christina protested passionately that she must talk to Joan and love +Joan--any number of Joans, young or old, male or female, as much as +before, more than before, since now her folly was dissipated by +confession; but Milly in her heart knew better than to believe her. She +filled Christina's life completely, to the exclusion of any other deep +affection, and Christina could never be happy unless her friend's life +were equally undivided. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DICK + + +Four years passed, and during them Dick Quentyn had wandered about the +world, not at all disconsolately. He spent several seasons with friends +in India; he went to Canada and to Japan; when he came home he filled +his time largely with shooting and hunting. + +It was almost as a guest that, in the country and in his own house, he +passed a few weeks with Milly and Christina and entirely as a guest that +he dined now and then with them in London. + +It was a rather ludicrous situation, but he did not seem depressed or +abashed by it. Christina always felt that by some boyish intuition he +recognized in her a friendly sympathy, a sympathy which he must +certainly see as terribly detached, since it was she who had now fixed +definitely Milly's removal from his life, made it permanent and given it +a meaning. But it was a sympathy very friendly, even slightly humorous. +He would catch her dark eyes sometimes as he sat, a guest at her +dinner-table--(he never took Milly in, all the negations of married life +were still his)--and in them he saw and responded to an almost +affectionate playfulness. He evidently saw the joke and it amused him. +Christina often reflected that Dick was a dear, in all his +impossibility, and that Milly was not nearly nice enough to him. But +Milly was nicer than she had been; the new effectiveness and happiness +of her own life made it less of an effort to be so. From her illumined +temple she smiled at him, a smile that gained in sweetness and lost its +chill. She handed on to him a little of the radiance. + +"Since we can't hit it off together, Milly, I must say there is no one +you could have chosen for a friend that I could have liked so much as +Mrs. Drent," Dick said to his wife one evening in the drawing-room after +dinner. They often had an affable chat before the wondering eyes of the +world. Milly chatted with great affability. Dick, as Christina so often +reminded her, was a dear. No one could have less suggested shackles. + +"Now, Dick," she said, smiling, "what do _you_ find to like in +Christina?" Even in her new tolerance there lurked touches of the old +irrepressible disdain. + +Dick, twisting his moustache, contemplated her. "Do you mean that I'm +not capable of liking anything or anybody that you do?" he inquired. +Milly flushed, though the mildness of her husband's tone, one of purely +impersonal interest, suggested no conscious laying of a coal of fire +upon her head. It was what she had meant. That Dick should like +Christina, Christina Dick, was wholly delightful, but that Dick should +seem to like what she liked for the same reasons irked her a little. It +was rather as if he had expressed enthusiasms about her favourite Brahms +Rhapsody. She rather wanted to show him that any idea he might entertain +of a community of tastes was illusory. How could Dick like a Brahms +Rhapsody, he whose highest ideals of music were of something sedative +after a day's hard riding? And how could Dick really like Christina? If +he really did, and for any of her reasons, there must be between them +the link, if ever so small a one, of a community of taste--a link that +she had never recognized. + +"I think that we could only like the same things in a very different +way," she confessed. "Why do you like Christina?" + +He did not reply at once, and she went on, looking at him, smiling--they +were sitting side by side on a little sofa; "it isn't her charm, for +you think her ugly." + +"Yes; she's ugly certainly," Dick assented, quite as dully as she had +hoped he would, "though her figure is rather neat." + +Milly's smile shifted to its habitual kindly irony. "She is subtle and +delicate and sensitive," she said, rehearsing to herself as much as to +him all the reasons why Dick could not really like Christina. "Her +truths would never blunder and her silences never bore." "As Dick's +did," was in her mind. It was cruel to be so conscious of the contrast +when he looked at her with such unconsciousness; to reassure herself +with the expression of it was rather like mocking something blind and +deaf and trusting. A sudden pity confused her, and, with a little +artificiality of manner which masked the confusion, she went on: "One +could never be unhappy without her knowing it, and then one would be +glad she did know, for she can sympathise without hurting you with +sympathy. She feels everything that is beautiful and rare, everything +that is sad and tragic; she feels everything and sees everything, and +she sees and feels in order to act, to give, to help. Is it all this you +like in her?" Milly finished. + +Dick Quentyn still looked mildly at his wife. "Yes; I suppose so," he +said. + +"You see these things in Christina?" + +"In a different way," he smiled. It was almost a very clever smile. + +Milly might have felt startled at it had he not gone on very +simply:--"One sees that she is such a thoroughly good sort; so loyal; +she would go through thick and thin for anyone she cared about; and so +kind, as you say; she would talk as nicely to a dull person as to a +clever one; she'd never snub one or make one feel a duffer." + +For a moment Milly was silent. "Do you mean that I used to snub you--and +make you feel a duffer?" she then asked. + +"Oh, I say, Milly!" Dick, genuinely distressed, looked his negative. +"You didn't suppose?----" + +"I know that I was often horrid." + +"Well, if you were, you didn't suppose I'd tell you in that roundabout +fashion. Besides, all that's done with long ago." He looked away from +her now and down at the floor. + +Again Milly was silent. Strangely to herself, she felt her eyes fill +with tears. She waited to conquer them before saying very gently: +"Dick, do forgive me for having been so horrid." + +He stared up at her. "Forgive you, Milly?" The request seemed to leave +him speechless. + +She was able to smile at him. "You do?" + +"You never were. It's more to the point for me to ask you to forgive +me." + +"For what, pray?" She had to control a quiver in her voice. + +"Oh--for everything--for being so wrong, so altogether the wrong person, +you know," said Dick, smiling too. He again looked away from her, across +the room, now, at Christina; and, after a silence, filled for Milly with +perplexing impulses, he added: "But the real reason I like her so much +is that she is so tremendously fond of you." + +Milly had to bring her thoughts back with an effort to Christina; she +must let his remark about being forgiven remain as casual as he had +evidently felt it; and it was something else that he had said which more +emphatically held her attention. She thought of it all the evening, +after he had gone; and, while her hair was being brushed, she looked at +her reflection in the mirror and saw herself in that time, "long ago." +It was as if Dick had shown her a dead thing, and had turned the key on +it with his quiet words of acquiescence. + +She looked in the mirror. Surrounded by the softly falling radiance of +her hair, her face was still girlish in tint and outline; but already +her eyes had in them the depth of time lived through, her cheeks and +lips were differently sweet; and as the realization of time's swift +passage stole upon her, a vague, strong protest filled her, a sense of +deep, irremediable disappointment with life. + +Dick Quentyn went that winter to Africa, and Milly gave her husband a +farewell all kindness and composure, when he came to bid Christina and +her good-bye. Composure was a habit, and she was unaware of a new +discontent and protest that stirred beneath it, though aware that the +kindness she felt for her husband was greater than what her words of +farewell expressed. + +Dick always wrote punctually, once a fortnight, to his wife, short +bulletins, to which, as accurately and as laconically, she responded. +This winter the bulletins were often delayed, sometimes altogether +missing. + +Dick had joined an exploring party, and his allusions, by the way, to +"Narrow shaves," "Nasty rows with natives," and "A rather beastly +fever," explained these irregularities. + +"He really ought to write a book about it. They have evidently been in +danger, and had an heroic time of it altogether," Christina said, during +a sympathetic perusal of these documents which were always handed on to +her, as, for any intimacy they contained, they might have been handed on +to anybody. They began--"Dear Milly"; and ended--"Yours aff'ly, D. Q." +The "affectionately" was always abbreviated. + +"I suppose they really are in a good deal of danger," said Milly, +nibbling at her toast,--they were at breakfast. + +"That, I suppose, was what they went for," Christina replied, her eyes +passing over the letter. + +Milly, leaning her elbow on the table, watched and read. "Poor Dick!" +she said presently. + +Christina had laid down the letter and was going on with her coffee. + +"Why poor, dear? It's what he enjoys." + +"If he were killed to-morrow I suppose it would hardly affect us more +than the death of any of the men who had tea here yesterday." + +"Milly!" said Christina. She put down her cup. + +"Would it?" Milly insisted. "Would you really mind more?" + +"Your husband--my child!" This elder-sister mode of address was often +Christina's. + +"Why should a husband one hasn't been able to live with count for as +much as a friend one is glad to see?" + +"Because he has counted for so much." + +"But, Christina, you can't deny that you would hardly be sorry, and that +you would not expect me to be sorry--only solemn." + +"I should expect you to be both." + +"Sorry because a man I have no affection for--a man I have almost +hated--is dead?" + +"Yes; if only for those reasons; and that it should be only for those +reasons is what you meant when you said: 'Poor Dick,'" Christina +demonstrated with an air of finality that showed her displeased with +what she felt to be an unbecoming levity. + +Milly was thinner, paler; Christina noticed that, though she did not +notice how often she returned to the subject of her husband's danger and +the irony of her own indifference to it. And Milly's listless moods +followed one other so closely this winter as to become almost permanent. +She was evidently bored. More and more frequently, when they were +talking over their _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ tea, the very dearest hour of the day, +Christina saw that Milly did not hear her. After these four years of +comprehension and mutual forbearance the apparent indifference or +preoccupation could not, at first, seriously disturb her; hurt her it +always did. Picking up a book she would read and cease to talk. The mood +always passed the sooner for not being recognised, and Milly would come +out of the cloud, unaware of it, sunnier, sweeter, more responsive than +before. But this winter she did not come out. That she should be so +bored, so apathetic, began to disturb as well as to hurt Christina. +There came a quick pulsing of fear; did some new attachment account for +it? Her mind, in a swift, flame-like running around the circle of +possibilities, saw them all as impossibilities, and put the fear away. + +One day, taking Milly's face between her hands, yet feeling, strangely, +a sudden shyness that made the complete confession of her alarms too +difficult, she asked her if she were unhappy. + +"Unhappy, dear Christina? Why should I be?" Milly put an affectionate +arm about her friend's neck. + +"But are you? Is there anything you would like to do? Anywhere you +would like to go? I am sure that you are frightfully bored," Christina +smiled. "Confess that you are." + +"Have I seemed bored? No. I can't think of anything that would interest +me. One comes on these Sahara-like times in life, you know--stretches of +dull sands. Or is it that I am getting old, Christina?" + +"You old? You, child!" + +"I feel old," said Milly. "Really old and tired." + +Christina still smiled at her, but smiled over a sudden choking in her +throat. It was not sympathy for her friend's _Weltschmertz_; it was the +recognition of something in her eyes, her voice--something she could not +analyze, as if a faint barrier wavered, impalpable, formless, between +them, and as if, did she say that it was there, it would change suddenly +to stone and perhaps shut her out for ever. + +What was it in Milly that made her afraid that to cry out her fears +might make them permanent? She battled with them all the winter. They +had arranged to go to Sicily and Greece for the spring, and Christina +looked forward to this trip as a definite goal. It would break the +spell, turn the difficult corner,--for all her fierce idealism she was +too wise a woman not to know that every human relation must have +corners; and, indeed, in talking over plans, getting up information, +burnishing historical memories, Milly showed some of her old girlish +eagerness. She and Christina even read the Greek tragedies over +together, in order, Milly said, that they should steep themselves in the +proper atmosphere. It was therefore with a shock of bitter surprise and +disappointment that Christina, only a fortnight before the time fixed +for their departure, heard Milly announce, with evident openness, though +she flushed slightly, that she thought she would rather put off the +trip; she would rather spend April at Chawlton; and, at once going on, +looking clearly at her friend: "You see, dear, I have just had a letter +from Dick. He gets back next week and is going down there. He says that +he wants to see the primroses after that horrid Africa;--quite a +poetical touch, isn't it,--for Dick! And I think it would be really a +little too brutal of me, wouldn't it, if I sailed off without seeing him +at all--without pouring out his tea for even one week." + +Milly was smiling, really with her own soft gaiety; the flush had gone. +Christina was convinced of her own misinterpretation. Duty had called +Milly away from pleasure, and she had feared, for a moment, that her +friend would think too much sacrifice to it. + +"Of course, dearest, of course we will put it off," she said. "And of +course we will go down to welcome home the wanderer. It is sweet of you +to have thought of it." + +Milly kissed her. "You see I am becoming quite a virtuous woman," she +said. "And it is a pity to miss the primroses." + +The packing projects turned topsy-turvy, servants to be redistributed, +Christina saw to all, while Milly, with still her new cheerfulness, +flitted in the spring sunshine from shop to shop, decking herself in +appropriate butterfly garments. They were to get to Chawlton only a day +or two before Dick's arrival. + +The gardens, the lawns, the woods, were radiant, and Milly, in the +environment of jocund revival, shared the radiance. All barriers seemed +gone, were it not that Christina, full of strange presages, felt the +very radiance to make one. + +Milly gathered primroses in the woods, hatless, her white dress and fair +head shining among the young greys and greens. She came in laden with +flowers, and the house smiled with their pale gold, their innocent and +fragile gaiety. "Isn't the country delicious?" she said to Christina. +"Much nicer than dreary Greece and tiresome ruins, isn't it?" + +"Much," said Christina, who was finding the country, the spring, the +sunshine, the very primroses, full of a haunting melancholy. + +"I have a thirst for simplicity and freshness and life," Milly went on, +looking at the sky, "and how one feels them all here. Oh, the cuckoo, +Christina, isn't it a sound that makes one think of tears and +happiness!" + +Of tears only, not of happiness, thought Christina; of regret--regret +for something gone; lost for ever. The cuckoo's cry pierced her all day +long. + +Simplicity and freshness and life; Christina did not recall the words +definitely when she saw Dick Quentyn spring up the steps to greet his +wife at the threshold of the house; but something unformulated echoed in +her mind with a deepened sense of presage. + +Milly stretched out both her hands. "Welcome home, Dick," she said. And +she held her cheek to be kissed. There was no restraint or shyness in +her eyes. She looked at the bronzed, stalwart, smiling being with as +open and happy a gaze as though he had been an oak-tree. The happiness +of gaze was new; but then it was only part of Milly's revival; and +then, he had been in danger. Christina took comfort, she knew not for +what. + +"It is good to be at home again," Dick asseverated more than once during +the day; and, "I say, how jolly those primroses look," he exclaimed in +the long drawing-room. + +Milly, her arm in Christina's, stood beside him. "I gathered them, Dick, +all of them, and arranged them, in honour of your return." + +"Oh, come now!" Dick Quentyn ejaculated with humorous incredulity. + +Milly smiled, making no protest. He, she and Christina walked about the +grounds. Christina had felt a curious shrinking from joining them, a +shrinking, in any normal condition of things between husband and wife, +so natural that it was only with a shock of amazement that she +recognized its monstrousness as applied to the actual one. She leave +Milly alone with her husband! What a revolution in all their relations +would such a withdrawal have portended! To leave them would have been to +yield to morbid imaginations, to make them almost real; at all events to +make them visible to Milly; and Milly certainly did not see them. Milly, +indeed, seemed to see nothing. + +She still held Christina's hand drawn through her arm while they walked +and listened to Dick's laconic and much prompted recital of his African +adventures. + +"I do hope you won't go off on any more terrible expeditions of this +sort for a very long time, Dick," said Milly. "I expected every morning +to read in the newspaper that you'd been eaten by savages." + +"Well, I wasn't among cannibals, you know," literal Dick objected, "and +I think I'll have to have another brush at it. Harvey is going out in a +month or so." + +"And you are going with him?" + +"Well, I rather think I shall," said Dick. "He is a splendid fellow, and +it seems my sort of thing." + +Before dinner, in the drawing-room, he joined Christina, who was sitting +alone looking out at the evening. "As inseparable as ever, you and +Milly, aren't you?" he said, coming and standing over her, his genial +eyes upon her. + +"Just as inseparable," she assented, looking up at him. She smiled with +an emphasis that was faintly defiant, though neither she nor Dick +recognized defiance. + +"Milly is looking a little fagged, don't you think," he went on. "Has +she been doing too much this winter? You are frightfully busy, aren't +you? Milly always likes going at a great pace, I know." + +"I should not have thought there was anything noticeable," said +Christina. "She was a little fagged, perhaps; but the country has +already refreshed her wonderfully." + +"London always does pull one down, I hate the beastly place," said Dick. +And he went on: "She is being awfully nice to me. I don't remember her +ever having been so nice--since, I mean, we decided that we couldn't hit +it off. One would really say that she rather liked seeing me!" and Dick +smiled, as if the joke were very comical. + +"You have been in such danger. Milly can but feel relief." Her voice was +full of an odd repression, discouragement, but Dick was altogether too +innocent of any hope to be aware of discouragement or repression. + +"She was worried about me? Really? That was awfully good of her," he +said. + +Christina was remembering that Milly had only expressed indifference as +to Dick's danger. + +The ensuing evening was, to Christina, uncanny in its unapparent +strangeness. She and Dick were both aware of novelty and Milly was aware +of none. Her cheerful kindness was as natural and spontaneous as though +she had been a girl greeting a long absent brother. She questioned +Dick, and, as her questions showed interest--interest and a knowledge +horribly surprising to Christina--Dick talked with unusual fluency. +Christina looked at them and listened to them, while Milly, leaning an +arm on the table, gazed with gravely shining eyes at her husband. The +arm, the eyes, the lines of the throat, were very lovely. Christina's +mind fixed upon that beauty, and she wished that Milly would not lean so +and look so. Milly, again, was unaware. It was Christina who was aware; +Christina who was quivering with latent, unformulated consciousness. +After dinner, Milly and Dick still talked; she still listened. She knew +nothing about Africa. + +For three or four days this was the situation; a reunited brother and +sister; a friend, for the time being, necessarily incidental. Then, +suddenly, the presages grew plainly ominous. Was it her own realization +of loneliness, of not being needed, that so overwhelmed her? or the +sense of some utter change in her darling--a change so gradual that +until its accomplishment it had seemed madness to recognize it? The +moment of recognition came one day, when, on going into the library, +she found Dick and Milly sitting side by side at the table, their heads +bent over a map; and they were not looking at the map; they were looking +at each other; still like brother and sister, but such fond brother and +sister, while they smiled and talked. + +Milly turned her head and saw Christina, and Christina knew that some +evident adjustment went over her own face, for Milly jumped up, eagerly, +too eagerly, and pulled a chair back for her and said; "Sit down, +dearest. Dick is telling me adventures." + +What was it that drove into Christina's heart like a knife? Milly smiled +at her, eagerly smiled; and yet she was miles and miles away; had she +been in the jungles of Africa with her husband she could not have been +further; and she was greeting her as though she were a guest, greeting +her with conventional warmth and courteous sweetness. Christina was not +wanted; through the warmth and sweetness she felt that. + +Smiling, she said she had come for a book. Going to the book-cases she +sought for one accurately--why she should seek, as though she had come +in with the intention of finding it, a volume of frothy eighteenth +century French memoirs she could not have told--and, smiling again upon +them with unconstrained lightness, she left them. She walked steadily to +her room, locked the door, and, falling upon her knees beside the bed, +broke into an agony of tears. + + * * * * * + +The end had come; not of Christina's love, not of her need, but of +Milly's. At first her mind refused to face the full realization--groped +among the omens of the past, would not see in Dick, even now, the cause +of all. She could trace the gradual, the dreadful severance; Milly's +slow loss of interest in her and in their life together. It was at first +only for the fact of loss that she wept, that loss, only, she could look +at. But by degrees, as her stifled sobs grew quieter, she was able to +think, to think clearly, fiercely, with desperate snatchings at hope, +while she crouched by the bed; pushing back her hair from her forehead; +pressing her hot temples with icy hands. + +Why should Milly lose interest? How could she? How could love and truest +sympathy, truest understanding--how could they fail? + +"Love begets love. Love begets love," she whispered under her breath, +not knowing that she spoke, and, in this hour of shipwreck, clinging +unconsciously to such spars and fragments of childish, unreasoning trust +as her memory tossed her. No other friendship threatened hers; she was +first as friend, irrevocably, she knew it. First as friend did not mean +to Milly, could never mean, the deep-dwelling devotion that it meant to +her; but such affinity and attachment as Milly felt could not die +without some other cause than mere weariness. And the truth no longer to +be evaded broke over her. It was the simplest while the most absurd of +truths. Milly was falling in love; Milly was falling in love with Dick; +and she was frank and happy because she did not know it; and he did not +know it. Like two children with a fresh day of play and sunshine before +them, they were engaged in merry, trivial games, picnics, make-believes, +no thought of sentiment or emotion in them to account for the new +sympathy; but from these games they would return hand in hand, all in +all to each other, bound together in the lover's illusion and needing no +one else. Maps! Travels! Africa! Did they not see these things as silly +toys, as she did? What could Milly care for such toys? That she should +play with them, as if she placed tin soldiers and blew a tin trumpet, +showed the fatal glamour that was upon her; glamour only, a moonshine +mood of vague restlessness and craving. How dignify by the sacred name +of love this sentiment, all made of her weakness, her emotionalism, her +egotism, that swayed her now so ludicrously towards the man whom, +open-eyed, she had rejected and scorned for years? + +Passionate repudiation of the debasement for Milly swept through the +stricken friend and mingled with the throes of her anguish for herself. +For how was she to live without Milly? How could she live as Milly's +formal friend, kept outside the circle of intimate affection, the circle +where, till now, she had reigned alone? Ah! she understood Milly's +nature too well; she saw that with all its sweetness it was slight. +Love, with her, would efface all friendships. Like a delicate, narrow +little vase, her heart could hold but one deep feeling. She would come, +simply, not to care for Christina at all. Would come? Had she not come +already? In her eyes, her smiles, the empty caressing of her voice, was +there not already the most profound indifference? And all the forces of +Christina's nature rose in rebellion. She felt the rebellion like the +onslaught of angels of light against powers of darkness; it was the +ideal doing battle with some primal, instinctive force. She must fight +for Milly and for herself. For she, too, had her claim. She measured +herself beside Dick Quentyn, her needs beside his. His life was +cheerful, contented, complete; hers without Milly would be a warped, a +meaningless, a broken life. Strangely, her thoughts, in all their +anguish, turned in not one reproach upon her friend; rather, her +comprehension, from maternal heights of love, sorrowed over her with +infinite tenderness. For, so she told herself, she could have resigned +her, in spite of her own bereavement, to true companionship, true +fulfilment. But Milly--her Milly--made hers by all these years--in love +with Dick Quentyn! It was a calamity, a disease which had befallen her +darling. Asking no heights, this love would lead her down to contented +levels, and Milly's life, too, in all true senses, would be warped and +meaningless and broken. + +Meanwhile, in the library, Dick said to his wife: "An't I interrupting +you? Don't you read or talk or do something with Mrs. Drent at this time +of the day?" + +And at the question alone, contentedly alone with him as she was, dimly +enlightened, too, by Christina's guarded glance, Milly made a swift, +surprised survey of the situation. She did not want to talk to +Christina; she wanted to go on talking to Dick. She had not as yet +realized that Christina's presence had become an interruption, a burden; +Christina's personality had seemed blurred, merely, and far away. She +was now aware of this, aware, for the first time, of something to hide +from Christina, and a sense of awkwardness and almost of confusion came +upon her. + +"Oh no, you are not interrupting us. Christina and I will have heaps of +time for talking and reading when you are gone," she said, smiling and +blushing faintly. + +Dick, even more unconscious than she of its meaning, gazed at the blush, +and then they went on with their talk about crocodiles. + +When Christina saw Milly again that evening, it was evident to her that +Milly had at last become aware of something changed, and that her own +composure urged Milly into a self-protecting overdemonstrativeness. She +was completely composed. She stood aside, mild, unemphatic, unaware, +seeming not to see, making no effort to hold; and as her desperate dread +thus instinctively armed her, she saw that no other attitude could have +been so efficacious. When she stood aside, Milly was forced to draw her +in; when she pretended to see nothing, Milly must pretend--to her and to +Dick--that there was nothing to see. Milly was afraid of her; that +became apparent to her during the ensuing days, terrible, lovely days of +spring, when, as if with drawn breath and cold, measuring eye, she +crossed an abyss on a narrow plank laid above the emptiness. Milly was +afraid; of her scorn and incredulity, perhaps; perhaps only of her pain. +Milly was cowardly in her shrinking from giving pain; it would be +impossible for her to go to her friend and say:--"I have fallen in love +with my husband, and you and I must part." In that impossibility for +Milly lay her only hope. If Milly and Dick could be held apart, and by +Milly's own cowardice rather than by any word or gesture of her own, the +wretched interlude might pass and Milly come to look back upon it with +shame and amazement and to thank her friend for the strength and control +that had made escape possible. + +And the first-fruits of her strategy were soon apparent. Milly saw less +and less of Dick. Dick, as of old, made no attempt to seek her out and, +obviously, it was now impossible for Milly, with Christina's quiet eyes +upon her, to seek him. Milly took up again the idea of Greece and said +that, after all, they must go that spring. They would all, she gaily +declared, go up to London and depart to their different quarters of the +globe at the same time, Dick to Africa and she and Christina to Greece. +This was said in Dick's presence and he cheerfully acquiesced. Christina +wondered if Milly had not hoped for some protest or suggestion from him. +In Dick's blindness lay, she began to see, an even greater hope than in +Milly's cowardice. Milly could not very well come to her and avow her +love for Dick when Dick, it was evident, did not dream of avowing his +for her. And Milly became aware of this as she did. Her manner towards +Dick changed. She rallied him with a touch of irritability; she scored +off him as she had used to do, by means of Christina; she put forward +Christina and her relation to Christina constantly, and seemed to taunt +him, as of old, with his own inadequacy. All her innocent gaiety was +gone; she hid her deep disquiet under an air of feverish brightness, and +poor stupid Dick, accepting Milly's alteration as he had always accepted +things from her, showed no hurt and no reproach; he merely effaced +himself, cheerfully, once more. + +Christina understood it all and the breathless subterfuges in which +Milly's perturbation concealed itself. She was longing that Dick should +see what she could not show, and that he should break through the web +with an avowal. She was longing that Christina, if Dick remained blind, +should mercifully give Dick and her their chance. Christina knew the +horrible risk she ran in remaining blandly unaware, in continuing to +take Milly at her word, in keeping there, between her and Dick, where +Milly herself placed her. She might part them, but Milly might come to +hate her. + +Milly's plan was carried out: they all went up to town together, Milly +to her friend's house, Dick to his bachelor's chambers. And it was +Christina who asked Dick to come and dine with them the night before he +left for Africa. She maintained every appearance. The very air that +night was electric with the restraints ready to burst into +reverberations which would surprise no one but Dick. Christina herself +was aware of a strange little dart of impatience with him. His stupidity +helped her as nothing else could have helped; yet, while she blessed it, +she could feel for Milly, and actually, while she blessed, resent it. +It was true that she read in his eyes a slight shyness as they rested +upon his wife. He was bewildered, and it was evident he was not happy. +And Milly had dropped her shield of flippancy. She sat silent, absent, +absorbed, looking up at her husband now and then, with curious eyes, +eyes cold and deep and suffering. Christina saw it all. Should she leave +them now, it was inevitable that the revelation would come, and it would +come from Milly. Mutely, in their respective unconsciousness and +consciousness, they were begging her to go; and she sat on. Her +inflexible determination upheld her over the terrible falsity of her +position. Milly, now, must know that she knew; yet she sat on, smiling, +talking, until the hour was late. + +Then, as Dick rose, it was Milly who went towards the barrier that she +herself had raised and showed Dick that it had an unlocked gate. From +her deep knowledge of Milly's nature, Christina could gauge, with a +dreadful accuracy, what the strength of the feeling must be that could +nerve her, rising and sauntering to the door beside him, to say in a +strange, in a nonchalant voice: "How about a walk in the park to-morrow, +Dick? You don't go till the evening, do you?" + +Dick stared for a moment. He was pitiably, mercifully stupid. His stare +might really have been interpreted as one of mere astonishment. Then: + +"Really?" he asked. "Aren't you and Mrs. Drent too busy?" + +"No, indeed. Our arrangements are all made." + +"Shall I come for you here?" + +"Do. At eleven." + +They shook hands, and Dick took Christina's hand. She felt, always, that +Dick looked upon her as a friend. His eyes, now, revealed to her his +boyish wonder and gladness. She and Milly were left alone. Milly, still +with the sauntering step, went to the mantelpiece and touched her hair, +looking in the glass. "Dear me, how late!" she said, her eyes turning to +the clock. "How dreadful of us to have kept poor Dick up so late. Shall +we go to bed, dearest? I'm dreadfully sleepy." + +"You didn't mean me to come for the walk, too, did you?" Christina +asked, in a voice as easy, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "It's our +usual hour;--that's why I ask. But you meant him to understand that you +wanted it to be a _tęte-ŕ-tęte_, didn't you? It's all right. I can go to +Mrs. Pomfret's for my fitting at eleven." + +"But, dearest, of course you are coming," said Milly instantly. + +Their eyes were on each other now, and their faces armed and masked. +Christina measured the depth of estrangement in all that the flexible, +disingenuous acquiescence hid of disappointment, bitterness, even +hatred. + +"Oh no, no, indeed; I think you ought to have your good-bye walk alone," +she insisted. "He will expect it now. I'm sure he thought that you +particularly wanted it to be alone." + +"He couldn't have thought anything so unlikely," said Milly. "It is our +good-bye walk with you." + +So Christina went with them. She felt herself still trembling in every +nerve from the appalling risk she had run, and ran; for which was the +greater risk, that Milly should realize her guile and hate her, or that +Milly and Dick should come to an understanding? She could not tell; nor +where she stood; yet triumph trembled in her fear. She had succeeded. +They had not spoken together. In the park she and Milly bade Dick +good-bye. Dick's train was to go in the early evening. Milly, when they +reached home--and she had talked lightly if not gaily in the +hansom--said that she had rather a headache. She would have her luncheon +in her room and sleep through the afternoon and be fit and fresh for the +play that night. Christina knew in an instant that a last desperate hope +cowered beneath the affected languor and lightness; and it watched her, +feverishly, like the eyes of a tracked animal creeping in an underbrush +past enemies' guns. When she replied, kissing her friend tenderly, that +a good rest was the best of cures for a headache and that she herself +would do some shopping and go to the tea for which they were engaged, +these large, sick eyes of Milly's hope and fear widened and shone with a +recovered security. She wanted to be left alone that afternoon. She +would not go to Dick; Christina knew her too accurately to believe that +possible, and Dick had been too stupid to make it conceivable; but what +Milly hoped for was a sudden illumination of Dick's stupidity; some tug +of unendurable pain or surmise that would bring him back on the chance +of seeing her again. Milly's logic was instinctive, but Christina +believed that it was sound. Dick, she, too, felt sure of it, would come. +She lunched and then she sat at her writing-table and wrote some notes, +looking out at the street, and then, when an hour approached in which a +caller might appear, she went out. + +It was one of the suddenly hot days in May that London sometimes offers. +It was so hot that Christina's head, as she walked slowly up Sloane +Street, swam and turned, and the lines of cabs and omnibuses and +carriages in the roadway, upon which she fixed her eyes, seemed to pulse +and float as they went by. Three o'clock had struck. Dick, if he came, +must come before five, and she must walk up and down Sloane Street for +perhaps nearly two hours. If she lay in wait in the house, Milly, who no +doubt was already up and dressed and waiting, would discover her. Milly, +too, might be watching from the drawing-room windows. Her peril was +desperate, and her safest course was to walk on the side of the street +near the house where Milly could not see her. This she did, turning +regularly in her little beat, indifferent to the odd spectacle she must +present, and scanning the passers-by. She had not long to wait. +Half-an-hour had not elapsed, when, in an approaching hansom, she saw +the broad shoulders and perplexed yet resolute features of Dick Quentyn. +He, too, had come to final decisions on this fateful day. + +Christina walked towards the hansom smiling. With her opened parasol and +delicate dress of white and black she had the most unalarming and casual +air. She seemed to have just stepped from her own doorway. She had held +up her hand in signal, and Dick, arresting his cabman, sprang out. +Christina greeted him gaily. + +"Well, this is very nice. Can you really stop and speak to me? You're +not running a risk of losing your train?" + +Dick hardly smiled in answer. His face showed his uncertainty, his +anxiety, his trouble. + +"My train? Oh no;--I've over an hour yet. Heaps of time.--In fact--I was +on my way to your house. I thought I'd have a last glimpse of you and +Milly. Are you just going out?" + +"Just going out. And as to Milly,--it's too bad," said Christina, "but +she is getting a little sleep this afternoon and particularly asked that +she shouldn't be disturbed. We are going to the play to-night. You'll +walk with me for a little way, though, won't you?" + +There was nothing ambiguous in her words or manner. They were certainly +in keeping with the situation, and poor Dick Quentyn, although he looked +almost haggard, turned obediently and walked beside her. He walked +silently for a little way, while Christina talked, then, as they came +out into Knightsbridge, he said, suddenly;--"Mrs. Drent,--may I ask you +about something?--Do you mind? Shall we go into the park for a little +while?" + +"Of course; of course," said Christina, kindly and mildly. + +They went into the park and sat down on two chairs that faced the stream +of carriages and had rhododendrons behind them. When they sat down, +Christina's head swam so giddily that she feared she might be going to +faint. She closed her eyes for a moment, mastering her weakness with a +desperate effort. Dick did not notice her pallor. "You see," he said, +leaning forward and boring small holes in the gravel with the point of +his stick--"You see,--I think I must tell you--ask you for your +advice--because you know Milly so much better than any one else in the +world. You can tell me if I'm mistaken--or advise me what to do, you +know. It's just this: I thought, when I first came home, that Milly had +begun to care for me again--or, at all events, that she'd got over +disliking me." + +"Care for you? Dislike you?" Christina murmured vaguely. "Oh--I don't +think it was ever that--of late years--since you'd so tactfully and +charmingly understood and made everything so easy for her." + +"No. Yes; it seemed she'd particularly got over it," Dick, rather +puzzled, assented. "And I mean, by caring, that she seemed so happy when +I was there--at first, happier than I'd ever known her." + +"She can dare to be happy with you now, you see; just because you have +made her so secure." + +"So secure?" + +"Yes," Christina met his eyes. "So sure that you'll never ask anything +of her, make anything difficult for her again." + +Dick Quentyn grew red. "I never did do that, as far as I remember, after +I understood." + +"That is what Milly so deeply appreciates," Christina returned. + +There was a little silence after this and Christina, in it, controlled +her breaths from trembling. Then Dick, groping painfully among his +impressions, put forward another. "She did mind, very much, my being in +danger last winter; you told me that. She was worried, really worried +about me?" + +Like a hurried, jangling bell somewhere in the background of her mind +Christina, as she, too, gathered together her impressions and memories, +seemed to hear a reiterated "No lies; above all, no lies." But he had +put the weapon into her hand, and though she felt as if she held it +lifted above some innocent life, it fell relentlessly. + +"Did I say that Milly was worried about you? It was hardly that, I +think; though, of course, she was glad to see you out of danger. Of +course she was glad; how could anyone so gentle-hearted as Milly not be? +But if you ask me what she did feel, I must tell you the truth. You want +the truth, don't you? It is much better--for you and for Milly, isn't +it, that there should be no misunderstandings?"--Dick nodded--his eyes +fixed on her. "What Milly said, in the winter, when we had news of your +danger,--was that it was rather dreadful to realize that if you were +killed it would hardly affect her more than the death of any of the men +who had come to tea with us the day before." + +The knife had fallen and her victim, after a moment, turned dazed eyes +away from her. "Milly said that? About me?" + +"I was shocked," Christina murmured. She heard, as if from a far +distance, the strange, hushed quality of her voice. Her own blood seemed +to have been arrested. + +"She wouldn't have minded more than that?" + +"She said, when I reproached her, that I could only expect her to be +solemn, not sorry, over the death of a man for whom she had no +affection, a man she had almost hated. Mr. Quentyn, I am so grieved for +you. Of course, she doesn't hate you now; but I am afraid you have +allowed yourself false hopes about Milly." + +Dick, now, had risen to his feet and, facing her as she sat, he gazed +over her head at the rhododendrons. "I wonder why she wanted me to come +for a walk this morning. Yes, I did have false hopes. I thought that +meant something. I've thought that all sorts of little things might mean +something." + +"Milly is so sweet and kind when she feels no pressure, no alarm. I +thought, for a moment last night, that she meant you to have the walk +alone. But as soon as you were gone she insisted on my coming with you. +I've tried to help you, Mr. Quentyn. I've given you every chance. But +there isn't any chance." It was well to do it thoroughly. + +There was bewilderment and humiliation--at last humiliation--on Dick's +face; but of incredulity not a trace. "I know how kind you've been," he +said. "I've felt it." + +Christina, now, had also risen. A dart of keenest pity, even admiration, +went through her, horridly painful. "I am so dreadfully sorry," she +murmured. "I had to tell you--since you asked me;--I didn't want you to +hurt Milly--and yourself--uselessly." + +"I know. I perfectly understand," said Dick. + +They walked in silence to Albert Gate, and there, as they paused in +farewell, Christina suddenly, seizing his arm and speaking in a hurried +whisper, said: "You have been splendid. I can't tell you how I feel it. +If I can ever--at any time--do anything----" It was the truth, yet the +falseness of such speech, from her to him, appalled her while she spoke. +Her voice trailed off. "Forgive me. Good-bye--" she said. + +They grasped each other's hands and Dick, as she broke away, saw that +the tears were running down her face. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CHRISTINA + + +He was gone. She had triumphed. And only pain and horror, as if for the +innocent life she had taken, were about her. No joy, no triumph, in +having snatched Milly from degradation. + +At the thought of Milly the fear that drove upon her was so intense that +it induced a curious lightness of head. She was uplifted and upheld +above her own fear. The unnatural buoyancy became almost a lightness of +heart. All was over. If she were a criminal she must profit by her crime +and shelter herself from suspicion. They would be happy--of course they +would be happy again--she and Milly. "Love begets love. Love begets +love." She heard herself muttering the words almost gaily, like an +incantation, as she walked down Sloane Street. + +When she crossed the street and looked up at the house she saw that +Milly was standing at the drawing-room window looking down at her. +Something in Milly's attitude there, in her beautiful dress and in her +unsmiling gaze, suggested to Christina the thought of a captive princess +watching the approach of some evil enchantress. Milly--her prisoner--her +victim! Her darling Milly!--She beat away the black vision. + +She went slowly upstairs and came slowly into the drawing-room. Milly +had turned from the window and, with the same hard, unsmiling gaze, +stood and watched her enter. Christina sank into a chair. + +"Well," said Milly after a moment, and in a voice that Christina had +never heard from her, "he did not come, you see. I am up and +dressed--yes--you know that I intended to get up and dress as soon as +you were gone, I am sure--and I have been waiting here for an hour--and +he has not come. He has not cared enough to come. So there are no +roundabout questions for you to ask or evasive answers for you to hear. +You have the truth before you." + +Christina was not at all surprised, though there was something so +horrible in this unshrinking frankness from one so reticent, so delicate +as Milly. She knew, as she heard her speak, that it was what she had +expected. The subterfuges of the past weeks lay in ruin about them. She +sat, her eyes fallen, drawing off her gloves, and she said gently, "I am +sorry, Milly, if you hoped that he would come." + +"No," said Milly, not moving from her place. "You are not sorry, +Christina. You are glad. You are sorry that I care and you are glad that +he does not care, because you think that it will keep us together. But +that is your mistake. It is all impossible now, and you have made it so. +I am going away. I am going back to the country. I want to be alone." + +Again Christina was not surprised; this was the fear which she had +glanced down at from her haze of uncanny lightness. + +"Have I made it so impossible? What have I done, Milly?" she asked, +after a moment. + +Milly sat down in the nearest chair. She had passed beyond fear. There +was no mist or illusion in her calmness. "You didn't give us a chance," +she said. "Not a chance. You saw how I cared. You saw how I had come to +need him. You saw how stupid he was and unless he were helped he would +see nothing. I was afraid to hurt you. Of course I was. Of course I was +sorry for you, horribly sorry. And you traded on that. You saw that +unless you stood aside I could do nothing." + +"I thought that I did stand aside, Milly," said Christina after another +moment. + +"Never really," said Milly. + +"I don't quite see what you mean by really, Milly," said Christina. "I +left you with him whenever you gave me the opportunity for doing so. +Perhaps you mean that I ought to have committed suicide." + +"No; I don't mean that," Milly returned sullenly, with an unaltered +hostility. "There are different ways of standing aside. You could have +made it possible for me to tell you, openly, what I felt; you could have +made me feel that you would be glad to have me happy with him. You need +not have made me feel in everything you did and said--and didn't do or +say--that if I went back to Dick I should be going to him over your dead +body." + +"I think you mean, Milly," Christina answered in her dull and gentle +voice, "that I ought not to have loved you. That is my crime, is it +not?" + +"Yes; perhaps that is your crime, if you want to put it so," said Milly. +"I don't blame you, you know. You could not help it. But your love has +always been a prison. As long as I was contented in the prison you made +it a very charming place to live in. But when I wanted to be free, to +have other, deeper, realler loves, I knew that I had a gaoler to get +past, a gaoler who would not kill me, but whom I would have to kill. So +that I sat in my cell and did not dare turn the key in the lock for fear +of what would happen to you. And it isn't true to say that you left the +door open. You pretended to, of course. But when I did make my one +effort, when I did try to creep out under your eyes, you turned the key +on me quickly enough. The walk this morning. You knew that I hoped for +it alone. You knew that it was our last chance." + +While Milly spoke these words to her, Christina sat with her head bent +down and her hands pressed tightly together in her lap, and it seemed to +her that she was weeping inwardly, tears of blood. It was shame, +unutterable shame, that she felt, mixed with the anguish, and weighing +her down to the earth. Shame for what she had done in sacrifice to the +love she heard thus abused; shame for the truth, the cruel half-truth, +in Milly's words; and shame for Milly that she could find it in her to +speak such words to her. Deeper? Realler? Could any love, though tricked +out in romantic conventions, be deeper or realler than the love she had +for Milly? In the innermost chambers of her heart she knew that, in +spite of the cruel half-truth, what Milly said was not the whole. She +would--oh yes, she would have given her up--with gladness--as a mother +gives up her child--to a love that she could have recognized as +ennobling. It had not been her own selfish clinging, only, that had +nerved her. It had been the thought of Milly's truest good. And if she +were to say this to Milly, she knew now what withering laughter she +would hear. + +The thought of this laughter from Milly's lips, of Milly's cruelty to +her, hunted her down the first turning of concealment open to her. "I +didn't want to come with you," she said. "You made me come. But I was +glad--for your sake--because it shielded you. You had made it so obvious +to him that you wanted it to be alone. I thought that you had made it +too obvious." + +Milly drew a long breath and a vivid red mounted to her cheeks. For some +moments she sat still, saying nothing. Then, not meeting her friend's +eyes, for they were now fixed on her, she rose. + +"Yes. I have been unfair," said Milly. "I have been ungrateful and +unkind, and unfair. I know that you have thought only of me; and you +saw what I've only realised in this last hour. It has hurt so terribly +to realise it--to realise that I've had my chance of happiness and +thrown it away and that now it's too late to get it back again--it's +hurt so terribly that it has made me cruel. You have been right all +along and I have been a fool. But there it is. I love him and I'm +broken-hearted, and now all that I can do is to go away and hide +myself." + +She was going, actually going. Their life together was over, shattered. +The intolerable realisation crashed down upon Christina's abasement. She +stood up, staring at her friend. "You are going to leave me, Milly?" she +asked. + +Milly averted her eyes. "Yes, Christina. I want to be alone." + +"But you will come back?" + +"I don't know," said Milly. Still she averted her eyes; but, in the +rigid silence that followed, compunction evidently wrought upon her. She +glanced round at her suffering friend and Christina's eyes met hers. +They hurt her. They were glazed, like the eyes of a deer, waiting for +the hunter's final blow. + +"Christina," she said, and her voice showed her pity; "won't you try to +learn to live without me? Really--really--it can't come back again, as +it was. You must see that. Not after all that we have said, all that has +happened. Learn to live without me. Get some nice woman and go to Greece +and try to forget me. I can only mean suffering for you now, and I'm not +nearly good enough for you." + +At this Christina broke into dreadful sobs. She did not move towards her +friend, but she stretched her clasped hands out towards her and said, +while her voice, half-strangled, came in gasps: "Milly--Milly--Have you +forgotten everything?--All the years when we were so happy +together?--When he was nothing to you?--For all these years, +Milly--nothing--nothing.--How can you care--suddenly--like this--when +you have almost hated him for so long?--You know what you said, in the +winter, Milly--that you would not care if he were to die." + +Milly's eyes had hardened. She moved towards the door. + +"Milly!" Christina's cry arrested her. She had to stop and listen, +though her hand was on the door. "Wait! Forgive me!--I don't know what I +am saying!--And it was true! It was! You did not care!--Oh don't be +cruel to me. I shall die if you leave me. What have I done that you +should change so?" + +"You have done nothing, Christina," said Milly in a voice of schooled +forbearance. "It is I who have changed, and been cruel, first to Dick +and then to you. I am a shallow, feeble creature, but the shallowness +was in thinking that I couldn't love my husband--not in loving him now. +I don't want the things you and I had together. I only want the stupid, +simple things that he could have given me. I want someone to be in love +with me. That is it, I think. I am the most usual, common sort of woman, +who must have someone in love with her and be in love. And I am in love +with Dick. And I am too unhappy to think of anyone but myself." + +Christina stood with her face covered. Convulsive sobs shook her. + +"Good-bye," said Milly. + +She did not reply. She moved her head a little, in negation? +acquiescence? appeal?--Milly did not know. And since Christina still +said nothing, she turned the handle softly and left her. + + * * * * * + +Milly went down to Chawlton. In the country, alone, she could sit and +look at her life and at the wreckage she had made in it without feeling +that another's eyes were watching her. It pained her, when she could +turn her mind from the humiliation of her own misery, to see how +completely all love for poor Christina had died from her, to see how the +perhaps crude and elemental love had killed the delicate, derivative +affection. It was even sadder to realise that under the superficial pain +lay a deep indifference. She was very sorry for Christina. She had +accepted Christina's life and used it, and now, through the strange +compulsion of fate, she must cut herself away from it, even if that were +to leave it broken and bleeding. For if she were to remain sorry for +Christina, to look back at her with pity and compunction, she must not +see her. Words, glances, silences of Christina's rankled in her, and +when she thought of them she could not forgive her. Christina had seen +too much, understood too much. She was a blight upon her love, a menace +to her tragic memory of it. Under everything, deeper than anything else +in her feeling about Christina, was a dim repulsion and dislike. + +That Christina had submitted showed in her letters, for Milly, before +many days had passed, wrote kindly and mildly, in the tone which, for +the future, she intended to use towards Christina. Milly surprised +herself with her own calm ruthlessness. She found that the gentle and +the cowardly can, when roused, be more cruel than the harsh and +fearless. Her letters to Christina were serene and impersonal. They +recognised a bond, but they defined its limits. They might have been +letters written to a former governess, with whom her relation had been +kindly but not fond. They never mentioned her husband's name, nor +alluded, even indirectly, to her mistimed love; and to ask Christina's +forgiveness again for her unjust arraignment of her would have been to +allude indirectly to it. + +And Christina's letters made no appeal. They were infrequent, hardly +affectionate; amazingly tactful letters. Milly shrank in recognising how +tactful. It showed Christina's power that she should be so tactful, +should so master herself to a responsive calm. Milly had come to dread +Christina's tact, her patience and her reticence, more than all the +vehemence and passionate upbraidings of former years. Beneath the +careful words she knew that a profound, undying hope lay hidden; pain, +too, profound and undying. The thought of such hope, such pain, made +Milly feel at once the pity and the repulsion. + +In none of Christina's letters was there any mention of her health. +Milly knew how fragile was her hold on life and how much had happened of +late to tax it; but it was with a shock of something unrealisable, +unbelievable, that she read one autumn morning, in a blurred and shaking +hand: "I am very ill--dying, they say. Come to me at once. I must tell +you something." + +Christina dying. She had said that it would kill her. And what had she +not said to Christina that might not well have killed her? Milly was +stricken with dreadful remorse and horror. + +She hastened to London. + +The maid at the door of the little house in Sloane Street told her that +Mrs. Drent was rapidly sinking. Milly read reproach in her simple eyes. +"I did not know! Why was I not told?--Why was I not told?"--she repeated +to the nurse who came to meet her. Mrs. Drent, the nurse said, would not +have her sent for, but during these last few days she had become +slightly delirious and had spoken of something she wished to tell, had, +at last, insisted on writing herself. She could hardly live a day +longer. Heart-failure had made her illness fatal. + +In the sick room, Milly paused at the door. Was that Christina? That +strange face with such phantom eyes? Christina's eyes did not look at +her with reproach or with sorrow, but, it seemed, with terror, a wild, +infectious terror; Milly felt it seize her as she stood, spellbound, by +the door. Then a rush of immense pity and comprehension shook her +through and through. Christina was dying, delirious, and what must she +be feeling in her haunted abandonment and desolation? She ran to the bed +weeping. She knelt beside it. Her tears rained upon Christina's hands, +as she took her in her arms and kissed her. "Christina!--dearest +Christina!--Forgive me! Forgive me!--I did not know!--Why did you not +let me come and nurse you?--I have always nursed you! Why did you not +tell me?--Oh, Christina!" + +Holding her, kissing her, she could not see clearly the illumination +that, at her words, illuminated the dying woman's face. Life seemed +suddenly to leap to her eyes and lips. The terror vanished like a ghost +in the uprising of morning sunlight. With a rapture of hope and yearning +which resumed all her ebbing power, physical and spiritual, she +stretched out her arms and clasped them about Milly's neck. "Do you +love me again?" she asked. Her voice was like a child's in its ecstasy. + +"My darling Christina!--Love you?--Who is there in all the world but +you!" Milly cried. No affirmation could be too strong, she felt, no +atonement too great. + +"Better than you love him?" + +Milly did not even hesitate. Lies were like obstacles hardly seen as, in +the onrush of her remorse and pity, she leaped them.--"Yes,--Yes. You +are everything," she reiterated. "I love you best. It has passed--that +feeling." + +"It has passed! I knew that it would pass!" Christina seemed to gasp and +smile at once. "You know, now, that it was not right;--that it was not +you;--that it was an illness;--something that would pass?--You see it +too, Milly?--And you will be happy with me again?" + +"Yes, yes, dearest Christina." + +Still smiling, Christina closed her eyes and Milly laid her back upon +her pillows. Her fingers closed tightly on Milly's hand. "It has +passed," she said. "It could not have been right. You were everything to +me. And he could not have seen the pictures, the jewels, Milly; or heard +the music." + +"No, dear, no." Milly covered her own eyes. Ah!--those cravings to +which Christina had responded;--now so dead. + +"I shall get better," said Christina. "I feel it now; I know it. I shall +get better and be always with you. My darling. My Milly. My little +Milly." Her voice had sunken to a shrouded whisper. + +Held by those cold, clutching fingers, Milly sat sobbing. Christina +would not get better; and, with horror at herself, she knew that only at +the gates of death could she love Christina and be with her. And, +glancing round at the head on the pillow--ah!--poor head!--Christina's +wonderful head!--more wonderful than ever now, so eager, so doomed, so +white, with all its flood of black, black hair--glancing at its ebony +and marble, she saw that she need have no fear of life. Christina would +not get better. + +She spoke again, brokenly. "If you had loved him, you would have hated +me. Now you will never hate me." + +"I love you." + +"You will not send for him? You will not see him alone? You will stay +with me?" + +"I will stay with you." + +"And be glad with me again." + +"With you again, dear Christina." + +"I shall get better," Christina repeated, turning her head on Milly's +arm. But the disarray of her mind still whispered on in vague +fragments.--"It was not useless.--I was right.--I did not need to tell; +you were mine; I had not lost you." + +A few hours afterwards, her head still turned on Milly's arm, Christina +died. + + * * * * * + +Sitting alone on a winter day in the library of Chawlton, Milly heard +the sound of a motor outside. Since Christina's death she had shut +herself away, refusing to see anyone, and she listened now with +apathetic interest, expecting to hear the retreating wheels. But the +motor did not move away. Instead, after some delay at the door, steps +crossed the hall, familiar, wonderful, dear and terrible. Dick had +returned. + +All the irony and humiliation of her married life rose before her as she +felt herself trembling, flushing, with the joy and terror. He had come +back; and so he had not guessed. Or was it that he had guessed and yet +was too kind not to come? She had only time to snatch at conjecture, for +Dick was before her. + +Dick's demeanour was as unemphatic as she remembered it always to have +been. It was almost as casual as if he had returned from a day's hunting +merely. Yet there was difference, too, though what it was her hurrying +thoughts could not seize. She felt it as a radiance of pity, warm and +almost vehement. + +"My dear Milly," he said coming to her and taking her hand; "I only +heard yesterday.--I only got back yesterday.--And I felt that I must see +you. I'm not going to bother you in any way. I've only come down for the +afternoon. But I wanted to ask you if I could do anything--help you in +any way, be of any use." In spite of his schooled voice his longing to +see her, his delight in seeing her, showed in his clouded, candid eyes. +Milly felt it as the difference, the vague warmth and radiance. + +"How kind of you, dear Dick," she said, and her poor voice groped vainly +for firmness. "I am so glad to see you. It was good of you to come. Yes; +it has been dreadful. You know;--Christina--our friendship"--But how to +confess to Dick her remorse or explain to Dick why she had left +Christina? Her pride broke. With this human kindness near her, she could +not maintain the decorum of their tangled relations as man and woman; +the simple human relation alone became the most real one; the +loneliness and the grief of a child overwhelmed her. She sank, sobbing +helplessly, into her chair. + +"Oh--Milly!"--said poor Dick Quentyn. And the longing to comfort and +console effacing his diffidence and the memory of her long unkindness +towards himself, he knelt down beside her and took her into his arms. + +Milly then said and did what she could never have believed herself +capable of saying and doing. No pride could hold her from it, no +dignity, not even common shame. She could not keep herself from dropping +her face on his shoulder and sobbing;--"Oh--Dick--try--try to love me +again. I am cold and selfish. I have behaved cruelly to everyone who +loved me;--but I can't bear it any longer." + +It was a startling moment for Dick Quentyn, the most startling of his +life. "Try to love you?" he stammered. He pushed her back to look at +her. "What do you mean, Milly?" + +"What I say," Milly gasped. + +"But what does it mean?" Dick repeated. "It isn't for you to ask me to +love you. You know I love you. You know there's never been another woman +in the world for me but you. It's you who have never loved me, Milly." + +Her appeal had been like a diving under deep waters--she had not known +when or where or how she would come up again. Now she opened her eyes +and stared at her husband. She seemed, after that whirlpool moment of +abysmal shame, to have come up from the further reaches of darkness, and +it was under new, bewildering skies. Strange stars made her dizzy. + +"Then why didn't you come and say good-bye to me--that day--in London +this spring?" was all she found to say. + +Dick was not stupid now. The lover's code was at last open between them, +and he as well as she could read the significance of seemingly trivial +words. + +"Did you expect me?" he asked. + +"Of course I expected you. I thought you saw how much," said Milly. + +"I didn't think you expected me at all; why should I have thought it? +But I did come. Didn't you know it?" said Dick. + +"You did come?" In its extremity her astonishment was mild. + +"That is to say--I never got there. Mrs. Drent met me. She told me how +you'd gone to sleep, you know. She thought you'd gone to sleep, Milly. +She didn't know you expected me either, you see. It was in the park we +talked, just there by the rhododendrons." + +"She told you I had gone to sleep?--But why did that keep you from +coming?" Milly had suddenly risen to her feet. She had grown pale. + +"Why--it was obvious--you wouldn't want to be disturbed. She said that. +And--everything else. She told me--for I confided in her then--she'd +always been so kind to me; and I thought she might help me--but she told +me how little you cared for me." + +Milly had grasped his shoulder as she stood above him. "What did +Christina tell you? What did she say about me? Let me understand." + +"Why, Milly--what is it?--She told me--I didn't blame you, though it +hurt, most unconscionably--because I'd always believed that, in spite of +everything, you had some sort of kindly feeling for me--as though I'd +been a well-intentioned dog who didn't mean to get in your way--she told +me that I mustn't have any hopes. And she told me that that very winter +you had said to her that you'd feel my death less than that of any of +the men who came to tea with you. Yes, she told me so, Milly--and wasn't +it true?" + +Milly now looked away from him and round at the room, stupor on her +face. "Yes, it was true I said it," she said in the voice of a +sleep-walker. "Yes; I said it, Dick. But it was so long ago. How did she +remember?--And I knew when I said it that it wasn't true." + +"But she thought it was true." Dick now had risen, and he, too, very +pale, looked at his wife. + +"Yes; then, she may have thought it. I wanted her to think it because I +did not want her to guess how much I was getting to care. But, +afterwards--after you had come back--she did not think it then. She +knew, then, everything. She knew before I did. It was she who showed it +to me.--Oh, Dick!--She knew that I loved you--and she kept you from +coming to me!" She was gazing at him now, stupefied, horrified, yet +enraptured. It was of him she thought, her lover, her husband, rather +than of the unhappy woman who had parted them. But Dick still did not +see. + +"What do you mean, Milly?" he said. "Kept me from coming? But she loved +you, Milly? She'd given her life to you. You can't mean what you are +saying." + +"Yes," Milly kept her grasp of his shoulder. "It is true. She loved me, +but it was a madness of jealousy. Her love was a prison. I told her so. +We spoke of it all on that day, when she came back from seeing you and +did not tell me that she had seen you. I told her that her love was a +prison and that she had kept you from me, and that I was going to leave +her. And even then she did not tell me. We parted and I did not see her +again until the day she died. She sent for me to come to her. Yes--" her +eyes, deep with joy and horror, were on him.--"That is what she was +going to confess to me; and died without confessing. She kept us apart +because she knew that we loved each other and she could not bear to give +me up." + +They stood in the firelight and he took her hands and they looked at +each other as though, after long wanderings, they had found each other +at last. There would yet be much to tell and to explain, but Dick saw +now what had happened. Only after many moments of grave mutual survey, +did he say, gently, with a sudden acute wonder and pity--"Poor thing." + +"Horrible, oh horrible!" said Milly, leaning her head on his shoulder. +"You might have died away from me--never knowing.--I might never have +seen you again.--Horrible woman!--Horrible love." + +"Poor thing," Dick repeated gently. He kissed his wife's forehead and, +his arm around her;--"I haven't died.--She is dead. I do see you +again.--She doesn't see you. I have got you.--She has lost you." + +Milly still shuddered; she still looked down the black precipice, only +just escaped. "Yes, she has lost me for ever. I wish I did not feel that +I hate her; but I do. It may be cruel, it is cruel. But all that I can +feel for her now is hatred." + +"Ah--but she loved you tremendously. And she's dead," said Dick. "All +that I can feel is that." + +But Milly only said: "I love you all the more for feeling it." + + + + +MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Manon Lescaut," Carrington repeated. He did not show any particular +enthusiasm. + +"Yes, Manon Lescaut. I see the thing. It would be really superb." + +"You don't mean to say, my dear boy, that you are falling into anecdote? +You are not going to degrade your canvas with painted literature?" + +Carrington's voice betrayed some concern, for he took a friendly +interest in my career. + +"The title--a mere label--suggests it. But nothing of the sort. I am +going to paint a portrait of Manon--and of her ilk." + +"A portrait?" + +"Yes; the portrait of a type." + +Carrington smoked on, stretched comfortably in a chair. His feet were on +another chair, and the broad soles of his slippers so displayed implied +ease and intimacy. + +"It will look like the portrait of an actress in character; a costume +picture," he said, presently; "the label isn't suggestive to me." + +"There will, I promise you, be no trace of commonplace realism in it. It +will be Velasquez dashed with Watteau. Can you realize the modest flight +of my imagination? Seriously, Carrington, I intend to paint a +masterpiece. I intend to paint a woman who would sell her soul for +pleasure--a conscienceless, fascinating egotist--a corrupt +charmer--saved by a certain _naďveté_. The eighteenth century, in fact, +_en grisette_." + +"Manon rather redeemed herself at the end, if I remember rightly," +Carrington observed. + +"Or circumstances redeemed her, if you will. She had a heart, perhaps; +it never made her uncomfortable. Her love was of the doubtful quality +that flies out of the window as want comes in at the door. Oh! she was a +sweet little _scélérate_. I shall paint the type--the little +_scélérate_." + +"Well, of course, everything would depend on the treatment." + +"Everything. I am going to astonish you there, Carrington." + +"Oh, I don't know about that," Carrington said, good-humouredly. + +"I see already the golden gray of her dim white boudoir; the satins, the +laces, the high-heeled shoes, the rigid little waist, and face of pretty +depravity. The face is the thing--the key. Where find the face? I think +of a trip to Paris on purpose. One sees the glancing creature--such as I +have in my mind--there, now and then. I want a fresh pallor, and gay, +lazy eyes--light-brown, not too large." + +"I fancy I know of someone," Carrington said, meditatively. "Not that +she's _dans le caractčre_," he added: "not at all; anything but +depraved. But--her face; you could select." Carrington mused. "The line +of her cheek is, I remember, mockingly at variance with her staid +innocence of look." + +"Who is she? Manon could _look_ innocent, you know--was so, after a +fashion. I should like a touch of childish _insouciance_. Who is she, +and how can I get her?" + +"Well," said Carrington, taking his pipe from his lips and contemplating +the fine colouring of the bowl, "she's a lady, for one thing." + +"Oh, the devil!" I ejaculated; "that won't do!" + +"Well, it might." + +"Shouldn't fancy it. Ill at ease on her account, you know. How could one +tell a lady that she was out of pose--must sit still? How could one pay +her?" + +"Very simple, if she's the real article." + +"I never tried it," I demurred. + +"Well"--Carrington had a soothing way of beginning a sentence--"you +might see her, at least. Her father is a socialist; a very harmless and +unnecessary one, but that accounts for her posing." + +"Do the paternal unconventionalities countenance posing for the +_académie_? That savors of a really disconcerting latitude." + +"The _académie_? Dear me, no! Oh, no; Miss Jones is a model of the +proprieties. One indeed can hardly connect her with even such mild +nonconformity as her father's socialism. He was a parson; had religious +scruples, and took to rather aimless humanitarianism and to very +excellent bookbinding in Hampstead. He binds a lot of my books for me; +and jolly good designing and tooling, too. You remember that Petrarch of +mine. That's really how I came to know him. It was the artist in him +that wrestled with and overthrew the parson. He seems a happy old chap; +poor as Job's turkey and absorbed in his work. He has rather longish +hair--wavy, and wears a leather belt and no collar." Carrington added: +"That's the first socialistic declaration of independence--they fling +their collars in the face of conventionality. But the belt and the lack +of collar are the only noticeable traces socialism seems to have left on +Mr. Jones, except that he lets his daughter make money by posing. He +must know about the people, of course. She usually sits for women. But I +can give you a recommendation." + +I felt, to a certain extent, the same lack of enthusiasm that Carrington +himself had shown at the announcement of my "label," but I thanked him, +and said that I should be glad to see Miss Jones. + +"And her mother was French, too," he added, as a cogent afterthought. +"That accounts for the rippled cheek-line." Miss Jones's cheek had +evidently made an emphatic impression. Indeed, Carrington's enthusiasm +seemed to wax on reflection, and, as interpreted by Miss Jones, my Manon +became tangible. + +"How's her colouring?" I asked. + +"Pale; her mouth is red, very red; charming figure, nice hands; I +remember them taking up the books--she was dusting the books. I've only +seen her once or twice; but I noticed her, and she struck me as a +type--of something." + +The pale skin and red mouth rather pleased me, and it was arranged that +Carrington should see Mr. Jones, and, if possible, make an appointment +for Miss Jones to call on Monday afternoon at my studio. + +Carrington had rooms next door, in the little court of artists' quarters +in Chelsea. + +Carrington wrote reviews and collected all sorts of expensive things, +chiefly old books and Chinese porcelain. He and I had art-for-art +sympathies, and, being lucky young men from a monetary point of view, we +could indulge our propensities with a happy indifference to success. + +I had painted now for a good many years, both in Paris and in London, +and had a pleasant little reputation among people it was worth while to +please, and a hearty and encouraging philistine opposition. I had even +shocked Mrs. Grundy in an Academy picture which wasn't at all shocking +and was very well painted, and I had aroused controversy in the pages of +the _Saturday Review_. + +I felt Manon Lescaut. + +This epitome of the soullessness of the eighteenth century whirled in +its satin frivolity through all my waking thoughts. + +On Monday I awaited Miss Jones, fervently hoping that her face would do. + +Punctual to the minute came the young lady's rap at my door. I ushered +her in. She was rather small; and self-possessed, very. In the cut of +her serge frock and the line of her little hat over her eyebrows I +fancied I saw a touch of the mother's nationality. With a most +business-like air she removed this hat, carefully replacing the pins in +the holes they had already traversed, took off her coat (it was +February), and turned to the light. She would do. Evident and delightful +fact! I at once informed her of it. She asked if she should sit that +morning. I said that, as I had sketches to make before deciding on pose +and effect of light, the sooner she would enter upon her professional +duties the better. + +The gown I had already discovered--a _trouvaille_ and genuinely of the +epoch; an enticing pink silk with glowing shadows. + +Miss Jones made no comment on the exquisite thing which I laid lovingly +on her arm. She retired with a brisk, calm step behind the tall screen +in the corner. + +When she reappeared in the dress, the old whites of the muslins at +elbows and breast falling and folding on a skin like milk, I felt my +heart rise in a devout ejaculation of utter contentment. The Manon of my +dreams stood before me. The expression certainly was wanting; I should +have to compass it by analogy. My imagination had grasped it, and I +should realize the type by the aid of Miss Jones's pale face, narrowing +to a chin the French would call _mutin_, her curled lips and curiously +set eyes, wide apart, and the brows that swept ever so slightly upward. +The very way in which her fair hair grew in a little peak on the +forehead, and curved silky and unrippled to a small knot placed high, +fulfilled my aspirations, though the hair must be powdered and in it the +vibrating black of a bow. + +Miss Jones stood very well, conscientiously and with intelligence. Pose +and effect were soon decided upon, and in a day or two I was regularly +at work, delighting in it, and with a sensation of power and certainty I +had rarely experienced. + +Carrington came in quite frequently, and, looking from my canvas to Miss +Jones, would pronounce the drawing wonderfully felt. + +"Dégas wouldn't be ashamed of the line of the neck," he said. "The turn +and lift of her head as she looks sideways in the mirror is really +_émouvant_, life; good idea; in character; centred on herself; not bent +on conquest and staring it at you. Manon had not that trait." + +Miss Jones on the stand gazed obediently into the mirror, the dim white +of an eighteenth century boudoir about her. She was altogether a most +_posée_, well-behaved young person. + +One could not call her manner discreet; it was far too self-confident +for that. Her silence was natural, not assumed. During the rests she +would return to a book. + +I asked her one day what she was reading. She replied, looking up with +polite calm: + +"'Donovan.'" + +"Oh!" was all I could find in comment. It did rather surprise me in a +girl whose eyes were set in that most appreciative way and whose father, +as a socialistic bookbinder, might have inculcated more advanced +literary tastes. Still, she was very young; this fact seemed emphasized +by the innocent white the back of her neck presented to me as she +returned to her reading. + +When I came to painting, I found that my good luck accompanied me, and +that inspiring sense of mastery. Effort, yes; but achievement followed +it with a sort of inevitableness. I tasted the joys of the arduous +facility which is the fruition of years of toil. + +The limpid grays seemed to me to equal Whistler's; the pinks--flaming in +shadow, silvered in the light--suggested Velasquez to my happy young +vanity; the warm whites, Chardin would have acknowledged; yet they were +all my own, seen through my own eyes, not through the eyes of Chardin, +Whistler, or Velasquez. The blacks sung emphatic or softened notes from +the impertinent knot in the powdered hair to the bows on skirt and +bodice. The rich _empâtement_ was a triumph of supple brush-work. I can +praise it impudently for it was my masterpiece, and--well, I will keep +to the consecutive recital. + +Miss Jones showed no particular fellow-feeling for my work, and as, +after a fashion, she, too, was responsible for it and had a right to be +proud of it, this lack of interest rather irritated me. + +Now and then, poised delicately on high heels and in her rustling robes, +she would step up to my canvas, give it a pleasant but impassive look, +and then turn away, resuming her chair and the perusal of her romance. + +It really irked me after a time. However little value I might set upon +her artistic acumen, this silence in my rose of pride pricked like a +thorn. + +Miss Jones's taste in painting might be as philistine as in literature, +but her reserve aroused conjecture, and I became really anxious for an +expression of opinion. + +At last, one day, my curiosity burst forth: + +"How do you like it?" I asked, while she stood contemplating my +_chef-d'oeuvre_ with a brightly indifferent gaze. Miss Jones turned +upon me her agate eyes--the eyelashes curled up at the corners, and it +was difficult not to believe the eyes, too, roguish. + +"I should think you had a great deal of talent," she said. "Have you +studied long?" + +Studied? It required some effort to adjust my thoughts to the standard +implied; but perceiving a perhaps lofty conception of artistic +attainment beneath the query, I replied: + +"Well, an artist is never done learning, is he? And in the sense of +having much to learn, I am still a student, no doubt." + +"Ah, yes," Miss Jones replied. + +She looked from my picture up at the sky-light, then round at the +various studies, engravings, and photographs on the walls. This +discursive glance was already familiar to me, and its flitting lightness +whetted my curiosity as to possible non-committal depths beneath. + +"Inspiration, now," Miss Jones pursued, surprising me a good deal, for +she seldom carried on a subject unprompted, "that of course, is not +dependent on study." + +I felt in this remark something very derogatory to my Manon--an +inspiration, and in the best sense, if ever anything was. Did Miss Jones +not recognize the intellectual triumphs embodied in that presentment of +frail woman-hood? I was certainly piqued, though I replied very +good-humouredly: + +"I had rather flattered myself that my picture could boast of that +quality." + +Miss Jones's glance now rested on me rather seriously. + +"An inspired work of art should elevate the mind." + +I could not for the life of me tell whether she was really rather clever +or merely very banal and commonplace. + +"I had hoped," I rejoined, politely, "that my picture--as a beautiful +work of art--would also possess that faculty." + +Miss Jones now looked at the clock, and remarked that it was time to +pose. She mounted the low stand and I resumed my palette and brushes, +feeling decidedly snubbed. Carrington sauntered in shortly after, his +forefinger in a book and a pipe between his teeth. He apologized to Miss +Jones for the latter, and wished to know if she objected. Miss Jones's +smile retained all its unabashed clearness as she replied: + +"It _is_ a rather nasty smell, I think." + +Poor Carrington, decidedly disconcerted, knocked out his pipe and laid +it down, and Miss Jones, observing him affably while she retained her +pose to perfection, added: "I have been brought up to disapprove of +smoking, you see; papa doesn't believe in tobacco." + +Miss Jones's aplomb was certainly enough to make any man feel awkward, +and Carrington looked so as he came up beside me and examined my work. + +"By Jove! Fletcher," he said, "the resemblance is astonishing--_and_ the +lack of resemblance. That's the triumph--the material likeness, the +spiritual unlikeness." + +Indeed, Miss Jones could lay no claim to the "inspiration" of my work; +in intrinsic character the face of my pretty _scélérate_ was in no way +Miss Jones's. + +"Charming, charming," and Carrington's eye, passing from my canvas, +rested on Miss Jones. + +"Which?" I asked, smiling, and, of course, in an undertone. + +"It depends, my dear boy, on whether you ask me if I prefer Phryne or +Priscilla--pagan or puritan; both are interesting types, and the +contrast can be very effectually studied here in your picture and your +model." + +"Yet Priscilla lends herself wonderfully to be interpreted as Phryne." + +"Or, rather, it is wonderful that you should have imagined Manon into +that face." + +In the next rest, when Carrington had gone, Miss Jones said: + +"Mr. Carrington walked home with me yesterday. Papa thinks rather highly +of him. It is a pity his life should be so pointless." + +It began to be borne in upon me that Miss Jones had painfully serious +ethical convictions. + +"I suppose you mean from the socialistic standpoint," I said. + +"Oh, no--not at all; I am not a socialist. Papa and I agree to differ +upon that as upon many other questions. Socialism, I think, tends to +revolt and license." + +I did not pursue the subject of Carrington's pointlessness nor proffer +a plea for socialism. I was beginning to wince rather before Miss +Jones's frankness. + +On the following day she again came and stood before my picture. + +"I posed for Mr. Watkins, R.A., last year," she said. "The picture was +in the Academy. Did you see it? It was beautiful." + +The mere name of Mr. Watkins ("R.A.") made every drop of ćsthetic blood +in my body curdle. A conscienceless old prater of the soap and salve +school, with not as much idea of drawing or value as a two-year +Julianite. + +"I don't quite remember," I said, rather faintly; "what was--the picture +called?" + +"'Faith Conquers Fear,'" said Miss Jones. "I posed as a Christian +maiden, you know, tied to a stake in the Roman amphitheatre and waiting +martyrdom. The maiden was in a white robe, her hair hanging over her +shoulders (perhaps you would not recognize me in this costume), looking +up, her hands crossed on her breast. Before her stood a jibing Roman. +One could see it all; the contrast between the base product of a vicious +civilization and the noble maiden. One could read it all in their faces; +hers supreme aspiration, his brutal hatred. It was superb. It made one +want to cry." + +Miss Jones, while speaking, looked so exceedingly beautiful that I +almost forgot my dismay at her atrocious taste; for Watkins's "Faith +Conquers Fear" had been one of the jokes of the year--a lamentably +crude, pretentious presentation of a theatrical subject reproduced +extensively in ladies' papers and fatally popular. + +At the same moment, and as I looked from Miss Jones's gravely enrapt +expression to Manon's seductive graces, I experienced a sensation of +extreme discomfort. + +"I think a picture should have high and noble aims," Miss Jones pursued, +seeing that I remained silent, and evidently considering the time come +when duty required her to speak and to speak freely. "A picture should +leave one better for having seen it." + +I could not ignore the kind but firmly severe criticism implied; I could +not but revolt from this Hebraistic onslaught. + +"I don't admit a conscious moral aim in art," I said. "Art need only +concern itself with being beautiful and interesting; the rest will +follow. But a badly-painted picture certainly makes me feel wicked, and +when I go to the National Gallery to have a look at the Velasquezes and +Veroneses I feel the better for it." + +"Velasquez?" Miss Jones repeated. "Ah, well, I prefer the old masters--I +mean those who painted religious subjects as no one since has painted +them. Why did not Velasquez, at least, as he could not rise to the +ideal, paint beautiful people? I never have been able to care for mere +ugliness, however cleverly copied." + +I felt buffeted by her complacent crudity. + +"Velasquez had no soul," she added. + +"No soul! Why he paints life, character, soul, everything! Copied! What +of his splendid decorativeness, his colour, his atmosphere?" My +ejaculations left her calm unruffled. + +"Ah, but all that doesn't make the world any better," she returned, +really with an air of humouring a silly materialism; and as she went +back to her pose she added, very kindly, for my face probably revealed +my injured feelings: + +"You see I have rather serious views of life." + +"Miss Jones--really!" I laid down my palette. "I must beg of you to +believe that I have, too--very serious." + +Gently Miss Jones shook her head, looking, not at me, but down into the +mirror. This effect of duty fulfilled, even in opposition, was most +characteristic. + +"I cannot believe it," she said, "else why, when you have facility, +talent, and might employ them on a higher subject, do you paint a mere +study of a vain young lady?" + +This interpretation of Manon startled me, so lacking was it in +comprehension. + +"Manon Lescaut was more than a vain young lady, Miss Jones." + +"Well," Miss Jones lifted her eyes for a moment to smile quietly, +soothingly at me. "I am not imputing any wrong to Miss Manon Lescaut; I +merely say that she is vain. A harmless vanity no doubt, but I have +posed for other characters, you see!" Her smile was so charming in its +very fatuity that the vision of her lovely face, vulgarized and +unrecognizable in "Faith Conquers Fear," filled me with redoubled +exasperation. Her misinterpretation of Manon stirred a certain deepening +of that touch of discomfort--a sickly unpleasantness. I found myself +flushing. + +Miss Jones's white hand--the hand that held the mirror with such beauty +in taper finger-tips and turn of wrist--fell to her side, and she fixed +her eyes on me with quite a troubled look. + +"I am afraid I have hurt your feelings," she said; "I am very sorry. I +always speak my mind out; I never think that it may hurt. It is very +dull in me." + +At these words I felt that unpleasant stir spring suddenly to a guilty +misery. I felt, somehow, that I was a shameful hypocrite, and Miss Jones +a priggish but most charming and most injured angel. + +"Miss Jones," I said, much confused, "sincerity cannot really hurt me, +and I always respect it. I am sorry, very sorry, that you see no more in +my picture. I care for your good opinion" (this was certainly, in a +sense, a lie, and yet, for the moment, that guilty consciousness upon +me, I believed it), "and I hope that though my picture has not gained +it, I, personally, may never forfeit it." + +Still looking at me gravely, Miss Jones said: + +"I don't think you ever will. That is a very manly, a very noble way of +looking at it." + +But the thought of Manon Lescaut now tormented me. I had finished the +head; my preoccupation could not harm that; but this lovely face looking +into the mirror, with soulless, happy eyes, seemed to slide a smile at +me, a smile of malicious comprehension, a smile of _nous nous +entendons_, a smile that made a butt of Miss Jones's innocence and +laughed with me at the joke. + +I soon found myself rebelling against Manon's intrusion. I wished to +assure her that we had nothing in common and that, in Miss Jones's +innocence, I found no amusing element. + +That evening Carrington came in. He wore a rather absorbed look, and +only glanced at my picture. After absent replies to my desultory +remarks, he suddenly said, from his chair: + +"I walked home with Miss Jones this afternoon." Carrington, with his +ultra-ćsthetic sensibilities, must find Miss Jones even more jarring +than I did, and his act implied a very kindly interest. + +"That was nice of you," I observed, though at the mention of Miss Jones +that piercing stab of shame again went through me, and my eyes +unwillingly, guiltily sought the eyes of my smiling Manon. + +"She was rather troubled about something she had said," Carrington +pursued, ignoring my approbation, "about the picture. Of course she +doesn't know anything about pictures." + +"No," I murmured, "she doesn't." + +"By Jove!" added Carrington, "that's the trouble. She doesn't understand +anything!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, I mean that she could never see certain things from our +standpoint; she is as ignorant and as innocent as a baby. She's never +read 'Manon Lescaut'--that came out _en passant_--and, by Jove, you +know, it _does_ seem a beastly shame! A girl like that! A snow-drop!" + +Carrington cast a look of unmistakable resentment at my poor Manon. + +"Well," I said, lamely--indeed I felt maimed--"how was I to know? And +what am I to do?" + +"Why, my dear fellow," and Carrington spoke with some fierceness, +"you've nothing to do with it! _I'm_ to blame! I told you about her. +Said she had the type! Dull, blundering fool that I was not to have seen +the shrieking incongruity! The rigidly upright soul of her! That girl +couldn't tell a lie nor look one; and _Manon_!" + +Carrington got up abruptly; evidently his disgust could not be borne in +a quiescent attitude. + +"You said at the first that her face was innocent," I suggested, in a +feeble effort to mitigate this self-scorn; "we neither of us misjudged +the girl for a moment, though we overlooked her ignorance." + +"Yes, and her ignorance makes all the difference. Another girl--as good, +to all intents and purposes--might know and not object; but this one! I +really believe it would half kill her!" + +Carrington gave another savage glance at my unlucky picture, and his +gaze lingered on it as he added: + +"If it's kept from her, all's well--as well as a lie can be." + +And then, if only for a moment, the Greek gained its triumph over this +startling exhibition of Hebraism. + +"It is a masterpiece!" said Carrington, slowly, adding abruptly as he +went, "Good-night!" + +But my night was very bad. Whatever Miss Jones might say or think, I +_did_ take life seriously. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +A few days followed in which Miss Jones showed herself to me in a sweet +and softened mood, the mood that wishes to make amends for salutary +harshness. My meekness under reproof had evidently won her approbation. +In the rests she talked to me. She gave me her opinions upon many +subjects, and very admirable they were and very commonplace. One thing +about Miss Jones, however, was not commonplace. She would certainly +act up to her opinions. Her sense of duty was enormous; but she bore +it pleasantly, albeit seriously. She had a keen _flair_ for +responsibilities. I began to suspect that she had assumed my moral +well-being as one of them. + +Her priggishness was so unconscious--so sincere, if one may say so--that +it staggered me. Her calmly complacent truisms confounded any subtleties +by marching over them--utterly ignoring them. One could not argue with +her, for she was so sublimely sure of herself that she made one doubt +the divine right of good taste, and wonder if flat-footed stupidity were +not right after all. + +And, above all, however questionable her mental attributes might be, her +moral worth was certainly awe-inspiring. The clear, metallic +flawlessness of her conscience seemed to glare in one's eyes, and poor +everyday manhood shrunk into itself, painfully aware of spots and +fissures. + +"Yes," Miss Jones said, leaning back in her incongruous robes; "yes, the +longer I live the more I feel that, as Longfellow says: + + "Life is real, life is _earnest_." + +She emphasized the quotation with solemnity: "We can't trifle with our +lives; we can't play through them. We must _live_ them. We must make +something of them." + +"Each man after his own nature," I suggested, feebly, for I felt sure +that "we can't _paint_ through them" was implied, and wished to turn +from that issue, with which I felt myself incapable of grappling. + +But Miss Jones was not to be balked of her moral. + +"We build our own characters," she said, and her look held kind warning. +"We must not act after our own nature if that nature is base or +trivial." + +"I know," I murmured. + +"It is only by holding firmly to an ideal that we rise, step by step, +beyond our lower selves." + +Beyond "Manon Lescaut" to "Faith Conquers Fear" this might mean. + +"And ideals we must have," she pursued. Then rising, her little air of +guide and counsellor touched with a smile: "But I must not preach too +much, must I?" + +It was comforting to dwell on the ludicrous aspects of this mentorship, +for, when my thoughts led me to a contemplation of Miss Jones's ideals, +I felt my position to be meanly hypocritical, if not "base." Manon was +almost finished. Ah! it was superb!--but even my joy in Manon rankled +and had lost its savour. Manon was there under false pretences, her +presence a subtle insult to Miss Jones. Miss Jones in her flaming gown +took on symbolical meanings. An unconscious martyr wearing, did she but +know it, the veritable robe of Nessus! A sense of protectorship, tender +in its self-reproach, grew upon me--a longing for atonement. I had +sacrificed Miss Jones to my masterpiece, and its beauty was baleful, +vampire-like. + +It was indeed a small thing to take Miss Jones's homilies humbly. +Indeed, for this humility I could claim no element of expiation, for I +really liked to hear her; she looked so pretty when she talked. It was +all so touching and so amusing. + +I am not sure that she had read Dante, but if she had she no doubt saw +herself something in the guise of a Beatrice stooping from heights of +wisdom to support my straying, faltering footsteps. She brought me one +day a feeble little volume of third-rate verse, with a page turned down +at a passage she requested me to read. The badly constructed lines, +their grandiloquent sentimentality, jarred on me; but in them I +perceived a complimentary application that might imply much +encouragement. Miss Jones evidently thought that I was rising step by +step, and put this cordial to my lips. I thanked her very +earnestly--feeling positively shrivelled--and then, turning from the +subject with a haste I hoped she might impute to modesty--and indeed +modesty of a certain humiliating kind did form part of it--I told her +that Manon would only require another sitting after that day. + +"Ah! is it finished, then?" + +She went to look at it. + +"_Is_ my left eye as indistinct as that?" she asked, playfully. "Can't +you see my eyelashes? That is impressionism, I suppose." I felt my +forehead growing hot. + +"The left eye is in shadow," I observed. + +"I am afraid shadows are convenient sometimes, aren't they? I like just +a plain, straight-forward telling of the truth, with no green paint over +it! You accept a little well-meant teasing, don't you?" + +I accepted it as I had to accept her various revelations of stupefying +obtuseness, and smiled over the sandy mouthful. + +"Yes," she pursued, carefully looking up and down the canvas--certainly +a new sign of interest in me and my work--"you will need quite two days +to finish it; the hands especially, they are rather sketchy about the +finger-tips." She might have been a genial old professor giving me +advice mingled with the good-humored _raillerie_ of superiority. The +hands were finished; but I kept a cowardly silence. + +"And the dress must be a good bit more distinctly outlined; I can't see +_where_ it goes on this side; and then the details of the background--I +can hardly tell what those dashes and splashes on the dressing-table are +supposed to represent." + +"I think you are standing a little too near the canvas," I said, in a +voice which I strove to free from a tone of patient long-suffering. "If +you go farther away, you will get the effect of the _ensemble_." + +"No, no!" she laughed; she evidently thought that her ethical +relationship justified an equally frank ćsthetic helpfulness, and her +air of competence was bewildering. "No, we must not run away from the +truth! A smudge is a smudge from whatever standpoint one looks at it, +and a smear a smear." + +The masterly treatment of porcelains, ivories, and silver on the +dressing-table, glimmering and gleaming from the soft shadows, to be +qualified in such terms! + +"You are rather severe," I said. My discomfort was apparent, but she +naturally took it to be on my own behalf, not, as it was, on hers. + +"Oh! you mustn't think _that_! I hope I am never unduly severe. You will +easily mend matters to-day and to-morrow and polish over that rather +careless look. And, as far as that goes, I am at your service as long as +you need me." + +"As model _and_ critic," I observed, with a touch of bitterness. + +"As model _and_ critic," she repeated, brightly. "Do you know," she +added, mounting the stand, "I found 'Manon Lescaut' on a bookshelf this +morning. I didn't know that it was a French book. I am going to read it +this evening." + +I was struck dumb. This possibility had never presented itself to me. + +"I shall find the scene you have painted," she continued, looking down +at her gown and patting a fold into place; "I shall see whether you have +illustrated it conscientiously." + +"The book wouldn't interest you at all! Not at all!" I burst out, +conscious of a feverish intensity in the gaze I bent upon her. "It +is--it is decidedly _dull_!" + +"Is it?" said Miss Jones, indifferently. "Now I can't quite believe +that. You evidently didn't think it too dull to illustrate. There must +be some nice bits in it, and I mean to find the bit where the heroine, +in a pink silk gown, looks at herself in a mirror." + +"Well, you'll find no such bit. I haven't illustrated it!" I strove to +keep my voice fairly cool. "I merely took the heroine's name as +indicative of a class, and chose the epoch as characteristic. The book +is dull, old-fashioned." + +"Ah, but I might not agree with you there. Is it an historical novel? I +like them, even if they are rather slow. One gets all sorts of ideas +about people of another age." + +"It isn't historical." Despite my efforts my voice was growing sharply +anxious, and Miss Jones was beginning to notice my anxiety. "And the +characters in it are not people you would care to have ideas about. It +is merely one of the first attempts to write a psychological study, in +the form of romance, made in France." + +"Oh, but that is exceedingly interesting." + +"You would only find the rather crude analysis of a--a disagreeable +girl." + +"You think _I_ am like a disagreeable girl, then!" said Miss Jones, +still laughing. "From the first I have had a bit of a grudge against you +for finding me so suitable. I am sure I am not vain." + +"Manon was more than vain. She was heartless, a liar." I felt myself +stumbling from bad to worse. "Not in the least like you in anything, +except that she was beautiful." My explanation, with this bald piece of +tasteless flattery, had hardly helped matters. Indeed, Miss Jones became +rather coldly silent. I painted on, my mind in a disturbing whirl of +conjecture. I felt convinced that I had merely whetted her curiosity and +that she would go straight home to the perusal of "Manon"; and to +expect from her the faintest literary appreciation of the distinction +and the delicacy of the book was hopeless. She would fasten with horror +on the brazen immorality of a character she had been chosen to embody. +The blood surged up to my head as I painted. + +As Miss Jones was preparing to go, I held out my hand. + +"Good-bye," I said, feeling very badly. + +"Good-bye? Am I not coming to-morrow?" She had paused in the act of +neatly folding her umbrella, which had been thoughtfully left open to +dry while she posed. It had now stopped raining. + +"Yes--yes, of course," I stammered. + +She secured the elastic band, and then looked at me. + +"Miss Jones," I blurted out, abruptly, "don't read 'Manon Lescaut'; +please don't." + +Her glance became severely penetrating: + +"I really don't understand you," she said, and then added: "I most +certainly shall read it." + +"Well, if you do"--my urgent tone delayed her going--"try to judge it +from an artistic standpoint, you know. A study--a type. Don't +apply--ah--_modern_ standards." + +"I shall apply _my_ standards. I know no other method of judging a +book." + +"Well, then,"--my manner was becoming pitiful--"remember that the +physical resemblance between you was merely in my imagination." + +"I have always believed the face indicative of the character, and I'm +sorry that mine should have suggested to you the character of a liar," +said Miss Jones. It was evident that already she was hurt and, +disregarding my reiterated "It did not! It did not! upon my honour," she +opened the door to go. I still detained her. + +"Miss Jones," I said, standing before her, "I know that you are going to +misjudge me, and that, because you see certain things from an ethical +and I from a purely ćsthetic point of view." + +"I can't admit the division. But no; I hope I shall never _misjudge_ +you." She gave me a brief little smile and walked quickly away. + +Carrington did not come in that evening, and I was glad that my mental +anguish had no observer. + +The next afternoon at two I awaited Miss Jones. My picture, virtually +finished, stood regally dominant in the centre of the studio. + +I hated and I adored it. I saw it with Miss Jones's eyes and I saw it +with my own; but her crude ethics had, on the whole, poisoned my +ćsthetic triumph. + +At two there came the familiar rap. Miss Jones entered. I was sitting +before the picture and rose to meet her. Her face was very white and +very cold, and from under the tipped brim of the little hat her eyes +looked sternly at me. I looked back at her silently. + +"I have read 'Manon Lescaut,'" said Miss Jones. I found nothing to say. + +"You will understand that I cannot sit to-day. You will understand that +I never should have sat for you at all had I _known_," Miss Jones +pursued. + +I said that I understood. + +"I have come to-day to bring you back the money that I have earned under +false pretences." + +She laid the little packet down upon the table. I turned white. "And to +ask you"--here Miss Jones observed me steadily--"whether you do not feel +that you owe me apologies." + +"Miss Jones," I said, "I have unwittingly, unintentionally, given you +great pain; that, with my present knowledge of your exceptional +character, I now see to have been inevitable. I humbly beg your pardon +for it, but I also beg you to believe that from the first I never +thought of you but with respect and admiration." + +Miss Jones's face took on quite a terrible look. + +"Respect! Admiration! While you were looking from me to _that_!" She +pointed to Manon. "While I was clothing your imagination, personifying +to you that vile creature!" + +I tried to stop her with an exclamation of shocked denial, but she went +on, with fierce dignity: + +"Exceptional! You call it exceptional to feel debased by that +association? Can I ever look at my face again without thinking: 'The +face of Manon Lescaut?' Can I ever forget that we were thought of as +one? No"--she held up her hand--"let me speak. Do you suppose I cannot +see now the cleverness, yes, the diabolical cleverness, of your picture +of me there? The likeness is horrible; and there I shall stand for the +world to gaze at as long as the canvas lasts and as long as people look +at any pictures. There _I_ shall be, gibbeted in that woman's smile! No, +I have not done! There will be no escape possible. Somewhere--I shall +always feel it like a hot iron searing me--somewhere that other I will +be all my life long, and when I am dead, and for centuries perhaps, she +will smile on, and my image will be looked at as a type of vice! I see +it now," and with a sort of grandeur of revelation she turned upon +Manon, "I see that it is a masterpiece!" + +I placed myself between her and it. + +"Miss Jones," I said, "this is rather a supreme moment for me, more +supreme than you will ever understand. I forgot you for my picture; I +will not forget my picture for you." The icy fire of her eyes followed +me while I went to the table and took up a sharp, long dagger which lay +beside the little packet of money. I returned to the picture and, giving +it one long look, I ripped the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Jones +made neither sound nor sign. With dogged despair I pierced the smiling +face, I hacked and rent the exquisite thing. The rose-coloured tatters +fell forward; in five minutes "Manon Lescaut" was dead, utterly +annihilated, and Miss Jones surveyed the place where she had been. I +turned to her, and I have no doubt that my face expressed my exultant +misery. + +"And now!" I exclaimed. + +"Now," said Miss Jones, looking solemnly at me, "you have done right, +you have done _nobly_, and you will be the happier for it." + +"Shall I?" I said, approaching her. "Shall I?" + +"Yes. I can confidently say it. That bad thing would have poisoned your +life as it would have poisoned mine." I ignored the misstatement. + +"Miss Jones," I said, "for your sake I have destroyed the best thing in +my life; may I hope for a better? I love you." + +Her pale and beautiful face looked very little less calm, but certainly +a little dismayed, certainly a little sorry. + +"The best thing has been this act of sacrifice," she said; "don't spoil +that by any weak regret. You have gained my admiration and my respect; +but for better things, if better there are, I accepted Mr. Carrington +last night." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps I don't regret. Though she was a prig, I had loved her in the +half hour's exaltation. I am certainly not sorry that she married +Carrington. They seem to be very happy. But the chivalrous moment was +worth while--perhaps. However that may be, since then I have never +painted anything as good as Manon Lescaut. + + +THE END + + + + +Other Books by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + + +TANTE + + + A masterpiece of character creation and delineation, the + fascinating story of a woman of genius, whose genius is matched + only by her wayward temperament. + + + +FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE + + + The story, exquisitely told, of two men and two women, and of + the unraveling of their strangely tangled love-affairs. + + + +AMABEL CHANNICE + + + "For poignancy of emotional effect few love romances equal this + drama, wherein the love of mother and son is raised to its + height of heroic possibility." + + + +A FOUNTAIN SEALED + + + "To have known and loved Valerie Upton, even in a book, is to + have added a new store of sweetness to one's life. In the wide + range of modern fiction, one cannot recall a feminine figure of + such immense attractiveness."--_Manchester Guardian._ + + + +THE SHADOW OF LIFE + + + A study of love's psychology, with, in the beginning, a most + exquisite picturing of two children--later lovers--and their + life in the Scottish open. + + + +PATHS OF JUDGEMENT + + + As unusual as all of Anne Douglas Sedgwick's novels, notable + for its penetrating and beautiful character portrayal. + + + +THE RESCUE + + + The plot turns upon the question of heredity. "It is a long + time since a story of character so distinct, so searching, and + so convincing has appeared." + + + +THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA + + + A modern "Taming of the Shrew." + + + +THE DULL MISS ARCHINARD + + + "Anne Douglas Sedgwick is a finished writer. Her work is as + characteristic of people, places, and things of to-day as is + Jane Austen's of her day." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nest, The White Pagoda, The +Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEST *** + +***** This file should be named 33519-8.txt or 33519-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/5/1/33519/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, H. V., Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and The Masterpiece + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +Release Date: August 23, 2010 [EBook #33519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEST *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, H. V., Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>THE NEST</h1> + +<h1>THE WHITE PAGODA</h1> + +<h1>THE SUICIDE</h1> + +<h1>A FORSAKEN TEMPLE</h1> + +<h1>MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE</h1> + +<h2>BY ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK</h2> + +<h3>(MRS. BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT)</h3> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "TANTE," "FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE," "A FOUNTAIN SEALED," "THE +SHADOW OF LIFE," ETC.</h3> + + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +THE CENTURY CO.<br /> +1913</h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1902, 1904, 1912, 1913, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></h3> + +<h3>Copyright, 1898, by <span class="smcap">Charles Scribner's Sons</span></h3> + +<h3><i>Published, January, 1913</i></h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>It seemed suitable, when making a selection of short stories for +publication in book form, to include my first attempt with my last, and +therefore the very juvenile production—"Miss Jones and the +Masterpiece"—finds a place with the others.</p> + +<p>My thanks are due to the Editors of the <i>Century Magazine</i>, <i>Scribners' +Magazine</i>, and the <i>English Review</i>, for allowing me to republish the +stories that appeared in their pages.</p> + +<p><i>November, 1912.</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#THE_NEST">THE NEST</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#THE_WHITE_PAGODA">THE WHITE PAGODA</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#THE_SUICIDE">THE SUICIDE</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#A_FORSAKEN_TEMPLE">A FORSAKEN TEMPLE</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IA">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIA">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIIA">CHAPTER III</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#MISS_JONES_AND_THE_MASTERPIECE">MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IB">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IIB">CHAPTER II</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#Other_Books_by_Anne_Douglas_Sedgwick">Other Books by Anne Douglas Sedgwick</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_NEST" id="THE_NEST"></a>THE NEST</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>He seemed to have had no time for thinking before he sank into a corner +of the railway carriage and noted, with a satisfaction under the +circumstances perhaps trivial, that he would have it to himself for the +swift hour down to the country. Satisfactions of any sort seemed +inappropriate, an appanage that he should have left behind him for ever +on stepping from the great specialist's door in Wimpole Street two hours +ago. When a man has but a month—at most two months—to live, small +hopes and fears should drop from him: he should be stripped, as it were, +for the last solitary wrestle in the arena of death.</p> + +<p>But the drive, from the doctor's to the city and from there to +Paddington, had seemed unusually full of life's solicitations. The soft, +strained eyes of an over-laden horse, appealing in patience from the +shade of dusty blinkers; the dismal degradation of a music-hall +poster—a funny man with reddened nose and drunken hat, as appealing in +his slavery as the horse; the vaporous blue-green silhouettes of the +Park on a silvery sky;—he had found himself responding to these with +pity, repugnance and pleasure as normally as if they meant for him now +what they always would have meant. That such impressions were so soon to +cease must change all their meaning,—at least, so one would have +supposed; he began to think of that and to wonder a little over the +apparent stoicism of those intervening hours; but, while the mood had +lasted, the fact that he had come to the end of things, that there was a +pit dug across his path, had done hardly more than skim on the outskirts +of his alert yet calm receptivity. He seemed never to have noticed more, +never to have been more conscious of the outer world and so little +conscious of himself.</p> + +<p>Now, in the train, the outer world, wraith-like in a sudden summer +shower, became the background as it sped on either side, and thoughts +were in the foreground, thoughts of himself as doomed, and of the life +that he had loved and worked in, as measured into one shallow cupful at +his lips. Even yet it was almost absurd, the difficulty he found in +realising it. The doomed figure detached itself, became that of a +piteous, a curious alien, whom one watched respectfully and from a +distance. From a safe shore he observed the tossing of the rapidly +sinking skiff with its helpless occupant. It required a great pull, +push, and effort of his whole being, like that of awakening from a +half-dream, in order to see, in order to say to himself, really +believing it, that he was the man. Wonder, rather than dread or sorrow, +was still the paramount feeling, though, oppressively, as if he picked +his steps about the verge of an echoing cavern, turning away his eyes, +there lurked behind all that he felt the sense of sudden emptiness and +dark.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful, immensely absorbing and interesting, this idea of +being himself doomed. Self-conscious, observant, sensitive as he was, he +still thought more than felt. It was at last credible and indubitable +that he <i>was</i> the man, and he was asking himself how he would take it; +he was asking himself how he would bear it. He was amused to observe +that the pathetic old human vanity, by no means stunned, was pushing its +head above the tossing surface in order to assure him again and again +that he would bear it very well. It should be a graceful and gallant +exit. If there were to be dark moments, moments when the cavern sucked +him in and had him, if he was to know horror and despair, no one else, +at all events, should know that he knew them; no one else should share +his suffering. Up to the edge of extinction he would keep silence and a +stoic cheerfulness. The doctor had promised him that there would be +little pain; there would be knowledge only to conceal.</p> + +<p>This vanity, and there was satisfaction in it for all his ironic +insight, was not so selfish as it seemed; the next turn of thought led +him to this. For no one had a right to share his suffering; or perhaps +it would be more magnanimous to say that the some one of whom he was +thinking had a right to be spared the sharing of it. He shared so few of +the things that mattered with Kitty that she might well claim immunity. +His wife's figure, since the very beginning, had been hovering near his +thoughts, not once looked at directly. It might be horribly painful to +look at it, but he suspected that it would not be so painful as to look +at the other near thing that he must leave behind: his work; the work +that with all its grind and routine—so hard to harness to at first—had +now become so much a part of himself. The fact that he might come nearer +to despair, nearer to the crumbling edge of the cavern, when he thought +of leaving his work than when he thought of leaving his wife, was in +itself a pain; but it was an old pain in a new guise. Kitty had for so +long been one of the things that counted for less than his work. Vanity +even raised its voice high enough to say ruefully that they might get on +badly without him at the Home Office; the country itself might suffer. +He smiled; but the dart told; it was perhaps feathered with truth. Yes, +everything most essential in him, everything that most counted, was +answered, called forth in his work. It was in that that he would most +truly die. For, of course, in the many other, the young, the ardent, the +foolish hopes, he was dead already. And it was round the figure of his +wife, that light and radiant figure, sweet, soft, appealing, that those +dead hopes seemed to gather, like mist about a flower.</p> + +<p>Poor, lovely little Kitty: the sight of the rain-dimmed meadow-sweet, by +the brookside in a passing field, brought her before him in this aspect +of innocent disillusioner. For nothing essential, nothing that counted +in him, was answered or called forth by Kitty except a slightly ironic +tenderness. He didn't judge life from his own failure to find splendid +mutual enterprise and sacred mutual comprehension where his lover's +blindness had thought to find it. Nor did he judge Kitty. His own +blindness was the fault, if fault there were, and even that blindness he +could now see tolerantly. The dart and pang had gone from his memory of +young love; his smile for it was indulgent; he was even glad that the +memory was there, glad that he had known the illusion, even if it were +at the price of failure in that happy realm of life. Little of the +sadness could have been Kitty's; she had not known the bitterness of his +slow awakening; she was easily contented with the tame terms of +unillumined life. A charming home; a fond husband; a pretty, diligent +part to play in the political and social life of the countryside; the +nicest taste to show in dress and friends;—Kitty, he imagined, thought +of her life as completely successful. And why not? He himself saw love +as an episode and contentedly accepted the fact that for the flower-like +woman and the man who works there can be, eventually, no deeper bond.</p> + +<p>He knew two or three other women who interested him more than Kitty ever +could; to them he went when he wanted to talk about anything he cared +for. Kitty was sweet to see; she made him very comfortable; she rarely +irritated him. With friends and Kitty what did he want of women more? +Outside these domestic and drawing-room circles was the world of men and +ideas in which he lived, in which his real life had its roots.</p> + +<p>Yet, as the train neared the little country station, as familiar lanes +and meadows glided slowly past the windows, he became aware that his +thoughts had more and more slid from this outside life, this world of +work and reality, and that from thinking of the little part that Kitty +played in it he had come to thinking of Kitty and to the thought that he +was to see her for the last time.—Yes; that crashed in at last. At last +something seemed to come to him which, in the pain of it, was completely +adequate to the situation. It was the Kitty of six years ago that he saw +most clearly, the girl he had fallen in love with, his bride; but there +were all the other memories too, the little silent memories, the +nothings, the everythings of daily life together; small joys, small +sorrows. The breakfast-table, Kitty behind the coffee, reading aloud to +him some scrap of her morning budget; the garden, Kitty showing him how +a new flower was thriving; Kitty riding beside him in the dew to an +early meet; and, suddenly, among all the trivial memories, the solemn +one that hardly seemed to go with Kitty at all,—Kitty's face looking up +at him, disfigured with grief and pain, as he told her that their +child—it had died at birth—was dead.</p> + +<p>The other women, the interesting ones, the women who, more or less, knew +their way about his mind and soul, were forgotten, blotted out +completely by the trivial and the solemn memories. He felt no desire to +see them, no desire at all to say good-bye to them; that would be to +bring them near. But he did want to see Kitty, at once. She was not near +mind or soul; but she was near as life is near; near like the pulse of +his heart; and, with all the other things, he felt, suddenly, that Kitty +was his child, too, and that paternal yearning was mingled with the +crying out of his whole nature towards her. For it was crying out; and, +if she was his child, in what deep strange sense was he not her child, +too.</p> + +<p>The wide world, the real world, the outside world of work and +achievement, collapsed like a crumpled panorama; he was covering his +eyes; he was shuddering; he was stumbling back to the nest, wounded to +death, there to fold himself in darkness, in oblivion, in love.—How +near we are to the animal, he thought, smiling, with trembling lips, as +he saw the station slide outside the windows at last, saw the face of +the station-master—he had never before known that the station-master +was such a lovable person—he seemed so near the nest that he must be +lovable—saw, beyond the flower-wreathed palings, the dog-cart waiting +for him. But his deeper self rebuked the cynical side-glance. The +trembling smile, he knew, had more of truth:—how near we are to the +divine. The pain and ecstasy of this moment of arrival made it one of +the most vivid and significant of his life. Almost worth while to know +that one is to die in a month if the knowledge brings with it such +flashes of beauty of vision. The whole earth seemed transfigured and +heavenly.</p> + +<p>Dean, the coachman, gave acquiescent answers to his questions on the +homeward drive. He heard the sound of his own voice and knew that he was +speaking as he wanted to be sure of speaking for these next weeks, with +ease and lightness. He would be able to keep up before Kitty. Until the +very end she should be spared everything; there was joy in the thought, +and no longer any vanity. He would see her, be with her, and she should +not know. He would see her happy for their last month together. He +clasped the thought of her happiness—with her—to his heart.</p> + +<p>Like all ecstasies, it faded, this rapture of his return. By the time +the house was reached, the lovely little Jacobean house that they had +found together, the buoyancy was gone and what was left was a sweetness +and a great fatigue. He was to see her; that was well; and here was the +nest; that was well, too. But he wanted to fold his wings and sleep.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Holland was not in the house, the butler told him, she and Sir +Walter had gone down to the river together. Holland felt that he would +rather not go after them. He would wait so that he should see Kitty +alone when he first saw her. He liked Sir Walter, their friend and +neighbour; it would not be difficult to act before him, and he knew that +he could begin acting at once; but, for this first meeting of the new, +short epoch, he must see Kitty alone. So he had his tea in the +library—queer to go on having tea, queer to find one still liked +tea—and looked over some papers, and saw, outside, the afternoon grow +stiller and more golden, and knew that all dreads were in abeyance and +that the somnolence, as of a drugged sweetness and fatigue, still kept +him safe.</p> + +<p>He was conscious at last of a purely physical chill; the library was +cool and he stepped into the sunlight on the lawn, walking up and down +among the flowers and, presently, across the grassy terraces, to the +lower groups of trees, vaguely directing his steps to the little +summer-house that faced the west and was as full of sunlight at this +hour as a fretted shell of warm, lapping sea-water. They could not see +him, on their way up from the river, nor he them, from here, and after a +half-hour or so of dreamy basking it would be time to dress for dinner, +Sir Walter would have gone and Kitty would be at the house again.</p> + +<p>He followed the narrow path, set thickly with young ashes and sycamores, +and saw beyond the trees the roof of the summer-house heaped with +illumined festoons of traveller's-joy, and then, when he was near, he +heard voices within it, Kitty's voice and Sir Walter's.</p> + +<p>Hesitating, half-turning to go back, it was as if a childish panic of +shyness seized him, so that he smiled at himself as he stood there, in +the arrested attitude of an involuntary eavesdropper. But the smile +faded. A look of bewilderment came to his face. Kitty was weeping and +Sir Walter was pleading with her, and so strange was Sir Walter's voice, +so strange what he was saying to Kitty, that all the strangeness of the +day found now its culminating moment.</p> + +<p>He walked on, slowly, unwillingly, helplessly, walked on, as he now +knew, into some far other form of suffering than any that had been +foreseen by him that afternoon.</p> + +<p>A rustic seat ran round the summer-house. On the side most hidden he +sank down. He did not choose the hidden side. He had no feeling of will +or choice; had they come out upon him he would have looked at them with +the same bewildered eyes. But, dully, he felt that he must +know,—know,—why Kitty was unhappy.</p> + +<p>Sunken on the seat, among the traveller's-joy, exhausted, yet alert, his +head dizzy and his heart stilled, as it were, to listen, it was this +amazement and curiosity that Holland felt rather than anger, jealousy, +or grief.</p> + +<p>Kitty was unhappy; Sir Walter loved her, and she loved Sir Walter. Sir +Walter was imploring her to come away with him. "But you do love me," +was the phrase that he repeated again and again, the strong protest of +fact against her refusal.</p> + +<p>The dizziness lifting, the heart beating more normally, Holland knew +more. Kitty was unhappy and loved Sir Walter, but, deeper than that, was +the truth that she was happy in her knowledge of his love, deeper than +that—though this depth was of thankfulness in her husband's heart—was +the truth that the love was as yet a beautiful pastime; there was joy +for her in her own sadness, drama in her pain; she was a child with a +strange toy in her hand; it charmed her and she had not learned to dread +it.</p> + +<p>Her husband's comprehension of her, of her childishness, her fluidity, +her weakness, actually touched with respect his comprehension of Sir +Walter; for Sir Walter's strength was reverent, even in his recklessness +there was dignity. Holland knew that he spoke the truth when he said to +Kitty that she might trust him for life.</p> + +<p>It was the real thing with Sir Walter. With Kitty the real thing could +be little more than the response to reality in others. There was the +danger that her husband steadied himself to look at, as he sat in the +sunlight outside the summer-house and listened.</p> + +<p>The dizziness was quite gone. He had never felt a greater mental +clarity. He knew that he must be suffering; but suffering seemed +relegated to some region of mere physical sensation. He saw and +understood so many things that he had never seen or understood before. +He felt no jealousy, not a pang of the defrauded, injured male, not a +throb of the broken-hearted lover; yet it was not indifference to Kitty +that gave him his immunity; he had never cared more for Kitty; it was, +perhaps, in a tenderer key, as he cared for the station-master, as he +cared, now, for Sir Walter. He was himself soon to die and, as +personalities, as related to his own life, people had ceased to count; +but as lives that were to go on after he was dead, they counted as they +had never done till then; and Kitty most of all. It was this intense +consciousness of her youth, of all the years of life she had to live, +that pressed with such clearness and such fear upon him. She had all her +life before her and she held in her hands a terrible, a beautiful toy +that, suddenly transformed to an engine of destruction, might shatter +her.</p> + +<p>Sir Walter was going. He said that he would come again to-morrow.</p> + +<p>"Nicholas will be here," said Kitty. She no longer wept. Her voice, now +that the stress of the situation was over, had regained its pensive +sweetness.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Sir Walter, "that's what's so odious, darling; he will +always be here and everything will be twisted and horrible. I like your +husband."</p> + +<p>"He is a strange man; I sometimes think that he cares for nothing but +his work; he is all thought and no heart. I don't believe that he would +really mind if I were to go away with you. He would smile, sadly and +ironically, and say: 'Poor, silly child.' And then he would turn to his +papers. I'm nothing to him but a doll, a convenient, domestic doll. And +he doesn't care for playing with dolls except for a little while now and +then." Kitty spoke with a sober pathos that did not veil resentment.</p> + +<p>"Ah, you can say all that to me—and expect me to go on bearing seeing +you wasted and thrown away!" Sir Walter broke out. "What stands between +us? Why must we go on suffering like this?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a great joy—to know that the other is there, +understanding—and caring?"</p> + +<p>"A killing sort of joy."</p> + +<p>"How cruel, how wrong you are," Kitty murmured; but her husband knew +that for her, indeed, the joy was deep, and that it was in such moments +of power over an emotion she could rouse yet dominate that she had her +keenest sense of it.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it," said Sir Walter. "I shall always want you to come +away with me."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye:—for to-day."</p> + +<p>"It's you who are cruel."</p> + +<p>At that, silence following, Holland knew that Kitty's quiet tears fell +again.</p> + +<p>Sir Walter was subjugated. He pleaded for pardon; promised not to +torment her—to try not to torment her. A trysting-place was fixed on +for next day and Holland felt another chill of fear at Kitty's swift +resource and craft in planning it. The child knew how to plot and lie. +It thought itself nobly justified, no doubt, and that its fidelity to +duty gave it the right to every liberty of conscience. And before Sir +Walter went there was a moment of relenting that showed how near was the +joy of yielding to the joy of ruthlessness, "For this once,—for this +once only—" Kitty murmured. And Holland knew that Sir Walter held her +in his arms and kissed her.</p> + +<p>After his departure Kitty sat on for some moments in the summer-house. +She sighed deeply once or twice and Holland fancied, from her light +movements, that she had leaned her arms on the table and rested her head +on them. He heard presently, that she was softly saying a prayer, and at +the sound, tears filled his eyes. Then, rising, she collected her basket +of flowers, her parasol, her books, and walked away with slow steps +along the path leading to the house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>Two facts stood clear before Holland's eyes. He had been culpably blind +and Kitty was in danger. He asked himself if he had not been culpably +selfish too, for Kitty's summing up of his attitude towards her would +have hurt had he not been beyond such hurts; but, looking back, he could +not see that he had ever pushed Kitty aside nor relegated her to the +place of plaything. No; the ship of his romance, all its sails set to +fairest, sweetest hopes, had been well-ballasted by the most serious, +most generous of modern theories as to the right relations of man and +wife. And the shock and disillusion had been to find, day by day, that +it was, so to speak, only the sails that Kitty cared for. The cargo, the +purpose of their voyage, left her prettily, vaguely indifferent. Again +and again, he remembered, it had been as if he had led her down into the +busy heart of the ship, explained the chart to her, pointed out all the +interesting wares. Kitty had shown a graceful interest, but with the +manner of a lovely voyager, brought down from sunny or starlit +contemplations on deck to humour the dry tastes of the captain. She +didn't care a bit for the cargo, or the purposes; she didn't care a bit +for any of his interests nor wish to share them; his interests, in so +far as specialized and unrelated to their romance, were, she intimated, +by every retreating grace—as of gathered-up skirts and a backward smile +for the captain in his prosy room—the captain's own particular manly +business; her business was to be womanly, that is, to be charming, to +feel the breeze in the sails, and to gaze at the stars. And though, now +for the first time he saw it, Kitty was not the happy, facilely +contented woman he had thought her, it was really as if the ship, with +weightier cargoes to carry, more distant ports to reach, had undergone a +transformation; throbbing and complicated machinery moved instead of +sails, and on its workaday decks Kitty strolled wistfully, missing the +sails, missing the romance, but missing only that.</p> + +<p>He had accepted, helplessly, her interpretation of their specialised +existences, hoping only that hers might assume the significance that +would, perhaps, justify the old-fashioned separation of interests; but +no children came after the first, the child that died at birth, the +child that his heart ached over still; and he could not believe that +Kitty felt the lack, could hardly believe that she shared his hope for +other children. She had suffered terribly in the birth of the one, more, +perhaps, than in its death—though that had temporarily crushed her—and +she had been horribly frightened by the cruelties and perils of +maternity. So, though he had come to think of her as essentially +womanly, it was in a rather narrow sense; the term had by degrees lost +many, even, of its warm, instinctive associations, and as he now sat +thinking, near the summer-house, it took on its narrowest, if most +piteous meaning. Kitty was essentially womanly. She needed some one to +be in love with her. Her husband had ceased to be in love—though he had +not ceased to be a loving husband—and she responded helplessly to a +lover's appeal. Sir Walter's appeal was very persuasive. A ship of +snowy, wing-like sails, a fairy ship, rocked on the waves at the very +edge of Kitty's sheltered life. Only a shutting of the eyes, a holding +of the breath, and she would be carried across the narrow intervening +depth to the deck, to freedom, to safety—she would believe—to sails +trimmed for an immortal romance. Would Kitty's cowardice, and Kitty's +prayers—they were interwoven he felt sure—keep her for one month from +running away with Sir Walter? In only a month's time she could respond +and not be shattered: in only a month's time the ship of romance would +be really safe, she might walk on board with no shutting of the eyes or +holding of the breath. Holland gazed, and the facts became clearer and +more ominous. For the lack of a knowledge that was his, Kitty and Sir +Walter might wreck their lives. All the motives for the concealment of +his secret, the vanity, the bravery, the cherishing tenderness that had +inspired him, were scattered to the winds. The nest was a tattered, +wind-pierced ruin. And he, already, was a ghost. Kitty should not lack +the knowledge.</p> + +<p>The dew was falling, and he had grown chilly. He walked back quickly to +the house that he had left a little while ago so vividly aware of the +sweetness that the shallow cup might hold. The cup was empty. Not a drop +of self was left to hope or live for.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He waited till the next day to tell her. He did not feel a tremor, he +felt too deep a fatigue.</p> + +<p>Their meeting at dinner was a placid gliding over the depths; two hooded +gondolas floating side by side, each with its shrouded secret. But +skill and vigilance were his. Kitty's gondola drifted with the current, +knowing no need of skill, secure of secrecy. The eyes she quietly lifted +to her husband were unclouded. He guessed the inner drama that held her +thoughts, the tragically beautiful <i>role</i> that she herself played in it. +It was as a heroine that she saw herself. Why not, indeed. No heroine +could have played her part more gracefully and worthily, and a heroine's +innocent eyes could not be expected to see as far as his "ironic" ones.</p> + +<p>It was the sense of distance, from her, from everything, that grew upon +him during the long intervals of the night when he lay awake and watched +the stars slowly cross his open window. He was no longer divided from +himself, no longer groping, as in the train, to find a clue between the +doomed man and the watcher. The self that he had found was adrift upon a +sea, solitary indeed, and saw pigmy figures moving in the shifting +lights and shadows of the shore. His mild preoccupation was with one +figure, light, fluttering, foolish: she was walking near the verge of +the cliff and her foothold might give way. He intended to signal to her +and to point out a safe road through the cornfields, before he turned +himself again to loneliness, the sky, and the sea that was soon to +engulf him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>This self-obliterating immensity of mood was contracted and ruffled next +morning by the trivial difficulties that stood in the way of his +determination. He went to Kitty's boudoir—and, in spite of immensities, +he knew that his heart beat heavily under the burden of its project, how +careful he must be, how delicate—to find her interviewing the cook. In +the garden, she was talking to the gardener, and afterwards, in her +room, she was trying on a tea-gown before the mirror. Actually he felt +some irritation.</p> + +<p>"When can I see you, Kitty?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Her eyes in the glass met his with surprise at his tone; but surprise +was all. "See me? Here I am. What is it?—No, Cécile, the sash must +knot, so; tie it more to the side."</p> + +<p>"I want to talk over something with you."</p> + +<p>"I'm rather busy this morning. Will after lunch do? Don't you see, +Cécile, like this."</p> + +<p>"No, it won't. I must see you now," said Holland, almost querulously.</p> + +<p>She turned her head to look at him and a shadow crossed her face. +Suddenly, he saw it, she was a little frightened.</p> + +<p>"Of course, directly. I'll come to the library."</p> + +<p>Seeing that fear, and smitten with compunction, a rather silly impulse +made him smile at her and say:—"Don't bother to hurry. I can wait." But +he did want her to hurry. He felt that he could wait no longer.</p> + +<p>He walked up and down the library. The weariness of the day before was +gone; the sweetness, of course, was gone, and the inhuman immensity was +gone too. He felt oddly normal and reasonable, detached yet implicated; +almost like a friendly family doctor come to break the fatal news to the +ignorant wife. It was just the anxiety that the doctor might feel, the +grave trouble and the twinge of awkwardness.</p> + +<p>He had only waited for ten minutes when Kitty appeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>Kitty Holland was still a young woman and looked younger than her years. +The roundness and blueness and steady gaze of her eyes, the bloom of her +cheeks and innocent lustre of her golden hair gave an infantile quality +to her loveliness. She was not a vain woman, but she was conscious of +these advantages and the consciousness had touched the childlike +candour and confidingness with a little artificiality, for long apparent +to her husband's kindly but dispassionate eye. To other people Mrs. +Holland's manner, the whispering vagueness of her voice, the wistful +dwelling of her glance, was felt to be artificial only as the gold +embroideries and serrated edges on the robes of a Fra Angelico angel are +felt as something added and decorative. Kitty was far too intelligent to +try to look like a Fra Angelico angel; she was picturesque as only the +extremely fashionable can be picturesque; but Holland knew she was +conscious that she reminded people of an angel, and of a child, and that +she reminded herself continually of all sorts of exquisite things, +partly because she was dreamily self-conscious and keenly aware of +exquisiteness, and partly because he had, in their first year, the year +of sails and breezes, so impressed these things upon her attention.</p> + +<p>He himself had grown accustomed to—perhaps a little tired of—the lily +poise of the head, the long, gentle hands, the floating step, quite the +step of an angel aware of flower-dappled grass beneath its feet and the +flutter of embroidered draperies. But Kitty, though accustomed to these +graces, in herself, had not grown tired of them, they had, indeed, more +and more filled the foreground of her delicate and decorative life, so +that he could guess at how much his own indifference had helped to +alienate her.</p> + +<p>And now, as he turned to look at her, these half ironic, half +affectionate impressions hovered as a background, and, sharply drawn +upon it, with the biting acid of his new perceptions, he saw something +else in Kitty's face that he had never seen before.</p> + +<p>Already he had seen her as a womanly woman, as that in its narrowest +sense. He saw her now as a type of the woman who live in and through and +for their affections, and this with their sensations rather than with +their intelligences. Vividly his memory struck them out;—the faces of +the satisfied women, taking on, as years pass over them, as experience +detaches from the craving, sentimental self, and frees the instincts to +push, climb, cling in roots and tendrils for other selves, a vegetable +serenity and simplicity;—and, more vividly, with discomfort in the +memory, the faces of the unsatisfied; the womanly married woman whose +romance is over, the spinster who has missed romance; faces chiselled to +subtlety by dreams and frustration.</p> + +<p>On Kitty's face he saw it now, that look of a subtlety childlike, +innocent, of flesh rather than of spirit, yet, in its very +unconsciousness, almost sinister. For a moment, as the lines of the +sharp new perception etched themselves, lines gossamer-like in fineness, +floating, transforming shadows rather than lines, he was afraid of his +wife, afraid of the alien, mysterious force he guessed in her.</p> + +<p>For the delicately sinister subtlety was remote from his understanding, +was a subtlety that no man's face can show, capable as it is of a +grossness and corruption merely animal by contrast; open and obvious. +Kitty's subtlety did not make her animal: it made her more than ever +like an angel; but an ambiguous angel; and to feel that he did not +understand her made her strange. It was no clue to feel that she did not +understand herself; it was only a further depth of mystery.</p> + +<p>He was ashamed of his own folly in another moment, ashamed of an insight +distorted and distorting, so he told himself. Over and above all such +morbidities was the fact that Kitty was looking at him with the eyes of +a frightened child—a real child.</p> + +<p>The reaction from his fear, the recognition of her fear, stirred in him +a love more personal than any of the vast benevolences that he had +felt. He went to her and led her to the window-seat where, sitting down +himself, holding both her hands in his and looking up at her standing +before him, he said with the quiet of long-prepared words: "Kitty, dear, +I have something that I want to tell you and that will make you, I +think, a little sad. We have had happy times together, haven't we? It +isn't all regret. You and I are going to part, Kitty."</p> + +<p>She gazed at him and terror widened her eyes. She could not speak. She +did not move. Her hands in his hands seemed dead.</p> + +<p>He saw in a moment what the fear was that showed itself in this torpor +of apprehension, and he hastened on so that she should not, in her +dread, reveal the secret that need never be spoken.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to die, Kitty," he said, "I had my sentence yesterday, from +Dr. Farebrother. I never dreamed that it was anything serious, that +complaint of mine, you know,—never dreamed it even when it began to +trouble me a good deal, as it has of late. But it's not what I thought. +It's fatal; and it will gallop now. He gives me one month—at the very +most, two months." He spoke deliberately, though swiftly, and, as he +finished, he smiled up at her, a reassuring smile. His wife's dilated +eyes, fixed on him, made him flush a little in the ensuing pause. He +felt that the smile had been inept. He had spoken too much from the +height of his detachment, and the placidity of his words might well seem +horrible to her.</p> + +<p>She was finding it horrible. She seemed to be breathing the icy air of a +vault that he had opened before her; heavy, slow, painful breaths, those +of a sleeper oppressed by nightmare; the sound of them, the sight of her +labouring breast hurt him. He put his arms around her and smiled now, as +one smiles at a child to console it. "I've frightened you," he said; +"forgive me. You see, one gets used to it, so soon, for oneself. Dear +little Kitty, I'm so sorry."</p> + +<p>Still she did not speak. Still it was that torpid terror that gazed at +him. And the terror was not for what he had thought it was; it was for +what he had said. It was a contagious terror. She cared. In some +unexplained, unforeseen way she cared terribly; and his projects +crumbled beneath her gaze; bewilderment drifted in his mind; her fear +gained him.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter? What is it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The change and sharpness in his voice brought them near at last. Kitty +seized his hands and lifted them from her; yet grasping, clinging as she +held him off. He would not have thought her face capable of such +fierceness and demand. She was hardly recognisable as she said: "Do you +want to die? Don't you mind dying?"</p> + +<p>"Mind?—I should rather not, of course. I care for my life. But one must +face it; what else is there to do?—And,—what is it Kitty? What have I +done to you?"</p> + +<p>And now, her head fallen back, her eyes closed, tears ran down her face, +as piteously, agonised and stricken, she asked:</p> + +<p>"Don't you love me at all? Don't you mind leaving me at all?"</p> + +<p>His astonishment was so great that for a moment it bereft him of words. +He had risen and was holding her; her eyes were closed and she sobbed +and sobbed, her head fallen back. And her passion of sorrow and despair, +her loveliness, too, and youth, seized and shook him; so that all the +things he had not felt yet, all the hovering, dreadful things, the dark +forms of the cavern, encompassed, pressed upon him; despair and longing, +the horror of annihilation, the agonising sweetness of life. It was as +if a hidden wound had been opened and that his blood was gushing forth, +not to peace, but to pain and torment. He felt his own sobs rising; she +cared; how much she cared. It was as if her caring gave him back the +self that yesterday had blotted out; in her pain he knew his own; in her +self he saw and mourned his own doomed and piteous self. His head leaned +to hers and his lips sought hers, when, suddenly, a furious memory came, +and indignation suffocated him.</p> + +<p>He thrust her violently away, holding her by the shoulders. "How dare +you! how dare you!" he cried. "You don't love me. You don't mind my +dying. How dare you torture me like this—when it's not real,—when I +was at peace."</p> + +<p>It was like a wild, impossible dream. Their faces stared at each other; +their hands seized each other; they spoke, their voices clashing, and +shaken by strangling sobs.</p> + +<p>"How dare you say that to me! You have broken my heart! You haven't +cared for years—for years!" Kitty cried. "I've longed—longed. It is +too horrible. How dare you come and tell me that you are going to die +and that it will make me a little sad. Oh! I love you—and you are +horrible to me."</p> + +<p>"You are lying, Kitty—you are lying!"</p> + +<p>"That too! You can say that! To me! To me!"</p> + +<p>"It's true. You know you lie. I haven't loved you as I did. But I've +cared—good God! I see now how much.—It is you who have ceased to +care."</p> + +<p>At these words Kitty was transfigured. Joy, joy unmistakable, flamed up +in her. It mounted to her eyes and lips, revivifying her ravaged face, +beaming forth, inundating him, unfaltering, assured, absolute. +"Darling—darling—you love me? you do love me?—Oh, you shan't die—I +won't let you die. My love will keep you with me. We will forget all +these years when we haven't understood—when we've forgotten. We will +forget everything—except that we love each other and that that is all +there is to live for in the world."</p> + +<p>"And—Sir Walter?—" he said, simply and helplessly.</p> + +<p>Kitty's arms were about his neck, her transfigured face was upturned to +him. Worshipped by those eyes, held in that embrace, his words, in his +own ears, were absurd. Yet he hadn't been dreaming yesterday. Kitty +might make the words seem absurd; but even Kitty's eyes and Kitty's arms +could not conjure away the facts of the sunlit summer-house, the tears, +the parting kiss. What of Sir Walter? What else was there left to say?</p> + +<p>But after he had said them, and stood looking at her, it was as if his +words released the last depths of her rapture. She did not flush or +falter or show, even, any shock or surprise. Her arms about him, her +eyes on his, it was a stiller, a more solemn joy that dwelt on him and +enfolded him.</p> + +<p>"You know?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I heard you last evening," Holland answered. "I was sitting outside the +summer-house. You said you loved him. You let him kiss you."</p> + +<p>"You will forgive me," said Kitty. They were looking at each other like +two children. "I thought I loved him, because I was so unhappy, and he +is so dear and kind and loves me so much. I must love some one. I must +be loved. I was so lonely. And you seemed not to care at all any more. +You were only my husband, you weren't my lover.—And you don't know all. +He doesn't know it. But I know it now. And I must tell you +everything—all the dreadful weakness—you must understand it all. +Perhaps, if this hadn't come, perhaps, if you hadn't been given back to +me like this, I might have gone away with him, Nicholas. It wasn't that +I had ceased to love you; it was that I had to be loved and was weak +before love. It is dreadful;—I believe all women are like that. And I +did struggle, oh, I did. Nicholas, you will forgive me?"</p> + +<p>"I knew it, dear, and I forgave you."</p> + +<p>"You knew it? You loved me so much that you forgave?"</p> + +<p>"That was why I told you, Kitty. I hadn't meant to tell you; I had meant +to keep it from you, this sadness, and to make our last month together a +happy one for you. I was coming back to you with such longing, dear. And +then I heard; and then I was afraid that you might go away before you +would be free."</p> + +<p>"You loved me so much? You did it because you loved me so much?—Oh! +Nicholas—Nicholas!"</p> + +<p>"That was why I said those horrible things. I wanted you to be happy. I +didn't think you could be more than a little sad when you knew that you +were going to be free. Foolish, darling Kitty—you are sure it's me you +do love?"</p> + +<p>Again she could not speak, but it was her joy that made her silent. She +was no more to be disbelieved than an angel appearing in the vault, +irradiating the darkness. Flowers sprang beneath her footsteps; her +smile was life. And the memory of his own cynical vision of her smote +him with a self-reproach that deepened tenderness. She was only subtle, +only sinister, when shut away, unloved. She was womanly, meant for love +only, and her folly made her the more lovable. Love was all that was +left him. One month of love. His hands yielded to her hands; his eyes +answered her eyes. The fragrance of the flowers was in the air, the +flutter of heavenly garments. One month of life; but how flat, how mean, +how dusty seemed the arduous outer world of the last years; how deep the +goblet of enchantment that the unambiguous angel held out to him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>There were two cups to drink, for he had to put the cup of death to her +lips. He told her all as they walked in the garden that afternoon; of +the growing gravity of symptoms, the interview with the great specialist +to whom his own doctor, unwilling to pronounce a final verdict, had sent +him. He begged her to spare him further interviews. He was to die, that +was evident; and doctors could do nothing for him. If pain came he +promised that he would take what relief they had to give.</p> + +<p>She leaned her head against his shoulder, weeping and weeping as they +walked.</p> + +<p>They were two lovers again, lovers shut into the straitest, most +compassed paradise. On every side the iron walls enclosed them; there +were no distances; there was no horizon. But within the circle of doom +blossomed the mazy sweetness; the very sky seemed to have narrowed to +the roofing of a bower.</p> + +<p>To be in love again; to feel the whole world beating like a doubled +pulse of you-and-I to and fro between them. She must weep, and he, with +this newly born self, must know to the full the pang and bitterness; but +the moments blossomed and smiled over the dread; because the dread was +there. Sir Walter passed away like a shadow. Kitty saw him and came to +her husband from the interview with a composure that almost made him +laugh. It would have hurt her feelings for him to laugh at her, and he +listened gravely while she told him that Sir Walter, now, was going to +accept the big post in India that, for her sake, he had been on the +point of refusing. He was going away that very night. She had been +perfectly frank with him; she had explained to him—"quite simply and +gently" said Kitty—that she had been very foolish and had let her +friendship for him, her fondness, and her loneliness mislead her; yes, +she had told him quite simply that he would always be a dear, dear +friend, but that she was in love with her husband.</p> + +<p>The poor toy. The child, with placid hands and unpitying eyes, had +snapped it across the middle and walked away from it. He didn't need her +to say it again; he saw that she had ceased completely to love Sir +Walter. "And weren't you sorry for him at all?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Sorry? Of course, dear, how can you ask?" said Kitty. "I was as tender +as possible. But you know, I can't but feel that he deserved punishment. +Oh, I know that I did, too!—don't think me hard and self-righteous. But +see—see, darling, what you have saved me from! Remember what he wanted +me to do. Oh—it was wrong and cruel of him. I shall never be able to +forgive him, just because I was so weak—just because I did listen."</p> + +<p>"Ah, do forgive him—just because you were so strong that you never let +him guess that you were weak," said Holland. He was very sorry for Sir +Walter. And he was conscious, since he might not smile outwardly, of +smiling inwardly over the ruthlessness of women towards the man, loved +no longer, who has tarnished their image in their own eyes. The angel +held him fast in Paradise, but something in him, a mere sense of humour, +the humour of the outer world, perhaps, escaped her at moments, looked +down at her, at himself, at Paradise, and accepted comedy as well as +tragedy. It was only to these places of silence, loneliness and +contemplation that Kitty did not come.</p> + +<p>She shared sorrow and joy. She guessed too well at the terrors; she +would be beside him, her very heart beating on his, through all the +valley of the shadow; he would be able to spare her nothing, and even in +death he would not be alone. And she was joy. The years of pining and +lassitude, the toying with danger, the furnace of affliction that, in +the library, had burned the dross from her soul, all had made another +woman of Kitty from his girl-bride of six years before. She was joy; she +knew how to make it, to give it. She surprised him continually with her +inventiveness in rapture. When fear came upon them, she folded it from +him with encircling arms. When fear passed, she seemed to lead him out +into the dew and sunlight of early morning and to show him new paths, +new flowers, new bowers of bliss. All artifice, all self-centred +dreaminess, all the littler charms, dropped from her. She was as candid, +as single-minded, as passionate as a newly created Eve, and she seemed +dowered with a magic power of diversity in simplicity. There was no +forethought or plan in her triumph over satiety. Like a flower, or an +Eve, she seemed alive with the instinctive impulse that grows from +change to change, from beauty to further beauty. Holland, summer-day +after summer-day, was conscious only of joy and sorrow; of these, and of +the still places where, sometimes, he seemed to hover above them. The +serpent of weariness still slept.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Tell me, dearest," said Kitty one day—how they talked and talked about +themselves, recapturing every mutual memory, analysing long-forgotten +scenes and motives, explaining themselves, accusing themselves, for the +joy of being forgiven—"Tell me; you loved me so much that you were +willing to give me up to him, to make me happy, and to save me;—but, if +you hadn't been going to die—oh darling!—then you would have loved me +too much to give me up, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>His arm was about her, a book between them—unread, it usually was +unread—and they were sitting in the re-consecrated summer-house; Kitty +had insisted on that punishment for herself, had knelt down before her +husband there and, despite his protest, had kissed his hands, with +tears; the summer-house had become their sweetest retreat.</p> + +<p>He answered her now swiftly, and with a little relief for the obvious +answer: "But then I couldn't have set you free, dear."</p> + +<p>"No;" Kitty mused. "I see. But—would the fear of losing me have made +you <i>re-fall</i> in love with me? You know you only re-fell, darling, only +knew how much you cared when you thought I was deceiving you, lying to +you, in saying that I loved you; but you would have loved me—not in +that dreadful, big, inhuman way—but loved <i>me</i>, just <i>me</i>—loved me +enough to fight for me, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>He looked into her adoring, insistent eyes and a little shadow of memory +crossed his mind. Was she an altogether unambiguous angel? Was it there, +the subtlety, in her eyes, her smile; something sweet, insinuating, +insatiable? And as she fondled him, leaning close and questioning, it +was as though a little eddy of dust from the outer world blew into +Paradise through an unguarded gate. Well, why should not the dear angel +have a little dust on its shining hair? It was a foolish angel, as he +knew; and it lived for love, as he knew; and women who did that and who +didn't get loved enough grew to look subtle—he remembered the swift +train of thought. But Kitty was loved enough, so that there must be no +subtlety to make her beauty stranger and less sweet, and in Paradise one +forgot the outer world and need not consider it again; it was done with +him and he with it, so that he answered, smiling, "I would have loved +you for yourself; I would have fought for you."</p> + +<p>"And won me," she murmured, hiding her face on his breast. "Oh, Nick, if +only it had been sooner, sooner."</p> + +<p>Her suffering sanctified even the shadow; but he remembered it; +remembered that the dust had blown in. It lay, though so lightly, on the +angel's hair, on the blossoms, on the bowers, and it made him think, at +times, of the outer world, of his old judgments and values. He would +have had to fight for her, of course; he would have had to save her; but +it wouldn't have been because he had "re-fallen." That was a secret that +he kept from Kitty; it belonged to the contemplative region of thought, +where he was alone. And in Paradise, it seemed, one was forced to tell +only half-truths.</p> + +<p>Their ties with the outer world were all slackened during these days. No +one knew the secret of the doomed honeymoon. The one or two friends who +dropped in upon them for a night seemed like quaint marionettes crossing +a stage that now and then they agreed to have set up before the bower. +These figures, their own relation to them, quickened the sense of +secrecy and love. Their eyes sought each other past unconscious eyes; +they had lovers' dexterities in meeting unobserved by their guests, gay +little escapades when they would run away for an hour drifting on the +river or wandering in the woods. And the formalities and chatter of +social life—all these queer people interested in queer things, people +who used the present only for the future, who were always planning and +looking forward,—made the hidden truths the sharper and sweeter. +Nothing, for the two lovers, was to go on. That was the truth that made +the marionettes so insignificant and that made their love so deep. There +was, for them, no looking forward, no adapting of means to ends. There +were no ends, or, rather, they were always at the end. And there was +nothing for them to do except to love each other.</p> + +<p>"I feel sometimes as if we had become a Pierrot and a Pierrette," +Holland said to her. "It's for that, I suppose, that a Pierrot is such +an uncanny and charming creature;—the future doesn't exist for him at +all."</p> + +<p>Kitty, who had always been a literal person, and whose literalness had +now become so beautifully appropriate,—for what is literalness but a +seeing of the fact as standing still?—Kitty tried to smile but begged +him not to jest about such things.</p> + +<p>"I'm not jesting, darling. I'm only musing on our strange state. It's +like a fairy-tale, the life we lead."</p> + +<p>She turned her head, with the pathetic gesture grown habitual with her +of late, and hid her eyes on his shoulder. "Oh, darling," she said, "do +you hate to leave me!"</p> + +<p>She had felt the moment of detached fancy as separative, and he had now +to soothe her passionate weeping.</p> + +<p>He found that there was a certain pendulum-swing of mood in Paradise. +Emotion was the being of this mood, and to keep emotion one must swing.</p> + +<p>Either he must soothe Kitty or Kitty must soothe him, or they must +transcend the dark necessities of their case by finding in each other a +joy including in its ecstasy the sorrow it obliterated. This pendulum +swung spontaneously during those first weeks, it swung as their hearts +beat, from need to response. And, at the beginning of the third week, it +was not so much a faltering in the need or the response that Holland +knew, as a mere lessening of the swing;—it didn't go quite so fast or +carry him quite so far. He became conscious of an unequal rhythm; Kitty +seemed to swing even faster and further.</p> + +<p>She saw him as dead; that was the urgent vision that lay behind her +demonstrations and ministrations; she saw him as more dead with every +day that passed, and every moment of every day was, to her, of +passionate significance. No one had ever been idealised as he was +idealised, or clung to as he was clung to. The sense of desperate +tendrils enlacing him was almost suffocating, and each tendril craved +for recognition; a lapse, a look, an inattention was the cutting of +something that bled, and clung the closer. Every moment was precious, +and any not given to love was a robbery from her dwindling store. As the +time grew less her need for significance grew greater. Her sense of her +own tragedy grew with her sense of his, and he must share both. +Resignation to his fate was a resignation of her, and a crime against +their love. Holland by degrees grew conscious of keeping himself up to a +mark.</p> + +<p>It was then that the blossoms began to look a little over-blown, the +paths to become monotonous, the bowers to grow oppressive with their +heavy sweetness as though a noonday sun beat down changelessly upon +them. The dew was gone, and though Kitty remained a primitive Eve, he +himself knew that in his conscious ardour there hovered the vague +presence of something no longer pure, something unwholesome and +enervating.</p> + +<p>She saw him as dead, and the thought of death, always with her, renewed +her pity and her adoration; he knew that his own background lent a charm +enthralling and poignant to his every word, look and gesture. But for +him this charm and this renewal were lacking. He could not feel such +pity, either for her or for himself. She was to live, poor little Kitty, +and, by degrees, the tragedy would fade and the beauty of their last +weeks together would remain with her. There was no cavern yawning behind +Kitty's figure; life, inexorably, showed him her smiling future.</p> + +<p>And, for himself; well, if it was tragic to have to die, it was a +tragedy one got used to. He might have felt it more if only Kitty hadn't +been there to feel it so superabundantly for him. No: he could keep up; +he could see to it that the pendulum didn't falter; but he couldn't hide +from himself that its swing was growing mechanical.</p> + +<p>By the end of the third week the serpent was awake and walking in +Paradise. Holland was tired; profoundly tired.</p> + +<p>He found his wife's eyes on him one day as they sat with books under the +trees on the lawn. He tried to read the books now, though in a casual +manner that would offer no offence to Kitty's unoccupied hands and eyes. +He wanted very much to read and to forget himself—to forget Kitty—for +a little while. It was difficult to do this when such a desultory air +must be assumed, when he must be ready to answer anything she said at a +moment's notice, and must remember to look up and smile at her or to +read some passage aloud to her at every few pages. But he had been +trying thus to combine oblivion and alertness when a longer interval +than usual of the first held him beguiled, and alertness, when it +returned, returned too late. Kitty's eyes made him think of the eyes she +had gazed with on the day of revelation in the library. They were +candid, they were frightened; the eyes of the real child. Now, as then, +they were drinking in some new knowledge; a new fear and an old fear, +come close at last, were pressing on her. He felt so tired that he would +have liked to look away and to have pretended not to see; but he was not +so tired as to be cruel, and he tried to smile at her, as, tilting his +hat over his eyes so that they were shadowed, he asked her what she was +thinking of.</p> + +<p>She rose and came to him, kneeling down beside his chair and putting her +hands on his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Kitty?" he asked her, as he had asked on that +morning three weeks before.</p> + +<p>"Nicholas—Nicholas—are you feeling worse?" she returned.</p> + +<p>Holland was surprised and almost relieved. It was no new demand, it was +merely a sharper fear. And perhaps she was right, perhaps he was feeling +worse and the end was approaching. If so, any languor would be taken as +symptomatic of dissolution and not of indifference, and he might relax +his hold. Actually a deep wave of satisfaction seemed to go lapping +through him.</p> + +<p>"I don't feel badly, dear," he said, smoothing back her hair. "You know, +I shall suffer hardly any pain; but I do feel very tired."</p> + +<p>"In what way tired?" Another alarm was in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Bodily fatigue, dear. Of course, one doesn't die without fading."</p> + +<p>He felt, when he had said it, that the words, in spite of his care, were +cruel; that she would feel them as cruel; he had gone too fast; had +tried to grasp at his immunity too hastily.</p> + +<p>"Nicholas!" she gasped. "You speak as if I were accusing you!"</p> + +<p>"Accusing me, darling! How could you be! Of what?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nick," she sobbed, hiding her face on his breast,—"Am <i>I</i> tiring +you? Do you sometimes want me to go away and to leave you more alone?"</p> + +<p>His heart stood still. Over her bowed head he looked at the sunlit trees +and flowers, the hazy glory of the summer day, a phantasmagoric setting +to this knot of human pain and fear, and he said to himself that unless +he were very careful he might hurt her irremediably; he might rob her of +the memory that was to beautify everything when he was gone.</p> + +<p>He had found in a moment, he felt sure, just the right quiet tone, +expressing a comprehension too deep for the fear of any misunderstanding +between them. "There would be no me left, Kitty, if you went away. I am +you—all that there is of me. You are life itself; don't talk of robbing +me of any of it; I have so little left."</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment, not lifting her face, no longer weeping. +Then in a voice curiously hushed and controlled she said: "How quiet you +are; how peaceful you are—how terribly peaceful."</p> + +<p>"You want me to be at peace, don't you, dear?"</p> + +<p>"You don't mind leaving life. You don't mind leaving me," she said.</p> + +<p>"Kitty—Kitty——"</p> + +<p>She interrupted his protest: "I've nothing to give you but love; I've +never had anything to give you but love. And you are tired of that. You +are going, you are going for ever. I shall never see you again. And you +don't mind! You don't mind!" She broke into dreadful sobs.</p> + +<p>Helpless and tormented he held her, trying to soothe, to reassure, to +convince, recovering, even, in the vehemence of his pity, the very tones +of passionate love, the personal note that her quick ear had felt +fading. She sobbed, and sobbed, but answered him at last, in the +pathetic little child language of their first honeymoon that they had +revived and enriched with new, sweet follies. But he felt that she was +not really comforted, that she tried to delude herself.</p> + +<p>"You <i>do</i> feel tired—in your body—only in your body?—not in your +soul?" she repeated. "It isn't <i>I</i>, it's only <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"It's only I who am dying," he almost felt that, with grim irony, he +would have liked to answer for her complete reassurance. The funny, +ugly, pathetic truth peeped out at him; she would rather have him die +than have him cease to love her.</p> + +<p>Soulless sylvan creatures, dryads, nymphs, seemed to gaze from green +shadows among branches; the mocking faces of pucks and elves to tilt and +smile in the breeze-shaken flowers;—that subtle gaze, that sinister +smile, of what did it remind him? All Nature was laughing at him, +cruelly laughing; yet all Nature was consoling him.</p> + +<p>His love and Kitty's was a flower rooted in death and contradiction. Not +affinity, not the growing needs of normal life had brought them +together; only the magic of doom and the craving to be loved.</p> + +<p>Poor Kitty; she did not know. It was his love she loved, his love she +clung to and watched for and caressed. She did not know it, but she +would rather have him dead than have him loveless. That was the truth +that smiled the sinister smile. One might summon one's courage to smile +back at it, but one was rather glad to be leaving it—and Kitty.</p> + +<p>And, in the days that followed, when from the pretence of passion he +could find refuge only in the pretence of dying, disgust crept into the +weariness, he began to wonder when the pretence would become reality. He +began to want to die.</p> + +<p>This weariness, this irritation, this disgust belonged to life rather +than to death; it was a sharp longing to escape from consciousness of +Kitty—Kitty, alert and agonised in her suspicion. It was a nostalgic +longing for the old, tame, dusty life, his work, his selfless interests. +The month was almost up, and yet he was no worse; was he really going to +last for another month?</p> + +<p>He said to Kitty one morning that he must go up to town. Her face grew +ashen. "The doctor! You are going to the doctor, Nicholas?"</p> + +<p>"No, no; it's only that Collier is passing through. I heard from him +this morning. He wants to see me."</p> + +<p>"Why should you bother and think about work now, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Why, dearest, I must be of any use I can until the end."</p> + +<p>He tried to keep lightness in his voice and patience out of it.</p> + +<p>"Let him come down here. I'll write myself and ask him." She, too, was +assuming something. She, too, was afraid of him, as he of her.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't time. He is on his way to the Continent."</p> + +<p>"It will be bad for you to travel now. And London in August!" Her voice +was grave, reproachfully tender.</p> + +<p>"No, dear, I promise you I will run no risk."</p> + +<p>"Promise as much as you will"—now, gaily, sweetly, falsely, but how +pathetically, she clasped her hands about his arm;—"but I couldn't +think of letting you go alone: you didn't really believe I'd let you go +alone, darling: I'll come too, of course. Won't that be fun!—Oh, Nick, +you <i>want</i> me to come! You don't want to get away!"—The falsity broke +down and the full anguish of her suspicion was in her voice and eyes. It +was this sincerity that pierced him and made him helpless—sick and +helpless. He was able now to blindfold its dreadful clear-sightedness by +swift resource: he acted his delight, his gratitude: he hadn't liked to +ask his dearest—all the bother for only a day and night; he had thought +it would bore her, for he must be most of the time with Collier; but, +yes, they would go together, since she petted him so; they would do a +play; he would help her choose a new hat; it would be great fun.</p> + +<p>Yet, while he knotted the handkerchief around her eyes, turned her +about and confused her sense of direction, as if in a merry game, he +knew that fear and suspicion lurked for them both in their playing.</p> + +<p>He had, indeed, meant to go to the doctor, but now that must be +postponed. The meeting with Collier, his chief at the Home Office, was +his only gulp of freedom. At the hotel Kitty waited, and his heart smote +him when he found her sitting just as he had left her, mute, white, +smiling and enduring. She hadn't even been to her dressmaker's or done +any shopping as she had promised him to do. "I know I am absurd;—I know +you think me, silly;—but I can't—I can't do anything—think +anything—but you!" she said, her lips trembling.</p> + +<p>"Absurd, darling, indeed!" he answered, "as if you couldn't think of me +and order a new dress at the same time! You know I told you I wanted to +see you in a pale blue lawn—isn't lawn the pretty stuff?—And what of +the hat? You do want one?—Come, let us go out and I'll help you to +choose it."</p> + +<p>But she did not want to go out; she only wanted to sit near him, lean +her head against him, have him make up to her for the hours of +loneliness. He knew that night at the play that she hardly heard a word, +and that when once or twice, he was lured from his absorption and made +to laugh, really forgetting, really amused, his laughter hurt her. She +gazed at the stage with wide, vacant eyes. He felt the strain of being +in town with this desperate devotion beside him worse than the strain of +being shut up with it in the country; for there Kitty need hide and +repress nothing, and his danger of hurting her by forgetfulness was not +so great. He was like a prisoner led about by his gaoler, manacles on +his wrists and ankles and a yoke on his neck; there was a certain relief +in going back to prison where, at all events, one wasn't so tormented by +the sights and sounds of freedom, nor so conscious of chains and the +watchful eye upon one.</p> + +<p>"This is the end," he thought, as, in the train, they sat side by side, +holding hands and very silent, but that, from time to time, when their +eyes met, she would smile her doting, hungry smile and murmur: +"Darling."</p> + +<p>After this, the prison again; the high walls and stifling sweetness of +Paradise, and then, thank goodness, release.</p> + +<p>How strange a contrast to the journey a month ago, when, stunned, shot +through, he had only felt the bliss of home-coming, the longing for the +nest. It was all nest now; there was no space for the fear of death. He +was shut in, smothered by this panting breast of love.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>He knew that evening that Kitty was horribly frightened from the fact +that she was horribly careful. She did not once press for assurances or +demonstrations of love. She foresaw all his needs, even his need of +silence. Delicately assiduous, she pulled his chair near the lamp for +him, lit his cigar, cut the pages of his review, even brought a +footstool for his feet, saying, when he protested, "You are tired, +darling; you must let me wait on you."</p> + +<p>"And won't you read, or sew,—or do something, dear?" he asked, as she +drew her low chair near his.</p> + +<p>"I only want to sit here quietly, and look at your dear face," she said.</p> + +<p>And she sat there, quietly, not moving, not speaking, only mutely, +gently, fiercely watching him. Holland felt his hand tremble as he +turned the pages.</p> + +<p>A full hour passed so. Accurately, punctually, he turned the pages; he +had not understood one page; and he had not once looked up.</p> + +<p>It was almost a sense of nightmare that grew upon him, as if he were +going to sit there for ever, hearing the clock tick, hearing Kitty +breathe, knowing that he was watched. Fear, pity, and repulsion filled +his soul.</p> + +<p>He longed at last to hear her voice. He did not dare to hear his own; +something in it would have broken and revealed him to her; but if she +would but speak the nightmare might pass. And, with the longing, +furtively, involuntarily, he glanced round at her.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were on him, fixed, shining. How horrible;—how ridiculous. +Their gaze smote upon his heart and shattered something,—the nightmare, +or the repulsion. An hysterical sob and laugh rose in his throat. He +dropped the review, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head +in his hands, and the tears ran down his face.</p> + +<p>She was there, of course, poor creature, there, close, holding him, +moaning, weeping with him. He could do nothing but yield to her arms, +feel his head pillowed on her breast, and mingle his tears with hers; +but horribly, ridiculously, he knew that laughter as well as weeping +shook him.</p> + +<p>And he heard her saying "Oh, my darling—my darling—is it because you +must leave me?"—and heard himself answering "Yes, because I must leave +you."</p> + +<p>"You love me—so much—so much——"</p> + +<p>"So much," he echoed.</p> + +<p>And, her voice rising to a cry, he knew how dead, as if sounded from the +cavern, his echo had been: "You are not dying! Not now!" And it was +again only the echo he could give her: "Not now," it came. Why not now? +Why could it not be, mercifully now? When in heaven's name was he going +to die?</p> + +<p>A strong suspicion rose in him and seemed to pulse into life with the +strong beat of his heart. How strong a beat it was; how faint and far +any whispers of the old ill. What if he were not going to die? What if +he were to go on loving Kitty for a lifetime?</p> + +<p>And at that the mere hysterics conquered the tears; he burst out +laughing. There, on Kitty's breast, he laughed and laughed, helpless, +cruel and ridiculous.</p> + +<p>Terrified, she tried to still him. When he lifted his face he saw that +hers was ashen, set to meet the tragedy of imminent parting. Did she +think it the death rattle?</p> + +<p>He flung his head back from her kisses, flung himself back from her +arms. Still laughing the convulsive laugh he got up and pushed away the +chair.</p> + +<p>"I'm tired—I'm so tired, Kitty," he said.</p> + +<p>She sat, her hands fallen in her lap, staring at him.</p> + +<p>"You are tired, too," he went on; "it's been a tiring day, hasn't +it?—we have been through a lot, haven't we, poor Kitty? Poor Kitty:—do +go to bed now. Will you go to bed, and leave me here to rest a little?"</p> + +<p>"Nicholas, are you mad—what has happened to you?" she murmured, +spellbound, not daring to move.</p> + +<p>"Why, I'm ill, you know; I'm very ill. I'm not mad—I'm only so +abominably tired. You mustn't ask questions; I can't stand it,—I can't +stand it——" And, leaning his arms on the back of the chair, resting +his face on them, with tears of sheer fatigue, tears untouched by +laughter—"I'm so tired. I want to be alone," he sobbed.</p> + +<p>The abominable moments that followed were more full of shame for him +than any he had even known:—of shame, and of relief. He had torn his +way, with his words, out of the nest; he had fallen to the ground. He +was ashamed and horrified, yet—oh, the joy, the deep joy of being on +the ground, out in the cold, fresh world, out of the nest.</p> + +<p>At last he heard her speak, slowly, softly, with difficulty, as though +she were afraid of angering him. "Shall I go away, Nicholas?"</p> + +<p>His face was still hidden. "Yes, do go to bed," he answered.</p> + +<p>"I can do nothing for you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, dear."</p> + +<p>"You are not dying?"</p> + +<p>"No; I'm not feeling in the least ill."</p> + +<p>"You would—send for me—if you were dying?"</p> + +<p>"Dear Kitty,—of course."</p> + +<p>"And——" she had risen, not daring to draw near, he knew that the +trembling voice came through tears:—"And, you love me? you love me a +little?"</p> + +<p>"Dear Kitty—of course I love you."</p> + +<p>It was over. She was gone. She had not asked for his good-night kiss. It +was like a sword between them.</p> + +<p>He drew a long breath, lifting his head.</p> + +<p>Alone. There was ecstasy in the thought.</p> + +<p>He walked out into the garden and looked up at the stars as he walked. +There had been no stars in the nest.</p> + +<p>He didn't think of death. There had been too much thinking of death; +that was one of the things he was tired of. Still less did he want to +think of Kitty or of himself.</p> + +<p>He looked at the stars and thought of them, but not in any manner +emotional or poetical; he thought of astronomical facts, dry, sound, +delightful facts: he looked at the darkened trees and dim flowers and +thought of botany: the earth he trod on was full of scientific interest; +the Pierrots, the fairies and the angels—yes, the angels too—were +vanished. He hungered for impersonal interests and information.</p> + +<p>Kitty would, indeed, have thought him mad; after the calming walk he +came in, lit a cigar and sat for hours studying.</p> + +<p>Before Kitty was up next morning he was on his way back to London to see +the great specialist.</p> + +<p>It was a long visit he paid, an astonishing visit, though the +astonishment, really, was not his; life had seemed deeply to have +promised something when he had ceased to think of death—when he had +ceased to want death, even. That strong beating of his heart had been a +mute forestalling. The astonishment was the good, great doctor's, and it +was reiterated with an emphasis that showed something of wounded +professional pride beneath it. It was, indeed, humiliating to have made +such a complete mistake, to have seen only one significance in symptoms +that, to far-sightedness clairvoyant enough, should have hinted, at all +events, at another, and, as a result, to have doomed to speedy death a +man now obviously as far from dying as oneself: "I can't forgive myself +for robbing you of a month of life," the doctor said. "A month with +death at the end of it can't be called a month of life."</p> + +<p>"Very much of life," said Holland. "So much so that I hardly know yet +whether I am glad or sorry that you were mistaken."</p> + +<p>He indeed hardly did know. All the way down in the train he was thinking +intently of the new complicated life that had been given back to him, +and of what he should do with it. At moments the thought seemed to +overwhelm him, to draw him into gulfs deeper than death's had been.</p> + +<p>All through that month life had meant the moment only. The vistas and +horizons seemed now to open and flash and make him dizzy. How could he +take up again the burden of far ends and tangled purposes? The dust of +coming conflicts seemed to rise to his nostrils. Life was perilous and +appalling in its fluctuating immensity.</p> + +<p>But, with all the disillusion and irony of his new experience, with all +the unwholesome languor that had unstrung his will, some deeper wisdom, +also, had been given him. He could turn from the nightmare vision that +saw time as eternity.</p> + +<p>The walk in the night had brought a message. He could not say it, nor +see it clearly, but the sense of its presence was like the coolness and +freshness of wings fanning away fevers and nightmare. Somewhere there it +hovered, the significance of the message, somewhere in those allied yet +contrasted thoughts of eternity and time.</p> + +<p>There had been his mistake, his and Kitty's, the mistake that had meant +irony and lassitude and corruption. To heap all time into the moment, to +make a false eternity of it, was to arrest something, to stop blood from +flowing, thought from growing, was to create a nightmare distortion, a +monstrous, ballooned travesty of the eternity that, in moving life, +could never be more, could never be less, than the ideal life sought +unceasingly.</p> + +<p>As for Paradise, what more grotesque illusion than to see it with walls +around it, what more piteous dream than to feel it narrowed to a nest?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>He found Kitty alone in the drawing-room, alone, with empty hands and +empty, waiting eyes. He saw that she had wept, and that his departure, +only a brief note to break it to her, had added deep indignation to her +sorrow. She was no longer timid, nor cowed by the change she felt in +him. She had cast aside subtlety and appeal. It was a challenge that met +him in her eyes.</p> + +<p>He had intended to tell her his news at once and the preparatory smile +was on his lips as he entered, a smile, though he did not know this, +strangely like that smile of reassurance and consolation that had met +her in the library a month ago.</p> + +<p>But she gave him no time for a word.</p> + +<p>Leaping from her chair she faced him, and with a vision still clearer +than that which had showed him subtlety a month ago, he saw now her +pettiness, her piteousness, her girlish violence and weakness. "Cruel! +Cruel! Cruel!"—she cried.</p> + +<p>He remained standing at a little distance from her, looking at her sadly +and appealingly. Her words of reproach rushed forth and overwhelmed him +like a frenzied torrent.</p> + +<p>"To leave me without a word, after last night! You treat me like a dog +that one kicks aside because it wearies one with its love. You have no +heart—I've felt it for days and days!—No heart! You hate me! You +despise me! And what have I done to deserve it but love—love—love +you—like the poor dog! But I know—I know—It is Sir Walter. You can't +forgive me that—It has poisoned everything—that ignorant folly of +mine. At first you thought you could forgive, and then you grew to hate +me. And I—I—" her voice choked, gasped into sobs;—"I have only loved +you—loved you—more and more——"</p> + +<p>"Kitty, you are mistaken," said Holland. "I've never given Sir Walter a +thought." It was a reed she grasped at in the torrent, he saw that +well;—a desperate hope.</p> + +<p>"It's false!" she cried. "You have! You thought at first that you would +be magnanimous and save me,—you could be magnanimous because you were +going to die—it's easy enough to be magnanimous if you are going to +die! easy enough to be peaceful and sad—and to stand there and smile +and smile as if you were only sorry for me. But you found out that you +were alive enough to be jealous after all, and that you could not really +forgive me, and then you hated me."</p> + +<p>"Kitty—you know that you do not believe what you are saying."</p> + +<p>"Can you deny that if you had been going to live you would not have +forgiven me?"</p> + +<p>"I can. I could have forgiven. But then, as I said to you—that day, +Kitty, on the lawn,—it would have been more difficult to save you."</p> + +<p>"Your love, then, was a pretence to save me!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing was pretence, at first," he answered her patiently. "At first I +was only glad for your sake that I was going to be out of the way so +soon; and when I found that you could care for me again I was glad that +I had still a month to live with you."</p> + +<p>His words smote on her heart like stones. He saw it and yearned over her +pain; but such yearning, such dispassionate tenderness was, he knew, the +poison in her veins that maddened her.</p> + +<p>She looked, now, at last, at the truth. He had not put it into words, +but with the abandonment of her specious hope she saw and spoke it.</p> + +<p>"It was, then, because it was only for a month."</p> + +<p>He hesitated, seeing, too. "That I was glad?"</p> + +<p>"That you loved me."</p> + +<p>Across the room, in a long silence, they looked at each other. And in +the silence another truth came to him, cruel, clear, salutary.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it, perhaps, for both of us, because it was only for a month?"</p> + +<p>The shock went as visibly through her as though it had, indeed, +been a stone hurled at her breast. "You mean—you mean—" she +stammered—"Oh—you don't believe that I love you—You believe that it +could pass, with me, as it has with you!" She threw herself into the +chair, casting her arms on the back, burying her face in them.</p> + +<p>Holland, timidly, approached her. He was afraid of the revelation he +must make. "I believe that you do love me, Kitty, and that I love you; +but not in the way we thought. We neither of us could go on loving like +that; it was because it was only for a month that we thought we could. +It wasn't real."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she sobbed, "that is the difference—the cruel difference. You +love me in that terrible way—the way that could give me up and not +mind; but I am in love with you;—that's the dreadful difference. Men +get over it; but women are always in love."</p> + +<p>Perhaps Kitty saw further than he did. Holland was abashed before the +helpless revelation of a mysterious and alien sorrow. For women the +brooding dream; for men the active dusty world. Yet even here, on the +threshold of a secret, absurd, yet perhaps, in its absurdity, lovelier +than man's sterner visions, he felt that, for her sake, he must draw her +away from the contemplation of it. That was one thing he had learned, +for Kitty. She, too, must manage to fly—or fall—out of the nest; she +must get, in some way, more dust into her life. He had forgotten the +news he was to tell her; he had forgotten all but her need.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that is true, dear Kitty," he said; "but isn't it, in a way, +that women are <i>merely</i> in love. It's not with anybody; or, rather, it +is with anybody—with me or with Sir Walter; I mean, anybody who seems +to promise more love. Horrible I sound, I know. Forgive me. But I wish I +could shake you out of being in love. I want you to be more my comrade +than you have been. Don't let us think so much of love."</p> + +<p>But Kitty moaned: "I don't want a comrade. I want a lover."</p> + +<p>And, in the silence that followed, lifting her head suddenly, she fixed +her eyes on him.</p> + +<p>"You talk as if we could be comrades," she said. "You talk as if we were +to go on living together. What did the doctor say? I don't believe that +you are going to die."</p> + +<p>He felt ridiculous now. The real tragedy was there, between them; but +the tragedy upon which all their fictitious romance had been built was +to tumble about their ears.</p> + +<p>It was as if he had all along been deceiving, misleading her, acting on +false pretences, winning her love by his borrowed funereal splendour. +Almost shamefacedly, looking down and stammering over the silly +confession, he said: "It was all a mistake. I'm not going to die."</p> + +<p>He did not look at her for some moments. He was sure that she was deaf +and breathless with the crash and crumbling.</p> + +<p>Presently, when he did raise his eyes, he found that she was staring at +him, curiously, intently. She had found herself: she had found him; +and—oh yes—he saw it—he was far from her. The stare, essentially, was +one of a hard hostility. She had been betrayed and robbed; she could +not forgive him.</p> + +<p>"Kitty," he said timidly, "are you sorry?"</p> + +<p>Her sombre gaze dwelt on him.</p> + +<p>"Tell me you're not sorry," he pleaded.</p> + +<p>She answered him at last: "How dare you ask me that? How dare you ask me +whether I am sorry that you are not going to die? You must know that it +is an insult."</p> + +<p>"I mean—if I disappointed—failed you so—"</p> + +<p>"I must wish you dead? You have a charming idea of me."</p> + +<p>How her voice clashed and clanged with the hardness, the warfare, the +uproar of the outer world. After the hush, the gentleness of Paradise, +it was like being thrown, dizzy and bewildered, among the traffic and +turmoil of a great city.</p> + +<p>"Don't be cruel," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"I? Cruel!" she laughed.</p> + +<p>She got up and walked up and down the room. A fever of desperate, +baffled anger burned in her. He saw that she did not trust herself to +speak. She was afraid of betraying, to herself and to him, the ugly +distortion of her soul.</p> + +<p>He was not to die; he was not her lover; and Kitty was the primitive +woman. She could be in love, but she could not love unless pity were +appealed to. His loss of all passion had killed her romance. His loss of +all pathos had, perhaps, killed even human tenderness. For it was he who +had drawn away. She was humiliated to the dust.</p> + +<p>And that she made a great effort upon herself, so that to his eyes the +ugliness might not be betrayed, he guessed presently when, looking +persistently away from him and out at the garden—their garden! +alas!—where a fine rain fell silently, she said: "I am glad that your +sorrow is over. I hope that you will find happier things—and realler +things—than you have found in this month. I will remember all that you +have said to-day. I think that you have cured me for ever. I shall not +be in love again."</p> + +<p>"Kitty! Kitty!" he breathed out. She hurt him too much, the poor child, +arming its empty heart against him. "Don't speak like that. +Remember—the month has been beautiful."</p> + +<p>The tears rose in her eyes, but the hostility did not leave them. +"Beautiful? When it has not been real?"</p> + +<p>"Can't we remember the beauty—make something more real?" he now almost +wept. But there it was, the shallow, the hard child's heart. He was not +in love with her. And, like a nest of snakes, the memory of all her +humiliations—her appeals, her proffered love, his evasions and +withdrawals—was awake within her. She smiled, a smile that, seeking +magnanimity, found only bitterness. "You must speak for yourself, dear +Nicholas. For me it was real, and you have spoiled the beauty."</p> + +<p>The servants came in while she spoke and she moved aside to make way for +the placing of the tea-table. Traces of the fever were upon her yet; her +delicate face was flushed, her eyes sparkled. But she had regained the +place she meant to keep. She would own to no discomfitures deeper than +those that were creditable to her. Moving here and there, touching the +flowers in a vase, straightening reviews scattered on a table, she was +even able to smile again at him a smile almost kind, and keeping, before +him, as well as for the servants, all the advantage of composure.</p> + +<p>That smile would often meet him throughout life, and so he would see +her, moving delicately and gracefully, making order and comeliness about +her, for many years. She set the key. It was the key of their future +life together, Holland knew, as he heard her say: "Do sit down and rest. +You must want your tea after that tiresome journey."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_WHITE_PAGODA" id="THE_WHITE_PAGODA"></a>THE WHITE PAGODA</h2> + + +<p>The drama of the drawing-rooms had begun years ago, but Owen Stacpole +did not come into it until the day on which his cousin Gwendolen, after +examining the box of bric-ŕ-brac, remarked, refolding the last pieces of +china in their dusty newspapers, that they were rubbish, and silly +rubbish, too, of just the sort that Aunt Pickthorne had always +unerringly accumulated. The box had arrived that morning, a legacy from +this deceased relative; it had been brought up to the drawing-room and +placed upon a sheet near the fire, so that Mrs. Conyers might examine +its contents in comfort, and Owen, while he wrote at the black lacquer +bureau in the window, had been aware of Gwendolen's gibes and +exclamations behind him. Now, when she asserted that she would send the +whole futile collection down to Mr. Glazebrook and see if he would give +her enough for it to buy a pair of gloves with, Owen rose and limped to +join her and to look down at the wooden box into which she was +thrusting, with some vindictiveness, the dingy parcels.</p> + +<p>"Have you looked at them all?" he inquired. "I forget—was your Aunt +Pickthorne a Mrs. or a Miss? And how long has it been since she died?"</p> + +<p>"About six months, poor old thing. And these treasures have evidently +never been dusted since. She was a Mrs. Her husband was old Admiral +Pickthorne—don't you remember?—and they lived, after he retired, at +Cheltenham. Two more guileless Philistines I've never known. It used to +make me feel quite ill to go and stay with them when I was a girl. I've +hardly been at all since then, and that's probably why she selected all +the most hideous objects in her drawing-room to leave me. How well I +remember that drawing-room! Crocheted antimacassars; and a round, +mahogany centre-table on which a lamp used to stand in the evening; and +the wall-paper of frosted robin's-egg-blue, with stuffed birds in cases, +and terracotta plaques framed in ruby plush, hanging upon it—a +perfectly horrible room. Half a dozen of the plaques are in there; the +birds she spared me. She had one or two lovely old family things which +I'd allowed myself to hope for; a Spode tea-set I remember. But, no; +there's nothing worth looking at."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Conyers lightly dusted her hands together, and rose from her knees. +She was, at thirty-eight, a very graceful woman; tall, of ample form, +and attired with fashionable ease and fluency. Fashion had been a late +development with Gwendolen. In her gaunt and wistful girlhood she had +worn her hair in drooping Rossettian masses, and her throat had been +differently bare. Now she was as accurate as she was easy. Her hair was +even a little too sophisticatedly distended, and her long pearl +ear-rings, though they became the tender violet of her eyes, emphasized, +as her former Pre-Raphaelite ornaments had not seemed to do, a certain +genial commonplaceness in the contours of her cheek and chin. But almost +fat and decisively unpoetical as she had become, it was undeniable that +this last phase of dress and, in especial, these widow's weeds, with +sinuous lines of jet and lustrous falls of fringes, became her better +than any in which Owen remembered to have seen her.</p> + +<p>Gwendolen's drawing-room, too, had undergone, since the days of her +girlhood, as complete a metamorphosis as she had. When she had married +and left the big house in Kensington where Owen had spent many a happy +holiday—when she had married crabbed old Mr. Conyers, the Chislebridge +dignitary, and gone to live in Chislebridge, her convictions had at once +expressed themselves luxuriantly in large-patterned wall-papers and +deep-cushioned divans and in Eastern fabrics draping the mantelpiece or +cast irrelevantly over carved Indian screens. Her teas had been brought +in on trays of Indian beaten brass, and the mosque-like opening between +the front and back drawing-room had been hung with translucent curtains +of beaded reeds, through which one had to plunge as though through a +sheet of dropping water. Owen well remembered their tinkle and rattle +and the perfume of burning Eastern pastilles that greeted one when, +emerging, one found oneself in the dim, rich gloom among the divans and +the brasses and the palms. In those days Gwendolen had been draped +rather than dressed, and the gestures and attitudes of her languid arms +and wrists seemed more adapted to a dulcimer than to a tea-pot. But she +dispensed excellent tea, and though her eyes were appropriately +yearning, her talk was quite as reassuringly commonplace as Owen had +always found it.</p> + +<p>It was only in the course of years that the reed curtains and the +carved Indian screens and the divans ebbed away; but the change was +complete at last, and he found Gwendolen, with undulated hair puffed +over a frame, and a small waist,—large waists not having then come +in,—receiving her visitors in the most clear, calm, austere of rooms, +with polished floor, Sheraton furniture, and Japanese colour-prints +framed in white hanging on pensive spaces of willow-leaf-green wall. +Gwendolen talked of Strauss's music and of the New English Art Club, was +indignant at the prohibition of "Monna Vanna," and to some no longer apt +remark of an aspiring caller answered that to speak so was surely to +Ruskinize. He realized on this occasion that Gwendolen had become the +arbiter of taste in Chislebridge. He followed her into several +drawing-rooms and observed that she had set the fashion in furniture and +wall-paper; that some were pushing their way toward Japanese prints, and +some were even beginning to babble faintly of Manet. Five years had +passed since then, and now, on this his first visit to Chislebridge +since old Mr. Conyers's death, another change had taken place. +Gwendolen's hips were compressed, her waist was large once more, though +of a carefully calculated largeness, and only in a fine bit of the old +furniture here and there did a trace of the former green drawing-room +remain. This was certainly the most interesting room that Gwendolen had +yet achieved. There had been little character, if much charm, in the +green drawing-room; one knew so many like it. With a slight +self-discipline, its harmonies were really easy to attain. But it was +not easy to attain a mingled richness and austerity; to be recondite, +yet lovely; to set such cabinets of rosy old lacquer near such Chinese +screens or hang subtle strips of Chinese painting on just the right +shade of dim, white wall. It took money, it took time, it took knowledge +to find such delicate cane-seated settees framed in black lacquer, and +to pick up such engraved glass, such white Chinese porcelain and white +Italian earthenware. Melting together in their dim splendour and shining +softness, they had so enchantingly arrested Owen the night before that, +pausing on the threshold, he had said with a whole-heartedness she had +never yet heard from him, "Well, Gwen, yours is the loveliest room I've +ever seen."</p> + +<p>It was indeed triumphantly lovely, although, examining it more +critically by the morning light, he had found slight dissatisfactions. +It was perhaps a little too much like an admirably sophisticated +curiosity-shop. It was an object to be examined with delight, hardly a +subject to be lived with with love. And it almost distressed him to see +the touch of genial commonplaceness expressing itself pervasively in the +big bowls and jars and vases of pink roses that burgeoned everywhere. +They showed no real sense of what the lacquer and glass and porcelain +demanded; for they demanded surely a more fragile, less obvious flower. +And one or two minor ornaments, though evidently selected with +scrupulous conscientiousness, seemed to him equally at fault. Still, he +had again that morning, before seating himself to write, repeated in all +sincerity, "This is really the loveliest room," and Gwendolen, from +where she knelt above Aunt Pickthorne's box, had answered, following his +eyes, "I am <i>so</i> glad you like it, dear Owen."</p> + +<p>Gwendolen was very fond of him, and her fondness had never been so +marked. It was of that he had been thinking as he wrote. He had never +felt fonder of Gwendolen. Her drawing-room was lovely, her widow's weeds +became her, and she was, as she had always been, the kindest of +creatures. In every sense the house would be a pleasanter one to stay at +than in old Mr. Conyers's lifetime. Owen had not liked old Mr. Conyers, +who had had too much the air of thinking himself an historical figure +and his breakfast historical events, who snubbed his wife and quoted +Greek and Latin pugnaciously, and took the cabinet ministers and +duchesses who sometimes sojourned under his roof, with an unctuousness +that made more marked the aridity of his manner toward less illustrious +guests. The Conyers had come to count in the eyes of Chislebridge and +the surrounding country as the social figure-heads of the studious old +town, and Owen had found himself, as Gwendolen's crippled, writing, +cousin, year by year of relatively less importance in the eyes of +Gwendolen's husband. Actually, as it happened, he had during those years +become almost illustrious himself; but his austere distinction, such as +it was, had been as moonrise rather than dawn, and had left him as +gently impersonal as before, and even more impoverished. +Negligible-looking as he knew he was, he had sometimes been amused to +note old Mr. Conyers's bewilderment when a cabinet minister or a duchess +manifested their pleasurable excitement in meeting him. As for +Gwendolen, her essential loyalty and kindness had always remained the +same since the days when she had protected him from the sallies of her +boisterous brothers and sisters in the Kensington family mansion—the +same till now. Last night and to-day he had recognised a difference. He +wondered whether he was a conceited fool for imagining in Gwendolen a +dwelling tenderness, a brooding touch, indeed, of reminiscent +wistfulness. Was it to show an unbecoming complacency if he allowed his +mind to dwell upon the possibilities that this development in Gwendolen +presented to his imagination? He was delicate and poor and, despite a +large visiting-list, he was lonely. He was fond of Gwendolen and of her +two nice, dull boys. She amused him, it was true, as she had always +amused him; for though her drawing-room had become interesting, though +she had developed a sense of humour, or at least the intention of +humorousness, though she often attempted playfulness and even irony, she +was still at heart as disproportionately earnest as she had been in +youth. But Gwendolen would make no romantic demands upon him, and she +would not expect him to take even red lacquer as seriously as she did, +or to follow with the same breathlessness the erratic movements of +modern ćstheticism. She was accustomed to his passive unresponsiveness, +and would resent it no more in the husband than in the friend. +Altogether, as he sat there writing at Gwendolen's lovely bureau, he +knew that a sense of homely magic grew upon him.</p> + +<p>Next morning, wandering about the pleasant streets of the old town, he +found himself before the window of Mr. Glazebrook's curiosity-shop—a +shop well known to more than Chislebridge. He paused to look at the +objects disposed with a dignified reticence against a dark background, +and his eye was attracted by a very delightful red lacquer box that at +once made him think of Gwendolen's drawing-room. Just the thing for her, +it was. But as he entered the shop, Mr. Glazebrook leaned from within +and took it from its place in the window. He was showing it to another +customer.</p> + +<p>Owen now quite vehemently longed to possess the box, which, he saw, as +Mr. Glazebrook displayed it, was cunningly fitted with little inner +segments, beautifully patterned in gold. Feigning an indifferent survey +of the shop, he lingered near, hoping that his rival would relinquish +her opportunity.</p> + +<p>"Five pounds! O dear, that is too much for me, I'm afraid," he heard her +say, and, at the voice, he turned and looked at her. The voice was +unusual—a rapid, rather husky voice that made him think of muffled +bells or snow-bound water, gay in rhythm, yet marred in tone, almost as +though the speaker had cried a great deal. She was an unusual figure, +too, though he could not have said why, except that her dress seemed to +recall bygone fashions quaintly, though without a hint of dowdiness or +affectation. She wore a skirt and jacket of soft gray, with pleated lawn +at neck and wrists, and her small gray hat was wreathed with violets. +She held the lacquer box, and her face, rosy, crisp, decisive, and +showing, like her voice, a marred gaiety, expressed her reluctant +relinquishment and her strong desire. Owen had seen a child look at a +forbidden fruit with just such an expression and he suddenly wished that +he could give the box to her rather than to Gwendolen, to whom five +pounds was a matter of small moment.</p> + +<p>"I think I mustn't," she repeated, after a further hesitation, and +setting the box down with cherishing care. "Not to-day. And I have so +much red lacquer. It's like dram-drinking."</p> + +<p>Mr. Glazebrook smiled affably. He was evidently on old-established terms +with his customer. "Perhaps you'd like to look round a bit, Mrs. +Waterlow," he suggested. "There are some nice pieces of old glass in the +inner room, quite cheap, some of them—a set of old champagne glasses." +Mrs. Waterlow, saying that she wanted some old champagne glasses, moved +away.</p> + +<p>"Do you think the lady has given up that box?" Owen asked. "I don't want +to buy it if there's a chance of her changing her mind."</p> + +<p>Mr. Glazebrook said that there was no such chance, the lady being one +who knew her own mind; so the box was bought and Owen ordered it to be +sent to Gwendolen. He said then that he would like to have a look round, +too. He really wanted to have another look at the lady with the rosy +face and the small gray hat trimmed with violets. He peered into +cabinets ranged thickly with old glass and china, examined the Worcester +tea-set disposed upon a table and the case of Chinese tear-bottles and +Japanese netzukés, and presently made his way into the smaller, dimmer +room at the back.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Glazebrook," said the lady in gray. She had heard his step, but +had not turned. She was kneeling before an open packing-case and holding +an object that she had drawn from it. Owen suddenly recognised the case. +It was the one that Gwendolen yesterday had sent down to Mr. Glazebrook. +He called this person, raising his hat, and the lady looked round at +him, too preoccupied to express her recognition of her mistake by more +than a vague murmur of thanks. "Mr. Glazebrook," she said, holding up a +whitish object, "may I have this? Is it expensive?"</p> + +<p>"Well, really, I only glanced over the box. A customer sent it down to +me to dispose of, and I didn't think there was anything in it worth +much. Let me see, Mrs. Waterlow; it's a pagoda, I take it, a Chinese +pagoda. We've had them from time to time, in ivory and smaller than +this."</p> + +<p>"This is in porcelain," said the lady, "and beautifully moulded."</p> + +<p>"I see, I see," said Mr. Glazebrook, taking the fragile top segment of +the disjointed pagoda in his hand, and rather at a loss; "and it's +slightly damaged."</p> + +<p>The lady in gray evidently was not a shrewd bargainer. "Only a little," +she said. "One or two bits have been chipped out of the roofs, and it's +lost one or two of its little crystal rings; but I think it's in quite +good condition, and I have it all here." She was placing one segment +upon the other. "They are all made to fit, you see, with the little +openings in each story."</p> + +<p>She had built it up beside her as she knelt on the floor, and it stood +like a fragile, fantastic ghost, with the upward tilt of its tiled +roofs, its embossed patterns, and the crystal rings trembling from each +angle of the roofs like raindrops. "What a darling!" said Mrs. Waterlow. +"How much do you ask for it, Mr. Glazebrook?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Glazebrook, adjusting his knowledge of the limitations of Mrs. +Waterlow's purse to his present appreciation of the pagoda and of her +desire for it, said genially, after a moment, that from an old customer +like herself he would ask only forty-five shillings.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think it's a great bargain, Mr. Glazebrook," said Mrs. +Waterlow. "And I'll have it."</p> + +<p>"Shall I send it round?" Mr. Glazebrook asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, please; or, no, it isn't heavy,"—she lifted it with both hands, +rising with it and looking like a Saint Barbara holding her tower,—"I +can manage it to just round the corner. Wrap it up for me, and I'll +carry it off myself."</p> + +<p>When Owen saw his cousin again at lunch, the red lacquer box had not yet +arrived, and, with a touch of friendly mockery, he said:</p> + +<p>"Well, you have been unlucky, my dear Gwen. There was the most charming +piece of old Chinese porcelain in that scorned Cheltenham box, and I saw +Mr. Glazebrook sell it this morning to a lady who wasn't to be put off +by dust and newspapers and plush-framed plaques. She carried it off in +triumph, saying that it was a great bargain. And so it was; but she +might have had it for half the money if she hadn't informed Mr. +Glazebrook of its probable value."</p> + +<p>Gwendolen fixed her mild, violet eyes upon him. "A piece of old Chinese +porcelain? Do you mean that silly white pagoda?"</p> + +<p>"You did see it, then?"</p> + +<p>"See it? Haven't I seen it all my life? It stood on a purple worsted mat +on a little bamboo table between the Nottingham lace curtains in one of +Aunt Pickthorne's drawing-room windows, and looked like some piece of +childish gimcrackery bought at a bazaar, where, I'll wager, she did buy +it."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Waterlow evidently didn't think it gimcrackery, or, if she +did, she didn't mind. It looked to me, I confess, an exquisite thing. +But her admiration may have lent it its enchantment."</p> + +<p>Gwendolen's eyes now fixed themselves more searchingly than before.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Waterlow? Did Mrs. Waterlow buy it? How did you know it was Mrs. +Waterlow? I thought you'd never met her."</p> + +<p>"I haven't; but I heard Mr. Glazebrook call her by her name. She'd +wanted to buy a red lacquer box that I spotted in the window and had +gone in to get for you, my dear Gwen. It was too expensive for her,—so +that it is yours,—and she went rummaging into the back shop and found +your box with the things just as you and Mr. Glazebrook had left them, +and in no time she'd disinterred the pagoda."</p> + +<p>Gwendolen apparently was so arrested by his story that she forgot for +the moment to thank him for the lacquer box.</p> + +<p>"Do you know her?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Know her? Know Cicely Waterlow? Why, I've known her since she first +came to live here, years ago. She's a very dear friend of mine," +Gwendolen said, adding: "How much did she pay for it? That wretched man +gave me only fifteen shillings for the lot."</p> + +<p>"He made her pay forty-five shillings for the pagoda. I suspect myself +that it's worth ten times as much. Does she care for things, +too—lacquer and engraved glass?"</p> + +<p>Gwendolen still showed preoccupation and, he fancied, a touch of +vexation.</p> + +<p>"Care for them? Yes; who with any taste doesn't care for them? Cicely +has very good taste, too, in her little way. She doesn't know anything, +but she picks up ideas and puts them together very cleverly. I can't +help thinking that she'd never have given the pagoda a thought if my +white porcelain hadn't educated her. I really can't believe that it's +good, Owen."</p> + +<p>Owen waived the point.</p> + +<p>"Who is Mr. Waterlow?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He has been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. He died only a year +after their marriage. A very delightful man, so people say who knew him. +And Cicely lost her little girl, to whom she was passionately devoted, +five years ago; she has never really recovered from that. She used to be +so pretty, poor Cicely! She's lost it all now. She cried her very eyes +out. She has a little money and lives with her mother-in-law, old Mrs. +Waterlow, who is very fond of her. They don't entertain except in the +quietest way, or go out much, and I do what I can to give Cicely a good +time. I often have her here to tea when I have interesting people +staying."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's good. Do count me as interesting enough and ask her while +I'm here."</p> + +<p>"Interesting enough, my dear Owen! I don't suppose that Cicely often has +a chance of meeting such an interesting man as you. Of course I'll ask +her," said Gwendolen. Then, remembering his gift: "It <i>was</i> nice of you +to get me a red lacquer box, Owen. I adore red lacquer, and I'm quite +sure, whatever you and Cicely Waterlow may say, that it's worth a +hundred of your white pagodas."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow came to tea next afternoon, the last of Owen's stay. The +drawing-room was crowded, and Owen, when she was announced, was enjoying +a talk with a dismal-looking old philosopher who had plaintive, white +hairs on his nose and trousers that bagged irremediably at the knees.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, I know her well," said Professor Selden, as Owen +questioned him. "I play chess with her once a week. Her little girl was +a great pet of mine. You never saw the little girl?"</p> + +<p>"Never, and I've not yet met Mrs. Waterlow. She is most +charming-looking."</p> + +<p>"The little girl was so much like her," said Professor Selden, sadly. +"Yes, she is a charming woman. Don't let me keep you from meeting her. I +am going to sit down here while our young friend Dawkins plays. You +know Dawkins? Between ourselves, Mrs. Conyers thinks too highly of +him."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow's eyes turned upon him as he limped up to her and +Gwendolen, and smiling, she said, "Why, I saw you yesterday in Mr. +Glazebrook's shop."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Owen, "and there is the red lacquer box."</p> + +<p>"And you, Cicely, bought my pagoda," said Gwendolen.</p> + +<p>"Your pagoda?" Mrs. Waterlow questioned, her eyes, that seemed to open +with a little difficulty, resting on her hostess with some surprise. +"Was the pagoda yours?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mine," said Gwendolen. "It came in a box of rubbish,—you saw the +kind of rubbish,—a legacy from an old aunt, and I bundled it off to +Glazebrook. Owen says it is really good. Is it?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Waterlow.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure it is," said Owen, "and I liked the accuracy with which you +fell in love with it at first sight."</p> + +<p>"I did fall in love with it, good or bad," said Mrs. Waterlow. "Don't +tell me that you want it back again, Gwendolen. But if it was a mistake, +of course——"</p> + +<p>He recognised in her the note of guilelessness and, with some decision, +for he actually perceived an eagerness in Gwendolen's glance, interposed +with, "But Gwendolen thinks it gimcrackery, and wouldn't have it at any +price. Isn't it so, Gwendolen?"</p> + +<p>Poor Gwendolen was looking a little glum; but she was the most +unresentful of creatures.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, it is," she said. "I did think it gimcrackery; but, to tell the +truth, I never really saw it at all. I can't believe you'd have seen it, +Cicely, standing on its worsted mat in my Aunt Pickthorne's +drawing-room. But I wouldn't dream, of course, of taking it back; and if +it's really good, I'm more glad than I can say that my loss should be +your gain. Now, won't you and Owen sit down here and listen to my +wonderful Perceval Dawkins? Oh, he is going to astonish the world some +day."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow and Owen, in the intervals of the ensuing music, talked +together. Seen more closely, he found that her face, though not +beautiful, was even more singularly delightful than he had thought it. +She had eyes merry, yet tired, like those of a sleepy child, and sweet, +small, firm lips and a glance and smile at once very frank and very +remote. There was about her none of that aroma of sorrow that some +women distil from the tragedies of their lives, and wear, even if +unconsciously, like an allurement. He felt that in Mrs. Waterlow sorrow +had been an isolating, a bewildering, a devastating experience, making +her at once more ready to take refuge in the trivialities of life and +more unable to admit an intimacy into the essentials. Yet the spring of +vitality and mirth was so strong in her that in all she said he felt a +quality restorative, aromatic, fragrant, as if he were walking in spring +woods and smelt everywhere the rising sap and the breath of violets. She +was remote, blighted, yet buoyant. When she rose to go, he realised with +sudden dismay that to-day was his last in Chislebridge and that he +should not see her again for who knew how long.</p> + +<p>"Is the pagoda placed?" he asked her. "Does it fulfil your +expectations?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," she said. "I spent two hours yesterday in washing and +mending it. It is immaculate now, as lovely as a pearl."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could see it," said Owen.</p> + +<p>"Why, pray, then, come and see it. Can you come to tea with me and my +mother-in-law to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going away to-morrow," said Owen, dismally. And then he bethought +him. "Can't I walk back with you now? Is it too late? Only +five-thirty."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least too late. Mamma will still be having tea, and she +loves people to drop in. But ought you to come away?" Mrs. Waterlow +glanced round the crowded room.</p> + +<p>"I'll not be missed," he assured her with some conscious speciousness.</p> + +<p>Gwendolen, indeed, had time only for a little stare of surprise when he +told her that he was going to look at the pagoda with Mrs. Waterlow. She +was receiving new guests, richly furred and motor-veiled ladies who had +come in from the country and were expatiating over the beauties of the +red lacquer cabinets, Gwendolen's latest acquisitions.</p> + +<p>"That will be delightful," she said; "and now Owen will see that sweet +drawing-room of yours, dearest. You have made it so pretty!"</p> + +<p>Owen observed that Mrs. Waterlow, while maintaining all the suavities of +intercourse, did not address Gwendolen as dearest.</p> + +<p>It was not far to Mrs. Waterlow's, and he said, in reply to her +question, that he liked walking, if she didn't mind going slowly on his +account. He found himself telling her, then, about his lameness. A bad +fall while skating in boyhood had handicapped him for life. The lamps +had just been lighted and the evening of early spring was blurred with +mist. Catkins hung against a faintly rosy sky, and in the gardens that +they passed the crocuses stood thickly. Owen had a sense of adventure +poignant in its reminiscent magic. Not for years had he so felt the +savour of youth. He realised, with a deep happiness, that Mrs. Waterlow +liked him; sometimes she laughed at things he said, and once or twice +when her eyes turned on him he fancied in them the same expression of +happy discovery with which she had looked at the pagoda. Well, he +reflected, if she thought him delightful, too, she had had to get +through a great many dusty newspapers to find him.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow lived, away from the gardened houses of Chislebridge, in a +small but rather stately house with a Georgian façade which stood on one +of the narrower, older streets. They went up two or three stone steps +from the pavement and knocked at a very bright and massive knocker, and +the door was opened by a middle-aged Quakerish maid. The drawing-room +was on the ground floor, and Mrs. Waterlow led him in.</p> + +<p>Owen's astonishment, when he entered, prompted him to stand still and +to gaze about him; but luckily he could not yield to the impulse, for he +had to cross to the fire, near which, behind her tea-table, old Mrs. +Waterlow sat, and had to be presented to her and to the middle-aged, +academic-looking lady who was having tea with her. He was glad of the +respite, for he had received a shock.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Waterlow had dark, authoritative eyes and white hair much +dressed under black lace, and the finest of hands, decorated with old +seals and old diamonds. She must, he felt, be a companion at once +inspiriting and disquieting, for she had the demeanour of a naughty, +haughty child, and, as she held Owen in talk for some moments, he +perceived that her conversation was of a sort to cause alarm and +amusement in her listeners. Poor old Professor Selden, who was +mentioned, offered her an opportunity for the frankest witticisms, +and,—when her daughter-in-law protested,—"Yes, dear, I know you are +fond of him," the old lady replied, "and so am I; but he is, all the +same, very like a damp potato that has begun to sprout."</p> + +<p>"Now look at my pagoda, Mr. Stacpole," said young Mrs. Waterlow, +laughing, yet, he saw, not pleased, and turning from the fire where she +had been standing with her foot on the fender.</p> + +<p>"Does Mr. Stacpole care for bric-ŕ-brac, too?" old Mrs. Waterlow +inquired. "Cicely came home with this last treasure in as much triumph +as if some one had left her a fortune. I resent the pagoda because it +means that she will go without a spring hat. She is always coming home +in triumph and always doing without hats; and I sit here without an atom +of taste, and get the credit for hers. Frankly, Sybilla, my dear," she +addressed the academic lady, "I'd be quite content to sit upon red reps +and to cover my tea-pot with a pink satin cosy with apple-blossoms +painted on it. I had such a cosy given to me this Christmas; but Cicely +wouldn't let me use it."</p> + +<p>Owen had risen to face his ordeal. Mrs. Waterlow, he had seen it in the +first astonished glance, had, like everybody else in Chislebridge, been +imitating Gwendolen, and his whole conception of her was undergoing a +reconstruction. He followed her to the table on which the white pagoda +stood, glancing about him and taking in deep drafts of disillusion. Red +lacquer and Japanese prints, white porcelain and dimly shining jars of +old Venetian glass—it was a replica, even to its white walls, of +Gwendolen's drawing-room, but hushed and saddened, as it were, humbly +smiling, with folded hands and no attempt at emulation. And in the +midst, beautifully in place on its little black lacquer table, was the +pagoda, offering him not a hint of help, but seeming rather, to smile at +him with a fantastic and malicious mirth. He was aware, as from the +pagoda he brought his eyes back to young Mrs. Waterlow, that he was +dreadfully sorry. In another woman he would not have given the naďve +derivativeness a thought; but in her, whom he had felt so full of savour +and independence? One thing only helped him, beside the effortless +atmosphere of the room, and that was the fact—he clung to it—that the +glasses set everywhere among the red and black and white were filled +not, thank goodness! with pink roses, but with poppy anemones, white and +purple and rose. And the first thing he found to say of the pagoda to +Mrs. Waterlow was, "It looks lovely in here," and then, turning to the +nearest bowl of delicate colour, he added, "and how beautifully these +flowers go with your room!"</p> + +<p>He wondered, as their eyes met over the anemones, whether Mrs. Waterlow +guessed his discomfiture.</p> + +<p>When he saw Gwendolen that evening she asked him at once whether he +liked old Mrs. Waterlow. She did not ask him how he liked young Mrs. +Waterlow's drawing-room, and he reflected that this was really very +magnanimous of her.</p> + +<p>"She seems a witty old lady," he said. "Her daughter-in-law can't be +dull with her."</p> + +<p>"She's witty, but I always feel her a little spiteful, too," said +Gwendolen. "We never get on, she and I. I hate hearing my neighbours +scored off, and she has such an eye for people's foibles. I don't think +that Cicely always quite likes it, either; but they are devoted to each +other. If it weren't for old Mrs. Waterlow, I'd try to see a great deal +more of Cicely; I'm really fond of her."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He did not go to Chislebridge for another six months. Gwendolen asked +him very pressingly on various occasions, but twice he was engaged and +once ill and too depressed and jaded to make the effort. It was the time +of all others when Gwendolen and her ministrations would have been most +acceptable, but he shrank from submitting himself to their influences, +feeling that in his very need he might find too great a compulsion. The +thought of Gwendolen and of her possible place in his life must be +adjourned—adjourned until she was well out of her mourning and he was +able to meet it more impartially.</p> + +<p>He saw Gwendolen in London and gave her and her boys tea at his rooms, +the dingily comfortable rooms near Manchester Square from which for many +years he had not had the initiative to move. There was more potency, he +found, in the imaginary Gwendolen than in the real one. The sight of her +brought back vividly the thought of Mrs. Waterlow. Curiously, they +seemed to have spoiled each other. Gwendolen had all the ethical +advantages and even, if it came to that, all the ćsthetic ones; yet, +ambiguous as the image of the other had become, its charm challenged +Gwendolen's virtues and Gwendolen's achievements. He even felt that he +could be sure of nothing until he next stayed with Gwendolen, when he +must see Mrs. Waterlow and weigh the possible friendship with her, +tarnished though it were, against the comfortable solutions that +Gwendolen held out to him. Again, curiously, he knew that the two could +not be combined.</p> + +<p>Gwendolen, however, was gone away to the south of France when he wrote +to her in November and asked if he might stop a day and night on his way +through Chislebridge to a country week-end. But he had a two-hours' +wait at the station, and he suddenly determined, when he found himself +on the platform, to go and have tea with Mrs. Waterlow.</p> + +<p>He drove up to the peaceful street where, above the college wall that +ran along its upper end, a close tracery of branches showed against the +sky, and he found that a welcoming firelight shone in the spacious +windows of the Georgian house. His dismay, therefore, was the more +untempered when the mildly austere maid told him that Mrs. Waterlow was +away. His pause there on the threshold expressed his condition, and the +maid suggested that he might care to come in and see old Mrs. Waterlow. +This, he felt, was indeed better than not to go in at all. So he was led +for a second time into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>He had been obliged on the former visit to conceal astonishment; but now +he found himself alone, and no concealment was needed. And the former +astonishment was slight compared with this one. He felt almost giddy as +he gazed about him. Nothing was the same. Everything was fantastically, +incredibly different, except—his eye caught it with a sharpened pang of +wonder—the white pagoda; for there, in the centre of the room, upon a +round, mahogany table, with heavily bowed and richly carven legs, the +white pagoda stood, and under it an old bead mat,—a mat of faded, old +blue beads,—his eyes were riveted on the pagoda and its setting,—of +white and gray and blue beads dotted with pink rosebuds. At regular +intervals, raying out from the centre, books were placed upon the +table—small, sober books bound in calf.</p> + +<p>So the pagoda stood, the pivot of an incredible room; yet, inconceivable +as it seemed, as right there, all its exquisite absurdity revealed, as +it had been right in the other. It was the one link that joined them, +the one thread in the labyrinth of his astonishment; and it seemed, with +its ambiguous, fantastic smile, to symbolize its absent owner. Was it an +exquisite, extravagant, elaborate joke that she and the pagoda were +having together?</p> + +<p>For the whole room was now a joke. It was furnished with a suite of +black satin—sofas, easy-chairs, little chairs with carved, excruciating +backs, all densely buttoned and richly fringed. Over the backs of the +easy-chairs were laid antimacassars of finely crocheted white lace. Upon +two tall pieces of mahogany, ranged up and down with knobbed drawers and +recalling in their decorous solidity the buttoned bodices of +mid-Victorian matrons, stood high-handled, white marble urns. An oval +gilt mirror hung above the mantelpiece, and upon it stood two lustres +ringed with prisms of glass and a little clock of gilt and marble, +ornamented with two marble doves hovering over a gilt nest wherein lay +marble eggs. Between the clock and the lustres, on either side, was a +vase of Bohemian glass, each holding a small nosegay of red and white +roses. Mahogany footstools with bead-worked tops stood before the fire, +and upon the walls hung, exquisite in their absurdity, like the pagoda, +a whole botanical series of flat, feeble old flower-pieces, neatly +coloured drawings, as accurate and as lifeless as vigilant, uninspired +labour could make them.</p> + +<p>No, it was a dream, an insane, delightful dream; for, with it all, above +it all, how and why he could not say, the room was delightful. It seemed +to set one free from some burden of appreciation that all unconsciously +one had been carrying and had been finding heavy. One could live in it, +laughing at and with it. For it all laughed—surely yes; and the elfish +chorus was led by the white pagoda, standing like a Chinese Pierrot, at +the centre of the revels.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Waterlow at last came sailing in, and her black lace shawl and +lace-draped head looked as appropriate in the room as everything else +seemed to do. Her eyes dwelt on him with a certain fixity, and in them +he seemed to read further significances. They held an intention, gay, +precise, such as he had felt in the room; and they held, too, it might +be, a touch of light-hearted cruelty.</p> + +<p>"Yes, isn't it changed?" she said, and he knew that his state of +astonishment had spoken from his face.</p> + +<p>He stared round him again, smiling.</p> + +<p>"It makes me feel," he said, "like the old woman in the nursery rhyme +whose skirts were cut up to her knees while she was asleep. One says, +'If I be I.'"</p> + +<p>"And I'm the little dog," said Mrs. Waterlow; "but one who doesn't bark +at you, so that you can be assured of your identity. I am really more +aware of my own in this room than in any I've lived in for years. It is +like one of the rooms of my girlhood. Rooms weren't so important then as +they are now, and the people who lived in them, I sometimes think, were +more so. It amuses me nowadays," said the old lady moving to her +tea-table and seating herself, "to observe the way in which people are +assessed by their tastes and their belongings. You say of some one that +she is a dull or a disagreeable woman, and the answer and rebuke you +receive is, 'Oh, but she has such wonderful Chinese screens!' Sit down +here, Mr. Stacpole. It is very nice to see you again."</p> + +<p>"But tell me, where is the other room?" Owen asked, drawing his chair to +the table, "Is it disbanded, dissolved, gone for ever?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow looked at him with an air of half-malicious mystery.</p> + +<p>"That is a secret, my own little secret, just as this room is, in a way, +a little joke which, for my sake, Cicely has made for me. It was +finished last week, by the way, and you are the first person to see it. +Your cousin is in the south of France, isn't she?" said Mrs. Waterlow, +with bland inconsequence.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I'm only passing through. Gwendolen's been gone for nearly a +month."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I know," Mrs. Waterlow pursued, still with the genial blandness. +"And as to our little joke, Mr. Stacpole, this room, in fact, is in many +ways a room of my girlhood. The furniture was my mother's, and Cicely, +when the idea struck her, had it brought from the garret of my old home, +where it has stood in disgrace for many a year. She has been clever +about it, hasn't she?"</p> + +<p>"It's genius," said Owen, "What made her think of it?" And then, with a +pang, he wondered whether Gwendolen had thought of it first. Was it +imaginable that Gwendolen could have turned away from beauty and plunged +herself into such gay austerities of ugliness?</p> + +<p>"Well, things are in the air, you know," said Mrs. Waterlow, pouring out +the tea,—"that's what Cicely always says, at all events,—reactions, +repulsions, wearinesses. This room is, she says, a discipline."</p> + +<p>"Things in the air": had Gwendolen felt them first, and Mrs. Waterlow +felt them after her? This question of priority became of burning +interest for him.</p> + +<p>"The trouble is that one may get too much of any discipline," he +commented, "if it ceases to be self-inflicted and is imposed upon us. +How would your daughter like it if all Chislebridge took to buttoned +black satin and old flower-pieces? It's as an exception that it has its +charm and its meaning. But if it became a commonplace?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's the point," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "Will it? It has very +much vexed me for years to watch Chislebridge picking Cicely's brains. +And I said to her that I wondered whether it would be possible for her +to make a room that wouldn't be copied, and she said that she believed +she could. If she could achieve ugliness, she said—downright ugliness, +she believed they would fall back. The room is a sort of wager between +us, for I am not at all convinced that she will succeed. Sheep, you +know, will leap into the ditch if they see their leader land there."</p> + +<p>Owen's head was whirling. It was as though suddenly the little crystal +rings of the pagoda had given out a sportive, significant tinkle. This, +then, was what it meant? It was a jest, a game; but it was also a trap. +For whom? Chislebridge, on old Mrs. Waterlow's lips, could mean only +Gwendolen. He did not know quite what he hoped or feared, but he knew +that he must conceal from old Mrs. Waterlow his recognition of her +meaning.</p> + +<p>"I felt from the first moment that I saw her in the curiosity-shop that +Mrs. Waterlow was the sort of person who would always find the white +pagodas," he said, smiling above his perturbation; "but I shouldn't have +supposed that Chislebridge was intelligent enough, let us put it, to +realise it, too, and to follow her lead."</p> + +<p>"It's not that they realise it," the old lady interpreted, salting her +scone; "it's something deeper than realisation. It's instinct—the +instinct of the insignificant for aping the significant. They would +probably be annoyed if they were told that they aped Cicely. They hardly +know they do it, I will say that for them, if it's anything to their +credit. And then since she is poor and they—some of them—rich, their +copies are seen by a hundred to the one who sees her original, and +Cicely, to some people, I've no doubt of it, seems the ape. It has very +much vexed me," Mrs. Waterlow repeated.</p> + +<p>Owen, for all his loyal feint of unconsciousness, was growing rather +angry with Gwendolen.</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder that it should," he said. "It vexes me to hear about it. +Has it gone on for long?"</p> + +<p>"Ever since we came to live here after my son's death. People at that +time had draped, crowded drawing-rooms,—you remember the dreadful +epoch. The more pots and pans and patterns and palms they could squeeze +into them, the better they were pleased. Cicely had simple furniture and +quiet spaces and plain green wall-paper when no one else in +Chislebridge had. She fell in love with Japanese prints in Paris and +bought them when no one else in Chislebridge thought of doing so.—It's +wrong, now, I hear, to like them. Chinese paintings are the correct +thing.—Chislebridge stared at them and at her empty room, and wondered +how she could care for those hideous women. They stared only for a year +or two. When they saw that she was quite indifferent to their opinion +and intended to remain in the ditch, they jumped in after her. I was +amused when I first saw Japanese prints on some one else's green walls +and heard the Goncourts and Whistler being quoted to Cicely. Then by +degrees Cicely got tired of green paper, especially since everybody in +Chislebridge by then had it, and she put, with her white walls, the red +lacquer and the glass and that beautiful old set of cane-seated +furniture that you saw; and no one else in Chislebridge at that time had +white walls or a scrap of lacquer. She shifted and rearranged like a +bird building its nest, and Chislebridge stared again and said that the +white walls were like a workhouse; and then they began to look for +lacquer and to put up white paper. Her very grouping has been copied, +the smallest points of adjustment. It's not," Mrs. Waterlow pursued, +"that I mind people imitating, if they do it frankly and own themselves +plagiarists. We must all see the things we like for the first time. But +it's not because they like the things that they have them; they have +them because some one else likes them. They dress themselves in other +people's tastes and make a fine figure as originators." The vexation of +years was crystallized in the lightness and crispness of her voice.</p> + +<p>Poor, stupid Gwendolen! After all, one must not be too hard on her. He +felt Mrs. Waterlow to be so hard that he reacted to something +approaching pitying tolerance, Gwendolen could be stupid in such good +faith. There was nothing, when he came to think of it, surprising in +this revelation of her stupidity, nothing painful, as there had been in +suspecting Cicely Waterlow of stupidity. Gwendolen was so sincerely +unaware of having no ideas of her own. He wondered, as he said good-bye +to old Mrs. Waterlow and told her that he felt convinced that she had at +last reached a haven, whether she guessed that she had made him happy +rather than unhappy.</p> + +<p>She had made him so happy, with his recovered ideal, that as he drove +away it was with a definite thrust of fear that he suddenly remembered +Gwendolen's kindly criticism of old Mrs. Waterlow. Was it not possible, +after all, that she had been indulging in sheer malice at Gwendolen's +expense? Wasn't it possible that Gwendolen and Cicely Waterlow had had +the same inspirations independently? But no two people could stumble at +once on such a drawing-room as that he had just left. Horrid +thought—what if Gwendolen's drawing-room at this moment showed just +such a singular reversion to ugliness? After his delicious relief, he +could not bear the doubt.</p> + +<p>He drove to Gwendolen's. Yes, the old housekeeper, who knew him, said he +could of course go up and look at the red lacquer. The red lacquer! He +could almost have embraced her for the joy her words gave him. Gwendolen +would not have retained red lacquer with a black satin suite. And on the +threshold of Gwendolen's drawing-room he received full reassurance. The +lovely room was intact. The blacks and whites and reds and golds were +all there, unchanged, not a breath of the ambiguous discipline upon +them. And in the midst of them all it was not Gwendolen, but Cicely +Waterlow, whom he seemed to see smiling upon him, merry, tired, and +tolerant. She had, as it were, demonstrated her claim not only to her +present, but to her past. For if she had not copied Gwendolen in the +mid-Victorian backwater, why should she have copied her in this? She had +been first in both, and in her backwater she was now safe.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Many months passed before he saw Gwendolen's drawing-room again. He was +felled early in the winter by a long and dangerous illness. When he was +able to crawl about, he went to the south of France and stayed there for +over a year. He was so ill, so tired, and so weak that, if Gwendolen and +the boys hadn't joined him, if she hadn't nursed and amused and +encouraged him from day to day, he felt that he should probably have +died and made an end of it. Gwendolen was more than kind. She was at +once tender and tactful, and the only claim she made was that of her +long-standing solicitude on his account. Upon this, as upon a +comfortable, impersonal cushion that she adjusted for his weary head, +she invited him to lean, and upon it for months of dazed invalidism and +dubious convalescence he did lean. Lapped round by this fundamental +kindness, the flaws and absurdities of Gwendolen's character +disappeared. The long pearl ear-rings dangled now over the most +delicious beef-teas, which she herself made for him; the graceful hands +could perform efficient tasks. Of how very little importance it was that +a woman should not show originality in her drawing-room when she could +show in taxing daily intercourse such wisdom and resource and sweetness! +Life had contracted about them, and on these simple and elementary terms +he found that Gwendolen neither bored nor ruffled him. When she at last +left him he knew that the bond between them, unspoken as it remained, +was stronger than it had ever yet been, and that when he next saw her he +would probably find it the most natural of things to ask her to marry +him, and to take care of him for ever. Poor, good, kind Gwendolen! It +was with a pensive humility and mirth that he resigned himself to the +thought of the bad bargain she would make.</p> + +<p>He came back to England in the spring following that in which he had +left it, and went at once to Chislebridge. It was late afternoon when he +drove, in a twilight like his own mood of meditative acceptance, to the +well-known house. Ample and benignant it stood behind its walls and +lawns and trees, and seemed to look upon him with eyes of unresentful +patience.</p> + +<p>He limped in and Gwendolen met him in the hall.</p> + +<p>"My dear, dear Owen, how are you? Yes, I had your wire this morning. +Good; I see that the journey has done you no harm. But you are tired, +aren't you? Will you go to your own room or have tea with me at once? +It's just been brought in."</p> + +<p>He said that he would have tea with her. She did not actually help him +up the stairs, but as, with skill impaired, he swung himself from step +to step, the touch of her tactful and ready hand was upon his arm, a +caress rather than a sustainment. Passing the hand through his arm, she +led him into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Owen looked about him. He stood for a long moment in the door and +looked. He then allowed himself a cautious, side-long glance at +Gwendolen. Her eyes, unaware in their bland complacency, had followed +his and rested upon her room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten that you hadn't seen my new drawing-room," she +said. "We've had great changes."</p> + +<p>Even in his horror, for it was hardly less, he was touched to realize +that Gwendolen was thinking far less of her drawing-room than of him. +She might have forgotten that it had changed, had he not so helplessly +displayed his amazement.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," he said. He limped to the fire and sank heavily into the +deep, black satin easy-chair drawn before it. He leaned his elbow on his +knee and rested his head on his hand, and as he did so he observed that +before the fire stood a mahogany footstool with a bead-worked top.</p> + +<p>"You are tired, dear Owen. Do you feel ill?" Gwendolen hovered above his +chair.</p> + +<p>"I do feel a little giddy," he confessed. "I'm not all right yet, I +see."</p> + +<p>He raised his head. It was to face the mantelpiece, with its oval, gilt +mirror and crystal lustres and gilt-and-marble clock. No, there were not +doves and a nest upon it. This was a finer clock than the one with the +doves, and the lustres were larger, and the flowers that stood between +were mauve orchids. Gwendolen always went astray over her flowers.</p> + +<p>"Here is tea," she said, seating herself at a little mahogany table with +bowed and decorated legs. "Of course you're bound to feel tired, dear +Owen, after your journey. Tea will be the very thing for you."</p> + +<p>He turned now a furtive eye along the wall. Flower-pieces, dim, flat, +old flower-pieces and arid steel-engravings and tall pieces of mahogany +furniture with marble vases upon them—no mistakes had been made here, +for if the vases were not urns, they were of marble and in their places.</p> + +<p>"How do you like it in this phase?" Gwendolen asked him, tactfully +turning from the question of his weakness. "I love it myself, I own, +though of course Chislebridge thinks I've lost my wits. To tell you the +truth, Owen, I was tired of beauty. One may come to that. One may feel," +said Gwendolen, pouring out the tea, "that one needs a discipline. This +room is my discipline, and after it I know that I shall find +self-indulgence almost vulgar."</p> + +<p>No; his mind was working to and fro between the present and the past +with the rapidity and accuracy of a shuttle threading an intricate +pattern—no, he had never mentioned to Gwendolen that late autumnal +visit of his to Chislebridge eighteen months ago. Had that been because +to mention it and the transformation he had been the first to witness in +Mrs. Waterlow's drawing-room would have been, in a sense, to give +Gwendolen a warning? And had he not, in his deepening affection for her, +conceived her to be above the need of such warnings? Yes; for though he +had been glad to recover his ideal of young Mrs. Waterlow, though he had +been more than willing that Gwendolen should occupy the slightly +ridiculous and humiliating position that he had imagined to be Mrs. +Waterlow's, he had never for a moment imagined that Gwendolen's +disingenuous docility would go as far as this. So many people might love +red lacquer and old glass with a clear conscience, once they had been +brought to see them; but who, with a clear conscience, could love black +satin furniture and marble vases?</p> + +<p>"It is a very singular room," he found at last, in comment upon her +information. "How—and when—did you come to think of it?" He heard the +hollow sound of his own voice; but Gwendolen remained unaware. The fact +of her stupidity cast a merciful veil of pitifulness over her.</p> + +<p>"I hardly know," she said, handing him his tea and happy in her theme. +"These things are in the air at a given time—reactions, repulsions, +wearinesses—I think. It grew bit by bit; I've brought it to this state +only since my return from the Riviera. The idea came to me, oh, long +ago—long before your illness. Alec Chambers is perfectly entranced with +it, and vows it is the most beautiful—yes, beautiful—room in +existence. It is witty as well as beautiful, he says, and he is going to +paint it for the New English Art Club. Rooms have a curious influence +upon me, you know, Owen. I really do feel," said Gwendolen busying +herself hospitably with his little plate and hot, buttered toast, "that +I've grown cleverer since living in this one."</p> + +<p>Owen, while she talked and while he drank his tea, had been more frankly +looking about him. Flagrant as was the plagiarism, Gwendolen, as before, +had protected herself by a more illustrious achievement. It was a +stately, not a staid room; it carried the idea higher, and thereby +missed it. It was not an amusing room, nor witty, to any one who had +seen the original. It was impressive, oppressive, almost forbidding. +Gwendolen, for one thing, had had more space to fill. The naďveté of +mere flower-pieces would not furnish her walls, and she had lapsed into +sheer ugliness with the large and admirably accurate steel-engravings. +Caution, too, had been mistakenly exercised here and there; the black +satin furniture had no antimacassars and the centre-table no ornament +except a vase of orchids and calf-bound books.</p> + +<p>Owen felt no indignation; he would always remain too fond of Gwendolen, +too tolerant of her folly, to feel indignant with her; it was with a +mild but final irony that he brought his eyes back at last to his +unconscious and hapless cousin. And he wondered how far Gwendolen had +gone, how far she could be made to go. "There's only one thing that it +lacks," he said. "Shall I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>do</i>" she urged, beaming over her tea. "You know how much I value +your taste."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I haven't much taste," said Owen, "I've never gone in for having +taste. And doesn't your room prove that taste is a mistake if indulged +too far? It's more a sense of literary fitness I allude to. Yours is +meant to be a soulless room, isn't it? That's your intention?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Gwendolen, with eager apprehension; "that is just it—a +soulless room. One is sick of souls, just as one is sick of beauty."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," Owen echoed her. "But, since you have here a travesty of +beauty, what you need to complete your idea is a travesty of soul. You +need a centre that draws it all into focus. You need something that, +alas! you might have had, and have lost for ever. The white pagoda, +Gwendolen, that Mrs. Waterlow found. Your room needs that, and only +that, to make it perfect."</p> + +<p>He spoke in his flat, weak invalid's voice, but he was wondering, almost +with ardour, if Gwendolen, this touchstone applied, would suspect or +remember and, from penitence or caution, redeem herself by a confession. +For a moment, only a moment, she looked at him very earnestly; and he +was aware that he hoped that she was going to redeem herself—hoped it +almost ardently, not for his own sake—those sober hopes were dead for +ever—but for the sake of the past and what it had really held of +fondness and sympathy and essential respect.</p> + +<p>Gwendolen looked at him earnestly; it was as though a dim suspicion +crossed her; and then, poor thing! she put it aside. Yes, he was very +sorry for her as he listened to her.</p> + +<p>"Owen, that is clever of you," she said, "but very, very clever. That is +precisely what I've been saying to myself ever since the idea came to +me. I can't forgive myself for that piece of stupidity—my only one, I +will say, in regard to such recognitions and perceptions. I may be a +stupid woman about a great many things, but I'm not stupid about rooms. +The horror of Aunt Pickthorne's room dulled my eyes so that in all truth +I can say that I never saw that pagoda. And from the moment I've had my +idea I've moaned—but literally moaned—over having lost it. Of course +it is what the room needs, and all that it needs—the travesty of a soul +standing on that mahogany table."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the centre-table is the place for it," said Owen.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> clever of you to feel it just as I do, Owen, dear," she went +on. "The pagoda was meant for this room and for this room only; for, you +know, I didn't think Cicely Waterlow at all happily inspired in placing +it as she had."</p> + +<p>"As she had?" He rapped the question out with irrepressible quickness.</p> + +<p>"Yes, among all that rather trashy lacquer and glass in that rather +gimcrackery little drawing-room of hers. The pagoda looked there, what +it had always looked in Aunt Pickthorne's room—a gimcrack itself."</p> + +<p>"Looked?" he repeated. "How does it look now? How has she placed it +now?"</p> + +<p>And, for the first time in all their intercourse, he saw that Gwendolen +was suddenly confused. He had hardly trapped her. She had set the trap +herself, and inadvertently had walked into it. A faint colour rose to +her cheek. She dropped for a moment her eyes upon the fire. Then, +covering her self-consciousness with a show of smiling vivacity, she +knelt to poke the logs, saying:</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I really don't know, Owen. Cicely is always changing her +room, you know. She is very quick at feeling what's in the air—as quick +as I am really—and I haven't seen her for ages. She has gone to live in +London—oh, yes, didn't you know? Yes, she came into a little money over +a year ago, and she and old Mrs. Waterlow have taken a house in Chelsea, +and are coming back to Chislebridge only for two or three months in +every year. They are very fond of Chislebridge. So I haven't an idea of +what her drawing-room is like now."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it's like yours," Owen suggested. "The one I saw was rather +like yours, I remember."</p> + +<p>Gwendolen opened kind and repudiating eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you think so, Owen? Like mine? Oh, only in one or two superficial +little things. She hadn't a Chinese screen or a lacquer cabinet or a +piece of Chinese painting to bless herself with, poor little Cicely! No, +indeed, Owen; I don't think it would be at all fair to say that Cicely +copied me. These things are in the air."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Before he left Chislebridge he asked Gwendolen for Mrs. Waterlow's +London address, and observed that she did not flinch in giving it to +him. He inferred from this that Mrs. Waterlow's black satin suite had +not left Chislebridge and that Gwendolen knew that she had nothing to +fear from a London visit. Would she indeed fear anything from any visit? +Her placid self-deception was so profound that it would be difficult to +draw a line fairly between skilful fraud and instinctive +self-protection. Gwendolen, without doubt, conceived herself completely +protected. She would never suspect him of suspecting her.</p> + +<p>He felt, when he got back to London, a certain reluctance in going to +see Mrs. Waterlow. It was not only that he shrank from reading in old +Mrs. Waterlow's malicious eyes the recognition of his discovery; in +regard to young Mrs. Waterlow there was another shrinking that was +almost one of shyness. She had been wronged, grossly wronged, by some +one to whom he must show the semblance of loyalty, and the consciousness +of her wrongs affected him deeply. A fortnight passed before he made his +way one afternoon to Chelsea, a fortnight in which the main +consciousness that filled his sense of renewal was that of his merciful +escape. Mrs. Waterlow's house was in St. Leonard's Terrace, one of the +narrow, old houses that face the expanse of the Royal Hospital Gardens. +The spring sun, as he limped along, was shining upon their +façades—dull, old brick and dim, white paint-like slabs of ancient +wedding-cake with frosted edging.</p> + +<p>After all the expense of his illness, he was very poor in these days, +and had come with difficulty in a 'bus. As he opened the gate and went +into the flagged garden, where white tulips grew, he glanced up and saw +young Mrs. Waterlow standing looking out at the drawing-room window. Her +eyes met his in surprise, they had not seen each other for so long a +time; then, as lifting his hat he smiled at her, he thought he saw in +them a sudden pity and gravity. He did of course look so much more +battered than when she had last seen him. The nice, middle-aged maid let +him in—he was glad of that—and, as he followed her up the narrow +staircase, with its white, panelled walls, he wondered which +drawing-room it was to be, and felt his heart sink strangely at the +thought that perhaps, after all, Mrs. Waterlow had transplanted her +discipline to London.</p> + +<p>But, no; like a soft gush of sunlight, like bells and clear, running +water, the first room greeted him in a medley of untraceable +associations. It was the first room, with the delicate cane-seated +chairs and settees, the red lacquer and the glass, all looking lovelier +than ever against the panelled white, all brighter, sweeter, happier +than in the rather dim room on the ground floor in Chislebridge. And +touches of green, like tiny flakes of vivid flame, went through it in +the leaves of the white azaleas that filled the jars and vases. He saw +it all, and he saw, as Mrs. Waterlow came toward him, that the white +pagoda stood on its former little black lacquer table in one of the +windows.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow shook his hand and her eyes examined him.</p> + +<p>"You have been ill. I was so sorry to hear," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've been wretchedly ill; for years now, it seems," he replied.</p> + +<p>They sat down before the fire. Old Mrs. Waterlow, she told him, was away +on a visit to Chislebridge, from which she was to return that evening at +six o'clock. It was only four. He had two hours before him, and he felt +that in them he was to be very happy. They talked and talked. He saw +that she liked him and expected him to stay on and talk. All the magic +and elation and sense of discovery and adventure was with him as on +their first encounter. She knew him, he found, so much better than he +could have guessed. She had read everything he had written. She +appreciated so finely; she even, with a further advance to acknowledged +friendship, criticized, with the precision and delicacy expressed in all +that she did. And the fact that she liked him so much, that she was +already so much his friend, gave him his right to let her see how much +he liked her. The two hours were not only happy; they were the happiest +he had ever known.</p> + +<p>The clock had hardly struck six when old Mrs. Waterlow's cab drove up.</p> + +<p>"Don't go; mamma will so like to see you," said Mrs. Waterlow. "She so +enjoyed that little visit you paid her over a year ago, you know."</p> + +<p>This was the first reference that had been made to the visit. He +wondered if she guessed what it had done for their friendship.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Waterlow came in, wearing just such a delightful, flowing black +satin cloak and deep black satin bonnet as he would have expected her to +wear. And seeing him there with her daughter-in-law, she paused, as if +arrested, on the threshold. Then, her eyes passing from the tea-table +and its intimacy of grouping with the two chairs they had risen from, +and resting brightly on her daughter's face, where she must read the +reflection of his happiness, Owen saw that she cast off a scruple, came +to a decision, and renewed the impulse that had brought her up the +stairs, he now realised, at an uncharacteristic speed.</p> + +<p>"My dear Cicely," she exclaimed, after she had greeted him, "you've lost +your wager!"</p> + +<p>Cicely Waterlow gazed at her for a moment and then she flushed deeply.</p> + +<p>"Have I, mamma?" she said, busying herself with the kettle. "Well, that +pleases you, and doesn't displease me. You'll want some tea, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed, I want some tea. But you'll not put me off with tea, my +dear. I want to talk about my wager, too; and Mr. Stacpole will want to +hear about it, for it was his wager as well. You did say that you felt +convinced that I was safe in my haven, didn't you, Mr. Stacpole? Well, +I've lost it, and I'm not at all pleased to have lost it. I'm +triumphant, if you will, but savage, too. You'll forgive me, I know, Mr. +Stacpole, if I'm savage with your cousin when I tell you that she has +been inspired with a black satin suite and mahogany furniture and +bead-work since seeing Cicely's new drawing-room in Chislebridge."</p> + +<p>"Mamma!" Cicely protested. "Two people can perfectly well have the same +idea at the same time! There's no reason in the world why Gwendolen +shouldn't feel just my fancy for funny, old, ugly things."</p> + +<p>"She didn't show any fancy for them when she saw them a year ago, did +she, dear?" said the intractable old lady, seating herself at the +tea-table. "She was very guarded, very mute, though very observant. Yes; +people may have the same idea, but they'll hardly have the same black +satin furniture and the same beaded footstools, will they?"</p> + +<p>Seeing the deep embarrassment in which his friend was plunged, Owen now +interposed.</p> + +<p>"Don't try to defend Gwendolen on my account," he said. "She really +can't be defended. I know it, for I've seen her drawing-room."</p> + +<p>"You have seen it? And what do you think of it?" asked old Mrs. +Waterlow.</p> + +<p>"I thought, as I told her," said Owen, "that it lacked but one thing, +and that was the travesty of a soul. It lacked the white pagoda."</p> + +<p>"You told her that? It was what she told me. She told me that she could +not forgive herself for having parted with the pagoda, for it was the +travesty of a soul that her room still needed. 'You mean,' I said, 'the +pagoda placed as Cicely placed it on the centre-table in her new room?' +She gazed at me and laid her hand on my arm and asked: 'But, dear Mrs. +Waterlow, how had Cicely placed the pagoda? I really don't remember. I +really don't remember at all what Cicely's new room was like, except +that it was mid-Victorian, and had old water-colours on the walls. +Surely you don't think that I've copied Cicely?'</p> + +<p>"'My dear Mrs. Conyers,' I said to her, 'I don't think, but know, that +you've done nothing else since you came to Chislebridge. But in this +case you are farther from success than usual, for Cicely's drawing-room +is gay, and yours is <i>grand sérieux</i>.'"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waterlow's bomb seemed to fill the air with a silvery explosion, +and, as its echoes died, in the ensuing stillness, the eyes of Cicely +and Owen met beneath the triumphant gaze of the merciless old lady. It +was from his eyes that hers caught the infection. To remain grave now +was to be <i>grand sérieux</i>, and helpless gaiety was in the air. Owen +broke into peals of laughter.</p> + +<p>"Oh—but—" Cicely Waterlow protested, laughing, too, but still flushed +and almost tearful—"it isn't fair. It's as if we had taken her in. She +doesn't know she does it, really she doesn't; she is so well-meaning—so +kind."</p> + +<p>"She knows now," said old Mrs. Waterlow, who remained unsmiling, but +with a placidity full of satisfaction; "and she'll hardly be able to +forget."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite sure," said Cicely, "that she really believes that she cares +for the new drawing-room. People can persuade themselves so easily of +new tastes. And why shouldn't they have them? I believe that Gwendolen +does like it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she does indeed," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "She says so. She says +she never cared for any room so much and that she intends to live and +die with it. Her only refuge now is to go on faithfully loving it. So +there she is, buttoned into her black satin for ever!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Until now Mrs. Conyers has remained faithful, and her consistency is +still made good to her; for none of her drawing-rooms has brought her +such appreciation. Chislebridge has never dared to emulate it; Mr. +Chambers and his friends have often painted it, and Mrs. Waterlow's +original, like a gay jest, uttered and then gone for ever, is no longer +in existence to vex and perplex her with its mocking smile. Moreover, +her own drawing-room no longer lacks its travesty of a soul. Owen +married Cicely Waterlow in the autumn, and Gwendolen, magnanimous, and +burning her bridges behind her, sent them for their wedding-present her +two lovely and unique red lacquer cabinets. One stands in the front, and +one in the back drawing-room in the little house in St. Leonard's +Terrace, and Cicely said to Owen on the day they arrived that any wrong +of the past, if wrong there had been, was now atoned for. And when they +married and went round the world for their wedding-trip, they found in +China a white pagoda, unflawed, larger, more sublimely elegant than the +old one. This they brought back to Gwendolen, and with unfaltering +courage she has placed it upon her mahogany centre table.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_SUICIDE" id="THE_SUICIDE"></a>THE SUICIDE</h2> + +<h3>A COMEDY</h3> + + +<p>She took the bottle from its wrappings and looked at it—at its apparent +insignificance and the huge significance of the glaring word "Poison" +printed across it. She looked resolutely, and as resolutely went with it +to the other side of the room, and locked it away in the drawer of her +dressing-table. She paused here, and her eyes met her mirrored eyes. The +expression of her face arrested her attention. Did people who were going +to die usually look so calm, so placid? Really, it was a sort of +placidity that gazed back at her, so unlike the disfigured, tear-blinded +reflection that had been there that morning—when she had read the +paper. After the tempest of despair, the frozen decision, the nightmare +securing of the means of death (if any one should guess! stop her!) it +was indeed a sort of apathy that drenched her being, as if already the +drug had gone through it. The face in the mirror was very young and +very helpless and very charming. It was like the face of a little +wind-blown ghost, with its tossed-back hair and wide, empty, gazing +eyes. The sweetness of the wasted cheeks and soft, parted lips suddenly +smote on the apathy, and tears came. She pressed her hands over her +eyes, struggled, and mastered herself again. Her own pathos must not +unnerve, and her unbearable sorrow must nerve, her.</p> + +<p>She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Just three. She could give +herself ample time for writing the letter; then she must go and post it. +Before five she would be back here—locked in her room. Before six—</p> + +<p>She went to the writing-table, unlocked a drawer,—the key hung on a +ribbon around her neck, under her bodice,—and took out a thick packet +of closely written papers. Sitting there, hesitating a moment, she +wondered if she would look back at those records of hope and +suffering—more than a whole year of beautiful suffering, beautiful +hope. The rising of tears again warned her that such a retrospect would +make her more unfit for writing the last letter as it must be +written—with full possession of her best and deepest meaning. She must +be her most courageous self to write now. The writer of those past +records seemed a little sister half playing with her grief, beside the +self that sat here now, stricken and determined.</p> + +<p>Drawing pen and paper to her, she wrote:</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">My Dearest—My best Beloved</span>: This is the last of the letters. I +am going to send them all to you now, so that you may know all. +I read this morning in the paper that you were to be married. +And now there is nothing left for me but to die. When you read +this I shall be dead.</p> + +<p>You must not blame me, or think me too cowardly. I am a fragile +person, I know, and my life hung on you. Without hope it can't +go on; it's too feeble to find anything else to live for. And +you could never, never blame yourself. How could you have +helped it? How could you have dreamed that I loved you? If you +had you could have done nothing but be sorry—and irked. But it +comforts me in dying to let you know how I have loved you; it +is like a dying gift I make you,—do you see?—all the love +that I have hidden. If I had lived I could never have made the +gift. Had you guessed, or had I told you, it would have been a +burden, a ludicrous burden. But as you read this, knowing that +I am dead, my love must come to you as a blessing; you must +feel it as something, in its little way beautiful, and care for +it; for any love that only gives and makes no claim is +beautiful, is it not? I think I find dying so much easier than +living because in dying I can give you the gift.</p> + +<p>All these letters, written from the first day I met you, almost +a year and a half ago, will tell you step by step what I have +felt. Don't let the hopes that flickered up sometimes hurt you; +the strength of my feeling made the flame, nothing that you +ever said or did.</p> + +<p>How I remember that first day, in the country, at the +Ashwells', when mamma and I came on to the lawn where you were +all sitting, and mamma laughed at me for stumbling over a +chair—and you smiled at me. From the moment I saw you then, I +loved you. You were like some dream come true. You never knew +what joy it gave me (only joy; the pain was in not being with +you) when we walked together and talked; the letters will tell +you that. But to-day it all comes back, even the little things +that I hardly knew I was seeing or hearing—the late white +roses in the garden; and the robin sitting on the garden wall +(we stopped to look at it, and it sat still, looking at us: I +wonder if you remember the robin); and the distant song some +labourers were singing in the fields far away.</p> + +<p>And here in London, the dinners we met at, the teas you came +to, the one or two books you gave me and that we wrote +about—what I felt about it all, these meteors through my gray +life, I have written it all down. Did I not act well? You could +never have guessed, under my composure and cheerfulness, could +you? I am a little proud of myself when I think of it.</p> + +<p>And that this is no sudden rocking of my reason you will see, +too, from the growing hopelessness, of emptiness in the last +months, when I have not seen you. In the bottom of my heart I +had always the little hope that some day I might give you these +myself, that we might read them together, you and I, smiling +over my past sorrow. And if I had died, and you had not loved +me, you were to have had them, as I told you, for I wanted to +give you my love; I could not bear that it should go out and +that you should never know.</p> + +<p>I wish that I could have died, and need not have killed myself; +I am so afraid that that may give you pain, though it ought not +to, if you think justly of it all.</p> + +<p>Of course you will be sorry for me—I am afraid that I want you +to be <i>sorry</i>; but don't be too sad. I am so much happier in +dying than I could have been in living; and in loving you I +have felt so much, I have lived so much—more perhaps than many +people in a whole lifetime.</p> + +<p>See the gift you have given <i>me</i>, dearest one. Good-bye. +Good-bye.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Allida.</span></p></blockquote> + +<p>It was over,—the last link with life, her last word spoken or +written,—and the echo of it seemed to come to her already as across a +great abyss that separated her from the world of the living.</p> + +<p>With the signing of her name she had drawn the shroud over her face.</p> + +<p>Only the mechanical things now remained to be done: dying was really +over; she really was dead.</p> + +<p>She wrapped this last letter around all the others, kissed it, and +sealed it in a large envelope; then, putting on her hat and coat and +holding the letter in her ulster pocket, she left her room and went down +the stairs.</p> + +<p>The house was a typically smart, flimsy London house, of the cheaper +Mayfair sort—a narrow box set on end and fitted with chintz and gilt +and white mouldings; a trap to Allida's imagination—an imagination that +no longer shrank from the contemplation of the facts of her life; for +they, too, were seen from across that abyss.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room, among shaded lamps, cushions, and swarming +bric-ŕ-brac, her mother had flirted and allured—unsuccessfully—for how +many years? She had felt, since the time when, as a very little girl, +she had gone by the room every day coming in from her walk at tea-time +with her governess, and heard inside the high, smiling, artificial +voice, with its odd appealing quality, its vague, waiting pauses, the +shrinking from her mother and her mother's aims. Later on the aims had +been for her, too, and their determination had been partly, Allida felt, +hardened by the fact of a grown-up daughter being such a deterrent—so +in the way of a desperate, fading beauty who had never made the +brilliant match she hoped for. That she had never, either, made even a +moderate match for her, Allida, the girl felt, with a firmer closing of +her hand on the letter, she perhaps owed to <i>him</i>. What might her +weakness and her hatred of her home not have urged her into had not that +ideal—that seen and recognized ideal—armed her? The vision of old +Captain Defflin, his bruised-plum face and tight, pale eyes, rose before +her, and the vacuous, unwholesome countenance of young Sir Alfred Cutts. +How often had she been dexterously left alone with them in the +drawing-room! Thank God! all that was far, far behind her. Death was +dignified, sweet-smelling in its peace, when she thought of all that the +gilt-and-chintz drawing-room stood for in her memories. Death was sweet +when life was so ugly.</p> + +<p>Now she was in the street, the door closed behind her, and no servant +had seen her.</p> + +<p>It was a foggy afternoon, and the soiled white houses opposite were +dim. A thin, stray cat rubbed against the area railings and mewed as +Allida stood, pausing for a moment, on the steps.</p> + +<p>Which was the nearest pillar-box? At the end of the street, just round +the corner. The plaintive, nasal cry of the cat caught her attention. +Poor creature! She ought to spare some poison for it. The irony of the +idea almost made her smile as she stooped and patted the dingy head. The +cat, leaning like a ship in a stiff wind, walked to and fro across her +dress, looking up at her as it still plaintively, interrogatively mewed. +Its appeal put aside for a moment the decision as to which pillar-box. +She picked up the cat and returned to the door. The maid answered her +ring.</p> + +<p>Allida was a little sorry that she must speak once more, after all, on +this mundane plane. The finish of her tragedy seemed slightly marred by +this episode. But she heard her calm voice telling the maid to feed the +cat—"And keep it until you can find a home for it. Cook won't mind, +will she?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, miss; cook is fond of cats. Poor thing, then," said the maid, +who was tender of heart.</p> + +<p>Again the door was shut, and again the pillar-box was the last act but +one of her drama.</p> + +<p>She walked swiftly down the street, thinking, oddly, more about the cat +than about her destination or the letter she held clutched in her +pocket. The stripes on the cat's head, its rough, sooty fur, the sharp +projection of its backbone and the grotesque grimace of its mew—her +mind dwelt on these trivial details; and under all was a funny added +contentment at this further proof of the mercilessness and ugliness of +the world she was leaving.</p> + +<p>The corner of the street was reached and turned. There, in the fog, +stood the red shaft of the pillar-box. Beyond it a street lamp, already +lighted, made a blur of light in the thick air and cast upward a long +cone of shadow.</p> + +<p>Allida's heart suddenly shrank and shuddered.</p> + +<p>The lamp and the pillar-box looked horrible. Death was horrible. To see +him no more was horrible. She felt only horror as mechanically she took +out the letter and dropped it into the box.</p> + +<p>The heavy sound of its fall turned her shuddering heart to ice.</p> + +<p>She had felt horror, she had been prepared for horror, but not for such +horror as this. It would all be like this now, she knew, until the end. +Let her hurry through it, then; let her escape quickly; and, at all +events, her own room, her familiar little room, with its fire, its +books, its quiet white bed, would be a refuge after this terrible, empty +street. She thought only of her room,—the thought blotting out what +would happen in it,—knowing only that she longed to be there, with a +longing like a wounded child's for its mother's arms. And yet she still +stood staring at the slit in the pillar-box.</p> + +<p>"Miss Fraser," a voice said beside her.</p> + +<p>It was a voice of carefully quiet greeting, guarded interrogation, +guarded expostulation.</p> + +<p>She looked up, feeling something shatter in her, fearing that she was +going to faint. It was almost like the crash of death and like a +swooning into a new consciousness. She only dimly, through the swooning +sense of change, recognized the face that looked at her, smiling, but so +puzzled, so pained—so pained that she guessed that her own face must +show some strange terror.</p> + +<p>She had seen the face, in the chintz-and-gilt drawing-room,—it had +seemed out of place there,—she had seen it often; but memory was +blurred. Had he not taken her down to dinner somewhere only the other +day? Yes; she knew him well; only she was dead, a ghost, and reality, +familiar reality, looked different.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Haldicott," she said, putting out her hand. Her voice was +normal—she heard that; she felt that she could almost have smiled. Yet +something was fearfully shattered, some power in herself that had +directed her so resolutely till now. The cat had been disconcerting, but +the appearance of this man, whom she knew quite well, who might talk, +might question her, might walk back beside her, seemed fatally +disconcerting. For could she act? Could she still speak on normally? And +further delay, now that every link was broken, now that to all real +intents and purposes she was dead, was a torture too fearful to be +contemplated. Yet how evade it? She felt that her hand, which he still +held, held very tightly, was trembling.</p> + +<p>"You are ill," he said.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"No; not at all. I only came out for a little walk. And I must go back +to tea."</p> + +<p>"Your mother is at home?"</p> + +<p>"No; she is out of town. She doesn't get back till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"You are going to have tea all alone?"</p> + +<p>Allida gazed at him. How should she evade him if he offered to come +back?</p> + +<p>"I haven't had my walk yet. I came out for a little walk," she repeated.</p> + +<p>By the blurred light of the street lamp he still looked at her, still +held her trembling hand. His face showed his perplexed indecision. +Suddenly he drew the hand within his arm.</p> + +<p>"Let us have the little walk, then," he said, "only you must let me come +with you. You are in some great trouble. Don't bother to deny it. Don't +say anything. Your face showed me that something dreadful was happening +to you. Don't speak—I saw it as I was passing on the other side of the +street. The lamp was just lighted, else I shouldn't have recognised you. +Now walk quietly on like this. Don't even think. I'm not a meddling +idiot; I know I'm not. You are desperate about something, and anything, +any one, even a complete stranger, and I'm not that, who steps in +between desperation and an act is justified—perhaps a Godsend."</p> + +<p>He was walking beside her, half leading her, talking quickly, as if to +give her time to recover, and glancing at her stricken, helpless face.</p> + +<p>As they walked they heard behind them the rattling fall of letters into +a postman's bag; the pillar-box had been emptied.</p> + +<p>The youth of the face, its essential childishness, the web of soft hair +that hung disarranged over her cheek, made her look like a very little +girl, and was in strange contrast with the look of terror.</p> + +<p>They walked on and on, down streets, across wide, phantasmal squares.</p> + +<p>Haldicott held the hand on his arm,—he did not speak,—and Allida felt +herself moving with him through the fog like an Eurydice led by Orpheus, +a shade among the shades. And all the while there hovered before her +thoughts the vision of that quiet room, that white bed, still waiting +for her. Suddenly she broke into sobs. She stopped. She leaned +helplessly against his arm.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! you will tell me now," Haldicott exclaimed. "Cross the +road here. Lean on me. We will go into the park. No one can see you."</p> + +<p>She stumbled on blindly beside him, both hands clutching his arm.</p> + +<p>All she knew was that she had left life behind her, and yet that she +must go back to that room, and that the room now was more horrible than +the pillar-box had been. She had left life behind her, and yet she +still clung to it—here beside her. Life! life! warm, kind life!</p> + +<p>In the park he led her into a deserted path. A bench stood beneath a +tall, leafless tree, its branches stencilled flatly on the yellow-gray +fog. Haldicott and Allida sat down side by side.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me. You can trust me utterly. Tell me everything," said +Haldicott.</p> + +<p>His fine face, all competence and mastery, studied hers, its shattered +loveliness. She leaned her head back against the bench. Life was there, +and a great peace seemed to flow through her as the mere consciousness +of its presence filled her. As long as he held her hand she could not be +frightened; and since she was only a ghost, since all her past seemed to +have dropped from her, she could look at it with him, she could tell him +what he asked. As if exhausted, borne along by his will, she said, "I am +going to commit suicide."</p> + +<p>Haldicott made no ejaculation and no movement. Her eyes were closed, and +he studied her face. Its innocent charm almost made him smile at her +words; and yet the expression he had seen from across the street, as she +dropped that letter into the box and stood frozen, had gone too well +with such words. He reflected silently. He had long known Allida Fraser, +never more than slightly; and yet from the frequency of slight knowledge +he found that he had accumulated, quite unconsciously, an impression of +her, distinct, sweet, appealing. He saw her, silent and gentle, in her +tawdry mother's tawdry house; he heard her grave quiet voice. He had +thought her, not knowing that he thought at all, charming. He had always +been glad to talk to her, to make her gravity, the little air of chill +composure that he had so understood, and liked, in the daughter of a +desperate, faded flirt, warm into confident interest and smiles. +Thinking of that quiet voice, that gentle smile, the poise and dignity +of all the little personality, he could not connect them with hysterical +shallowness. But he had, he now recognized, thought of her as older, +more tempered to reality. There was a revelation of desperate youth, and +youth's sense of the finality of desperation, on her face; and, with all +the rigid resolve he had seen, he could guess in it youth's essential +fluidity. She was resolved, and yet all resolves in a soul so young were +only moods, unless circumstances let them stand still, stagnate, and +finally freeze. She was not frozen yet. It was only a mood standing +still; shake it, and it would fluctuate into surprising changes. Allida +opened her eyes while he reflected, and many moments had gone by since +her words.</p> + +<p>"How amazing that I should tell you, calmly tell you, isn't it?" she +said. "And yet I can't feel it as amazing. Nothing could amaze me. I +seem to have passed beyond any feeling of that sort. But since I am so +really dead already, that I can tell you, you must respect my confidence +in you. You must not try to prevent me. I trust you."</p> + +<p>"I shan't prevent you," said Haldicott.</p> + +<p>Again she closed her eyes. "Thanks. It is almost a comfort to be able to +tell some one. I know now how fearfully lonely I have been. And yet—I +wish I hadn't met you—or I will wish it. Now I can wish nothing, and +feel nothing—except that you are there, alive, and that I am going to +die. But it will be harder to do now. Everything seems so vague, +everything seems left behind. The very sorrow that makes me do it seems +so far away—like a dream. I can't go through all the realization again, +and when I do it now, it will seem to be for something unreal." Her +voice trailed off.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you are going to do it?" Haldicott asked presently.</p> + +<p>They spoke very slowly, with long pauses, as though a monotony of +leisure were about them; as though, in some quiet, dim place of departed +spirits, time had ceased.</p> + +<p>"Yes; quite sure. I have bought it—the poison—I had a doctor's +prescription—I have thought it all out carefully. It's in the top +drawer of my dressing-table."</p> + +<p>She would, he saw, tell him everything.</p> + +<p>Again he paused.</p> + +<p>"Is it an irremediable sorrow that makes life impossible, or is it life +itself, in general, that you can't go on with?"</p> + +<p>"Both—both," said Allida.</p> + +<p>Again a long, long silence grew; every moment, Haldicott felt, a drop in +the deep cup of oblivion that, unconsciously, she was drinking, that +would make the past more and more unreal, until from oblivion she woke +into the sane world of struggle and life.</p> + +<p>"Yet you are so young," he said at last, "with everything before +you—real joys as well as—forgive me!—realer sorrows; they would +balance better if you would live a little longer. You know, if you +waited for just one year, let us say, you would look back with wonder +at this, with thankfulness that you hadn't."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she said. "Only I don't want to live that year."</p> + +<p>"And when were—when are you going to do it?"</p> + +<p>"This evening. I had meant to do it long before this. Mamma is away. +There could be no better time. Besides, it must be this evening. I've +written."</p> + +<p>"To her? To tell her?"</p> + +<p>"No," Allida answered; "not to her." And she added, "I don't love her."</p> + +<p>"Your mother?"</p> + +<p>"This is my dying confession, so I will say the truth. No, I don't love +her. She has made me so unhappy—made life so ugly."</p> + +<p>"Then you wrote to some one whom you do love?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Allida, after another pause. Her hat had loosened as she +leaned her head back, and her disordered hair was about her face; she +still kept her eyes closed with her expression of weary abandonment to +the peace of confession.</p> + +<p>He looked at her keenly, with most intent interest, most intent pity, +and yet with a flicker of amusement in the look. She could do it. He +believed her. Yet it would be as absurd as it would be tragic if she +did. It wasn't a face made for tragedy; it had strayed into it by +mistake.</p> + +<p>"This some one you love," he said gently, "will it not hurt them +terribly? Have you thought of that?"</p> + +<p>He saw the tears come. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. She faintly +whispered:</p> + +<p>"He doesn't love me."</p> + +<p>Haldicott could feel no amusement now, the pity was too great. He put +his other hand on the hand he held.</p> + +<p>"Used he to love you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No," said Allida; "he never loved me."</p> + +<p>For a moment Haldicott struggled with a half-nervous wish to laugh; +relief was in the wish.</p> + +<p>"And he knows that you love him?" he controlled his voice to ask.</p> + +<p>"He will—when he gets my letter."</p> + +<p>"Poor devil!" ejaculated Haldicott.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Allida. She opened her eyes and sat +upright, drawing her hand from his. "How could you understand? You think +it's a sort of vengeance I'm taking—for his not loving me. I can't drag +myself through explanations, indeed I can't. Of course I see that my +tragedy to you must be almost farce. I must go. Why should I have told +you anything? I am desecrating it all, making it all grotesque, by being +still alive."</p> + +<p>"No, no; you mustn't go yet," said Haldicott, seizing her hand firmly, +yet with not too obvious a restraint. "You mustn't go, not at peace with +me. You have all the evening still before you,—it's not six yet,—and +it doesn't take long to kill one's self with poison. Trust me. You must +trust me. Don't think about its being grotesque; most things are in +certain aspects. I think that we are both behaving very naturally, +considering the circumstances. The circumstances, I grant you, are a +little grotesque—not the circumstance of your being still alive, but of +your wishing to die. But, indeed, I shall understand, you poor child, +poor sweet child, if you will explain."</p> + +<p>Again the mirage sense of compulsion, of peace in yielding to it, of +letting this ghost-like consciousness shut out the long past and the +short future, crept over her. She sank back again beside him.</p> + +<p>"But how can I explain? Where shall I begin?"</p> + +<p>"Listen to me now, dear Allida—we can use Christian names, I think, in +a case of last dying confession like this. I am not going to prevent +you, or put any constraint upon you; but I want you to explain as +clearly and fully as you can, so that, in trying to make me see, you may +see yourself, clearly and fully, what you are doing, where you are. +Probably you are in a condition of absolutely irrational despair. Let us +look at it together. I may be able to show you something else. Begin +with him. Who is he?"</p> + +<p>Allida had leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She dropped her face +into her hands as she answered:</p> + +<p>"Oliver Ainslie."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I know him."</p> + +<p>"Yes; you know him."</p> + +<p>"He is—a charming fellow," said Haldicott.</p> + +<p>"I met him over a year ago," said Allida. "I am very miserable at home. +I have grown up alone. My mother and I have never been at all +sympathetic. I hardly saw her when I was growing up. She only wanted to +marry me off as soon as possible, and—she hasn't found it easy to marry +me off. I haven't money—or looks in particular—oh, but I can't go into +all that! You know mamma. I have hated my life with her."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. I understand."</p> + +<p>"Not that there is any harm in mamma," Allida amended, with a weary +exactitude; "everybody understands that, too. Only she is so utterly +silly, so utterly selfish. This all sounds horrible."</p> + +<p>"I understand."</p> + +<p>"I met him. I had never seen any one so dear, so sympathetic. I seemed +to breathe with happiness when he was there. It was like morning +sunlight after a hot, glaring ballroom, being with him. He never cared +one bit for me; but—the first time I saw him he smiled at me, and he +was kind and dear to me,—as he would be to any one,—and from that +first moment I loved him—oh, loved him!"</p> + +<p>She paused, a sacred sweetness in the pause.</p> + +<p>Haldicott, sitting beside her in the fog, felt the presence of something +radiant and snowy.</p> + +<p>"And I sometimes thought and hoped—that he would care for me. I wrote +to him all the time, letters I never sent; but I wrote as if he were to +see them—some day. It's almost strange to me to think that such love +didn't bring him to me by its very force and yearning. One hears, you +know, of thoughts making themselves felt—becoming realities. I wonder +where all those thoughts of mine went!"</p> + +<p>He saw them all—those white, innocent thoughts—flying out like birds, +like a flock of white birds, and disappearing in the darkness. How could +a soul not have felt them fluttering about it, crying vainly for +admittance? He almost shared Allida's wonder.</p> + +<p>"And to-day, I sent all the letters with the last one telling of my +death. For—I saw it this morning—he is engaged. So I couldn't go on. I +could never love any one else; I shouldn't want to. My heart broke when +I read the paper; really it broke. And I explained it all to him, so +that it could not hurt him, that I was dying because life had become +worthless to me—and yet that there was joy in dying because I could, in +dying, tell him. There had been beauty and joy in loving him; he must +not be too sorry; and he must care for my love. It was a gift—a gift +that I could give him only in going away for ever myself."</p> + +<p>She was silent. The evening was late by now, and the fog about them shut +them into a little space, a little island just large enough for their +bench, a bit of path, a dim border of railing opposite, and a branch of +tree overhead. The muffled sound of cautious traffic was far away. They +were wonderfully alone.</p> + +<p>Haldicott took one of the hands on which she leaned, and raised it to +his lips.</p> + +<p>"Sweet, foolish child!" he said.</p> + +<p>She turned her head and looked at him; it was almost as if she saw him +for the first time—the man, not only Life's personification. They could +still see quite clearly each other's faces, and for a long time, +gravely, they looked into each other's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see that it's all a dream?" said Haldicott.</p> + +<p>"A dream?" Allida repeated. "The reality of a whole year?"</p> + +<p>And yet it was a dream to her; even while she had told him of that year +it was as if she told of something far behind her, lived through long, +long ages ago, in another, a different life.</p> + +<p>But she struggled to hold the vanishing pain and beauty of it all—the +reality that, unreal, would make her whole being seem like a little +handful of thin cloud dying away into emptiness.</p> + +<p>"This is a dream," she said, still looking at him, "<i>this, this</i>. What +am I doing here?" She rose to her feet, gasping now. "Oh! he will get +the letter—and I shall not be dead! I must go at once—at once!"</p> + +<p>"To save yourself from being ridiculous? You are going to kill yourself +so as to keep a tragic attitude that you've taken before this man who +doesn't care for you—an attitude that's really disarranged? +Dear—pitiful—enchanting little idiot!" said Haldicott.</p> + +<p>He had risen too, and, holding her hands, he still, but not too +obviously, kept her near him.</p> + +<p>His words were almost cruel in their lightness; his voice had a feeling +that, more than any words, any supplication or remonstrance, made her +past life seem illusory, and she herself, with it, disappearing into +pure nothingness. The world rocked with her. Only the feeling in that +voice seemed real.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure, are you sure," he said, "that you can never love anybody +else? Won't you wait a year to find out? Won't you wait a month? Allida, +won't you wait a day?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you try to humiliate me?" she gasped, and the tears fell down +her face. He almost feared that he had been brutal, that she was going +to faint.</p> + +<p>"I am not trying to humiliate you. I am trying to wake you. Perhaps the +truth will wake you. Will you wait a day, an hour, Allida, and see?"</p> + +<p>"See what?"</p> + +<p>"That this is a dream; that you wove it out of nothing to fill the +emptiness of your sad life; that it would have gathered round the first +'dear sympathetic' person who smiled at you. And after you see that, +will you wait and see——" he paused.</p> + +<p>"What?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>"How much I can make you love me," said Haldicott.</p> + +<p>"Why do you mock me?" Allida said. "Why, unless you think me mad?"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course you <i>are</i> mad, in a sense; any coroner's inquest would +say so. But <i>mock</i> you! I love you, Allida."</p> + +<p>Her face had now as wild, as frozen a look on it as the one he had seen, +not three hours before, after she had slipped the letter into the +pillar-box; but it was with another wildness—of wonder rather than of +despair.</p> + +<p>"But how can you?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you how, but you must wait an hour—more than an hour—to +hear. You will wait—Allida?"</p> + +<p>"It is pity, to save me."</p> + +<p>"To save you? Why, I'd hand you over to the nearest policeman if I only +wanted to save you. I <i>do</i> want to save you—for myself."</p> + +<p>There drifted through her mind a vision of her little room, where, by +this time, she might have been lying on the bed, the empty bottle of +poison near her. And that vision of death was now far away, across an +abyss, and she was in life, and life held her, claimed her.</p> + +<p>"But I can't understand. How is it possible?" She closed her eyes. "My +letter," she whispered.</p> + +<p>Haldicott put his arm around her and led her down the path.</p> + +<p>"Ainslie is a dear fellow," he said. "We will write him another letter +as soon as we get in."</p> + +<p>She was hardly aware of the walk back to the little house in Mayfair, +back to the doorstep where, such aeons ago, she had paused to look at +the crying cat. If she had not paused, if she had gone a little earlier +to the pillar-box, before the lamp was lighted——Her mind was blurred +again. All—all was dream, except that life, near her, was claiming her.</p> + +<p>Now they were in the drawing-room, among the shaded lamps, the gilt, the +chintz and bric-ŕ-brac.</p> + +<p>Haldicott sent for wine and made her drink. He said to the maid that +Miss Fraser had felt faint during her walk. For a long time Allida +leaned back in the chair where he had put her, shading her eyes with her +hand.</p> + +<p>"Can you write to Ainslie now?" Haldicott asked at last. "We will send +your letter by special messenger."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; let me write." She drew off her gloves, and Haldicott put +paper and pen before her.</p> + +<p>She looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"What shall I say?" she asked.</p> + +<p>This time, uncontrollably, he wanted to laugh; if he did not laugh he +must burst out crying; he leaned his elbows on the table as he sat +beside her, burying his face on his arms, his shoulders shaking.</p> + +<p>Allida sat with the pen in her hand, gazing at him. The nightmare, after +all, was too near for her to share his dubious amusement; but that she +saw its point as well as he did was evinced in her next question, asked +in still the faltering voice:</p> + +<p>"Shall I say that I've decided to wait a day?"</p> + +<p>Haldicott looked up.</p> + +<p>"Thank Heaven, you <i>have</i> a sense of humour. It was my one anxiety about +you—all through. Say, dearest Allida, that you are awake."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and now, though she did not smile, her wan face was +touched by a pale, responsive radiance.</p> + +<p>"It is so strange—to be awake," she murmured, bending to her paper.</p> + +<p>But hardly had the first slow line been written when running steps were +heard outside, the door was flung open before the amazed maid could +reach it, and Oliver Ainslie, white and distraught, darted into the +room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He did not glance at Haldicott. The distraction of his look had only +time to break into stupefied thanksgiving before the same rush that had +brought him in carried him to Allida. He fell on his knees before her. +Clasping her round the waist, he hid his face, crying, "Thank God!"</p> + +<p>Allida sat, still holding her pen. She did not look at Ainslie, but +across the room at Haldicott, and again, before her look, as of one +confronted with her own utter inadequacy to deal with the situation, +Haldicott could almost have laughed. But the moment for light +interpretations had gone. Anything amusing in the present situation was +only grimly so for him. The fairy prince had turned up—a real fairy +prince, for a wonder, and three hours of everyday reality had no chance +of counting against a year of fairy-tale with such a lasting chapter. +After all, it was very beautiful; he was able to see that, thank +goodness! Yet Allida's perfectly blank look held him. She was evidently +unable to deal single-handed with her dilemma—to explain to her fairy +prince why he found her alive rather than dead. Haldicott turned to the +mantelpiece and moved, unseeingly, the idiotic silver ornaments upon it, +waiting for an opportunity to strike a blow for her deliverance.</p> + +<p>Ainslie had lifted his face to hers.</p> + +<p>"It was a mistake, that announcement: it's my cousin who is to be +married; we have the same name. Oh, Allida! darling Allida! if I had not +come in time! That I should have found you—<i>you</i>! And only just in +time!"</p> + +<p>He became now, perhaps from the blankness of her face, aware more fully +of Haldicott's unobtrusive presence.</p> + +<p>To the silent query of his eyes she answered:</p> + +<p>"He knows—everything."</p> + +<p>"He prevented you! He met you and prevented you! I see it all. +Haldicott, it <i>is</i> you, isn't it——"</p> + +<p>Haldicott reluctantly turned to him.</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, can I ever thank you enough? My dear Haldicott, it's +all too astonishing. You know? And <i>why</i> she was going to? The poor, +darling child!" He had risen, and, with his arm around Allida's +shoulders, was gazing at her.</p> + +<p>"I saw Miss Fraser posting her letter to you, and guessed from her +expression that something very bad was up," said Haldicott. "I forced +her to walk a little with me, and I made her tell me the story; and then +I made her see that the truer love for you would be shown in living. She +had just recognised that,"—Haldicott smiled at her,—"and she was going +to write, and see if she couldn't waylay that letter—spare you the pain +of it and, at all events, tell you that she wasn't going to burden you +with unfair remorse for the rest of your days. That's about the truth of +it all, isn't it?" And he so believed it to be, now, the only essential +truth, or, at least, the half-truth that she had better believe in, that +his smile had not a touch of bitterness.</p> + +<p>Allida still held her pen and still gazed at him.</p> + +<p>"Ah! thank God for it all—for the fact that the letter wasn't waylaid, +and for the fact that you <i>were</i>, Allida! When I think of it—that gift +coming to me—your gift, Allida—and not too late—not too late!"</p> + +<p>The young man, in his rapturous thankfulness, indifferent to the +guardian presence, raised her hand to his lips, kissing it with a +fervour where tears struggled with smiles.</p> + +<p>"I'll go now," Haldicott said gently. "I'm so—immensely glad for you +both."</p> + +<p>But Allida, at this, started from her helpless apathy.</p> + +<p>"No, no! Don't—don't go!" she cried. "I can't think. It's all so +impossible. Do you mean," and her eyes now went to Ainslie while she +drew her hand from his—"do you mean that you love me?"</p> + +<p>"Love you, darling Allida? Don't you see it?"</p> + +<p>"Because you got the letter," Allida said, as if linking in her mind a +chain of evidence. "If you hadn't got it—you would not love me now."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, dearest, for my blindness! I should not have known you if I +had not got it."</p> + +<p>Allida still looked at him.</p> + +<p>"You are just as dear—even dearer than I thought you; you are even more +worthy of any love than I dreamed," she said. Her face had lost all +apathy, all helplessness. It was with the stricken resolution that it +could so strangely show that she pushed back her chair and rose, moving +away from the young man, who, enchantingly a fairy prince, gazed at her +with adoring eyes.</p> + +<p>"It was written in a dream," said Allida, clasping her hands and +returning his gaze. "It was written in a dream," she repeated. "It was +all—all the whole year—a dream—only a dream."</p> + +<p>The trust of his gaze was too deep for understanding to sink through it.</p> + +<p>"I am awake now," said Allida; "you are dearer than I ever dreamed, but +I am awake."</p> + +<p>"When reality comes, the past always seems rather dream-like," Ainslie +said. He felt and understood as well, as truly as the other had done. +"Darling Allida, I can never be worthy of such a love as yours, but I +will try. And now that you are awake, you will find how much better +waking is than any dream."</p> + +<p>She gasped at this, and retreated before him.</p> + +<p>"But I am horrid; I am unbelievable. There isn't any reality. There +isn't any love to be worthy of," she cried, and covered her face with +her hands.</p> + +<p>Ainslie, from her attitude of avowal and abasement, looked his +stupefaction at Haldicott, and, for all answer, got a stupefaction as +complete.</p> + +<p>"What <i>does</i> she mean?" the younger man at length inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't think she knows what she means," Haldicott answered. "I think +she is, naturally, overwrought. All feeling, all meaning, is paralyzed. +She probably won't mean anything worth listening to for a good while."</p> + +<p>They were speaking quite as if Allida, standing there with her hidden +face, were a lunatic, the diagnosis of whose harmless case was as yet +impossible in the absence of fresh symptoms. But a symptom was +forthcoming.</p> + +<p>"I mean <i>that</i>," she said. "I don't understand. I can't explain. It's as +if something were broken in me. There isn't any love; there never will +be. If you can ever forgive me, please tell me so—when you do. It +mustn't be more than a dream for you, too—a dream only an hour long."</p> + +<p>The two men again exchanged glances, but now with more hesitation.</p> + +<p>"But, Allida,"—Ainslie spoke with gentle pain—"I love you. I am not +dreaming. Do you mean to say that you can't love me? Do you mean to say +that if I had loved you, with no letter to awaken me, you would have +thought your love a dream, merely because it was answered?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. I can't explain. Something broke. You came too late. +It's as if I had died—and become almost another person. I know it's +unbelievable; I don't understand it myself; but it is true. It is all +over, really."</p> + +<p>"All over?" dazedly Ainslie repeated. "But why? After those letters? +After what you were going to do? Allida!"</p> + +<p>She dropped her hands, and once more her eyes went to Haldicott in that +look—the appeal of incompetence. But there was more in it: suffering +and shame, and a strength that strove to hide them from him.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, my dear Ainslie, you had better go," said Haldicott, "for the +present at least." But, in its wonder, his answering look now appealed +and was helpless in its incomprehension.</p> + +<p>Ainslie stared at her.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good-bye," said Allida, with a fervor of relief that all her +humility and pity could not dissemble.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he repeated, holding her hand, "sweet, strange, cruel +Allida."</p> + +<p>She put her hand over his and looked clearly at him.</p> + +<p>"Remember," she said—"remember how absurd I am."</p> + +<p>He was gone. Allida did not turn to Haldicott. She remained looking at +the door that had closed on the exit of her "best beloved."</p> + +<p>"But <i>why</i>?" said Haldicott. He repeated Ainslie's broken words almost +faintly. "When the dream came true—why didn't you take it?"</p> + +<p>She made no reply.</p> + +<p>"I never meant that because it had been a dream it couldn't become a +reality," he went on.</p> + +<p>She looked vaguely round the room. Indeed, things swam to her; the +nearest support was the mantelpiece. She leaned against it, looking +down.</p> + +<p>"It's not anything I said—in my efforts to shake you awake? You <i>were</i> +in love with him, you know. Weren't you in love with him, Allida?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I suppose so. How can I tell you anything? All I know is that I +was dreaming."</p> + +<p>"But—why did the dream go?"</p> + +<p>"You killed it, perhaps," she said in a colourless voice, leaning her +forehead upon her hand, and still looking fixedly down.</p> + +<p>"I—<i>I</i> killed it? You mean—that any one who had come then—would have +stopped you—made you see your own folly—waked you?"</p> + +<p>"They might have stopped me—they might have saved me," she said, and +she paused.</p> + +<p>"But only I could wake you? Only I could prevent the coming true of your +dream?" Again in his wondering, groping voice was the feeling that, like +a torch, had led her up from Tartarus—up through blackness to the sweet +air again.</p> + +<p>She still hid her eyes, not daring to look or trust.</p> + +<p>"Allida!" he supplicated.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said in a voice so low that it did not shake—it was as if she +just dared to let it sound at all—"was your dream true, or was it only +the rope you threw out to me to drag me on shore with?"</p> + +<p>Haldicott stretched out his hand to her.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that my three hours of reality count for more than +his—than his, backed by your whole year of dreaming? Allida, are you +really absurd enough to say that I count for more than Oliver Ainslie?"</p> + +<p>She put her weary, ashamed head down on the arm that leaned upon the +mantelpiece. She did not take his hand.</p> + +<p>"What can I say? Everything I say seems unbelievable. Can anything I say +be more absurd than anything else? Yes, you do count for more. You +count for everything. Did I love him—or did I only love love? I don't +know. I only know that what you said—and are—made it all a dream. And +now you will think that I am going to kill myself because <i>you</i> don't +love me! But my absurdity is over, I promise you. Really, I am awake."</p> + +<p>"Allida, darling," said Haldicott—he went to her and took both her +hands, so that she must raise her head and look at him—"if I've made +fun of you when I was feeling horribly frightened, and called you +ridiculous when I found you as tragic and adorable as you were +grotesque, <i>that</i> was the rope. Now I will take an hour, or a day, or a +whole week, if necessary, to make you believe it; but <i>I</i> could have +committed suicide—I assure you I could—when I saw Oliver Ainslie come +into the room."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="A_FORSAKEN_TEMPLE" id="A_FORSAKEN_TEMPLE"></a>A FORSAKEN TEMPLE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IA" id="CHAPTER_IA"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>MILLY</h3> + + +<p>"It is the emptiness, the loneliness, the lack of response and +understanding," said Milly. "It is as if I were always looking at a face +that never really saw me or spoke to me. Such a mistake as I have +made—or as others have made for me—is irretrievable. An unhappy +marriage seems to ruin everything in you and about you, and you have to +go on living among the ruins. You can't go away and leave them behind +you, as you can other calamities in life."</p> + +<p>Milly Quentyn and Mrs. Drent were alone this afternoon in the +country-house where they had come really to know each other, and Milly, +acting hostess for her absent cousin, had poured out Mrs. Drent's tea +and then her own, leaving it untouched, however, while she spoke, her +hands falling, clasped together, in her lap, her eyes fixed on vacancy. +The contemplation of ruins for the last five years had filled these eyes +with a pensive resignation; but they showed no tearful repinings, no +fretful restlessness. They were clear eyes, large and luminous, and in +looking at them and at the wan, lovely little face where they bloomed +like melancholy flowers, Mrs. Drent's face, on the other side of the +tea-table, grew yet more sombre and more intent in its brooding +sympathy. "Why did you——" she began, and then changed the first +intention of her question to—"Why did you—love him?" This was more +penetrating than to ask Mrs. Quentyn why she had married him.</p> + +<p>The extreme lowness of Mrs. Drent's voice muffled, as it were, its +essential harshness; one felt in it the effort to be soft, as in her one +felt effort, always, to quell some latent fierceness, an eager, almost +savage energy. She was thirty years old, six years older than Milly +Quentyn. Her skin was swarthy, her eyes, under broad, tragically bent +eyebrows, were impenetrably black. Her features, had they not been so +small, so finely finished, would have seemed too emphatic, significant +as they were of a race-horse nervousness and of something inflexible in +the midst of an expression all flexibility. Her hands were curiously +slight and small, and as she now, in looking at her companion and in +asking her question, locked them together with a force that made them +tremble, they showed the same combination of an excessive strength +informing an excessive fragility.</p> + +<p>Milly Quentyn's gaze drifted to her and rested upon her in silence.</p> + +<p>Presently she smiled.</p> + +<p>"How kind you are to care so much, to care at all!"</p> + +<p>"I do care."</p> + +<p>"Are you, will you, be my friend, always?" asked Milly, leaning towards +her a little, and the smile seemed to flutter to the other woman like an +appealing and grateful kiss.</p> + +<p>"I am your friend; I will be your friend, always," Mrs. Drent replied, +in an even lower tone than before.</p> + +<p>The tears came softly into Milly's eyes while they looked at each other +she gently, Mrs. Drent still sombrely. Then leaning back again with a +sigh, she continued, "Why I loved him? I didn't love him. Isn't that the +almost invariable answer? I was nineteen; I had just left the +schoolroom; I was in love with my own ideal of love—you know, you must +know, the silly, pathetic, sentimental and selfish mixture one is at +nineteen;—and Mamma said that he was that ideal; and he said nothing; +so I believed her! Poor Dick! He was in love, I think, really, and not a +bit with himself, and with only enough articulateness to ask me to marry +him; and of course he was, and is, very good-looking. You know Mamma. +She has married us all off very well, they say; you know how they say +it. In her determination to ensconce the family type comfortably she is +as careless of the single life as nature itself. In this case what +appeared to be a very cosy niche offered itself for me and she shoved me +into it. I have grown up since then; that is all my story."</p> + +<p>"They are terrible, terrible, such marriages," said Mrs. Drent, looking +away.</p> + +<p>Her tone struck Milly, with all her consciousness of pathos, as perhaps +a little misplaced. "Terrible? No, hardly that, I think. I did believe +that I loved him. He did love me."</p> + +<p>"You were a child who did not know herself, nor what she was doing."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is true."</p> + +<p>"And it is terrible for him if he still loves you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Milly, with another sigh, "if you can call it love. He is +rather dismayed by the situation; sorry that we don't hit it off better, +as he would express it; jocosely resigned to what he would call my +unkindness and queerness. But as for tragedy, suffering;—one can't +associate such perturbing things with imperturbable Dick. I haven't to +reproach myself with having hurt his life seriously, and, Heaven knows! +I don't reproach his simplicity and harmlessness for having broken mine. +Marriage and a wife were incidents—incidents only—to him, and if they +have failed to be satisfactory incidents, he has other far more +absorbing interests in his life to take his mind off the breakdown of +his domestic happiness. Indeed, domesticity, when he cares to avail +himself of it, is always there in its superficial forms and ceremonies. +I can't pretend to love him, but I take care of his money and his house, +I entertain his friends, I give him his tea at breakfast and a decorous +kiss when he comes back from shooting animals in some savage country. +One could hardly call us separated, so discreetly do I bridge the chasm +with all the conventional observances. Thank Heaven! the shooting is his +one great passion, so that he is usually wandering happily in distant +jungles and not requiring too many <i>tęte-ŕ-tętes</i> at breakfast of me."</p> + +<p>"He is probably very good and kind," said Mrs. Drent, "but it is +incredible that such a man should be married to such a woman as you."</p> + +<p>Again Milly gazed for a moment, aware of inappropriateness. "You have a +very high ideal of marriage, haven't you?" she said. Mrs. Drent's +husband had died five years before, and her baby when it was born. She +wore black, exquisite and unobtrusive always, and, unobtrusively, she +was known to be inconsolable. Yet Milly had heard it whispered that +Gilbert Drent had married her for her money and that, charming person +though he had been, she had passionately idealized him. There was, +therefore, with these memories at the back of her mind, something +painful as well as pathetic to her in the voice in which Mrs. Drent, +crimsoning deeply, said: "My own marriage was ideal. I don't understand +marriage unless it is ideal."</p> + +<p>There was a silence after that for a moment and then Milly said, "It +must be wonderful to have such a memory. All I know is that I wish with +all my heart I had never married Dick, and I believe with all my heart +that one shouldn't marry unless everything is there."</p> + +<p>"That is it," said Mrs. Drent, "everything must be there for it to be +right;—affinity, and understanding, and devotion. Some women can find +enough in the mere fact of a home and a shared life to be satisfied +without them; but not a woman like you."</p> + +<p>"I think you idealize me," Milly said smiling a little sadly; "but I +believe in that too. I don't claim at all any remarkable individuality; +but what I have Dick doesn't understand at all, doesn't even see. He +goes blundering about the dullest, most distant parks and preserves of a +castle; that is as near as he ever gets to the castle, such as it is, of +my personality. And he doesn't really care about the castle; it hardly +worries him that he can't find it. There might be wonderful pictures on +its walls, and jewels in its cabinets, and music in its chambers; but +even if he got inside and were able to see and hear, he wouldn't care a +bit about them; he would say: 'Awfully nice,' and look for the +smoking-room. And there," said Milly, pressing her hands together while +her eyes filled suddenly with tears, "there is the little tragedy. For +of course every woman thinks that she has pictures and jewels and music, +and longs—oh longs!—to show them to the one, the one person who will +love to see and hear. And when she finds that no one sees or hears, or +knows, even, that there is anything to look for, then the music dies, +and the pictures fade, and the jewels grow dim, and at last everything +magical vanishes from life and she sees herself, not as an enchanted +castle, but as a first-class house in Mayfair, with all the latest +improvements;—as much a matter of course, as much a convenience, as +unmysterious and as unalluring as the telephone, the hot water pipes and +the electric lighting. It is only as if in a dream—a far, far +dream—that she remembers the castle, and feels, sometimes, within her, +the ruins, the empty ruins."</p> + +<p>"Oh—my dear!" breathed Mrs. Drent. It was as if she couldn't help it, +as if, shaken from her passionate reserve, she must show her very heart. +She leaned round the table and took one of Milly's hands. "Don't—don't +let the magic vanish! There's nothing else in life! All the rest is +death. It's only when we are in the castle—with our music and our +pictures and our jewels—that we are alive. You know it; you feel it; +it's what makes the difference between the real and the unreal people. +You are one of the real ones, I saw it at once; you aren't meant to +wither out and to become crisp and shallow. Don't cease to believe in +the pictures, the jewels, the music. They are there. <i>I</i> see. <i>I</i> hear."</p> + +<p>"How—<i>sweet</i> of you!" faltered Milly.</p> + +<p>She was startled, she was touched, she, who rarely felt it, felt +shyness. She had known that this dark, still woman was observing her, +and had known, for all the other's reserve, that the observation was not +antagonistic. Something in Mrs. Drent had made her feel that it would be +easy, a relief, to talk to her about all one's miseries and desolations. +But the sudden leap of spiritual fire found her unprepared. She was a +little ashamed, as though her own reality were somewhat unreal beside +Mrs. Drent's belief in it. There had been something pleasant in the +tracing of her little tragedy, something sweet in the thought of that +sad castle of her soul, with its stilled music, its fading enchantments; +but Mrs. Drent had seen only the tragedy; and had felt the danger of +withering, of becoming acquiescent and commonplace, with an intensity of +which she herself was incapable. Such response, such understanding, +might well take one's breath away.</p> + +<p>This scene was the beginning of their long friendship. It was a charming +friendship. Milly Quentyn, for all the clouds of her background, was a +creature of sunshine, of sunshine in a mist, a creature of endearing +fluctuations. Indeed, Christina told her afterwards, when they analyzed +the beginnings, it had been her childlike radiance, her smiles, her air +as of rifts of blue over a rainy landscape—(for everybody knew that +Dick and Milly Quentyn didn't hit it off)—it had been these sweet, +these doubly pathetic qualities that had first attracted her. "I am not +easily attracted," said Christina. "Had there been a languishing hint of +the <i>femme incomprise</i> about you, any air of self-pity, I should never +have so longed to take care of you, to try to help to make you happier. +But you were made for happiness and beauty, and if you didn't succeed in +keeping them one saw that it would hurt you dreadfully. It was that that +so appealed."</p> + +<p>And Milly confessed to Christina that she had been at first a good deal +afraid of her, as the distinguished young poetess, and had thought of +her as a sombre and humourless little personage, only reassuring in +being so enchantingly well-dressed.</p> + +<p>In Christina Drent's poetry the numbness that had descended upon her +after her husband's death had found a partial awakening. The poems were +not great things, but they were written without a touch of artifice. +They were sudden, spontaneous and swift, and it was as if, in reading +them, one heard a distant wail or saw across a bleak sky the flight of +an unknown bird. In her own little world of fashion they had made her a +tolerably famous figure. But it was an echo only of her regrets and +longings that Christina was able to put into her poems, all perhaps that +she chose to put; they were never intimate or personal. The essence of +her was that passionate reserve and, with it, that passionate longing to +devote herself, lavishly, exclusively, upon one idolized and, +inevitably, idealized object. She was full of a fervour of faith, once +the reserve was broken down, and her idol, high on a pedestal in its +well-built temple, was secure henceforth from overthrow.</p> + +<p>Such an idol her husband had been. Such an idol her child would have +been. The doors of that sanctuary were sealed for ever, the sacred +emptiness for ever empty; Christina could never have remarried. But +beside it rose a second temple, only less fair, and in it, lovingly +enshrined, stood Milly Quentyn.</p> + +<p>Happily Milly was an idol worthy of idealization, perhaps even worthy of +temple-building. She was sweet and tender, in friendship most upright +and loyal. She loved to be loved, to see her own tenderness blossom +about her in responsive tenderness. She was not vain, but she loved +those she cared for to find her exquisite, and to show her that they +did. Like a frail flower, unvisited by sunlight, she could hardly live +without other lives about her, fortifying, expanding her own. Her +disappointment in her husband had turned to something like a wan +disgust. His crude appreciations of her, which, in the first girlish +trust of her married life, she had taken as warrant of all the subtle, +manifold appreciations that she needed, were now offences. Poor Dick +Quentyn blundered deeper and deeper into the quagmire of his wife's +disdain. His was a boyish, unexacting nature. He asked for no great +things, and the lack of even small mercies left him serene. As he had +never thought about himself at all, it did not surprise him that his +wife thought very little of him; he did not, because of it, think less +well of himself. Milly's indifference argued in her a difference from +most women, facilely contented as they usually seemed. It did not change +or harm him or make him either assertive or self-conscious.</p> + +<p>He had soon discovered that the things he cared to talk about wearied +her—sport, the estate, very uncomplex politics or very uncomplex +books; and after a little while he discovered, further, that for him to +try to adapt himself to her, to try to talk about the things she cared +for, exasperated her. She listened, indeed, with a bleak patience, while +he admired, with a genial endeavour to do the right thing, all the wrong +pictures at the shows where they went together. She sat silent, her eyes +aloof, dimly smiling, while he tried to win her interest in a very jolly +book,—watered Dumas, as a rule, decantered into modern bottles. He saw +that she made an effort to care about the big game he shot—the hall and +dining-room bristled with trophies, one walked over them everywhere—and +she looked at pictures of them in the books of travel he eagerly put +before her; but it was as pictures that they interested her, remotely, +not as animals suitable for shooting.</p> + +<p>Dick Quentyn, with an unmysterious, undifficult wife, could have been a +very gracefully affectionate husband; his manners were as charming as +his mind was blundering; but with this chill young nymph any attempt at +marital pettings and caressings seemed clumsy and grotesque. With Milly, +he soon felt it, the barrier between their minds was inevitably a +barrier shutting him out from even these manifestations of tenderness. +He was not at all dull in feeling that; not at all dull in his quick +withdrawal before her passive distaste; not dull in knowing that if he +were not to withdraw the distaste would become more than negative. He +had now, cheerfully, it seemed, recognized that his marriage was a +failure and, as Milly had said, it did not seem, after an unpleasant +wrench or two when he did show an uncontrollable grimace of pain, to +make very much difference to him. She endured him; she did not dislike +him at all—at a distance; and, very gaily, with a debonair manner of +perfect trust, he kept at a distance. He travelled constantly, and it +was rarely that he required her to pour out his tea for him.</p> + +<p>Milly poured out his tea for a fortnight during Christina's first visit +to Chawlton House, the Quentyns' country-place. Christina looked forward +to meeting her friend's inappropriate husband almost with trembling. She +felt that she might be called to the great and happy mission of +reconciliation, that Milly might have been mistaken and Dick +undervalued. Milly's trust in her and dependence upon her had grown with +leaps and bounds, and she hoped that with tact and time she might do +much to rebuild the broken life, if there were materials with which to +build it. The first glance at Dick showed her the futility of such +hopes. He was a dear; that at once was obvious to her; and he was +delightful looking; his small head well set on broad shoulders, his +short nose expressive of courage and character; his grey eyes as free +from all malice and uncharitableness as they were from introspection. +But he was a boy, a kind, good boy, an ingenuous, well-mannered +materialist, living, as it were, by automatic functions, and as +incapable of spiritual initiative as he was of evil. What ground of +meeting could there be between him and her Milly, compact as she was of +subtleties, profundities and possibilities? No; Dick offered no +materials for the building of a shrine, and unless marriage was a shrine +Christina could not contemplate it. There had been a deep instinct, like +one of nature's cruel yet righteous laws, in Milly's withdrawal; to have +consented, to have compromised, would have been to stifle and stultify +herself.</p> + +<p>Christina so justified her, and yet it pained her that Milly, in her +treatment of her husband, should be almost unbeautiful. The streak of +hardness, almost of cruelty, like nature's own, showing itself in her +darling, distressed her. She did not care so much about Dick's very +problematic discomfort. He showed none; he talked with great good +spirits, made cheerful, obvious jokes and looked eminently sane, fresh +and picturesque in his out-of-door attire. Yet even he must know that +every fibre of Milly's face, every tone of her voice, expressed her +indifference and her oppression. "Really, dear, you are not kind," +Christina protested. Milly opened innocent eyes. "You think I'm wrong +about Dick?"</p> + +<p>"Not wrong about him; wrong to him. Surely, just because you are so +right in what you feel to be impossibility, you can afford to be kind."</p> + +<p>"You think I behave badly to Dick? Oh, Christina!—you are displeased +with me?"</p> + +<p>They were very sincere with each other, these two, and bared their souls +to each other relentlessly.</p> + +<p>"Only because you are so dear to me, Milly." Mrs. Drent flushed a little +as she looked tenderly at her friend. "Only because I want to see you +always right, exquisitely right. You make me uncomfortable when you are +not. He has done you no wrong. Why should you treat him as you did this +morning, using me as a foil to show him his own stupidity? Not that I +do find him stupid, Milly; only very, very simple."</p> + +<p>"I know it! Oh, I know it!" Milly wailed. "If only he had done me a +wrong it would be so much easier! He irritates me so unspeakably, and I +seem to feel it more, now that I have you. That laboured chaffing of you +at breakfast—how could you have borne it? I can't pretend amusement, +and chaff is his only conception of human intercourse. I know I'm +horrid—I know it; but it is the long, long accumulations of repressed +exasperation that have made me so—worse than exasperations. I remember, +during the first months of our married life, when I was becoming +dreadfully frightened, catching glimpses on every side of my awful +mistake—I remember once kissing him and saying something playful that +hid an appeal for comfort, comprehension, reassurance. And do you know, +he answered me with a chaffing jest—a stupid, stupid jest—some piece +of would-be gallant folly. It was like a dagger!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it pleased him so much, your kissing him, that it made him +shy," Christina suggested, but Milly said:—"Dick shy! Oh no, he is not +sensitive enough for shyness. He doesn't feel things at all as you, with +your exquisiteness, imagine. He isn't shy at all, and I'm afraid he is +sometimes immensely, hideously stupid."</p> + +<p>After all, as Christina came to see, Dick's inevitable loss was her own +gain. Milly, who could not be her husband's, was hers, almost as a child +might have been. Christina, for the first time in her life, knew the +intoxicating experience of being sought out and needed. It was Milly who +turned to her; Milly who put out appealing hands, like a lonely child; +who nestled her head on her shoulder, contentedly sighing, as she begged +her please, please not to go until she had to—and couldn't she, +wouldn't she, stay on until the winter?</p> + +<p>Why shouldn't she? Her own life was empty. It ended in her passing most +of the winter with Milly in the country after Dick had gone off to +India. It was a blissful winter, the happiest, in reality, that +Christina had ever known, though she was not aware of this nor aware +that it was the first time in her life that she was the recipient of as +much devotion as she gave. They read and rode and walked and talked and +carried on energetic reforms and charities in the village. Christina was +full of ardent enthusiasms which infected Milly. In spite of her +physical delicacy, for she had a weak heart, she showed an enterprise +and endurance that Milly was not capable of. The winter went by and life +was full of significance.</p> + +<p>Then Christina asked Milly to come and stay with her in London for the +spring, and so, by degrees, they both came to think of home as the being +together. Christina's little house in Sloane Street became a centre of +discriminating hospitality; they had an equal talent for selection and +recognition, and Milly possessed the irradiating attractive qualities +that Christina lacked. Together they became something of a touchstone +for the finer, more recondite elements in the vortex of the larger +London life. All their people seemed to come to them through some +pleasant affinity, the people who had done clever things; the people +who, better still, shone only with latent possibilities and were the +richer for their reticences; and dear, comfortable, unexacting people +who were not particularly clever, but responsive, appreciative and +genuine.</p> + +<p>Christina still wrote a little, but not so much. She and Milly studied +and travelled and, in the country, at the proper seasons, rusticated. +With all its harmony, their life did not want its more closely knitting +times of fear, as when Milly was dangerously ill and Christina nursed +her through the long crisis, or when Christina's heart showed alarming +symptoms and hurried them away to German specialists.</p> + +<p>There were funny little quarrels, too, funny to look back upon, though +very painful at the moment; for Milly could be fretful, and Christina +violent in reproach. The swift reconciliations atoned for all, when, +holding each other's hands, they laughed at each other, each eager to +take the blame. Certain defects they came to recognize and to take into +account, tolerant, loving comprehension, the ripest stage of affection, +seeming achieved. Milly was capricious, had moods of gloom and +disconsolateness when nothing seemed to interest her, neither books nor +music nor people, not even Christina, and when, sunken in a deep +armchair, she would listlessly tap her fingers on the chair-arms, her +eyes empty of all but a monotonous melancholy. These moods always hurt +Christina,—Milly herself seemed hardly aware of them, certainly was not +aware of their hurting,—and she hid the hurt in a gentle sympathy that +averted tactful eyes from her friend's retirement. But she did not quite +understand; for she never wished to retire into herself and away from +Milly.</p> + +<p>And Milly discovered that Christina could be unreasonable—so she +tolerantly termed a smouldering element in her friend's nature; +Christina, in fact, could be fiercely jealous. They shared all their +friends, many of them dear friends, but dear on a certain level, below +the illuminated solitude where they two stood in their precious +isolation. And Milly protested to herself that she was the last person +to wish that isolation disturbed. No one knew her, understood her, +helped and loved her as Christina did; there was no one like Christina, +no one so strong, so generous, so large-natured. Why then should +Christina, like a foolish school-girl, show unmistakably—her efforts to +hide it only making her look dim-eyed, white-lipped—a sombre misery if +Milly allowed anyone to absorb her? This really piteous infirmity was +latent in Christina; she did not show it at all during the first years +of their companionship; it grew with her growing devotion to Milly. +Milly discovered it when she asked little Joan Ashby to go to Italy with +them. Christina, at the proposal, had been all glad, frank acquiescence. +Unsuspectingly Milly petted and made much of the girl whose adoration +was sweet to her. She went about with her sight-seeing, when Christina +said that she was tired and did not care to see things, not remembering +that when they were alone together Christina had never seemed tired. She +laughed and talked till all hours of the night with Joan, when Christina +had gone to bed saying that she was sleepy. All had seemed peaceful and +normal. Milly was stupefied when, by degrees, a consciousness of a +difference in Christina crept upon her.</p> + +<p>Christina smiled much, was alert, crisply responsive; but ice was in the +smile, the response was galvanized. She was suffering—the realization +rushed upon Milly once her innocent eyes were opened, and all her +strength went to hiding the suffering. Milly, watching, felt a helpless +alarm, really a shyness, gaining upon her in the face of this +development. She found Christina sobbing in her room one night when she +cut short her talk with Joan and came upon her unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>Milly's tender heart rose at a bound over alarm and shyness. But when +she ran to her, Christina pushed her fiercely away. "You know! Of course +you know! Go back to her if you like her better!"</p> + +<p>She was like a frantic child. Milly could have laughed, had not the +exhibition in her grave, staunch Christina frightened her too much, +made her too terribly sorry and almost ashamed for her.</p> + +<p>Later, when Christina, laughing quiveringly at her own folly, yet +confessing her own powerlessness before it, put her arms around her neck +and begged for forgiveness, Milly in all her soft, humorous reproaches +daring now to tease and rally, had yet the chill of a new discovery to +reckon with. A weight seemed to have come upon her as she realised how +much Christina cared. It was as if Christina had confessed that she +cared so much more than she, Milly, could ever do. She had not before +thought of their friendship as a responsibility. It was too dear, and +silly and pathetic in Christina, but it seemed to manacle her.</p> + +<p>She must be very careful to like no Joans too much in the future. +Christina protested passionately that she must talk to Joan and love +Joan—any number of Joans, young or old, male or female, as much as +before, more than before, since now her folly was dissipated by +confession; but Milly in her heart knew better than to believe her. She +filled Christina's life completely, to the exclusion of any other deep +affection, and Christina could never be happy unless her friend's life +were equally undivided.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIA" id="CHAPTER_IIA"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>DICK</h3> + + +<p>Four years passed, and during them Dick Quentyn had wandered about the +world, not at all disconsolately. He spent several seasons with friends +in India; he went to Canada and to Japan; when he came home he filled +his time largely with shooting and hunting.</p> + +<p>It was almost as a guest that, in the country and in his own house, he +passed a few weeks with Milly and Christina and entirely as a guest that +he dined now and then with them in London.</p> + +<p>It was a rather ludicrous situation, but he did not seem depressed or +abashed by it. Christina always felt that by some boyish intuition he +recognized in her a friendly sympathy, a sympathy which he must +certainly see as terribly detached, since it was she who had now fixed +definitely Milly's removal from his life, made it permanent and given it +a meaning. But it was a sympathy very friendly, even slightly humorous. +He would catch her dark eyes sometimes as he sat, a guest at her +dinner-table—(he never took Milly in, all the negations of married life +were still his)—and in them he saw and responded to an almost +affectionate playfulness. He evidently saw the joke and it amused him. +Christina often reflected that Dick was a dear, in all his +impossibility, and that Milly was not nearly nice enough to him. But +Milly was nicer than she had been; the new effectiveness and happiness +of her own life made it less of an effort to be so. From her illumined +temple she smiled at him, a smile that gained in sweetness and lost its +chill. She handed on to him a little of the radiance.</p> + +<p>"Since we can't hit it off together, Milly, I must say there is no one +you could have chosen for a friend that I could have liked so much as +Mrs. Drent," Dick said to his wife one evening in the drawing-room after +dinner. They often had an affable chat before the wondering eyes of the +world. Milly chatted with great affability. Dick, as Christina so often +reminded her, was a dear. No one could have less suggested shackles.</p> + +<p>"Now, Dick," she said, smiling, "what do <i>you</i> find to like in +Christina?" Even in her new tolerance there lurked touches of the old +irrepressible disdain.</p> + +<p>Dick, twisting his moustache, contemplated her. "Do you mean that I'm +not capable of liking anything or anybody that you do?" he inquired. +Milly flushed, though the mildness of her husband's tone, one of purely +impersonal interest, suggested no conscious laying of a coal of fire +upon her head. It was what she had meant. That Dick should like +Christina, Christina Dick, was wholly delightful, but that Dick should +seem to like what she liked for the same reasons irked her a little. It +was rather as if he had expressed enthusiasms about her favourite Brahms +Rhapsody. She rather wanted to show him that any idea he might entertain +of a community of tastes was illusory. How could Dick like a Brahms +Rhapsody, he whose highest ideals of music were of something sedative +after a day's hard riding? And how could Dick really like Christina? If +he really did, and for any of her reasons, there must be between them +the link, if ever so small a one, of a community of taste—a link that +she had never recognized.</p> + +<p>"I think that we could only like the same things in a very different +way," she confessed. "Why do you like Christina?"</p> + +<p>He did not reply at once, and she went on, looking at him, smiling—they +were sitting side by side on a little sofa; "it isn't her charm, for +you think her ugly."</p> + +<p>"Yes; she's ugly certainly," Dick assented, quite as dully as she had +hoped he would, "though her figure is rather neat."</p> + +<p>Milly's smile shifted to its habitual kindly irony. "She is subtle and +delicate and sensitive," she said, rehearsing to herself as much as to +him all the reasons why Dick could not really like Christina. "Her +truths would never blunder and her silences never bore." "As Dick's +did," was in her mind. It was cruel to be so conscious of the contrast +when he looked at her with such unconsciousness; to reassure herself +with the expression of it was rather like mocking something blind and +deaf and trusting. A sudden pity confused her, and, with a little +artificiality of manner which masked the confusion, she went on: "One +could never be unhappy without her knowing it, and then one would be +glad she did know, for she can sympathise without hurting you with +sympathy. She feels everything that is beautiful and rare, everything +that is sad and tragic; she feels everything and sees everything, and +she sees and feels in order to act, to give, to help. Is it all this you +like in her?" Milly finished.</p> + +<p>Dick Quentyn still looked mildly at his wife. "Yes; I suppose so," he +said.</p> + +<p>"You see these things in Christina?"</p> + +<p>"In a different way," he smiled. It was almost a very clever smile.</p> + +<p>Milly might have felt startled at it had he not gone on very +simply:—"One sees that she is such a thoroughly good sort; so loyal; +she would go through thick and thin for anyone she cared about; and so +kind, as you say; she would talk as nicely to a dull person as to a +clever one; she'd never snub one or make one feel a duffer."</p> + +<p>For a moment Milly was silent. "Do you mean that I used to snub you—and +make you feel a duffer?" she then asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say, Milly!" Dick, genuinely distressed, looked his negative. +"You didn't suppose?——"</p> + +<p>"I know that I was often horrid."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you were, you didn't suppose I'd tell you in that roundabout +fashion. Besides, all that's done with long ago." He looked away from +her now and down at the floor.</p> + +<p>Again Milly was silent. Strangely to herself, she felt her eyes fill +with tears. She waited to conquer them before saying very gently: +"Dick, do forgive me for having been so horrid."</p> + +<p>He stared up at her. "Forgive you, Milly?" The request seemed to leave +him speechless.</p> + +<p>She was able to smile at him. "You do?"</p> + +<p>"You never were. It's more to the point for me to ask you to forgive +me."</p> + +<p>"For what, pray?" She had to control a quiver in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh—for everything—for being so wrong, so altogether the wrong person, +you know," said Dick, smiling too. He again looked away from her, across +the room, now, at Christina; and, after a silence, filled for Milly with +perplexing impulses, he added: "But the real reason I like her so much +is that she is so tremendously fond of you."</p> + +<p>Milly had to bring her thoughts back with an effort to Christina; she +must let his remark about being forgiven remain as casual as he had +evidently felt it; and it was something else that he had said which more +emphatically held her attention. She thought of it all the evening, +after he had gone; and, while her hair was being brushed, she looked at +her reflection in the mirror and saw herself in that time, "long ago." +It was as if Dick had shown her a dead thing, and had turned the key on +it with his quiet words of acquiescence.</p> + +<p>She looked in the mirror. Surrounded by the softly falling radiance of +her hair, her face was still girlish in tint and outline; but already +her eyes had in them the depth of time lived through, her cheeks and +lips were differently sweet; and as the realization of time's swift +passage stole upon her, a vague, strong protest filled her, a sense of +deep, irremediable disappointment with life.</p> + +<p>Dick Quentyn went that winter to Africa, and Milly gave her husband a +farewell all kindness and composure, when he came to bid Christina and +her good-bye. Composure was a habit, and she was unaware of a new +discontent and protest that stirred beneath it, though aware that the +kindness she felt for her husband was greater than what her words of +farewell expressed.</p> + +<p>Dick always wrote punctually, once a fortnight, to his wife, short +bulletins, to which, as accurately and as laconically, she responded. +This winter the bulletins were often delayed, sometimes altogether +missing.</p> + +<p>Dick had joined an exploring party, and his allusions, by the way, to +"Narrow shaves," "Nasty rows with natives," and "A rather beastly +fever," explained these irregularities.</p> + +<p>"He really ought to write a book about it. They have evidently been in +danger, and had an heroic time of it altogether," Christina said, during +a sympathetic perusal of these documents which were always handed on to +her, as, for any intimacy they contained, they might have been handed on +to anybody. They began—"Dear Milly"; and ended—"Yours aff'ly, D. Q." +The "affectionately" was always abbreviated.</p> + +<p>"I suppose they really are in a good deal of danger," said Milly, +nibbling at her toast,—they were at breakfast.</p> + +<p>"That, I suppose, was what they went for," Christina replied, her eyes +passing over the letter.</p> + +<p>Milly, leaning her elbow on the table, watched and read. "Poor Dick!" +she said presently.</p> + +<p>Christina had laid down the letter and was going on with her coffee.</p> + +<p>"Why poor, dear? It's what he enjoys."</p> + +<p>"If he were killed to-morrow I suppose it would hardly affect us more +than the death of any of the men who had tea here yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Milly!" said Christina. She put down her cup.</p> + +<p>"Would it?" Milly insisted. "Would you really mind more?"</p> + +<p>"Your husband—my child!" This elder-sister mode of address was often +Christina's.</p> + +<p>"Why should a husband one hasn't been able to live with count for as +much as a friend one is glad to see?"</p> + +<p>"Because he has counted for so much."</p> + +<p>"But, Christina, you can't deny that you would hardly be sorry, and that +you would not expect me to be sorry—only solemn."</p> + +<p>"I should expect you to be both."</p> + +<p>"Sorry because a man I have no affection for—a man I have almost +hated—is dead?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; if only for those reasons; and that it should be only for those +reasons is what you meant when you said: 'Poor Dick,'" Christina +demonstrated with an air of finality that showed her displeased with +what she felt to be an unbecoming levity.</p> + +<p>Milly was thinner, paler; Christina noticed that, though she did not +notice how often she returned to the subject of her husband's danger and +the irony of her own indifference to it. And Milly's listless moods +followed one other so closely this winter as to become almost permanent. +She was evidently bored. More and more frequently, when they were +talking over their <i>tęte-ŕ-tęte</i> tea, the very dearest hour of the day, +Christina saw that Milly did not hear her. After these four years of +comprehension and mutual forbearance the apparent indifference or +preoccupation could not, at first, seriously disturb her; hurt her it +always did. Picking up a book she would read and cease to talk. The mood +always passed the sooner for not being recognised, and Milly would come +out of the cloud, unaware of it, sunnier, sweeter, more responsive than +before. But this winter she did not come out. That she should be so +bored, so apathetic, began to disturb as well as to hurt Christina. +There came a quick pulsing of fear; did some new attachment account for +it? Her mind, in a swift, flame-like running around the circle of +possibilities, saw them all as impossibilities, and put the fear away.</p> + +<p>One day, taking Milly's face between her hands, yet feeling, strangely, +a sudden shyness that made the complete confession of her alarms too +difficult, she asked her if she were unhappy.</p> + +<p>"Unhappy, dear Christina? Why should I be?" Milly put an affectionate +arm about her friend's neck.</p> + +<p>"But are you? Is there anything you would like to do? Anywhere you +would like to go? I am sure that you are frightfully bored," Christina +smiled. "Confess that you are."</p> + +<p>"Have I seemed bored? No. I can't think of anything that would interest +me. One comes on these Sahara-like times in life, you know—stretches of +dull sands. Or is it that I am getting old, Christina?"</p> + +<p>"You old? You, child!"</p> + +<p>"I feel old," said Milly. "Really old and tired."</p> + +<p>Christina still smiled at her, but smiled over a sudden choking in her +throat. It was not sympathy for her friend's <i>Weltschmertz</i>; it was the +recognition of something in her eyes, her voice—something she could not +analyze, as if a faint barrier wavered, impalpable, formless, between +them, and as if, did she say that it was there, it would change suddenly +to stone and perhaps shut her out for ever.</p> + +<p>What was it in Milly that made her afraid that to cry out her fears +might make them permanent? She battled with them all the winter. They +had arranged to go to Sicily and Greece for the spring, and Christina +looked forward to this trip as a definite goal. It would break the +spell, turn the difficult corner,—for all her fierce idealism she was +too wise a woman not to know that every human relation must have +corners; and, indeed, in talking over plans, getting up information, +burnishing historical memories, Milly showed some of her old girlish +eagerness. She and Christina even read the Greek tragedies over +together, in order, Milly said, that they should steep themselves in the +proper atmosphere. It was therefore with a shock of bitter surprise and +disappointment that Christina, only a fortnight before the time fixed +for their departure, heard Milly announce, with evident openness, though +she flushed slightly, that she thought she would rather put off the +trip; she would rather spend April at Chawlton; and, at once going on, +looking clearly at her friend: "You see, dear, I have just had a letter +from Dick. He gets back next week and is going down there. He says that +he wants to see the primroses after that horrid Africa;—quite a +poetical touch, isn't it,—for Dick! And I think it would be really a +little too brutal of me, wouldn't it, if I sailed off without seeing him +at all—without pouring out his tea for even one week."</p> + +<p>Milly was smiling, really with her own soft gaiety; the flush had gone. +Christina was convinced of her own misinterpretation. Duty had called +Milly away from pleasure, and she had feared, for a moment, that her +friend would think too much sacrifice to it.</p> + +<p>"Of course, dearest, of course we will put it off," she said. "And of +course we will go down to welcome home the wanderer. It is sweet of you +to have thought of it."</p> + +<p>Milly kissed her. "You see I am becoming quite a virtuous woman," she +said. "And it is a pity to miss the primroses."</p> + +<p>The packing projects turned topsy-turvy, servants to be redistributed, +Christina saw to all, while Milly, with still her new cheerfulness, +flitted in the spring sunshine from shop to shop, decking herself in +appropriate butterfly garments. They were to get to Chawlton only a day +or two before Dick's arrival.</p> + +<p>The gardens, the lawns, the woods, were radiant, and Milly, in the +environment of jocund revival, shared the radiance. All barriers seemed +gone, were it not that Christina, full of strange presages, felt the +very radiance to make one.</p> + +<p>Milly gathered primroses in the woods, hatless, her white dress and fair +head shining among the young greys and greens. She came in laden with +flowers, and the house smiled with their pale gold, their innocent and +fragile gaiety. "Isn't the country delicious?" she said to Christina. +"Much nicer than dreary Greece and tiresome ruins, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Much," said Christina, who was finding the country, the spring, the +sunshine, the very primroses, full of a haunting melancholy.</p> + +<p>"I have a thirst for simplicity and freshness and life," Milly went on, +looking at the sky, "and how one feels them all here. Oh, the cuckoo, +Christina, isn't it a sound that makes one think of tears and +happiness!"</p> + +<p>Of tears only, not of happiness, thought Christina; of regret—regret +for something gone; lost for ever. The cuckoo's cry pierced her all day +long.</p> + +<p>Simplicity and freshness and life; Christina did not recall the words +definitely when she saw Dick Quentyn spring up the steps to greet his +wife at the threshold of the house; but something unformulated echoed in +her mind with a deepened sense of presage.</p> + +<p>Milly stretched out both her hands. "Welcome home, Dick," she said. And +she held her cheek to be kissed. There was no restraint or shyness in +her eyes. She looked at the bronzed, stalwart, smiling being with as +open and happy a gaze as though he had been an oak-tree. The happiness +of gaze was new; but then it was only part of Milly's revival; and +then, he had been in danger. Christina took comfort, she knew not for +what.</p> + +<p>"It is good to be at home again," Dick asseverated more than once during +the day; and, "I say, how jolly those primroses look," he exclaimed in +the long drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Milly, her arm in Christina's, stood beside him. "I gathered them, Dick, +all of them, and arranged them, in honour of your return."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come now!" Dick Quentyn ejaculated with humorous incredulity.</p> + +<p>Milly smiled, making no protest. He, she and Christina walked about the +grounds. Christina had felt a curious shrinking from joining them, a +shrinking, in any normal condition of things between husband and wife, +so natural that it was only with a shock of amazement that she +recognized its monstrousness as applied to the actual one. She leave +Milly alone with her husband! What a revolution in all their relations +would such a withdrawal have portended! To leave them would have been to +yield to morbid imaginations, to make them almost real; at all events to +make them visible to Milly; and Milly certainly did not see them. Milly, +indeed, seemed to see nothing.</p> + +<p>She still held Christina's hand drawn through her arm while they walked +and listened to Dick's laconic and much prompted recital of his African +adventures.</p> + +<p>"I do hope you won't go off on any more terrible expeditions of this +sort for a very long time, Dick," said Milly. "I expected every morning +to read in the newspaper that you'd been eaten by savages."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wasn't among cannibals, you know," literal Dick objected, "and +I think I'll have to have another brush at it. Harvey is going out in a +month or so."</p> + +<p>"And you are going with him?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I rather think I shall," said Dick. "He is a splendid fellow, and +it seems my sort of thing."</p> + +<p>Before dinner, in the drawing-room, he joined Christina, who was sitting +alone looking out at the evening. "As inseparable as ever, you and +Milly, aren't you?" he said, coming and standing over her, his genial +eyes upon her.</p> + +<p>"Just as inseparable," she assented, looking up at him. She smiled with +an emphasis that was faintly defiant, though neither she nor Dick +recognized defiance.</p> + +<p>"Milly is looking a little fagged, don't you think," he went on. "Has +she been doing too much this winter? You are frightfully busy, aren't +you? Milly always likes going at a great pace, I know."</p> + +<p>"I should not have thought there was anything noticeable," said +Christina. "She was a little fagged, perhaps; but the country has +already refreshed her wonderfully."</p> + +<p>"London always does pull one down, I hate the beastly place," said Dick. +And he went on: "She is being awfully nice to me. I don't remember her +ever having been so nice—since, I mean, we decided that we couldn't hit +it off. One would really say that she rather liked seeing me!" and Dick +smiled, as if the joke were very comical.</p> + +<p>"You have been in such danger. Milly can but feel relief." Her voice was +full of an odd repression, discouragement, but Dick was altogether too +innocent of any hope to be aware of discouragement or repression.</p> + +<p>"She was worried about me? Really? That was awfully good of her," he +said.</p> + +<p>Christina was remembering that Milly had only expressed indifference as +to Dick's danger.</p> + +<p>The ensuing evening was, to Christina, uncanny in its unapparent +strangeness. She and Dick were both aware of novelty and Milly was aware +of none. Her cheerful kindness was as natural and spontaneous as though +she had been a girl greeting a long absent brother. She questioned +Dick, and, as her questions showed interest—interest and a knowledge +horribly surprising to Christina—Dick talked with unusual fluency. +Christina looked at them and listened to them, while Milly, leaning an +arm on the table, gazed with gravely shining eyes at her husband. The +arm, the eyes, the lines of the throat, were very lovely. Christina's +mind fixed upon that beauty, and she wished that Milly would not lean so +and look so. Milly, again, was unaware. It was Christina who was aware; +Christina who was quivering with latent, unformulated consciousness. +After dinner, Milly and Dick still talked; she still listened. She knew +nothing about Africa.</p> + +<p>For three or four days this was the situation; a reunited brother and +sister; a friend, for the time being, necessarily incidental. Then, +suddenly, the presages grew plainly ominous. Was it her own realization +of loneliness, of not being needed, that so overwhelmed her? or the +sense of some utter change in her darling—a change so gradual that +until its accomplishment it had seemed madness to recognize it? The +moment of recognition came one day, when, on going into the library, +she found Dick and Milly sitting side by side at the table, their heads +bent over a map; and they were not looking at the map; they were looking +at each other; still like brother and sister, but such fond brother and +sister, while they smiled and talked.</p> + +<p>Milly turned her head and saw Christina, and Christina knew that some +evident adjustment went over her own face, for Milly jumped up, eagerly, +too eagerly, and pulled a chair back for her and said; "Sit down, +dearest. Dick is telling me adventures."</p> + +<p>What was it that drove into Christina's heart like a knife? Milly smiled +at her, eagerly smiled; and yet she was miles and miles away; had she +been in the jungles of Africa with her husband she could not have been +further; and she was greeting her as though she were a guest, greeting +her with conventional warmth and courteous sweetness. Christina was not +wanted; through the warmth and sweetness she felt that.</p> + +<p>Smiling, she said she had come for a book. Going to the book-cases she +sought for one accurately—why she should seek, as though she had come +in with the intention of finding it, a volume of frothy eighteenth +century French memoirs she could not have told—and, smiling again upon +them with unconstrained lightness, she left them. She walked steadily to +her room, locked the door, and, falling upon her knees beside the bed, +broke into an agony of tears.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The end had come; not of Christina's love, not of her need, but of +Milly's. At first her mind refused to face the full realization—groped +among the omens of the past, would not see in Dick, even now, the cause +of all. She could trace the gradual, the dreadful severance; Milly's +slow loss of interest in her and in their life together. It was at first +only for the fact of loss that she wept, that loss, only, she could look +at. But by degrees, as her stifled sobs grew quieter, she was able to +think, to think clearly, fiercely, with desperate snatchings at hope, +while she crouched by the bed; pushing back her hair from her forehead; +pressing her hot temples with icy hands.</p> + +<p>Why should Milly lose interest? How could she? How could love and truest +sympathy, truest understanding—how could they fail?</p> + +<p>"Love begets love. Love begets love," she whispered under her breath, +not knowing that she spoke, and, in this hour of shipwreck, clinging +unconsciously to such spars and fragments of childish, unreasoning trust +as her memory tossed her. No other friendship threatened hers; she was +first as friend, irrevocably, she knew it. First as friend did not mean +to Milly, could never mean, the deep-dwelling devotion that it meant to +her; but such affinity and attachment as Milly felt could not die +without some other cause than mere weariness. And the truth no longer to +be evaded broke over her. It was the simplest while the most absurd of +truths. Milly was falling in love; Milly was falling in love with Dick; +and she was frank and happy because she did not know it; and he did not +know it. Like two children with a fresh day of play and sunshine before +them, they were engaged in merry, trivial games, picnics, make-believes, +no thought of sentiment or emotion in them to account for the new +sympathy; but from these games they would return hand in hand, all in +all to each other, bound together in the lover's illusion and needing no +one else. Maps! Travels! Africa! Did they not see these things as silly +toys, as she did? What could Milly care for such toys? That she should +play with them, as if she placed tin soldiers and blew a tin trumpet, +showed the fatal glamour that was upon her; glamour only, a moonshine +mood of vague restlessness and craving. How dignify by the sacred name +of love this sentiment, all made of her weakness, her emotionalism, her +egotism, that swayed her now so ludicrously towards the man whom, +open-eyed, she had rejected and scorned for years?</p> + +<p>Passionate repudiation of the debasement for Milly swept through the +stricken friend and mingled with the throes of her anguish for herself. +For how was she to live without Milly? How could she live as Milly's +formal friend, kept outside the circle of intimate affection, the circle +where, till now, she had reigned alone? Ah! she understood Milly's +nature too well; she saw that with all its sweetness it was slight. +Love, with her, would efface all friendships. Like a delicate, narrow +little vase, her heart could hold but one deep feeling. She would come, +simply, not to care for Christina at all. Would come? Had she not come +already? In her eyes, her smiles, the empty caressing of her voice, was +there not already the most profound indifference? And all the forces of +Christina's nature rose in rebellion. She felt the rebellion like the +onslaught of angels of light against powers of darkness; it was the +ideal doing battle with some primal, instinctive force. She must fight +for Milly and for herself. For she, too, had her claim. She measured +herself beside Dick Quentyn, her needs beside his. His life was +cheerful, contented, complete; hers without Milly would be a warped, a +meaningless, a broken life. Strangely, her thoughts, in all their +anguish, turned in not one reproach upon her friend; rather, her +comprehension, from maternal heights of love, sorrowed over her with +infinite tenderness. For, so she told herself, she could have resigned +her, in spite of her own bereavement, to true companionship, true +fulfilment. But Milly—her Milly—made hers by all these years—in love +with Dick Quentyn! It was a calamity, a disease which had befallen her +darling. Asking no heights, this love would lead her down to contented +levels, and Milly's life, too, in all true senses, would be warped and +meaningless and broken.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in the library, Dick said to his wife: "An't I interrupting +you? Don't you read or talk or do something with Mrs. Drent at this time +of the day?"</p> + +<p>And at the question alone, contentedly alone with him as she was, dimly +enlightened, too, by Christina's guarded glance, Milly made a swift, +surprised survey of the situation. She did not want to talk to +Christina; she wanted to go on talking to Dick. She had not as yet +realized that Christina's presence had become an interruption, a burden; +Christina's personality had seemed blurred, merely, and far away. She +was now aware of this, aware, for the first time, of something to hide +from Christina, and a sense of awkwardness and almost of confusion came +upon her.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, you are not interrupting us. Christina and I will have heaps of +time for talking and reading when you are gone," she said, smiling and +blushing faintly.</p> + +<p>Dick, even more unconscious than she of its meaning, gazed at the blush, +and then they went on with their talk about crocodiles.</p> + +<p>When Christina saw Milly again that evening, it was evident to her that +Milly had at last become aware of something changed, and that her own +composure urged Milly into a self-protecting overdemonstrativeness. She +was completely composed. She stood aside, mild, unemphatic, unaware, +seeming not to see, making no effort to hold; and as her desperate dread +thus instinctively armed her, she saw that no other attitude could have +been so efficacious. When she stood aside, Milly was forced to draw her +in; when she pretended to see nothing, Milly must pretend—to her and to +Dick—that there was nothing to see. Milly was afraid of her; that +became apparent to her during the ensuing days, terrible, lovely days of +spring, when, as if with drawn breath and cold, measuring eye, she +crossed an abyss on a narrow plank laid above the emptiness. Milly was +afraid; of her scorn and incredulity, perhaps; perhaps only of her pain. +Milly was cowardly in her shrinking from giving pain; it would be +impossible for her to go to her friend and say:—"I have fallen in love +with my husband, and you and I must part." In that impossibility for +Milly lay her only hope. If Milly and Dick could be held apart, and by +Milly's own cowardice rather than by any word or gesture of her own, the +wretched interlude might pass and Milly come to look back upon it with +shame and amazement and to thank her friend for the strength and control +that had made escape possible.</p> + +<p>And the first-fruits of her strategy were soon apparent. Milly saw less +and less of Dick. Dick, as of old, made no attempt to seek her out and, +obviously, it was now impossible for Milly, with Christina's quiet eyes +upon her, to seek him. Milly took up again the idea of Greece and said +that, after all, they must go that spring. They would all, she gaily +declared, go up to London and depart to their different quarters of the +globe at the same time, Dick to Africa and she and Christina to Greece. +This was said in Dick's presence and he cheerfully acquiesced. Christina +wondered if Milly had not hoped for some protest or suggestion from him. +In Dick's blindness lay, she began to see, an even greater hope than in +Milly's cowardice. Milly could not very well come to her and avow her +love for Dick when Dick, it was evident, did not dream of avowing his +for her. And Milly became aware of this as she did. Her manner towards +Dick changed. She rallied him with a touch of irritability; she scored +off him as she had used to do, by means of Christina; she put forward +Christina and her relation to Christina constantly, and seemed to taunt +him, as of old, with his own inadequacy. All her innocent gaiety was +gone; she hid her deep disquiet under an air of feverish brightness, and +poor stupid Dick, accepting Milly's alteration as he had always accepted +things from her, showed no hurt and no reproach; he merely effaced +himself, cheerfully, once more.</p> + +<p>Christina understood it all and the breathless subterfuges in which +Milly's perturbation concealed itself. She was longing that Dick should +see what she could not show, and that he should break through the web +with an avowal. She was longing that Christina, if Dick remained blind, +should mercifully give Dick and her their chance. Christina knew the +horrible risk she ran in remaining blandly unaware, in continuing to +take Milly at her word, in keeping there, between her and Dick, where +Milly herself placed her. She might part them, but Milly might come to +hate her.</p> + +<p>Milly's plan was carried out: they all went up to town together, Milly +to her friend's house, Dick to his bachelor's chambers. And it was +Christina who asked Dick to come and dine with them the night before he +left for Africa. She maintained every appearance. The very air that +night was electric with the restraints ready to burst into +reverberations which would surprise no one but Dick. Christina herself +was aware of a strange little dart of impatience with him. His stupidity +helped her as nothing else could have helped; yet, while she blessed it, +she could feel for Milly, and actually, while she blessed, resent it. +It was true that she read in his eyes a slight shyness as they rested +upon his wife. He was bewildered, and it was evident he was not happy. +And Milly had dropped her shield of flippancy. She sat silent, absent, +absorbed, looking up at her husband now and then, with curious eyes, +eyes cold and deep and suffering. Christina saw it all. Should she leave +them now, it was inevitable that the revelation would come, and it would +come from Milly. Mutely, in their respective unconsciousness and +consciousness, they were begging her to go; and she sat on. Her +inflexible determination upheld her over the terrible falsity of her +position. Milly, now, must know that she knew; yet she sat on, smiling, +talking, until the hour was late.</p> + +<p>Then, as Dick rose, it was Milly who went towards the barrier that she +herself had raised and showed Dick that it had an unlocked gate. From +her deep knowledge of Milly's nature, Christina could gauge, with a +dreadful accuracy, what the strength of the feeling must be that could +nerve her, rising and sauntering to the door beside him, to say in a +strange, in a nonchalant voice: "How about a walk in the park to-morrow, +Dick? You don't go till the evening, do you?"</p> + +<p>Dick stared for a moment. He was pitiably, mercifully stupid. His stare +might really have been interpreted as one of mere astonishment. Then:</p> + +<p>"Really?" he asked. "Aren't you and Mrs. Drent too busy?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed. Our arrangements are all made."</p> + +<p>"Shall I come for you here?"</p> + +<p>"Do. At eleven."</p> + +<p>They shook hands, and Dick took Christina's hand. She felt, always, that +Dick looked upon her as a friend. His eyes, now, revealed to her his +boyish wonder and gladness. She and Milly were left alone. Milly, still +with the sauntering step, went to the mantelpiece and touched her hair, +looking in the glass. "Dear me, how late!" she said, her eyes turning to +the clock. "How dreadful of us to have kept poor Dick up so late. Shall +we go to bed, dearest? I'm dreadfully sleepy."</p> + +<p>"You didn't mean me to come for the walk, too, did you?" Christina +asked, in a voice as easy, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "It's our +usual hour;—that's why I ask. But you meant him to understand that you +wanted it to be a <i>tęte-ŕ-tęte</i>, didn't you? It's all right. I can go to +Mrs. Pomfret's for my fitting at eleven."</p> + +<p>"But, dearest, of course you are coming," said Milly instantly.</p> + +<p>Their eyes were on each other now, and their faces armed and masked. +Christina measured the depth of estrangement in all that the flexible, +disingenuous acquiescence hid of disappointment, bitterness, even +hatred.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no, indeed; I think you ought to have your good-bye walk alone," +she insisted. "He will expect it now. I'm sure he thought that you +particularly wanted it to be alone."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't have thought anything so unlikely," said Milly. "It is our +good-bye walk with you."</p> + +<p>So Christina went with them. She felt herself still trembling in every +nerve from the appalling risk she had run, and ran; for which was the +greater risk, that Milly should realize her guile and hate her, or that +Milly and Dick should come to an understanding? She could not tell; nor +where she stood; yet triumph trembled in her fear. She had succeeded. +They had not spoken together. In the park she and Milly bade Dick +good-bye. Dick's train was to go in the early evening. Milly, when they +reached home—and she had talked lightly if not gaily in the +hansom—said that she had rather a headache. She would have her luncheon +in her room and sleep through the afternoon and be fit and fresh for the +play that night. Christina knew in an instant that a last desperate hope +cowered beneath the affected languor and lightness; and it watched her, +feverishly, like the eyes of a tracked animal creeping in an underbrush +past enemies' guns. When she replied, kissing her friend tenderly, that +a good rest was the best of cures for a headache and that she herself +would do some shopping and go to the tea for which they were engaged, +these large, sick eyes of Milly's hope and fear widened and shone with a +recovered security. She wanted to be left alone that afternoon. She +would not go to Dick; Christina knew her too accurately to believe that +possible, and Dick had been too stupid to make it conceivable; but what +Milly hoped for was a sudden illumination of Dick's stupidity; some tug +of unendurable pain or surmise that would bring him back on the chance +of seeing her again. Milly's logic was instinctive, but Christina +believed that it was sound. Dick, she, too, felt sure of it, would come. +She lunched and then she sat at her writing-table and wrote some notes, +looking out at the street, and then, when an hour approached in which a +caller might appear, she went out.</p> + +<p>It was one of the suddenly hot days in May that London sometimes offers. +It was so hot that Christina's head, as she walked slowly up Sloane +Street, swam and turned, and the lines of cabs and omnibuses and +carriages in the roadway, upon which she fixed her eyes, seemed to pulse +and float as they went by. Three o'clock had struck. Dick, if he came, +must come before five, and she must walk up and down Sloane Street for +perhaps nearly two hours. If she lay in wait in the house, Milly, who no +doubt was already up and dressed and waiting, would discover her. Milly, +too, might be watching from the drawing-room windows. Her peril was +desperate, and her safest course was to walk on the side of the street +near the house where Milly could not see her. This she did, turning +regularly in her little beat, indifferent to the odd spectacle she must +present, and scanning the passers-by. She had not long to wait. +Half-an-hour had not elapsed, when, in an approaching hansom, she saw +the broad shoulders and perplexed yet resolute features of Dick Quentyn. +He, too, had come to final decisions on this fateful day.</p> + +<p>Christina walked towards the hansom smiling. With her opened parasol and +delicate dress of white and black she had the most unalarming and casual +air. She seemed to have just stepped from her own doorway. She had held +up her hand in signal, and Dick, arresting his cabman, sprang out. +Christina greeted him gaily.</p> + +<p>"Well, this is very nice. Can you really stop and speak to me? You're +not running a risk of losing your train?"</p> + +<p>Dick hardly smiled in answer. His face showed his uncertainty, his +anxiety, his trouble.</p> + +<p>"My train? Oh no;—I've over an hour yet. Heaps of time.—In fact—I was +on my way to your house. I thought I'd have a last glimpse of you and +Milly. Are you just going out?"</p> + +<p>"Just going out. And as to Milly,—it's too bad," said Christina, "but +she is getting a little sleep this afternoon and particularly asked that +she shouldn't be disturbed. We are going to the play to-night. You'll +walk with me for a little way, though, won't you?"</p> + +<p>There was nothing ambiguous in her words or manner. They were certainly +in keeping with the situation, and poor Dick Quentyn, although he looked +almost haggard, turned obediently and walked beside her. He walked +silently for a little way, while Christina talked, then, as they came +out into Knightsbridge, he said, suddenly;—"Mrs. Drent,—may I ask you +about something?—Do you mind? Shall we go into the park for a little +while?"</p> + +<p>"Of course; of course," said Christina, kindly and mildly.</p> + +<p>They went into the park and sat down on two chairs that faced the stream +of carriages and had rhododendrons behind them. When they sat down, +Christina's head swam so giddily that she feared she might be going to +faint. She closed her eyes for a moment, mastering her weakness with a +desperate effort. Dick did not notice her pallor. "You see," he said, +leaning forward and boring small holes in the gravel with the point of +his stick—"You see,—I think I must tell you—ask you for your +advice—because you know Milly so much better than any one else in the +world. You can tell me if I'm mistaken—or advise me what to do, you +know. It's just this: I thought, when I first came home, that Milly had +begun to care for me again—or, at all events, that she'd got over +disliking me."</p> + +<p>"Care for you? Dislike you?" Christina murmured vaguely. "Oh—I don't +think it was ever that—of late years—since you'd so tactfully and +charmingly understood and made everything so easy for her."</p> + +<p>"No. Yes; it seemed she'd particularly got over it," Dick, rather +puzzled, assented. "And I mean, by caring, that she seemed so happy when +I was there—at first, happier than I'd ever known her."</p> + +<p>"She can dare to be happy with you now, you see; just because you have +made her so secure."</p> + +<p>"So secure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Christina met his eyes. "So sure that you'll never ask anything +of her, make anything difficult for her again."</p> + +<p>Dick Quentyn grew red. "I never did do that, as far as I remember, after +I understood."</p> + +<p>"That is what Milly so deeply appreciates," Christina returned.</p> + +<p>There was a little silence after this and Christina, in it, controlled +her breaths from trembling. Then Dick, groping painfully among his +impressions, put forward another. "She did mind, very much, my being in +danger last winter; you told me that. She was worried, really worried +about me?"</p> + +<p>Like a hurried, jangling bell somewhere in the background of her mind +Christina, as she, too, gathered together her impressions and memories, +seemed to hear a reiterated "No lies; above all, no lies." But he had +put the weapon into her hand, and though she felt as if she held it +lifted above some innocent life, it fell relentlessly.</p> + +<p>"Did I say that Milly was worried about you? It was hardly that, I +think; though, of course, she was glad to see you out of danger. Of +course she was glad; how could anyone so gentle-hearted as Milly not be? +But if you ask me what she did feel, I must tell you the truth. You want +the truth, don't you? It is much better—for you and for Milly, isn't +it, that there should be no misunderstandings?"—Dick nodded—his eyes +fixed on her. "What Milly said, in the winter, when we had news of your +danger,—was that it was rather dreadful to realize that if you were +killed it would hardly affect her more than the death of any of the men +who had come to tea with us the day before."</p> + +<p>The knife had fallen and her victim, after a moment, turned dazed eyes +away from her. "Milly said that? About me?"</p> + +<p>"I was shocked," Christina murmured. She heard, as if from a far +distance, the strange, hushed quality of her voice. Her own blood seemed +to have been arrested.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't have minded more than that?"</p> + +<p>"She said, when I reproached her, that I could only expect her to be +solemn, not sorry, over the death of a man for whom she had no +affection, a man she had almost hated. Mr. Quentyn, I am so grieved for +you. Of course, she doesn't hate you now; but I am afraid you have +allowed yourself false hopes about Milly."</p> + +<p>Dick, now, had risen to his feet and, facing her as she sat, he gazed +over her head at the rhododendrons. "I wonder why she wanted me to come +for a walk this morning. Yes, I did have false hopes. I thought that +meant something. I've thought that all sorts of little things might mean +something."</p> + +<p>"Milly is so sweet and kind when she feels no pressure, no alarm. I +thought, for a moment last night, that she meant you to have the walk +alone. But as soon as you were gone she insisted on my coming with you. +I've tried to help you, Mr. Quentyn. I've given you every chance. But +there isn't any chance." It was well to do it thoroughly.</p> + +<p>There was bewilderment and humiliation—at last humiliation—on Dick's +face; but of incredulity not a trace. "I know how kind you've been," he +said. "I've felt it."</p> + +<p>Christina, now, had also risen. A dart of keenest pity, even admiration, +went through her, horridly painful. "I am so dreadfully sorry," she +murmured. "I had to tell you—since you asked me;—I didn't want you to +hurt Milly—and yourself—uselessly."</p> + +<p>"I know. I perfectly understand," said Dick.</p> + +<p>They walked in silence to Albert Gate, and there, as they paused in +farewell, Christina suddenly, seizing his arm and speaking in a hurried +whisper, said: "You have been splendid. I can't tell you how I feel it. +If I can ever—at any time—do anything——" It was the truth, yet the +falseness of such speech, from her to him, appalled her while she spoke. +Her voice trailed off. "Forgive me. Good-bye—" she said.</p> + +<p>They grasped each other's hands and Dick, as she broke away, saw that +the tears were running down her face.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIA" id="CHAPTER_IIIA"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>CHRISTINA</h3> + + +<p>He was gone. She had triumphed. And only pain and horror, as if for the +innocent life she had taken, were about her. No joy, no triumph, in +having snatched Milly from degradation.</p> + +<p>At the thought of Milly the fear that drove upon her was so intense that +it induced a curious lightness of head. She was uplifted and upheld +above her own fear. The unnatural buoyancy became almost a lightness of +heart. All was over. If she were a criminal she must profit by her crime +and shelter herself from suspicion. They would be happy—of course they +would be happy again—she and Milly. "Love begets love. Love begets +love." She heard herself muttering the words almost gaily, like an +incantation, as she walked down Sloane Street.</p> + +<p>When she crossed the street and looked up at the house she saw that +Milly was standing at the drawing-room window looking down at her. +Something in Milly's attitude there, in her beautiful dress and in her +unsmiling gaze, suggested to Christina the thought of a captive princess +watching the approach of some evil enchantress. Milly—her prisoner—her +victim! Her darling Milly!—She beat away the black vision.</p> + +<p>She went slowly upstairs and came slowly into the drawing-room. Milly +had turned from the window and, with the same hard, unsmiling gaze, +stood and watched her enter. Christina sank into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Milly after a moment, and in a voice that Christina had +never heard from her, "he did not come, you see. I am up and +dressed—yes—you know that I intended to get up and dress as soon as +you were gone, I am sure—and I have been waiting here for an hour—and +he has not come. He has not cared enough to come. So there are no +roundabout questions for you to ask or evasive answers for you to hear. +You have the truth before you."</p> + +<p>Christina was not at all surprised, though there was something so +horrible in this unshrinking frankness from one so reticent, so delicate +as Milly. She knew, as she heard her speak, that it was what she had +expected. The subterfuges of the past weeks lay in ruin about them. She +sat, her eyes fallen, drawing off her gloves, and she said gently, "I am +sorry, Milly, if you hoped that he would come."</p> + +<p>"No," said Milly, not moving from her place. "You are not sorry, +Christina. You are glad. You are sorry that I care and you are glad that +he does not care, because you think that it will keep us together. But +that is your mistake. It is all impossible now, and you have made it so. +I am going away. I am going back to the country. I want to be alone."</p> + +<p>Again Christina was not surprised; this was the fear which she had +glanced down at from her haze of uncanny lightness.</p> + +<p>"Have I made it so impossible? What have I done, Milly?" she asked, +after a moment.</p> + +<p>Milly sat down in the nearest chair. She had passed beyond fear. There +was no mist or illusion in her calmness. "You didn't give us a chance," +she said. "Not a chance. You saw how I cared. You saw how I had come to +need him. You saw how stupid he was and unless he were helped he would +see nothing. I was afraid to hurt you. Of course I was. Of course I was +sorry for you, horribly sorry. And you traded on that. You saw that +unless you stood aside I could do nothing."</p> + +<p>"I thought that I did stand aside, Milly," said Christina after another +moment.</p> + +<p>"Never really," said Milly.</p> + +<p>"I don't quite see what you mean by really, Milly," said Christina. "I +left you with him whenever you gave me the opportunity for doing so. +Perhaps you mean that I ought to have committed suicide."</p> + +<p>"No; I don't mean that," Milly returned sullenly, with an unaltered +hostility. "There are different ways of standing aside. You could have +made it possible for me to tell you, openly, what I felt; you could have +made me feel that you would be glad to have me happy with him. You need +not have made me feel in everything you did and said—and didn't do or +say—that if I went back to Dick I should be going to him over your dead +body."</p> + +<p>"I think you mean, Milly," Christina answered in her dull and gentle +voice, "that I ought not to have loved you. That is my crime, is it +not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; perhaps that is your crime, if you want to put it so," said Milly. +"I don't blame you, you know. You could not help it. But your love has +always been a prison. As long as I was contented in the prison you made +it a very charming place to live in. But when I wanted to be free, to +have other, deeper, realler loves, I knew that I had a gaoler to get +past, a gaoler who would not kill me, but whom I would have to kill. So +that I sat in my cell and did not dare turn the key in the lock for fear +of what would happen to you. And it isn't true to say that you left the +door open. You pretended to, of course. But when I did make my one +effort, when I did try to creep out under your eyes, you turned the key +on me quickly enough. The walk this morning. You knew that I hoped for +it alone. You knew that it was our last chance."</p> + +<p>While Milly spoke these words to her, Christina sat with her head bent +down and her hands pressed tightly together in her lap, and it seemed to +her that she was weeping inwardly, tears of blood. It was shame, +unutterable shame, that she felt, mixed with the anguish, and weighing +her down to the earth. Shame for what she had done in sacrifice to the +love she heard thus abused; shame for the truth, the cruel half-truth, +in Milly's words; and shame for Milly that she could find it in her to +speak such words to her. Deeper? Realler? Could any love, though tricked +out in romantic conventions, be deeper or realler than the love she had +for Milly? In the innermost chambers of her heart she knew that, in +spite of the cruel half-truth, what Milly said was not the whole. She +would—oh yes, she would have given her up—with gladness—as a mother +gives up her child—to a love that she could have recognized as +ennobling. It had not been her own selfish clinging, only, that had +nerved her. It had been the thought of Milly's truest good. And if she +were to say this to Milly, she knew now what withering laughter she +would hear.</p> + +<p>The thought of this laughter from Milly's lips, of Milly's cruelty to +her, hunted her down the first turning of concealment open to her. "I +didn't want to come with you," she said. "You made me come. But I was +glad—for your sake—because it shielded you. You had made it so obvious +to him that you wanted it to be alone. I thought that you had made it +too obvious."</p> + +<p>Milly drew a long breath and a vivid red mounted to her cheeks. For some +moments she sat still, saying nothing. Then, not meeting her friend's +eyes, for they were now fixed on her, she rose.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have been unfair," said Milly. "I have been ungrateful and +unkind, and unfair. I know that you have thought only of me; and you +saw what I've only realised in this last hour. It has hurt so terribly +to realise it—to realise that I've had my chance of happiness and +thrown it away and that now it's too late to get it back again—it's +hurt so terribly that it has made me cruel. You have been right all +along and I have been a fool. But there it is. I love him and I'm +broken-hearted, and now all that I can do is to go away and hide +myself."</p> + +<p>She was going, actually going. Their life together was over, shattered. +The intolerable realisation crashed down upon Christina's abasement. She +stood up, staring at her friend. "You are going to leave me, Milly?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>Milly averted her eyes. "Yes, Christina. I want to be alone."</p> + +<p>"But you will come back?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Milly. Still she averted her eyes; but, in the +rigid silence that followed, compunction evidently wrought upon her. She +glanced round at her suffering friend and Christina's eyes met hers. +They hurt her. They were glazed, like the eyes of a deer, waiting for +the hunter's final blow.</p> + +<p>"Christina," she said, and her voice showed her pity; "won't you try to +learn to live without me? Really—really—it can't come back again, as +it was. You must see that. Not after all that we have said, all that has +happened. Learn to live without me. Get some nice woman and go to Greece +and try to forget me. I can only mean suffering for you now, and I'm not +nearly good enough for you."</p> + +<p>At this Christina broke into dreadful sobs. She did not move towards her +friend, but she stretched her clasped hands out towards her and said, +while her voice, half-strangled, came in gasps: "Milly—Milly—Have you +forgotten everything?—All the years when we were so happy +together?—When he was nothing to you?—For all these years, +Milly—nothing—nothing.—How can you care—suddenly—like this—when +you have almost hated him for so long?—You know what you said, in the +winter, Milly—that you would not care if he were to die."</p> + +<p>Milly's eyes had hardened. She moved towards the door.</p> + +<p>"Milly!" Christina's cry arrested her. She had to stop and listen, +though her hand was on the door. "Wait! Forgive me!—I don't know what I +am saying!—And it was true! It was! You did not care!—Oh don't be +cruel to me. I shall die if you leave me. What have I done that you +should change so?"</p> + +<p>"You have done nothing, Christina," said Milly in a voice of schooled +forbearance. "It is I who have changed, and been cruel, first to Dick +and then to you. I am a shallow, feeble creature, but the shallowness +was in thinking that I couldn't love my husband—not in loving him now. +I don't want the things you and I had together. I only want the stupid, +simple things that he could have given me. I want someone to be in love +with me. That is it, I think. I am the most usual, common sort of woman, +who must have someone in love with her and be in love. And I am in love +with Dick. And I am too unhappy to think of anyone but myself."</p> + +<p>Christina stood with her face covered. Convulsive sobs shook her.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," said Milly.</p> + +<p>She did not reply. She moved her head a little, in negation? +acquiescence? appeal?—Milly did not know. And since Christina still +said nothing, she turned the handle softly and left her.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Milly went down to Chawlton. In the country, alone, she could sit and +look at her life and at the wreckage she had made in it without feeling +that another's eyes were watching her. It pained her, when she could +turn her mind from the humiliation of her own misery, to see how +completely all love for poor Christina had died from her, to see how the +perhaps crude and elemental love had killed the delicate, derivative +affection. It was even sadder to realise that under the superficial pain +lay a deep indifference. She was very sorry for Christina. She had +accepted Christina's life and used it, and now, through the strange +compulsion of fate, she must cut herself away from it, even if that were +to leave it broken and bleeding. For if she were to remain sorry for +Christina, to look back at her with pity and compunction, she must not +see her. Words, glances, silences of Christina's rankled in her, and +when she thought of them she could not forgive her. Christina had seen +too much, understood too much. She was a blight upon her love, a menace +to her tragic memory of it. Under everything, deeper than anything else +in her feeling about Christina, was a dim repulsion and dislike.</p> + +<p>That Christina had submitted showed in her letters, for Milly, before +many days had passed, wrote kindly and mildly, in the tone which, for +the future, she intended to use towards Christina. Milly surprised +herself with her own calm ruthlessness. She found that the gentle and +the cowardly can, when roused, be more cruel than the harsh and +fearless. Her letters to Christina were serene and impersonal. They +recognised a bond, but they defined its limits. They might have been +letters written to a former governess, with whom her relation had been +kindly but not fond. They never mentioned her husband's name, nor +alluded, even indirectly, to her mistimed love; and to ask Christina's +forgiveness again for her unjust arraignment of her would have been to +allude indirectly to it.</p> + +<p>And Christina's letters made no appeal. They were infrequent, hardly +affectionate; amazingly tactful letters. Milly shrank in recognising how +tactful. It showed Christina's power that she should be so tactful, +should so master herself to a responsive calm. Milly had come to dread +Christina's tact, her patience and her reticence, more than all the +vehemence and passionate upbraidings of former years. Beneath the +careful words she knew that a profound, undying hope lay hidden; pain, +too, profound and undying. The thought of such hope, such pain, made +Milly feel at once the pity and the repulsion.</p> + +<p>In none of Christina's letters was there any mention of her health. +Milly knew how fragile was her hold on life and how much had happened of +late to tax it; but it was with a shock of something unrealisable, +unbelievable, that she read one autumn morning, in a blurred and shaking +hand: "I am very ill—dying, they say. Come to me at once. I must tell +you something."</p> + +<p>Christina dying. She had said that it would kill her. And what had she +not said to Christina that might not well have killed her? Milly was +stricken with dreadful remorse and horror.</p> + +<p>She hastened to London.</p> + +<p>The maid at the door of the little house in Sloane Street told her that +Mrs. Drent was rapidly sinking. Milly read reproach in her simple eyes. +"I did not know! Why was I not told?—Why was I not told?"—she repeated +to the nurse who came to meet her. Mrs. Drent, the nurse said, would not +have her sent for, but during these last few days she had become +slightly delirious and had spoken of something she wished to tell, had, +at last, insisted on writing herself. She could hardly live a day +longer. Heart-failure had made her illness fatal.</p> + +<p>In the sick room, Milly paused at the door. Was that Christina? That +strange face with such phantom eyes? Christina's eyes did not look at +her with reproach or with sorrow, but, it seemed, with terror, a wild, +infectious terror; Milly felt it seize her as she stood, spellbound, by +the door. Then a rush of immense pity and comprehension shook her +through and through. Christina was dying, delirious, and what must she +be feeling in her haunted abandonment and desolation? She ran to the bed +weeping. She knelt beside it. Her tears rained upon Christina's hands, +as she took her in her arms and kissed her. "Christina!—dearest +Christina!—Forgive me! Forgive me!—I did not know!—Why did you not +let me come and nurse you?—I have always nursed you! Why did you not +tell me?—Oh, Christina!"</p> + +<p>Holding her, kissing her, she could not see clearly the illumination +that, at her words, illuminated the dying woman's face. Life seemed +suddenly to leap to her eyes and lips. The terror vanished like a ghost +in the uprising of morning sunlight. With a rapture of hope and yearning +which resumed all her ebbing power, physical and spiritual, she +stretched out her arms and clasped them about Milly's neck. "Do you +love me again?" she asked. Her voice was like a child's in its ecstasy.</p> + +<p>"My darling Christina!—Love you?—Who is there in all the world but +you!" Milly cried. No affirmation could be too strong, she felt, no +atonement too great.</p> + +<p>"Better than you love him?"</p> + +<p>Milly did not even hesitate. Lies were like obstacles hardly seen as, in +the onrush of her remorse and pity, she leaped them.—"Yes,—Yes. You +are everything," she reiterated. "I love you best. It has passed—that +feeling."</p> + +<p>"It has passed! I knew that it would pass!" Christina seemed to gasp and +smile at once. "You know, now, that it was not right;—that it was not +you;—that it was an illness;—something that would pass?—You see it +too, Milly?—And you will be happy with me again?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, dearest Christina."</p> + +<p>Still smiling, Christina closed her eyes and Milly laid her back upon +her pillows. Her fingers closed tightly on Milly's hand. "It has +passed," she said. "It could not have been right. You were everything to +me. And he could not have seen the pictures, the jewels, Milly; or heard +the music."</p> + +<p>"No, dear, no." Milly covered her own eyes. Ah!—those cravings to +which Christina had responded;—now so dead.</p> + +<p>"I shall get better," said Christina. "I feel it now; I know it. I shall +get better and be always with you. My darling. My Milly. My little +Milly." Her voice had sunken to a shrouded whisper.</p> + +<p>Held by those cold, clutching fingers, Milly sat sobbing. Christina +would not get better; and, with horror at herself, she knew that only at +the gates of death could she love Christina and be with her. And, +glancing round at the head on the pillow—ah!—poor head!—Christina's +wonderful head!—more wonderful than ever now, so eager, so doomed, so +white, with all its flood of black, black hair—glancing at its ebony +and marble, she saw that she need have no fear of life. Christina would +not get better.</p> + +<p>She spoke again, brokenly. "If you had loved him, you would have hated +me. Now you will never hate me."</p> + +<p>"I love you."</p> + +<p>"You will not send for him? You will not see him alone? You will stay +with me?"</p> + +<p>"I will stay with you."</p> + +<p>"And be glad with me again."</p> + +<p>"With you again, dear Christina."</p> + +<p>"I shall get better," Christina repeated, turning her head on Milly's +arm. But the disarray of her mind still whispered on in vague +fragments.—"It was not useless.—I was right.—I did not need to tell; +you were mine; I had not lost you."</p> + +<p>A few hours afterwards, her head still turned on Milly's arm, Christina +died.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Sitting alone on a winter day in the library of Chawlton, Milly heard +the sound of a motor outside. Since Christina's death she had shut +herself away, refusing to see anyone, and she listened now with +apathetic interest, expecting to hear the retreating wheels. But the +motor did not move away. Instead, after some delay at the door, steps +crossed the hall, familiar, wonderful, dear and terrible. Dick had +returned.</p> + +<p>All the irony and humiliation of her married life rose before her as she +felt herself trembling, flushing, with the joy and terror. He had come +back; and so he had not guessed. Or was it that he had guessed and yet +was too kind not to come? She had only time to snatch at conjecture, for +Dick was before her.</p> + +<p>Dick's demeanour was as unemphatic as she remembered it always to have +been. It was almost as casual as if he had returned from a day's hunting +merely. Yet there was difference, too, though what it was her hurrying +thoughts could not seize. She felt it as a radiance of pity, warm and +almost vehement.</p> + +<p>"My dear Milly," he said coming to her and taking her hand; "I only +heard yesterday.—I only got back yesterday.—And I felt that I must see +you. I'm not going to bother you in any way. I've only come down for the +afternoon. But I wanted to ask you if I could do anything—help you in +any way, be of any use." In spite of his schooled voice his longing to +see her, his delight in seeing her, showed in his clouded, candid eyes. +Milly felt it as the difference, the vague warmth and radiance.</p> + +<p>"How kind of you, dear Dick," she said, and her poor voice groped vainly +for firmness. "I am so glad to see you. It was good of you to come. Yes; +it has been dreadful. You know;—Christina—our friendship"—But how to +confess to Dick her remorse or explain to Dick why she had left +Christina? Her pride broke. With this human kindness near her, she could +not maintain the decorum of their tangled relations as man and woman; +the simple human relation alone became the most real one; the +loneliness and the grief of a child overwhelmed her. She sank, sobbing +helplessly, into her chair.</p> + +<p>"Oh—Milly!"—said poor Dick Quentyn. And the longing to comfort and +console effacing his diffidence and the memory of her long unkindness +towards himself, he knelt down beside her and took her into his arms.</p> + +<p>Milly then said and did what she could never have believed herself +capable of saying and doing. No pride could hold her from it, no +dignity, not even common shame. She could not keep herself from dropping +her face on his shoulder and sobbing;—"Oh—Dick—try—try to love me +again. I am cold and selfish. I have behaved cruelly to everyone who +loved me;—but I can't bear it any longer."</p> + +<p>It was a startling moment for Dick Quentyn, the most startling of his +life. "Try to love you?" he stammered. He pushed her back to look at +her. "What do you mean, Milly?"</p> + +<p>"What I say," Milly gasped.</p> + +<p>"But what does it mean?" Dick repeated. "It isn't for you to ask me to +love you. You know I love you. You know there's never been another woman +in the world for me but you. It's you who have never loved me, Milly."</p> + +<p>Her appeal had been like a diving under deep waters—she had not known +when or where or how she would come up again. Now she opened her eyes +and stared at her husband. She seemed, after that whirlpool moment of +abysmal shame, to have come up from the further reaches of darkness, and +it was under new, bewildering skies. Strange stars made her dizzy.</p> + +<p>"Then why didn't you come and say good-bye to me—that day—in London +this spring?" was all she found to say.</p> + +<p>Dick was not stupid now. The lover's code was at last open between them, +and he as well as she could read the significance of seemingly trivial +words.</p> + +<p>"Did you expect me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Of course I expected you. I thought you saw how much," said Milly.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think you expected me at all; why should I have thought it? +But I did come. Didn't you know it?" said Dick.</p> + +<p>"You did come?" In its extremity her astonishment was mild.</p> + +<p>"That is to say—I never got there. Mrs. Drent met me. She told me how +you'd gone to sleep, you know. She thought you'd gone to sleep, Milly. +She didn't know you expected me either, you see. It was in the park we +talked, just there by the rhododendrons."</p> + +<p>"She told you I had gone to sleep?—But why did that keep you from +coming?" Milly had suddenly risen to her feet. She had grown pale.</p> + +<p>"Why—it was obvious—you wouldn't want to be disturbed. She said that. +And—everything else. She told me—for I confided in her then—she'd +always been so kind to me; and I thought she might help me—but she told +me how little you cared for me."</p> + +<p>Milly had grasped his shoulder as she stood above him. "What did +Christina tell you? What did she say about me? Let me understand."</p> + +<p>"Why, Milly—what is it?—She told me—I didn't blame you, though it +hurt, most unconscionably—because I'd always believed that, in spite of +everything, you had some sort of kindly feeling for me—as though I'd +been a well-intentioned dog who didn't mean to get in your way—she told +me that I mustn't have any hopes. And she told me that that very winter +you had said to her that you'd feel my death less than that of any of +the men who came to tea with you. Yes, she told me so, Milly—and wasn't +it true?"</p> + +<p>Milly now looked away from him and round at the room, stupor on her +face. "Yes, it was true I said it," she said in the voice of a +sleep-walker. "Yes; I said it, Dick. But it was so long ago. How did she +remember?—And I knew when I said it that it wasn't true."</p> + +<p>"But she thought it was true." Dick now had risen, and he, too, very +pale, looked at his wife.</p> + +<p>"Yes; then, she may have thought it. I wanted her to think it because I +did not want her to guess how much I was getting to care. But, +afterwards—after you had come back—she did not think it then. She +knew, then, everything. She knew before I did. It was she who showed it +to me.—Oh, Dick!—She knew that I loved you—and she kept you from +coming to me!" She was gazing at him now, stupefied, horrified, yet +enraptured. It was of him she thought, her lover, her husband, rather +than of the unhappy woman who had parted them. But Dick still did not +see.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, Milly?" he said. "Kept me from coming? But she loved +you, Milly? She'd given her life to you. You can't mean what you are +saying."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Milly kept her grasp of his shoulder. "It is true. She loved me, +but it was a madness of jealousy. Her love was a prison. I told her so. +We spoke of it all on that day, when she came back from seeing you and +did not tell me that she had seen you. I told her that her love was a +prison and that she had kept you from me, and that I was going to leave +her. And even then she did not tell me. We parted and I did not see her +again until the day she died. She sent for me to come to her. Yes—" her +eyes, deep with joy and horror, were on him.—"That is what she was +going to confess to me; and died without confessing. She kept us apart +because she knew that we loved each other and she could not bear to give +me up."</p> + +<p>They stood in the firelight and he took her hands and they looked at +each other as though, after long wanderings, they had found each other +at last. There would yet be much to tell and to explain, but Dick saw +now what had happened. Only after many moments of grave mutual survey, +did he say, gently, with a sudden acute wonder and pity—"Poor thing."</p> + +<p>"Horrible, oh horrible!" said Milly, leaning her head on his shoulder. +"You might have died away from me—never knowing.—I might never have +seen you again.—Horrible woman!—Horrible love."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing," Dick repeated gently. He kissed his wife's forehead and, +his arm around her;—"I haven't died.—She is dead. I do see you +again.—She doesn't see you. I have got you.—She has lost you."</p> + +<p>Milly still shuddered; she still looked down the black precipice, only +just escaped. "Yes, she has lost me for ever. I wish I did not feel that +I hate her; but I do. It may be cruel, it is cruel. But all that I can +feel for her now is hatred."</p> + +<p>"Ah—but she loved you tremendously. And she's dead," said Dick. "All +that I can feel is that."</p> + +<p>But Milly only said: "I love you all the more for feeling it."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="MISS_JONES_AND_THE_MASTERPIECE" id="MISS_JONES_AND_THE_MASTERPIECE"></a>MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IB" id="CHAPTER_IB"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>"Manon Lescaut," Carrington repeated. He did not show any particular +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Manon Lescaut. I see the thing. It would be really superb."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say, my dear boy, that you are falling into anecdote? +You are not going to degrade your canvas with painted literature?"</p> + +<p>Carrington's voice betrayed some concern, for he took a friendly +interest in my career.</p> + +<p>"The title—a mere label—suggests it. But nothing of the sort. I am +going to paint a portrait of Manon—and of her ilk."</p> + +<p>"A portrait?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; the portrait of a type."</p> + +<p>Carrington smoked on, stretched comfortably in a chair. His feet were on +another chair, and the broad soles of his slippers so displayed implied +ease and intimacy.</p> + +<p>"It will look like the portrait of an actress in character; a costume +picture," he said, presently; "the label isn't suggestive to me."</p> + +<p>"There will, I promise you, be no trace of commonplace realism in it. It +will be Velasquez dashed with Watteau. Can you realize the modest flight +of my imagination? Seriously, Carrington, I intend to paint a +masterpiece. I intend to paint a woman who would sell her soul for +pleasure—a conscienceless, fascinating egotist—a corrupt +charmer—saved by a certain <i>naďveté</i>. The eighteenth century, in fact, +<i>en grisette</i>."</p> + +<p>"Manon rather redeemed herself at the end, if I remember rightly," +Carrington observed.</p> + +<p>"Or circumstances redeemed her, if you will. She had a heart, perhaps; +it never made her uncomfortable. Her love was of the doubtful quality +that flies out of the window as want comes in at the door. Oh! she was a +sweet little <i>scélérate</i>. I shall paint the type—the little +<i>scélérate</i>."</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, everything would depend on the treatment."</p> + +<p>"Everything. I am going to astonish you there, Carrington."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know about that," Carrington said, good-humouredly.</p> + +<p>"I see already the golden gray of her dim white boudoir; the satins, the +laces, the high-heeled shoes, the rigid little waist, and face of pretty +depravity. The face is the thing—the key. Where find the face? I think +of a trip to Paris on purpose. One sees the glancing creature—such as I +have in my mind—there, now and then. I want a fresh pallor, and gay, +lazy eyes—light-brown, not too large."</p> + +<p>"I fancy I know of someone," Carrington said, meditatively. "Not that +she's <i>dans le caractčre</i>," he added: "not at all; anything but +depraved. But—her face; you could select." Carrington mused. "The line +of her cheek is, I remember, mockingly at variance with her staid +innocence of look."</p> + +<p>"Who is she? Manon could <i>look</i> innocent, you know—was so, after a +fashion. I should like a touch of childish <i>insouciance</i>. Who is she, +and how can I get her?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Carrington, taking his pipe from his lips and contemplating +the fine colouring of the bowl, "she's a lady, for one thing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the devil!" I ejaculated; "that won't do!"</p> + +<p>"Well, it might."</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't fancy it. Ill at ease on her account, you know. How could one +tell a lady that she was out of pose—must sit still? How could one pay +her?"</p> + +<p>"Very simple, if she's the real article."</p> + +<p>"I never tried it," I demurred.</p> + +<p>"Well"—Carrington had a soothing way of beginning a sentence—"you +might see her, at least. Her father is a socialist; a very harmless and +unnecessary one, but that accounts for her posing."</p> + +<p>"Do the paternal unconventionalities countenance posing for the +<i>académie</i>? That savors of a really disconcerting latitude."</p> + +<p>"The <i>académie</i>? Dear me, no! Oh, no; Miss Jones is a model of the +proprieties. One indeed can hardly connect her with even such mild +nonconformity as her father's socialism. He was a parson; had religious +scruples, and took to rather aimless humanitarianism and to very +excellent bookbinding in Hampstead. He binds a lot of my books for me; +and jolly good designing and tooling, too. You remember that Petrarch of +mine. That's really how I came to know him. It was the artist in him +that wrestled with and overthrew the parson. He seems a happy old chap; +poor as Job's turkey and absorbed in his work. He has rather longish +hair—wavy, and wears a leather belt and no collar." Carrington added: +"That's the first socialistic declaration of independence—they fling +their collars in the face of conventionality. But the belt and the lack +of collar are the only noticeable traces socialism seems to have left on +Mr. Jones, except that he lets his daughter make money by posing. He +must know about the people, of course. She usually sits for women. But I +can give you a recommendation."</p> + +<p>I felt, to a certain extent, the same lack of enthusiasm that Carrington +himself had shown at the announcement of my "label," but I thanked him, +and said that I should be glad to see Miss Jones.</p> + +<p>"And her mother was French, too," he added, as a cogent afterthought. +"That accounts for the rippled cheek-line." Miss Jones's cheek had +evidently made an emphatic impression. Indeed, Carrington's enthusiasm +seemed to wax on reflection, and, as interpreted by Miss Jones, my Manon +became tangible.</p> + +<p>"How's her colouring?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Pale; her mouth is red, very red; charming figure, nice hands; I +remember them taking up the books—she was dusting the books. I've only +seen her once or twice; but I noticed her, and she struck me as a +type—of something."</p> + +<p>The pale skin and red mouth rather pleased me, and it was arranged that +Carrington should see Mr. Jones, and, if possible, make an appointment +for Miss Jones to call on Monday afternoon at my studio.</p> + +<p>Carrington had rooms next door, in the little court of artists' quarters +in Chelsea.</p> + +<p>Carrington wrote reviews and collected all sorts of expensive things, +chiefly old books and Chinese porcelain. He and I had art-for-art +sympathies, and, being lucky young men from a monetary point of view, we +could indulge our propensities with a happy indifference to success.</p> + +<p>I had painted now for a good many years, both in Paris and in London, +and had a pleasant little reputation among people it was worth while to +please, and a hearty and encouraging philistine opposition. I had even +shocked Mrs. Grundy in an Academy picture which wasn't at all shocking +and was very well painted, and I had aroused controversy in the pages of +the <i>Saturday Review</i>.</p> + +<p>I felt Manon Lescaut.</p> + +<p>This epitome of the soullessness of the eighteenth century whirled in +its satin frivolity through all my waking thoughts.</p> + +<p>On Monday I awaited Miss Jones, fervently hoping that her face would do.</p> + +<p>Punctual to the minute came the young lady's rap at my door. I ushered +her in. She was rather small; and self-possessed, very. In the cut of +her serge frock and the line of her little hat over her eyebrows I +fancied I saw a touch of the mother's nationality. With a most +business-like air she removed this hat, carefully replacing the pins in +the holes they had already traversed, took off her coat (it was +February), and turned to the light. She would do. Evident and delightful +fact! I at once informed her of it. She asked if she should sit that +morning. I said that, as I had sketches to make before deciding on pose +and effect of light, the sooner she would enter upon her professional +duties the better.</p> + +<p>The gown I had already discovered—a <i>trouvaille</i> and genuinely of the +epoch; an enticing pink silk with glowing shadows.</p> + +<p>Miss Jones made no comment on the exquisite thing which I laid lovingly +on her arm. She retired with a brisk, calm step behind the tall screen +in the corner.</p> + +<p>When she reappeared in the dress, the old whites of the muslins at +elbows and breast falling and folding on a skin like milk, I felt my +heart rise in a devout ejaculation of utter contentment. The Manon of my +dreams stood before me. The expression certainly was wanting; I should +have to compass it by analogy. My imagination had grasped it, and I +should realize the type by the aid of Miss Jones's pale face, narrowing +to a chin the French would call <i>mutin</i>, her curled lips and curiously +set eyes, wide apart, and the brows that swept ever so slightly upward. +The very way in which her fair hair grew in a little peak on the +forehead, and curved silky and unrippled to a small knot placed high, +fulfilled my aspirations, though the hair must be powdered and in it the +vibrating black of a bow.</p> + +<p>Miss Jones stood very well, conscientiously and with intelligence. Pose +and effect were soon decided upon, and in a day or two I was regularly +at work, delighting in it, and with a sensation of power and certainty I +had rarely experienced.</p> + +<p>Carrington came in quite frequently, and, looking from my canvas to Miss +Jones, would pronounce the drawing wonderfully felt.</p> + +<p>"Dégas wouldn't be ashamed of the line of the neck," he said. "The turn +and lift of her head as she looks sideways in the mirror is really +<i>émouvant</i>, life; good idea; in character; centred on herself; not bent +on conquest and staring it at you. Manon had not that trait."</p> + +<p>Miss Jones on the stand gazed obediently into the mirror, the dim white +of an eighteenth century boudoir about her. She was altogether a most +<i>posée</i>, well-behaved young person.</p> + +<p>One could not call her manner discreet; it was far too self-confident +for that. Her silence was natural, not assumed. During the rests she +would return to a book.</p> + +<p>I asked her one day what she was reading. She replied, looking up with +polite calm:</p> + +<p>"'Donovan.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" was all I could find in comment. It did rather surprise me in a +girl whose eyes were set in that most appreciative way and whose father, +as a socialistic bookbinder, might have inculcated more advanced +literary tastes. Still, she was very young; this fact seemed emphasized +by the innocent white the back of her neck presented to me as she +returned to her reading.</p> + +<p>When I came to painting, I found that my good luck accompanied me, and +that inspiring sense of mastery. Effort, yes; but achievement followed +it with a sort of inevitableness. I tasted the joys of the arduous +facility which is the fruition of years of toil.</p> + +<p>The limpid grays seemed to me to equal Whistler's; the pinks—flaming in +shadow, silvered in the light—suggested Velasquez to my happy young +vanity; the warm whites, Chardin would have acknowledged; yet they were +all my own, seen through my own eyes, not through the eyes of Chardin, +Whistler, or Velasquez. The blacks sung emphatic or softened notes from +the impertinent knot in the powdered hair to the bows on skirt and +bodice. The rich <i>empâtement</i> was a triumph of supple brush-work. I can +praise it impudently for it was my masterpiece, and—well, I will keep +to the consecutive recital.</p> + +<p>Miss Jones showed no particular fellow-feeling for my work, and as, +after a fashion, she, too, was responsible for it and had a right to be +proud of it, this lack of interest rather irritated me.</p> + +<p>Now and then, poised delicately on high heels and in her rustling robes, +she would step up to my canvas, give it a pleasant but impassive look, +and then turn away, resuming her chair and the perusal of her romance.</p> + +<p>It really irked me after a time. However little value I might set upon +her artistic acumen, this silence in my rose of pride pricked like a +thorn.</p> + +<p>Miss Jones's taste in painting might be as philistine as in literature, +but her reserve aroused conjecture, and I became really anxious for an +expression of opinion.</p> + +<p>At last, one day, my curiosity burst forth:</p> + +<p>"How do you like it?" I asked, while she stood contemplating my +<i>chef-d'œuvre</i> with a brightly indifferent gaze. Miss Jones turned +upon me her agate eyes—the eyelashes curled up at the corners, and it +was difficult not to believe the eyes, too, roguish.</p> + +<p>"I should think you had a great deal of talent," she said. "Have you +studied long?"</p> + +<p>Studied? It required some effort to adjust my thoughts to the standard +implied; but perceiving a perhaps lofty conception of artistic +attainment beneath the query, I replied:</p> + +<p>"Well, an artist is never done learning, is he? And in the sense of +having much to learn, I am still a student, no doubt."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," Miss Jones replied.</p> + +<p>She looked from my picture up at the sky-light, then round at the +various studies, engravings, and photographs on the walls. This +discursive glance was already familiar to me, and its flitting lightness +whetted my curiosity as to possible non-committal depths beneath.</p> + +<p>"Inspiration, now," Miss Jones pursued, surprising me a good deal, for +she seldom carried on a subject unprompted, "that of course, is not +dependent on study."</p> + +<p>I felt in this remark something very derogatory to my Manon—an +inspiration, and in the best sense, if ever anything was. Did Miss Jones +not recognize the intellectual triumphs embodied in that presentment of +frail woman-hood? I was certainly piqued, though I replied very +good-humouredly:</p> + +<p>"I had rather flattered myself that my picture could boast of that +quality."</p> + +<p>Miss Jones's glance now rested on me rather seriously.</p> + +<p>"An inspired work of art should elevate the mind."</p> + +<p>I could not for the life of me tell whether she was really rather clever +or merely very banal and commonplace.</p> + +<p>"I had hoped," I rejoined, politely, "that my picture—as a beautiful +work of art—would also possess that faculty."</p> + +<p>Miss Jones now looked at the clock, and remarked that it was time to +pose. She mounted the low stand and I resumed my palette and brushes, +feeling decidedly snubbed. Carrington sauntered in shortly after, his +forefinger in a book and a pipe between his teeth. He apologized to Miss +Jones for the latter, and wished to know if she objected. Miss Jones's +smile retained all its unabashed clearness as she replied:</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a rather nasty smell, I think."</p> + +<p>Poor Carrington, decidedly disconcerted, knocked out his pipe and laid +it down, and Miss Jones, observing him affably while she retained her +pose to perfection, added: "I have been brought up to disapprove of +smoking, you see; papa doesn't believe in tobacco."</p> + +<p>Miss Jones's aplomb was certainly enough to make any man feel awkward, +and Carrington looked so as he came up beside me and examined my work.</p> + +<p>"By Jove! Fletcher," he said, "the resemblance is astonishing—<i>and</i> the +lack of resemblance. That's the triumph—the material likeness, the +spiritual unlikeness."</p> + +<p>Indeed, Miss Jones could lay no claim to the "inspiration" of my work; +in intrinsic character the face of my pretty <i>scélérate</i> was in no way +Miss Jones's.</p> + +<p>"Charming, charming," and Carrington's eye, passing from my canvas, +rested on Miss Jones.</p> + +<p>"Which?" I asked, smiling, and, of course, in an undertone.</p> + +<p>"It depends, my dear boy, on whether you ask me if I prefer Phryne or +Priscilla—pagan or puritan; both are interesting types, and the +contrast can be very effectually studied here in your picture and your +model."</p> + +<p>"Yet Priscilla lends herself wonderfully to be interpreted as Phryne."</p> + +<p>"Or, rather, it is wonderful that you should have imagined Manon into +that face."</p> + +<p>In the next rest, when Carrington had gone, Miss Jones said:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Carrington walked home with me yesterday. Papa thinks rather highly +of him. It is a pity his life should be so pointless."</p> + +<p>It began to be borne in upon me that Miss Jones had painfully serious +ethical convictions.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you mean from the socialistic standpoint," I said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—not at all; I am not a socialist. Papa and I agree to differ +upon that as upon many other questions. Socialism, I think, tends to +revolt and license."</p> + +<p>I did not pursue the subject of Carrington's pointlessness nor proffer +a plea for socialism. I was beginning to wince rather before Miss +Jones's frankness.</p> + +<p>On the following day she again came and stood before my picture.</p> + +<p>"I posed for Mr. Watkins, R.A., last year," she said. "The picture was +in the Academy. Did you see it? It was beautiful."</p> + +<p>The mere name of Mr. Watkins ("R.A.") made every drop of ćsthetic blood +in my body curdle. A conscienceless old prater of the soap and salve +school, with not as much idea of drawing or value as a two-year +Julianite.</p> + +<p>"I don't quite remember," I said, rather faintly; "what was—the picture +called?"</p> + +<p>"'Faith Conquers Fear,'" said Miss Jones. "I posed as a Christian +maiden, you know, tied to a stake in the Roman amphitheatre and waiting +martyrdom. The maiden was in a white robe, her hair hanging over her +shoulders (perhaps you would not recognize me in this costume), looking +up, her hands crossed on her breast. Before her stood a jibing Roman. +One could see it all; the contrast between the base product of a vicious +civilization and the noble maiden. One could read it all in their faces; +hers supreme aspiration, his brutal hatred. It was superb. It made one +want to cry."</p> + +<p>Miss Jones, while speaking, looked so exceedingly beautiful that I +almost forgot my dismay at her atrocious taste; for Watkins's "Faith +Conquers Fear" had been one of the jokes of the year—a lamentably +crude, pretentious presentation of a theatrical subject reproduced +extensively in ladies' papers and fatally popular.</p> + +<p>At the same moment, and as I looked from Miss Jones's gravely enrapt +expression to Manon's seductive graces, I experienced a sensation of +extreme discomfort.</p> + +<p>"I think a picture should have high and noble aims," Miss Jones pursued, +seeing that I remained silent, and evidently considering the time come +when duty required her to speak and to speak freely. "A picture should +leave one better for having seen it."</p> + +<p>I could not ignore the kind but firmly severe criticism implied; I could +not but revolt from this Hebraistic onslaught.</p> + +<p>"I don't admit a conscious moral aim in art," I said. "Art need only +concern itself with being beautiful and interesting; the rest will +follow. But a badly-painted picture certainly makes me feel wicked, and +when I go to the National Gallery to have a look at the Velasquezes and +Veroneses I feel the better for it."</p> + +<p>"Velasquez?" Miss Jones repeated. "Ah, well, I prefer the old masters—I +mean those who painted religious subjects as no one since has painted +them. Why did not Velasquez, at least, as he could not rise to the +ideal, paint beautiful people? I never have been able to care for mere +ugliness, however cleverly copied."</p> + +<p>I felt buffeted by her complacent crudity.</p> + +<p>"Velasquez had no soul," she added.</p> + +<p>"No soul! Why he paints life, character, soul, everything! Copied! What +of his splendid decorativeness, his colour, his atmosphere?" My +ejaculations left her calm unruffled.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but all that doesn't make the world any better," she returned, +really with an air of humouring a silly materialism; and as she went +back to her pose she added, very kindly, for my face probably revealed +my injured feelings:</p> + +<p>"You see I have rather serious views of life."</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones—really!" I laid down my palette. "I must beg of you to +believe that I have, too—very serious."</p> + +<p>Gently Miss Jones shook her head, looking, not at me, but down into the +mirror. This effect of duty fulfilled, even in opposition, was most +characteristic.</p> + +<p>"I cannot believe it," she said, "else why, when you have facility, +talent, and might employ them on a higher subject, do you paint a mere +study of a vain young lady?"</p> + +<p>This interpretation of Manon startled me, so lacking was it in +comprehension.</p> + +<p>"Manon Lescaut was more than a vain young lady, Miss Jones."</p> + +<p>"Well," Miss Jones lifted her eyes for a moment to smile quietly, +soothingly at me. "I am not imputing any wrong to Miss Manon Lescaut; I +merely say that she is vain. A harmless vanity no doubt, but I have +posed for other characters, you see!" Her smile was so charming in its +very fatuity that the vision of her lovely face, vulgarized and +unrecognizable in "Faith Conquers Fear," filled me with redoubled +exasperation. Her misinterpretation of Manon stirred a certain deepening +of that touch of discomfort—a sickly unpleasantness. I found myself +flushing.</p> + +<p>Miss Jones's white hand—the hand that held the mirror with such beauty +in taper finger-tips and turn of wrist—fell to her side, and she fixed +her eyes on me with quite a troubled look.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I have hurt your feelings," she said; "I am very sorry. I +always speak my mind out; I never think that it may hurt. It is very +dull in me."</p> + +<p>At these words I felt that unpleasant stir spring suddenly to a guilty +misery. I felt, somehow, that I was a shameful hypocrite, and Miss Jones +a priggish but most charming and most injured angel.</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones," I said, much confused, "sincerity cannot really hurt me, +and I always respect it. I am sorry, very sorry, that you see no more in +my picture. I care for your good opinion" (this was certainly, in a +sense, a lie, and yet, for the moment, that guilty consciousness upon +me, I believed it), "and I hope that though my picture has not gained +it, I, personally, may never forfeit it."</p> + +<p>Still looking at me gravely, Miss Jones said:</p> + +<p>"I don't think you ever will. That is a very manly, a very noble way of +looking at it."</p> + +<p>But the thought of Manon Lescaut now tormented me. I had finished the +head; my preoccupation could not harm that; but this lovely face looking +into the mirror, with soulless, happy eyes, seemed to slide a smile at +me, a smile of malicious comprehension, a smile of <i>nous nous +entendons</i>, a smile that made a butt of Miss Jones's innocence and +laughed with me at the joke.</p> + +<p>I soon found myself rebelling against Manon's intrusion. I wished to +assure her that we had nothing in common and that, in Miss Jones's +innocence, I found no amusing element.</p> + +<p>That evening Carrington came in. He wore a rather absorbed look, and +only glanced at my picture. After absent replies to my desultory +remarks, he suddenly said, from his chair:</p> + +<p>"I walked home with Miss Jones this afternoon." Carrington, with his +ultra-ćsthetic sensibilities, must find Miss Jones even more jarring +than I did, and his act implied a very kindly interest.</p> + +<p>"That was nice of you," I observed, though at the mention of Miss Jones +that piercing stab of shame again went through me, and my eyes +unwillingly, guiltily sought the eyes of my smiling Manon.</p> + +<p>"She was rather troubled about something she had said," Carrington +pursued, ignoring my approbation, "about the picture. Of course she +doesn't know anything about pictures."</p> + +<p>"No," I murmured, "she doesn't."</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" added Carrington, "that's the trouble. She doesn't understand +anything!"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I mean that she could never see certain things from our +standpoint; she is as ignorant and as innocent as a baby. She's never +read 'Manon Lescaut'—that came out <i>en passant</i>—and, by Jove, you +know, it <i>does</i> seem a beastly shame! A girl like that! A snow-drop!"</p> + +<p>Carrington cast a look of unmistakable resentment at my poor Manon.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, lamely—indeed I felt maimed—"how was I to know? And +what am I to do?"</p> + +<p>"Why, my dear fellow," and Carrington spoke with some fierceness, +"you've nothing to do with it! <i>I'm</i> to blame! I told you about her. +Said she had the type! Dull, blundering fool that I was not to have seen +the shrieking incongruity! The rigidly upright soul of her! That girl +couldn't tell a lie nor look one; and <i>Manon</i>!"</p> + +<p>Carrington got up abruptly; evidently his disgust could not be borne in +a quiescent attitude.</p> + +<p>"You said at the first that her face was innocent," I suggested, in a +feeble effort to mitigate this self-scorn; "we neither of us misjudged +the girl for a moment, though we overlooked her ignorance."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and her ignorance makes all the difference. Another girl—as good, +to all intents and purposes—might know and not object; but this one! I +really believe it would half kill her!"</p> + +<p>Carrington gave another savage glance at my unlucky picture, and his +gaze lingered on it as he added:</p> + +<p>"If it's kept from her, all's well—as well as a lie can be."</p> + +<p>And then, if only for a moment, the Greek gained its triumph over this +startling exhibition of Hebraism.</p> + +<p>"It is a masterpiece!" said Carrington, slowly, adding abruptly as he +went, "Good-night!"</p> + +<p>But my night was very bad. Whatever Miss Jones might say or think, I +<i>did</i> take life seriously.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIB" id="CHAPTER_IIB"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>A few days followed in which Miss Jones showed herself to me in a sweet +and softened mood, the mood that wishes to make amends for salutary +harshness. My meekness under reproof had evidently won her approbation. +In the rests she talked to me. She gave me her opinions upon many +subjects, and very admirable they were and very commonplace. One thing +about Miss Jones, however, was not commonplace. She would certainly +act up to her opinions. Her sense of duty was enormous; but she bore +it pleasantly, albeit seriously. She had a keen <i>flair</i> for +responsibilities. I began to suspect that she had assumed my moral +well-being as one of them.</p> + +<p>Her priggishness was so unconscious—so sincere, if one may say so—that +it staggered me. Her calmly complacent truisms confounded any subtleties +by marching over them—utterly ignoring them. One could not argue with +her, for she was so sublimely sure of herself that she made one doubt +the divine right of good taste, and wonder if flat-footed stupidity were +not right after all.</p> + +<p>And, above all, however questionable her mental attributes might be, her +moral worth was certainly awe-inspiring. The clear, metallic +flawlessness of her conscience seemed to glare in one's eyes, and poor +everyday manhood shrunk into itself, painfully aware of spots and +fissures.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Miss Jones said, leaning back in her incongruous robes; "yes, the +longer I live the more I feel that, as Longfellow says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Life is real, life is <i>earnest</i>."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She emphasized the quotation with solemnity: "We can't trifle with our +lives; we can't play through them. We must <i>live</i> them. We must make +something of them."</p> + +<p>"Each man after his own nature," I suggested, feebly, for I felt sure +that "we can't <i>paint</i> through them" was implied, and wished to turn +from that issue, with which I felt myself incapable of grappling.</p> + +<p>But Miss Jones was not to be balked of her moral.</p> + +<p>"We build our own characters," she said, and her look held kind warning. +"We must not act after our own nature if that nature is base or +trivial."</p> + +<p>"I know," I murmured.</p> + +<p>"It is only by holding firmly to an ideal that we rise, step by step, +beyond our lower selves."</p> + +<p>Beyond "Manon Lescaut" to "Faith Conquers Fear" this might mean.</p> + +<p>"And ideals we must have," she pursued. Then rising, her little air of +guide and counsellor touched with a smile: "But I must not preach too +much, must I?"</p> + +<p>It was comforting to dwell on the ludicrous aspects of this mentorship, +for, when my thoughts led me to a contemplation of Miss Jones's ideals, +I felt my position to be meanly hypocritical, if not "base." Manon was +almost finished. Ah! it was superb!—but even my joy in Manon rankled +and had lost its savour. Manon was there under false pretences, her +presence a subtle insult to Miss Jones. Miss Jones in her flaming gown +took on symbolical meanings. An unconscious martyr wearing, did she but +know it, the veritable robe of Nessus! A sense of protectorship, tender +in its self-reproach, grew upon me—a longing for atonement. I had +sacrificed Miss Jones to my masterpiece, and its beauty was baleful, +vampire-like.</p> + +<p>It was indeed a small thing to take Miss Jones's homilies humbly. +Indeed, for this humility I could claim no element of expiation, for I +really liked to hear her; she looked so pretty when she talked. It was +all so touching and so amusing.</p> + +<p>I am not sure that she had read Dante, but if she had she no doubt saw +herself something in the guise of a Beatrice stooping from heights of +wisdom to support my straying, faltering footsteps. She brought me one +day a feeble little volume of third-rate verse, with a page turned down +at a passage she requested me to read. The badly constructed lines, +their grandiloquent sentimentality, jarred on me; but in them I +perceived a complimentary application that might imply much +encouragement. Miss Jones evidently thought that I was rising step by +step, and put this cordial to my lips. I thanked her very +earnestly—feeling positively shrivelled—and then, turning from the +subject with a haste I hoped she might impute to modesty—and indeed +modesty of a certain humiliating kind did form part of it—I told her +that Manon would only require another sitting after that day.</p> + +<p>"Ah! is it finished, then?"</p> + +<p>She went to look at it.</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> my left eye as indistinct as that?" she asked, playfully. "Can't +you see my eyelashes? That is impressionism, I suppose." I felt my +forehead growing hot.</p> + +<p>"The left eye is in shadow," I observed.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid shadows are convenient sometimes, aren't they? I like just +a plain, straight-forward telling of the truth, with no green paint over +it! You accept a little well-meant teasing, don't you?"</p> + +<p>I accepted it as I had to accept her various revelations of stupefying +obtuseness, and smiled over the sandy mouthful.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she pursued, carefully looking up and down the canvas—certainly +a new sign of interest in me and my work—"you will need quite two days +to finish it; the hands especially, they are rather sketchy about the +finger-tips." She might have been a genial old professor giving me +advice mingled with the good-humored <i>raillerie</i> of superiority. The +hands were finished; but I kept a cowardly silence.</p> + +<p>"And the dress must be a good bit more distinctly outlined; I can't see +<i>where</i> it goes on this side; and then the details of the background—I +can hardly tell what those dashes and splashes on the dressing-table are +supposed to represent."</p> + +<p>"I think you are standing a little too near the canvas," I said, in a +voice which I strove to free from a tone of patient long-suffering. "If +you go farther away, you will get the effect of the <i>ensemble</i>."</p> + +<p>"No, no!" she laughed; she evidently thought that her ethical +relationship justified an equally frank ćsthetic helpfulness, and her +air of competence was bewildering. "No, we must not run away from the +truth! A smudge is a smudge from whatever standpoint one looks at it, +and a smear a smear."</p> + +<p>The masterly treatment of porcelains, ivories, and silver on the +dressing-table, glimmering and gleaming from the soft shadows, to be +qualified in such terms!</p> + +<p>"You are rather severe," I said. My discomfort was apparent, but she +naturally took it to be on my own behalf, not, as it was, on hers.</p> + +<p>"Oh! you mustn't think <i>that</i>! I hope I am never unduly severe. You will +easily mend matters to-day and to-morrow and polish over that rather +careless look. And, as far as that goes, I am at your service as long as +you need me."</p> + +<p>"As model <i>and</i> critic," I observed, with a touch of bitterness.</p> + +<p>"As model <i>and</i> critic," she repeated, brightly. "Do you know," she +added, mounting the stand, "I found 'Manon Lescaut' on a bookshelf this +morning. I didn't know that it was a French book. I am going to read it +this evening."</p> + +<p>I was struck dumb. This possibility had never presented itself to me.</p> + +<p>"I shall find the scene you have painted," she continued, looking down +at her gown and patting a fold into place; "I shall see whether you have +illustrated it conscientiously."</p> + +<p>"The book wouldn't interest you at all! Not at all!" I burst out, +conscious of a feverish intensity in the gaze I bent upon her. "It +is—it is decidedly <i>dull</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Miss Jones, indifferently. "Now I can't quite believe +that. You evidently didn't think it too dull to illustrate. There must +be some nice bits in it, and I mean to find the bit where the heroine, +in a pink silk gown, looks at herself in a mirror."</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll find no such bit. I haven't illustrated it!" I strove to +keep my voice fairly cool. "I merely took the heroine's name as +indicative of a class, and chose the epoch as characteristic. The book +is dull, old-fashioned."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I might not agree with you there. Is it an historical novel? I +like them, even if they are rather slow. One gets all sorts of ideas +about people of another age."</p> + +<p>"It isn't historical." Despite my efforts my voice was growing sharply +anxious, and Miss Jones was beginning to notice my anxiety. "And the +characters in it are not people you would care to have ideas about. It +is merely one of the first attempts to write a psychological study, in +the form of romance, made in France."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but that is exceedingly interesting."</p> + +<p>"You would only find the rather crude analysis of a—a disagreeable +girl."</p> + +<p>"You think <i>I</i> am like a disagreeable girl, then!" said Miss Jones, +still laughing. "From the first I have had a bit of a grudge against you +for finding me so suitable. I am sure I am not vain."</p> + +<p>"Manon was more than vain. She was heartless, a liar." I felt myself +stumbling from bad to worse. "Not in the least like you in anything, +except that she was beautiful." My explanation, with this bald piece of +tasteless flattery, had hardly helped matters. Indeed, Miss Jones became +rather coldly silent. I painted on, my mind in a disturbing whirl of +conjecture. I felt convinced that I had merely whetted her curiosity and +that she would go straight home to the perusal of "Manon"; and to +expect from her the faintest literary appreciation of the distinction +and the delicacy of the book was hopeless. She would fasten with horror +on the brazen immorality of a character she had been chosen to embody. +The blood surged up to my head as I painted.</p> + +<p>As Miss Jones was preparing to go, I held out my hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," I said, feeling very badly.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye? Am I not coming to-morrow?" She had paused in the act of +neatly folding her umbrella, which had been thoughtfully left open to +dry while she posed. It had now stopped raining.</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes, of course," I stammered.</p> + +<p>She secured the elastic band, and then looked at me.</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones," I blurted out, abruptly, "don't read 'Manon Lescaut'; +please don't."</p> + +<p>Her glance became severely penetrating:</p> + +<p>"I really don't understand you," she said, and then added: "I most +certainly shall read it."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you do"—my urgent tone delayed her going—"try to judge it +from an artistic standpoint, you know. A study—a type. Don't +apply—ah—<i>modern</i> standards."</p> + +<p>"I shall apply <i>my</i> standards. I know no other method of judging a +book."</p> + +<p>"Well, then,"—my manner was becoming pitiful—"remember that the +physical resemblance between you was merely in my imagination."</p> + +<p>"I have always believed the face indicative of the character, and I'm +sorry that mine should have suggested to you the character of a liar," +said Miss Jones. It was evident that already she was hurt and, +disregarding my reiterated "It did not! It did not! upon my honour," she +opened the door to go. I still detained her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones," I said, standing before her, "I know that you are going to +misjudge me, and that, because you see certain things from an ethical +and I from a purely ćsthetic point of view."</p> + +<p>"I can't admit the division. But no; I hope I shall never <i>misjudge</i> +you." She gave me a brief little smile and walked quickly away.</p> + +<p>Carrington did not come in that evening, and I was glad that my mental +anguish had no observer.</p> + +<p>The next afternoon at two I awaited Miss Jones. My picture, virtually +finished, stood regally dominant in the centre of the studio.</p> + +<p>I hated and I adored it. I saw it with Miss Jones's eyes and I saw it +with my own; but her crude ethics had, on the whole, poisoned my +ćsthetic triumph.</p> + +<p>At two there came the familiar rap. Miss Jones entered. I was sitting +before the picture and rose to meet her. Her face was very white and +very cold, and from under the tipped brim of the little hat her eyes +looked sternly at me. I looked back at her silently.</p> + +<p>"I have read 'Manon Lescaut,'" said Miss Jones. I found nothing to say.</p> + +<p>"You will understand that I cannot sit to-day. You will understand that +I never should have sat for you at all had I <i>known</i>," Miss Jones +pursued.</p> + +<p>I said that I understood.</p> + +<p>"I have come to-day to bring you back the money that I have earned under +false pretences."</p> + +<p>She laid the little packet down upon the table. I turned white. "And to +ask you"—here Miss Jones observed me steadily—"whether you do not feel +that you owe me apologies."</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones," I said, "I have unwittingly, unintentionally, given you +great pain; that, with my present knowledge of your exceptional +character, I now see to have been inevitable. I humbly beg your pardon +for it, but I also beg you to believe that from the first I never +thought of you but with respect and admiration."</p> + +<p>Miss Jones's face took on quite a terrible look.</p> + +<p>"Respect! Admiration! While you were looking from me to <i>that</i>!" She +pointed to Manon. "While I was clothing your imagination, personifying +to you that vile creature!"</p> + +<p>I tried to stop her with an exclamation of shocked denial, but she went +on, with fierce dignity:</p> + +<p>"Exceptional! You call it exceptional to feel debased by that +association? Can I ever look at my face again without thinking: 'The +face of Manon Lescaut?' Can I ever forget that we were thought of as +one? No"—she held up her hand—"let me speak. Do you suppose I cannot +see now the cleverness, yes, the diabolical cleverness, of your picture +of me there? The likeness is horrible; and there I shall stand for the +world to gaze at as long as the canvas lasts and as long as people look +at any pictures. There <i>I</i> shall be, gibbeted in that woman's smile! No, +I have not done! There will be no escape possible. Somewhere—I shall +always feel it like a hot iron searing me—somewhere that other I will +be all my life long, and when I am dead, and for centuries perhaps, she +will smile on, and my image will be looked at as a type of vice! I see +it now," and with a sort of grandeur of revelation she turned upon +Manon, "I see that it is a masterpiece!"</p> + +<p>I placed myself between her and it.</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones," I said, "this is rather a supreme moment for me, more +supreme than you will ever understand. I forgot you for my picture; I +will not forget my picture for you." The icy fire of her eyes followed +me while I went to the table and took up a sharp, long dagger which lay +beside the little packet of money. I returned to the picture and, giving +it one long look, I ripped the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Jones +made neither sound nor sign. With dogged despair I pierced the smiling +face, I hacked and rent the exquisite thing. The rose-coloured tatters +fell forward; in five minutes "Manon Lescaut" was dead, utterly +annihilated, and Miss Jones surveyed the place where she had been. I +turned to her, and I have no doubt that my face expressed my exultant +misery.</p> + +<p>"And now!" I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Miss Jones, looking solemnly at me, "you have done right, +you have done <i>nobly</i>, and you will be the happier for it."</p> + +<p>"Shall I?" I said, approaching her. "Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I can confidently say it. That bad thing would have poisoned your +life as it would have poisoned mine." I ignored the misstatement.</p> + +<p>"Miss Jones," I said, "for your sake I have destroyed the best thing in +my life; may I hope for a better? I love you."</p> + +<p>Her pale and beautiful face looked very little less calm, but certainly +a little dismayed, certainly a little sorry.</p> + +<p>"The best thing has been this act of sacrifice," she said; "don't spoil +that by any weak regret. You have gained my admiration and my respect; +but for better things, if better there are, I accepted Mr. Carrington +last night."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Perhaps I don't regret. Though she was a prig, I had loved her in the +half hour's exaltation. I am certainly not sorry that she married +Carrington. They seem to be very happy. But the chivalrous moment was +worth while—perhaps. However that may be, since then I have never +painted anything as good as Manon Lescaut.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Other_Books_by_Anne_Douglas_Sedgwick" id="Other_Books_by_Anne_Douglas_Sedgwick"></a>Other Books by Anne Douglas Sedgwick</h2> + + +<h3>TANTE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>A masterpiece of character creation and delineation, the +fascinating story of a woman of genius, whose genius is matched +only by her wayward temperament.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>The story, exquisitely told, of two men and two women, and of +the unraveling of their strangely tangled love-affairs.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>AMABEL CHANNICE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"For poignancy of emotional effect few love romances equal this +drama, wherein the love of mother and son is raised to its +height of heroic possibility."</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>A FOUNTAIN SEALED</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"To have known and loved Valerie Upton, even in a book, is to +have added a new store of sweetness to one's life. In the wide +range of modern fiction, one cannot recall a feminine figure of +such immense attractiveness."—<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE SHADOW OF LIFE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>A study of love's psychology, with, in the beginning, a most +exquisite picturing of two children—later lovers—and their +life in the Scottish open.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>PATHS OF JUDGEMENT</h3> + +<blockquote><p>As unusual as all of Anne Douglas Sedgwick's novels, notable +for its penetrating and beautiful character portrayal.</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE RESCUE</h3> + +<blockquote><p>The plot turns upon the question of heredity. "It is a long +time since a story of character so distinct, so searching, and +so convincing has appeared."</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA</h3> + +<blockquote><p>A modern "Taming of the Shrew."</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>THE DULL MISS ARCHINARD</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"Anne Douglas Sedgwick is a finished writer. Her work is as +characteristic of people, places, and things of to-day as is +Jane Austen's of her day."</p></blockquote> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nest, The White Pagoda, The +Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEST *** + +***** This file should be named 33519-h.htm or 33519-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/5/1/33519/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, H. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and The Masterpiece + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +Release Date: August 23, 2010 [EBook #33519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEST *** + + + + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, H. V., Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE NEST + +THE WHITE PAGODA + +THE SUICIDE + +A FORSAKEN TEMPLE + +MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE + +BY ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK + +(MRS. BASIL DE SELINCOURT) + +AUTHOR OF "TANTE," "FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE," "A FOUNTAIN SEALED," "THE +SHADOW OF LIFE," ETC. + + +NEW YORK +THE CENTURY CO. +1913 + +Copyright, 1902, 1904, 1912, 1913, by +The Century Co. + +Copyright, 1898, by Charles Scribner's Sons + +_Published, January, 1913_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +It seemed suitable, when making a selection of short stories for +publication in book form, to include my first attempt with my last, and +therefore the very juvenile production--"Miss Jones and the +Masterpiece"--finds a place with the others. + +My thanks are due to the Editors of the _Century Magazine_, _Scribners' +Magazine_, and the _English Review_, for allowing me to republish the +stories that appeared in their pages. + +_November, 1912._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE NEST + +THE WHITE PAGODA + +THE SUICIDE + +A FORSAKEN TEMPLE + +MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE + + + + +THE NEST + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +He seemed to have had no time for thinking before he sank into a corner +of the railway carriage and noted, with a satisfaction under the +circumstances perhaps trivial, that he would have it to himself for the +swift hour down to the country. Satisfactions of any sort seemed +inappropriate, an appanage that he should have left behind him for ever +on stepping from the great specialist's door in Wimpole Street two hours +ago. When a man has but a month--at most two months--to live, small +hopes and fears should drop from him: he should be stripped, as it were, +for the last solitary wrestle in the arena of death. + +But the drive, from the doctor's to the city and from there to +Paddington, had seemed unusually full of life's solicitations. The soft, +strained eyes of an over-laden horse, appealing in patience from the +shade of dusty blinkers; the dismal degradation of a music-hall +poster--a funny man with reddened nose and drunken hat, as appealing in +his slavery as the horse; the vaporous blue-green silhouettes of the +Park on a silvery sky;--he had found himself responding to these with +pity, repugnance and pleasure as normally as if they meant for him now +what they always would have meant. That such impressions were so soon to +cease must change all their meaning,--at least, so one would have +supposed; he began to think of that and to wonder a little over the +apparent stoicism of those intervening hours; but, while the mood had +lasted, the fact that he had come to the end of things, that there was a +pit dug across his path, had done hardly more than skim on the outskirts +of his alert yet calm receptivity. He seemed never to have noticed more, +never to have been more conscious of the outer world and so little +conscious of himself. + +Now, in the train, the outer world, wraith-like in a sudden summer +shower, became the background as it sped on either side, and thoughts +were in the foreground, thoughts of himself as doomed, and of the life +that he had loved and worked in, as measured into one shallow cupful at +his lips. Even yet it was almost absurd, the difficulty he found in +realising it. The doomed figure detached itself, became that of a +piteous, a curious alien, whom one watched respectfully and from a +distance. From a safe shore he observed the tossing of the rapidly +sinking skiff with its helpless occupant. It required a great pull, +push, and effort of his whole being, like that of awakening from a +half-dream, in order to see, in order to say to himself, really +believing it, that he was the man. Wonder, rather than dread or sorrow, +was still the paramount feeling, though, oppressively, as if he picked +his steps about the verge of an echoing cavern, turning away his eyes, +there lurked behind all that he felt the sense of sudden emptiness and +dark. + +It was wonderful, immensely absorbing and interesting, this idea of +being himself doomed. Self-conscious, observant, sensitive as he was, he +still thought more than felt. It was at last credible and indubitable +that he _was_ the man, and he was asking himself how he would take it; +he was asking himself how he would bear it. He was amused to observe +that the pathetic old human vanity, by no means stunned, was pushing its +head above the tossing surface in order to assure him again and again +that he would bear it very well. It should be a graceful and gallant +exit. If there were to be dark moments, moments when the cavern sucked +him in and had him, if he was to know horror and despair, no one else, +at all events, should know that he knew them; no one else should share +his suffering. Up to the edge of extinction he would keep silence and a +stoic cheerfulness. The doctor had promised him that there would be +little pain; there would be knowledge only to conceal. + +This vanity, and there was satisfaction in it for all his ironic +insight, was not so selfish as it seemed; the next turn of thought led +him to this. For no one had a right to share his suffering; or perhaps +it would be more magnanimous to say that the some one of whom he was +thinking had a right to be spared the sharing of it. He shared so few of +the things that mattered with Kitty that she might well claim immunity. +His wife's figure, since the very beginning, had been hovering near his +thoughts, not once looked at directly. It might be horribly painful to +look at it, but he suspected that it would not be so painful as to look +at the other near thing that he must leave behind: his work; the work +that with all its grind and routine--so hard to harness to at first--had +now become so much a part of himself. The fact that he might come nearer +to despair, nearer to the crumbling edge of the cavern, when he thought +of leaving his work than when he thought of leaving his wife, was in +itself a pain; but it was an old pain in a new guise. Kitty had for so +long been one of the things that counted for less than his work. Vanity +even raised its voice high enough to say ruefully that they might get on +badly without him at the Home Office; the country itself might suffer. +He smiled; but the dart told; it was perhaps feathered with truth. Yes, +everything most essential in him, everything that most counted, was +answered, called forth in his work. It was in that that he would most +truly die. For, of course, in the many other, the young, the ardent, the +foolish hopes, he was dead already. And it was round the figure of his +wife, that light and radiant figure, sweet, soft, appealing, that those +dead hopes seemed to gather, like mist about a flower. + +Poor, lovely little Kitty: the sight of the rain-dimmed meadow-sweet, by +the brookside in a passing field, brought her before him in this aspect +of innocent disillusioner. For nothing essential, nothing that counted +in him, was answered or called forth by Kitty except a slightly ironic +tenderness. He didn't judge life from his own failure to find splendid +mutual enterprise and sacred mutual comprehension where his lover's +blindness had thought to find it. Nor did he judge Kitty. His own +blindness was the fault, if fault there were, and even that blindness he +could now see tolerantly. The dart and pang had gone from his memory of +young love; his smile for it was indulgent; he was even glad that the +memory was there, glad that he had known the illusion, even if it were +at the price of failure in that happy realm of life. Little of the +sadness could have been Kitty's; she had not known the bitterness of his +slow awakening; she was easily contented with the tame terms of +unillumined life. A charming home; a fond husband; a pretty, diligent +part to play in the political and social life of the countryside; the +nicest taste to show in dress and friends;--Kitty, he imagined, thought +of her life as completely successful. And why not? He himself saw love +as an episode and contentedly accepted the fact that for the flower-like +woman and the man who works there can be, eventually, no deeper bond. + +He knew two or three other women who interested him more than Kitty ever +could; to them he went when he wanted to talk about anything he cared +for. Kitty was sweet to see; she made him very comfortable; she rarely +irritated him. With friends and Kitty what did he want of women more? +Outside these domestic and drawing-room circles was the world of men and +ideas in which he lived, in which his real life had its roots. + +Yet, as the train neared the little country station, as familiar lanes +and meadows glided slowly past the windows, he became aware that his +thoughts had more and more slid from this outside life, this world of +work and reality, and that from thinking of the little part that Kitty +played in it he had come to thinking of Kitty and to the thought that he +was to see her for the last time.--Yes; that crashed in at last. At last +something seemed to come to him which, in the pain of it, was completely +adequate to the situation. It was the Kitty of six years ago that he saw +most clearly, the girl he had fallen in love with, his bride; but there +were all the other memories too, the little silent memories, the +nothings, the everythings of daily life together; small joys, small +sorrows. The breakfast-table, Kitty behind the coffee, reading aloud to +him some scrap of her morning budget; the garden, Kitty showing him how +a new flower was thriving; Kitty riding beside him in the dew to an +early meet; and, suddenly, among all the trivial memories, the solemn +one that hardly seemed to go with Kitty at all,--Kitty's face looking up +at him, disfigured with grief and pain, as he told her that their +child--it had died at birth--was dead. + +The other women, the interesting ones, the women who, more or less, knew +their way about his mind and soul, were forgotten, blotted out +completely by the trivial and the solemn memories. He felt no desire to +see them, no desire at all to say good-bye to them; that would be to +bring them near. But he did want to see Kitty, at once. She was not near +mind or soul; but she was near as life is near; near like the pulse of +his heart; and, with all the other things, he felt, suddenly, that Kitty +was his child, too, and that paternal yearning was mingled with the +crying out of his whole nature towards her. For it was crying out; and, +if she was his child, in what deep strange sense was he not her child, +too. + +The wide world, the real world, the outside world of work and +achievement, collapsed like a crumpled panorama; he was covering his +eyes; he was shuddering; he was stumbling back to the nest, wounded to +death, there to fold himself in darkness, in oblivion, in love.--How +near we are to the animal, he thought, smiling, with trembling lips, as +he saw the station slide outside the windows at last, saw the face of +the station-master--he had never before known that the station-master +was such a lovable person--he seemed so near the nest that he must be +lovable--saw, beyond the flower-wreathed palings, the dog-cart waiting +for him. But his deeper self rebuked the cynical side-glance. The +trembling smile, he knew, had more of truth:--how near we are to the +divine. The pain and ecstasy of this moment of arrival made it one of +the most vivid and significant of his life. Almost worth while to know +that one is to die in a month if the knowledge brings with it such +flashes of beauty of vision. The whole earth seemed transfigured and +heavenly. + +Dean, the coachman, gave acquiescent answers to his questions on the +homeward drive. He heard the sound of his own voice and knew that he was +speaking as he wanted to be sure of speaking for these next weeks, with +ease and lightness. He would be able to keep up before Kitty. Until the +very end she should be spared everything; there was joy in the thought, +and no longer any vanity. He would see her, be with her, and she should +not know. He would see her happy for their last month together. He +clasped the thought of her happiness--with her--to his heart. + +Like all ecstasies, it faded, this rapture of his return. By the time +the house was reached, the lovely little Jacobean house that they had +found together, the buoyancy was gone and what was left was a sweetness +and a great fatigue. He was to see her; that was well; and here was the +nest; that was well, too. But he wanted to fold his wings and sleep. + +Mrs. Holland was not in the house, the butler told him, she and Sir +Walter had gone down to the river together. Holland felt that he would +rather not go after them. He would wait so that he should see Kitty +alone when he first saw her. He liked Sir Walter, their friend and +neighbour; it would not be difficult to act before him, and he knew that +he could begin acting at once; but, for this first meeting of the new, +short epoch, he must see Kitty alone. So he had his tea in the +library--queer to go on having tea, queer to find one still liked +tea--and looked over some papers, and saw, outside, the afternoon grow +stiller and more golden, and knew that all dreads were in abeyance and +that the somnolence, as of a drugged sweetness and fatigue, still kept +him safe. + +He was conscious at last of a purely physical chill; the library was +cool and he stepped into the sunlight on the lawn, walking up and down +among the flowers and, presently, across the grassy terraces, to the +lower groups of trees, vaguely directing his steps to the little +summer-house that faced the west and was as full of sunlight at this +hour as a fretted shell of warm, lapping sea-water. They could not see +him, on their way up from the river, nor he them, from here, and after a +half-hour or so of dreamy basking it would be time to dress for dinner, +Sir Walter would have gone and Kitty would be at the house again. + +He followed the narrow path, set thickly with young ashes and sycamores, +and saw beyond the trees the roof of the summer-house heaped with +illumined festoons of traveller's-joy, and then, when he was near, he +heard voices within it, Kitty's voice and Sir Walter's. + +Hesitating, half-turning to go back, it was as if a childish panic of +shyness seized him, so that he smiled at himself as he stood there, in +the arrested attitude of an involuntary eavesdropper. But the smile +faded. A look of bewilderment came to his face. Kitty was weeping and +Sir Walter was pleading with her, and so strange was Sir Walter's voice, +so strange what he was saying to Kitty, that all the strangeness of the +day found now its culminating moment. + +He walked on, slowly, unwillingly, helplessly, walked on, as he now +knew, into some far other form of suffering than any that had been +foreseen by him that afternoon. + +A rustic seat ran round the summer-house. On the side most hidden he +sank down. He did not choose the hidden side. He had no feeling of will +or choice; had they come out upon him he would have looked at them with +the same bewildered eyes. But, dully, he felt that he must +know,--know,--why Kitty was unhappy. + +Sunken on the seat, among the traveller's-joy, exhausted, yet alert, his +head dizzy and his heart stilled, as it were, to listen, it was this +amazement and curiosity that Holland felt rather than anger, jealousy, +or grief. + +Kitty was unhappy; Sir Walter loved her, and she loved Sir Walter. Sir +Walter was imploring her to come away with him. "But you do love me," +was the phrase that he repeated again and again, the strong protest of +fact against her refusal. + +The dizziness lifting, the heart beating more normally, Holland knew +more. Kitty was unhappy and loved Sir Walter, but, deeper than that, was +the truth that she was happy in her knowledge of his love, deeper than +that--though this depth was of thankfulness in her husband's heart--was +the truth that the love was as yet a beautiful pastime; there was joy +for her in her own sadness, drama in her pain; she was a child with a +strange toy in her hand; it charmed her and she had not learned to dread +it. + +Her husband's comprehension of her, of her childishness, her fluidity, +her weakness, actually touched with respect his comprehension of Sir +Walter; for Sir Walter's strength was reverent, even in his recklessness +there was dignity. Holland knew that he spoke the truth when he said to +Kitty that she might trust him for life. + +It was the real thing with Sir Walter. With Kitty the real thing could +be little more than the response to reality in others. There was the +danger that her husband steadied himself to look at, as he sat in the +sunlight outside the summer-house and listened. + +The dizziness was quite gone. He had never felt a greater mental +clarity. He knew that he must be suffering; but suffering seemed +relegated to some region of mere physical sensation. He saw and +understood so many things that he had never seen or understood before. +He felt no jealousy, not a pang of the defrauded, injured male, not a +throb of the broken-hearted lover; yet it was not indifference to Kitty +that gave him his immunity; he had never cared more for Kitty; it was, +perhaps, in a tenderer key, as he cared for the station-master, as he +cared, now, for Sir Walter. He was himself soon to die and, as +personalities, as related to his own life, people had ceased to count; +but as lives that were to go on after he was dead, they counted as they +had never done till then; and Kitty most of all. It was this intense +consciousness of her youth, of all the years of life she had to live, +that pressed with such clearness and such fear upon him. She had all her +life before her and she held in her hands a terrible, a beautiful toy +that, suddenly transformed to an engine of destruction, might shatter +her. + +Sir Walter was going. He said that he would come again to-morrow. + +"Nicholas will be here," said Kitty. She no longer wept. Her voice, now +that the stress of the situation was over, had regained its pensive +sweetness. + +"Yes," said Sir Walter, "that's what's so odious, darling; he will +always be here and everything will be twisted and horrible. I like your +husband." + +"He is a strange man; I sometimes think that he cares for nothing but +his work; he is all thought and no heart. I don't believe that he would +really mind if I were to go away with you. He would smile, sadly and +ironically, and say: 'Poor, silly child.' And then he would turn to his +papers. I'm nothing to him but a doll, a convenient, domestic doll. And +he doesn't care for playing with dolls except for a little while now and +then." Kitty spoke with a sober pathos that did not veil resentment. + +"Ah, you can say all that to me--and expect me to go on bearing seeing +you wasted and thrown away!" Sir Walter broke out. "What stands between +us? Why must we go on suffering like this?" + +"Isn't it a great joy--to know that the other is there, +understanding--and caring?" + +"A killing sort of joy." + +"How cruel, how wrong you are," Kitty murmured; but her husband knew +that for her, indeed, the joy was deep, and that it was in such moments +of power over an emotion she could rouse yet dominate that she had her +keenest sense of it. + +"I can't help it," said Sir Walter. "I shall always want you to come +away with me." + +"Good-bye:--for to-day." + +"It's you who are cruel." + +At that, silence following, Holland knew that Kitty's quiet tears fell +again. + +Sir Walter was subjugated. He pleaded for pardon; promised not to +torment her--to try not to torment her. A trysting-place was fixed on +for next day and Holland felt another chill of fear at Kitty's swift +resource and craft in planning it. The child knew how to plot and lie. +It thought itself nobly justified, no doubt, and that its fidelity to +duty gave it the right to every liberty of conscience. And before Sir +Walter went there was a moment of relenting that showed how near was the +joy of yielding to the joy of ruthlessness, "For this once,--for this +once only--" Kitty murmured. And Holland knew that Sir Walter held her +in his arms and kissed her. + +After his departure Kitty sat on for some moments in the summer-house. +She sighed deeply once or twice and Holland fancied, from her light +movements, that she had leaned her arms on the table and rested her head +on them. He heard presently, that she was softly saying a prayer, and at +the sound, tears filled his eyes. Then, rising, she collected her basket +of flowers, her parasol, her books, and walked away with slow steps +along the path leading to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Two facts stood clear before Holland's eyes. He had been culpably blind +and Kitty was in danger. He asked himself if he had not been culpably +selfish too, for Kitty's summing up of his attitude towards her would +have hurt had he not been beyond such hurts; but, looking back, he could +not see that he had ever pushed Kitty aside nor relegated her to the +place of plaything. No; the ship of his romance, all its sails set to +fairest, sweetest hopes, had been well-ballasted by the most serious, +most generous of modern theories as to the right relations of man and +wife. And the shock and disillusion had been to find, day by day, that +it was, so to speak, only the sails that Kitty cared for. The cargo, the +purpose of their voyage, left her prettily, vaguely indifferent. Again +and again, he remembered, it had been as if he had led her down into the +busy heart of the ship, explained the chart to her, pointed out all the +interesting wares. Kitty had shown a graceful interest, but with the +manner of a lovely voyager, brought down from sunny or starlit +contemplations on deck to humour the dry tastes of the captain. She +didn't care a bit for the cargo, or the purposes; she didn't care a bit +for any of his interests nor wish to share them; his interests, in so +far as specialized and unrelated to their romance, were, she intimated, +by every retreating grace--as of gathered-up skirts and a backward smile +for the captain in his prosy room--the captain's own particular manly +business; her business was to be womanly, that is, to be charming, to +feel the breeze in the sails, and to gaze at the stars. And though, now +for the first time he saw it, Kitty was not the happy, facilely +contented woman he had thought her, it was really as if the ship, with +weightier cargoes to carry, more distant ports to reach, had undergone a +transformation; throbbing and complicated machinery moved instead of +sails, and on its workaday decks Kitty strolled wistfully, missing the +sails, missing the romance, but missing only that. + +He had accepted, helplessly, her interpretation of their specialised +existences, hoping only that hers might assume the significance that +would, perhaps, justify the old-fashioned separation of interests; but +no children came after the first, the child that died at birth, the +child that his heart ached over still; and he could not believe that +Kitty felt the lack, could hardly believe that she shared his hope for +other children. She had suffered terribly in the birth of the one, more, +perhaps, than in its death--though that had temporarily crushed her--and +she had been horribly frightened by the cruelties and perils of +maternity. So, though he had come to think of her as essentially +womanly, it was in a rather narrow sense; the term had by degrees lost +many, even, of its warm, instinctive associations, and as he now sat +thinking, near the summer-house, it took on its narrowest, if most +piteous meaning. Kitty was essentially womanly. She needed some one to +be in love with her. Her husband had ceased to be in love--though he had +not ceased to be a loving husband--and she responded helplessly to a +lover's appeal. Sir Walter's appeal was very persuasive. A ship of +snowy, wing-like sails, a fairy ship, rocked on the waves at the very +edge of Kitty's sheltered life. Only a shutting of the eyes, a holding +of the breath, and she would be carried across the narrow intervening +depth to the deck, to freedom, to safety--she would believe--to sails +trimmed for an immortal romance. Would Kitty's cowardice, and Kitty's +prayers--they were interwoven he felt sure--keep her for one month from +running away with Sir Walter? In only a month's time she could respond +and not be shattered: in only a month's time the ship of romance would +be really safe, she might walk on board with no shutting of the eyes or +holding of the breath. Holland gazed, and the facts became clearer and +more ominous. For the lack of a knowledge that was his, Kitty and Sir +Walter might wreck their lives. All the motives for the concealment of +his secret, the vanity, the bravery, the cherishing tenderness that had +inspired him, were scattered to the winds. The nest was a tattered, +wind-pierced ruin. And he, already, was a ghost. Kitty should not lack +the knowledge. + +The dew was falling, and he had grown chilly. He walked back quickly to +the house that he had left a little while ago so vividly aware of the +sweetness that the shallow cup might hold. The cup was empty. Not a drop +of self was left to hope or live for. + + * * * * * + +He waited till the next day to tell her. He did not feel a tremor, he +felt too deep a fatigue. + +Their meeting at dinner was a placid gliding over the depths; two hooded +gondolas floating side by side, each with its shrouded secret. But +skill and vigilance were his. Kitty's gondola drifted with the current, +knowing no need of skill, secure of secrecy. The eyes she quietly lifted +to her husband were unclouded. He guessed the inner drama that held her +thoughts, the tragically beautiful _role_ that she herself played in it. +It was as a heroine that she saw herself. Why not, indeed. No heroine +could have played her part more gracefully and worthily, and a heroine's +innocent eyes could not be expected to see as far as his "ironic" ones. + +It was the sense of distance, from her, from everything, that grew upon +him during the long intervals of the night when he lay awake and watched +the stars slowly cross his open window. He was no longer divided from +himself, no longer groping, as in the train, to find a clue between the +doomed man and the watcher. The self that he had found was adrift upon a +sea, solitary indeed, and saw pigmy figures moving in the shifting +lights and shadows of the shore. His mild preoccupation was with one +figure, light, fluttering, foolish: she was walking near the verge of +the cliff and her foothold might give way. He intended to signal to her +and to point out a safe road through the cornfields, before he turned +himself again to loneliness, the sky, and the sea that was soon to +engulf him. + + * * * * * + +This self-obliterating immensity of mood was contracted and ruffled next +morning by the trivial difficulties that stood in the way of his +determination. He went to Kitty's boudoir--and, in spite of immensities, +he knew that his heart beat heavily under the burden of its project, how +careful he must be, how delicate--to find her interviewing the cook. In +the garden, she was talking to the gardener, and afterwards, in her +room, she was trying on a tea-gown before the mirror. Actually he felt +some irritation. + +"When can I see you, Kitty?" he asked. + +Her eyes in the glass met his with surprise at his tone; but surprise +was all. "See me? Here I am. What is it?--No, Cecile, the sash must +knot, so; tie it more to the side." + +"I want to talk over something with you." + +"I'm rather busy this morning. Will after lunch do? Don't you see, +Cecile, like this." + +"No, it won't. I must see you now," said Holland, almost querulously. + +She turned her head to look at him and a shadow crossed her face. +Suddenly, he saw it, she was a little frightened. + +"Of course, directly. I'll come to the library." + +Seeing that fear, and smitten with compunction, a rather silly impulse +made him smile at her and say:--"Don't bother to hurry. I can wait." But +he did want her to hurry. He felt that he could wait no longer. + +He walked up and down the library. The weariness of the day before was +gone; the sweetness, of course, was gone, and the inhuman immensity was +gone too. He felt oddly normal and reasonable, detached yet implicated; +almost like a friendly family doctor come to break the fatal news to the +ignorant wife. It was just the anxiety that the doctor might feel, the +grave trouble and the twinge of awkwardness. + +He had only waited for ten minutes when Kitty appeared in the doorway. + +Kitty Holland was still a young woman and looked younger than her years. +The roundness and blueness and steady gaze of her eyes, the bloom of her +cheeks and innocent lustre of her golden hair gave an infantile quality +to her loveliness. She was not a vain woman, but she was conscious of +these advantages and the consciousness had touched the childlike +candour and confidingness with a little artificiality, for long apparent +to her husband's kindly but dispassionate eye. To other people Mrs. +Holland's manner, the whispering vagueness of her voice, the wistful +dwelling of her glance, was felt to be artificial only as the gold +embroideries and serrated edges on the robes of a Fra Angelico angel are +felt as something added and decorative. Kitty was far too intelligent to +try to look like a Fra Angelico angel; she was picturesque as only the +extremely fashionable can be picturesque; but Holland knew she was +conscious that she reminded people of an angel, and of a child, and that +she reminded herself continually of all sorts of exquisite things, +partly because she was dreamily self-conscious and keenly aware of +exquisiteness, and partly because he had, in their first year, the year +of sails and breezes, so impressed these things upon her attention. + +He himself had grown accustomed to--perhaps a little tired of--the lily +poise of the head, the long, gentle hands, the floating step, quite the +step of an angel aware of flower-dappled grass beneath its feet and the +flutter of embroidered draperies. But Kitty, though accustomed to these +graces, in herself, had not grown tired of them, they had, indeed, more +and more filled the foreground of her delicate and decorative life, so +that he could guess at how much his own indifference had helped to +alienate her. + +And now, as he turned to look at her, these half ironic, half +affectionate impressions hovered as a background, and, sharply drawn +upon it, with the biting acid of his new perceptions, he saw something +else in Kitty's face that he had never seen before. + +Already he had seen her as a womanly woman, as that in its narrowest +sense. He saw her now as a type of the woman who live in and through and +for their affections, and this with their sensations rather than with +their intelligences. Vividly his memory struck them out;--the faces of +the satisfied women, taking on, as years pass over them, as experience +detaches from the craving, sentimental self, and frees the instincts to +push, climb, cling in roots and tendrils for other selves, a vegetable +serenity and simplicity;--and, more vividly, with discomfort in the +memory, the faces of the unsatisfied; the womanly married woman whose +romance is over, the spinster who has missed romance; faces chiselled to +subtlety by dreams and frustration. + +On Kitty's face he saw it now, that look of a subtlety childlike, +innocent, of flesh rather than of spirit, yet, in its very +unconsciousness, almost sinister. For a moment, as the lines of the +sharp new perception etched themselves, lines gossamer-like in fineness, +floating, transforming shadows rather than lines, he was afraid of his +wife, afraid of the alien, mysterious force he guessed in her. + +For the delicately sinister subtlety was remote from his understanding, +was a subtlety that no man's face can show, capable as it is of a +grossness and corruption merely animal by contrast; open and obvious. +Kitty's subtlety did not make her animal: it made her more than ever +like an angel; but an ambiguous angel; and to feel that he did not +understand her made her strange. It was no clue to feel that she did not +understand herself; it was only a further depth of mystery. + +He was ashamed of his own folly in another moment, ashamed of an insight +distorted and distorting, so he told himself. Over and above all such +morbidities was the fact that Kitty was looking at him with the eyes of +a frightened child--a real child. + +The reaction from his fear, the recognition of her fear, stirred in him +a love more personal than any of the vast benevolences that he had +felt. He went to her and led her to the window-seat where, sitting down +himself, holding both her hands in his and looking up at her standing +before him, he said with the quiet of long-prepared words: "Kitty, dear, +I have something that I want to tell you and that will make you, I +think, a little sad. We have had happy times together, haven't we? It +isn't all regret. You and I are going to part, Kitty." + +She gazed at him and terror widened her eyes. She could not speak. She +did not move. Her hands in his hands seemed dead. + +He saw in a moment what the fear was that showed itself in this torpor +of apprehension, and he hastened on so that she should not, in her +dread, reveal the secret that need never be spoken. + +"I'm going to die, Kitty," he said, "I had my sentence yesterday, from +Dr. Farebrother. I never dreamed that it was anything serious, that +complaint of mine, you know,--never dreamed it even when it began to +trouble me a good deal, as it has of late. But it's not what I thought. +It's fatal; and it will gallop now. He gives me one month--at the very +most, two months." He spoke deliberately, though swiftly, and, as he +finished, he smiled up at her, a reassuring smile. His wife's dilated +eyes, fixed on him, made him flush a little in the ensuing pause. He +felt that the smile had been inept. He had spoken too much from the +height of his detachment, and the placidity of his words might well seem +horrible to her. + +She was finding it horrible. She seemed to be breathing the icy air of a +vault that he had opened before her; heavy, slow, painful breaths, those +of a sleeper oppressed by nightmare; the sound of them, the sight of her +labouring breast hurt him. He put his arms around her and smiled now, as +one smiles at a child to console it. "I've frightened you," he said; +"forgive me. You see, one gets used to it, so soon, for oneself. Dear +little Kitty, I'm so sorry." + +Still she did not speak. Still it was that torpid terror that gazed at +him. And the terror was not for what he had thought it was; it was for +what he had said. It was a contagious terror. She cared. In some +unexplained, unforeseen way she cared terribly; and his projects +crumbled beneath her gaze; bewilderment drifted in his mind; her fear +gained him. + +"What is the matter? What is it?" he asked. + +The change and sharpness in his voice brought them near at last. Kitty +seized his hands and lifted them from her; yet grasping, clinging as she +held him off. He would not have thought her face capable of such +fierceness and demand. She was hardly recognisable as she said: "Do you +want to die? Don't you mind dying?" + +"Mind?--I should rather not, of course. I care for my life. But one must +face it; what else is there to do?--And,--what is it Kitty? What have I +done to you?" + +And now, her head fallen back, her eyes closed, tears ran down her face, +as piteously, agonised and stricken, she asked: + +"Don't you love me at all? Don't you mind leaving me at all?" + +His astonishment was so great that for a moment it bereft him of words. +He had risen and was holding her; her eyes were closed and she sobbed +and sobbed, her head fallen back. And her passion of sorrow and despair, +her loveliness, too, and youth, seized and shook him; so that all the +things he had not felt yet, all the hovering, dreadful things, the dark +forms of the cavern, encompassed, pressed upon him; despair and longing, +the horror of annihilation, the agonising sweetness of life. It was as +if a hidden wound had been opened and that his blood was gushing forth, +not to peace, but to pain and torment. He felt his own sobs rising; she +cared; how much she cared. It was as if her caring gave him back the +self that yesterday had blotted out; in her pain he knew his own; in her +self he saw and mourned his own doomed and piteous self. His head leaned +to hers and his lips sought hers, when, suddenly, a furious memory came, +and indignation suffocated him. + +He thrust her violently away, holding her by the shoulders. "How dare +you! how dare you!" he cried. "You don't love me. You don't mind my +dying. How dare you torture me like this--when it's not real,--when I +was at peace." + +It was like a wild, impossible dream. Their faces stared at each other; +their hands seized each other; they spoke, their voices clashing, and +shaken by strangling sobs. + +"How dare you say that to me! You have broken my heart! You haven't +cared for years--for years!" Kitty cried. "I've longed--longed. It is +too horrible. How dare you come and tell me that you are going to die +and that it will make me a little sad. Oh! I love you--and you are +horrible to me." + +"You are lying, Kitty--you are lying!" + +"That too! You can say that! To me! To me!" + +"It's true. You know you lie. I haven't loved you as I did. But I've +cared--good God! I see now how much.--It is you who have ceased to +care." + +At these words Kitty was transfigured. Joy, joy unmistakable, flamed up +in her. It mounted to her eyes and lips, revivifying her ravaged face, +beaming forth, inundating him, unfaltering, assured, absolute. +"Darling--darling--you love me? you do love me?--Oh, you shan't die--I +won't let you die. My love will keep you with me. We will forget all +these years when we haven't understood--when we've forgotten. We will +forget everything--except that we love each other and that that is all +there is to live for in the world." + +"And--Sir Walter?--" he said, simply and helplessly. + +Kitty's arms were about his neck, her transfigured face was upturned to +him. Worshipped by those eyes, held in that embrace, his words, in his +own ears, were absurd. Yet he hadn't been dreaming yesterday. Kitty +might make the words seem absurd; but even Kitty's eyes and Kitty's arms +could not conjure away the facts of the sunlit summer-house, the tears, +the parting kiss. What of Sir Walter? What else was there left to say? + +But after he had said them, and stood looking at her, it was as if his +words released the last depths of her rapture. She did not flush or +falter or show, even, any shock or surprise. Her arms about him, her +eyes on his, it was a stiller, a more solemn joy that dwelt on him and +enfolded him. + +"You know?" she said. + +"I heard you last evening," Holland answered. "I was sitting outside the +summer-house. You said you loved him. You let him kiss you." + +"You will forgive me," said Kitty. They were looking at each other like +two children. "I thought I loved him, because I was so unhappy, and he +is so dear and kind and loves me so much. I must love some one. I must +be loved. I was so lonely. And you seemed not to care at all any more. +You were only my husband, you weren't my lover.--And you don't know all. +He doesn't know it. But I know it now. And I must tell you +everything--all the dreadful weakness--you must understand it all. +Perhaps, if this hadn't come, perhaps, if you hadn't been given back to +me like this, I might have gone away with him, Nicholas. It wasn't that +I had ceased to love you; it was that I had to be loved and was weak +before love. It is dreadful;--I believe all women are like that. And I +did struggle, oh, I did. Nicholas, you will forgive me?" + +"I knew it, dear, and I forgave you." + +"You knew it? You loved me so much that you forgave?" + +"That was why I told you, Kitty. I hadn't meant to tell you; I had meant +to keep it from you, this sadness, and to make our last month together a +happy one for you. I was coming back to you with such longing, dear. And +then I heard; and then I was afraid that you might go away before you +would be free." + +"You loved me so much? You did it because you loved me so much?--Oh! +Nicholas--Nicholas!" + +"That was why I said those horrible things. I wanted you to be happy. I +didn't think you could be more than a little sad when you knew that you +were going to be free. Foolish, darling Kitty--you are sure it's me you +do love?" + +Again she could not speak, but it was her joy that made her silent. She +was no more to be disbelieved than an angel appearing in the vault, +irradiating the darkness. Flowers sprang beneath her footsteps; her +smile was life. And the memory of his own cynical vision of her smote +him with a self-reproach that deepened tenderness. She was only subtle, +only sinister, when shut away, unloved. She was womanly, meant for love +only, and her folly made her the more lovable. Love was all that was +left him. One month of love. His hands yielded to her hands; his eyes +answered her eyes. The fragrance of the flowers was in the air, the +flutter of heavenly garments. One month of life; but how flat, how mean, +how dusty seemed the arduous outer world of the last years; how deep the +goblet of enchantment that the unambiguous angel held out to him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +There were two cups to drink, for he had to put the cup of death to her +lips. He told her all as they walked in the garden that afternoon; of +the growing gravity of symptoms, the interview with the great specialist +to whom his own doctor, unwilling to pronounce a final verdict, had sent +him. He begged her to spare him further interviews. He was to die, that +was evident; and doctors could do nothing for him. If pain came he +promised that he would take what relief they had to give. + +She leaned her head against his shoulder, weeping and weeping as they +walked. + +They were two lovers again, lovers shut into the straitest, most +compassed paradise. On every side the iron walls enclosed them; there +were no distances; there was no horizon. But within the circle of doom +blossomed the mazy sweetness; the very sky seemed to have narrowed to +the roofing of a bower. + +To be in love again; to feel the whole world beating like a doubled +pulse of you-and-I to and fro between them. She must weep, and he, with +this newly born self, must know to the full the pang and bitterness; but +the moments blossomed and smiled over the dread; because the dread was +there. Sir Walter passed away like a shadow. Kitty saw him and came to +her husband from the interview with a composure that almost made him +laugh. It would have hurt her feelings for him to laugh at her, and he +listened gravely while she told him that Sir Walter, now, was going to +accept the big post in India that, for her sake, he had been on the +point of refusing. He was going away that very night. She had been +perfectly frank with him; she had explained to him--"quite simply and +gently" said Kitty--that she had been very foolish and had let her +friendship for him, her fondness, and her loneliness mislead her; yes, +she had told him quite simply that he would always be a dear, dear +friend, but that she was in love with her husband. + +The poor toy. The child, with placid hands and unpitying eyes, had +snapped it across the middle and walked away from it. He didn't need her +to say it again; he saw that she had ceased completely to love Sir +Walter. "And weren't you sorry for him at all?" he asked. + +"Sorry? Of course, dear, how can you ask?" said Kitty. "I was as tender +as possible. But you know, I can't but feel that he deserved punishment. +Oh, I know that I did, too!--don't think me hard and self-righteous. But +see--see, darling, what you have saved me from! Remember what he wanted +me to do. Oh--it was wrong and cruel of him. I shall never be able to +forgive him, just because I was so weak--just because I did listen." + +"Ah, do forgive him--just because you were so strong that you never let +him guess that you were weak," said Holland. He was very sorry for Sir +Walter. And he was conscious, since he might not smile outwardly, of +smiling inwardly over the ruthlessness of women towards the man, loved +no longer, who has tarnished their image in their own eyes. The angel +held him fast in Paradise, but something in him, a mere sense of humour, +the humour of the outer world, perhaps, escaped her at moments, looked +down at her, at himself, at Paradise, and accepted comedy as well as +tragedy. It was only to these places of silence, loneliness and +contemplation that Kitty did not come. + +She shared sorrow and joy. She guessed too well at the terrors; she +would be beside him, her very heart beating on his, through all the +valley of the shadow; he would be able to spare her nothing, and even in +death he would not be alone. And she was joy. The years of pining and +lassitude, the toying with danger, the furnace of affliction that, in +the library, had burned the dross from her soul, all had made another +woman of Kitty from his girl-bride of six years before. She was joy; she +knew how to make it, to give it. She surprised him continually with her +inventiveness in rapture. When fear came upon them, she folded it from +him with encircling arms. When fear passed, she seemed to lead him out +into the dew and sunlight of early morning and to show him new paths, +new flowers, new bowers of bliss. All artifice, all self-centred +dreaminess, all the littler charms, dropped from her. She was as candid, +as single-minded, as passionate as a newly created Eve, and she seemed +dowered with a magic power of diversity in simplicity. There was no +forethought or plan in her triumph over satiety. Like a flower, or an +Eve, she seemed alive with the instinctive impulse that grows from +change to change, from beauty to further beauty. Holland, summer-day +after summer-day, was conscious only of joy and sorrow; of these, and of +the still places where, sometimes, he seemed to hover above them. The +serpent of weariness still slept. + + * * * * * + +"Tell me, dearest," said Kitty one day--how they talked and talked about +themselves, recapturing every mutual memory, analysing long-forgotten +scenes and motives, explaining themselves, accusing themselves, for the +joy of being forgiven--"Tell me; you loved me so much that you were +willing to give me up to him, to make me happy, and to save me;--but, if +you hadn't been going to die--oh darling!--then you would have loved me +too much to give me up, wouldn't you?" + +His arm was about her, a book between them--unread, it usually was +unread--and they were sitting in the re-consecrated summer-house; Kitty +had insisted on that punishment for herself, had knelt down before her +husband there and, despite his protest, had kissed his hands, with +tears; the summer-house had become their sweetest retreat. + +He answered her now swiftly, and with a little relief for the obvious +answer: "But then I couldn't have set you free, dear." + +"No;" Kitty mused. "I see. But--would the fear of losing me have made +you _re-fall_ in love with me? You know you only re-fell, darling, only +knew how much you cared when you thought I was deceiving you, lying to +you, in saying that I loved you; but you would have loved me--not in +that dreadful, big, inhuman way--but loved _me_, just _me_--loved me +enough to fight for me, wouldn't you?" + +He looked into her adoring, insistent eyes and a little shadow of memory +crossed his mind. Was she an altogether unambiguous angel? Was it there, +the subtlety, in her eyes, her smile; something sweet, insinuating, +insatiable? And as she fondled him, leaning close and questioning, it +was as though a little eddy of dust from the outer world blew into +Paradise through an unguarded gate. Well, why should not the dear angel +have a little dust on its shining hair? It was a foolish angel, as he +knew; and it lived for love, as he knew; and women who did that and who +didn't get loved enough grew to look subtle--he remembered the swift +train of thought. But Kitty was loved enough, so that there must be no +subtlety to make her beauty stranger and less sweet, and in Paradise one +forgot the outer world and need not consider it again; it was done with +him and he with it, so that he answered, smiling, "I would have loved +you for yourself; I would have fought for you." + +"And won me," she murmured, hiding her face on his breast. "Oh, Nick, if +only it had been sooner, sooner." + +Her suffering sanctified even the shadow; but he remembered it; +remembered that the dust had blown in. It lay, though so lightly, on the +angel's hair, on the blossoms, on the bowers, and it made him think, at +times, of the outer world, of his old judgments and values. He would +have had to fight for her, of course; he would have had to save her; but +it wouldn't have been because he had "re-fallen." That was a secret that +he kept from Kitty; it belonged to the contemplative region of thought, +where he was alone. And in Paradise, it seemed, one was forced to tell +only half-truths. + +Their ties with the outer world were all slackened during these days. No +one knew the secret of the doomed honeymoon. The one or two friends who +dropped in upon them for a night seemed like quaint marionettes crossing +a stage that now and then they agreed to have set up before the bower. +These figures, their own relation to them, quickened the sense of +secrecy and love. Their eyes sought each other past unconscious eyes; +they had lovers' dexterities in meeting unobserved by their guests, gay +little escapades when they would run away for an hour drifting on the +river or wandering in the woods. And the formalities and chatter of +social life--all these queer people interested in queer things, people +who used the present only for the future, who were always planning and +looking forward,--made the hidden truths the sharper and sweeter. +Nothing, for the two lovers, was to go on. That was the truth that made +the marionettes so insignificant and that made their love so deep. There +was, for them, no looking forward, no adapting of means to ends. There +were no ends, or, rather, they were always at the end. And there was +nothing for them to do except to love each other. + +"I feel sometimes as if we had become a Pierrot and a Pierrette," +Holland said to her. "It's for that, I suppose, that a Pierrot is such +an uncanny and charming creature;--the future doesn't exist for him at +all." + +Kitty, who had always been a literal person, and whose literalness had +now become so beautifully appropriate,--for what is literalness but a +seeing of the fact as standing still?--Kitty tried to smile but begged +him not to jest about such things. + +"I'm not jesting, darling. I'm only musing on our strange state. It's +like a fairy-tale, the life we lead." + +She turned her head, with the pathetic gesture grown habitual with her +of late, and hid her eyes on his shoulder. "Oh, darling," she said, "do +you hate to leave me!" + +She had felt the moment of detached fancy as separative, and he had now +to soothe her passionate weeping. + +He found that there was a certain pendulum-swing of mood in Paradise. +Emotion was the being of this mood, and to keep emotion one must swing. + +Either he must soothe Kitty or Kitty must soothe him, or they must +transcend the dark necessities of their case by finding in each other a +joy including in its ecstasy the sorrow it obliterated. This pendulum +swung spontaneously during those first weeks, it swung as their hearts +beat, from need to response. And, at the beginning of the third week, it +was not so much a faltering in the need or the response that Holland +knew, as a mere lessening of the swing;--it didn't go quite so fast or +carry him quite so far. He became conscious of an unequal rhythm; Kitty +seemed to swing even faster and further. + +She saw him as dead; that was the urgent vision that lay behind her +demonstrations and ministrations; she saw him as more dead with every +day that passed, and every moment of every day was, to her, of +passionate significance. No one had ever been idealised as he was +idealised, or clung to as he was clung to. The sense of desperate +tendrils enlacing him was almost suffocating, and each tendril craved +for recognition; a lapse, a look, an inattention was the cutting of +something that bled, and clung the closer. Every moment was precious, +and any not given to love was a robbery from her dwindling store. As the +time grew less her need for significance grew greater. Her sense of her +own tragedy grew with her sense of his, and he must share both. +Resignation to his fate was a resignation of her, and a crime against +their love. Holland by degrees grew conscious of keeping himself up to a +mark. + +It was then that the blossoms began to look a little over-blown, the +paths to become monotonous, the bowers to grow oppressive with their +heavy sweetness as though a noonday sun beat down changelessly upon +them. The dew was gone, and though Kitty remained a primitive Eve, he +himself knew that in his conscious ardour there hovered the vague +presence of something no longer pure, something unwholesome and +enervating. + +She saw him as dead, and the thought of death, always with her, renewed +her pity and her adoration; he knew that his own background lent a charm +enthralling and poignant to his every word, look and gesture. But for +him this charm and this renewal were lacking. He could not feel such +pity, either for her or for himself. She was to live, poor little Kitty, +and, by degrees, the tragedy would fade and the beauty of their last +weeks together would remain with her. There was no cavern yawning behind +Kitty's figure; life, inexorably, showed him her smiling future. + +And, for himself; well, if it was tragic to have to die, it was a +tragedy one got used to. He might have felt it more if only Kitty hadn't +been there to feel it so superabundantly for him. No: he could keep up; +he could see to it that the pendulum didn't falter; but he couldn't hide +from himself that its swing was growing mechanical. + +By the end of the third week the serpent was awake and walking in +Paradise. Holland was tired; profoundly tired. + +He found his wife's eyes on him one day as they sat with books under the +trees on the lawn. He tried to read the books now, though in a casual +manner that would offer no offence to Kitty's unoccupied hands and eyes. +He wanted very much to read and to forget himself--to forget Kitty--for +a little while. It was difficult to do this when such a desultory air +must be assumed, when he must be ready to answer anything she said at a +moment's notice, and must remember to look up and smile at her or to +read some passage aloud to her at every few pages. But he had been +trying thus to combine oblivion and alertness when a longer interval +than usual of the first held him beguiled, and alertness, when it +returned, returned too late. Kitty's eyes made him think of the eyes she +had gazed with on the day of revelation in the library. They were +candid, they were frightened; the eyes of the real child. Now, as then, +they were drinking in some new knowledge; a new fear and an old fear, +come close at last, were pressing on her. He felt so tired that he would +have liked to look away and to have pretended not to see; but he was not +so tired as to be cruel, and he tried to smile at her, as, tilting his +hat over his eyes so that they were shadowed, he asked her what she was +thinking of. + +She rose and came to him, kneeling down beside his chair and putting her +hands on his shoulders. + +"What is the matter, Kitty?" he asked her, as he had asked on that +morning three weeks before. + +"Nicholas--Nicholas--are you feeling worse?" she returned. + +Holland was surprised and almost relieved. It was no new demand, it was +merely a sharper fear. And perhaps she was right, perhaps he was feeling +worse and the end was approaching. If so, any languor would be taken as +symptomatic of dissolution and not of indifference, and he might relax +his hold. Actually a deep wave of satisfaction seemed to go lapping +through him. + +"I don't feel badly, dear," he said, smoothing back her hair. "You know, +I shall suffer hardly any pain; but I do feel very tired." + +"In what way tired?" Another alarm was in her voice. + +"Bodily fatigue, dear. Of course, one doesn't die without fading." + +He felt, when he had said it, that the words, in spite of his care, were +cruel; that she would feel them as cruel; he had gone too fast; had +tried to grasp at his immunity too hastily. + +"Nicholas!" she gasped. "You speak as if I were accusing you!" + +"Accusing me, darling! How could you be! Of what?" + +"Oh, Nick," she sobbed, hiding her face on his breast,--"Am _I_ tiring +you? Do you sometimes want me to go away and to leave you more alone?" + +His heart stood still. Over her bowed head he looked at the sunlit trees +and flowers, the hazy glory of the summer day, a phantasmagoric setting +to this knot of human pain and fear, and he said to himself that unless +he were very careful he might hurt her irremediably; he might rob her of +the memory that was to beautify everything when he was gone. + +He had found in a moment, he felt sure, just the right quiet tone, +expressing a comprehension too deep for the fear of any misunderstanding +between them. "There would be no me left, Kitty, if you went away. I am +you--all that there is of me. You are life itself; don't talk of robbing +me of any of it; I have so little left." + +She was silent for a moment, not lifting her face, no longer weeping. +Then in a voice curiously hushed and controlled she said: "How quiet you +are; how peaceful you are--how terribly peaceful." + +"You want me to be at peace, don't you, dear?" + +"You don't mind leaving life. You don't mind leaving me," she said. + +"Kitty--Kitty----" + +She interrupted his protest: "I've nothing to give you but love; I've +never had anything to give you but love. And you are tired of that. You +are going, you are going for ever. I shall never see you again. And you +don't mind! You don't mind!" She broke into dreadful sobs. + +Helpless and tormented he held her, trying to soothe, to reassure, to +convince, recovering, even, in the vehemence of his pity, the very tones +of passionate love, the personal note that her quick ear had felt +fading. She sobbed, and sobbed, but answered him at last, in the +pathetic little child language of their first honeymoon that they had +revived and enriched with new, sweet follies. But he felt that she was +not really comforted, that she tried to delude herself. + +"You _do_ feel tired--in your body--only in your body?--not in your +soul?" she repeated. "It isn't _I_, it's only _you_." + +"It's only I who am dying," he almost felt that, with grim irony, he +would have liked to answer for her complete reassurance. The funny, +ugly, pathetic truth peeped out at him; she would rather have him die +than have him cease to love her. + +Soulless sylvan creatures, dryads, nymphs, seemed to gaze from green +shadows among branches; the mocking faces of pucks and elves to tilt and +smile in the breeze-shaken flowers;--that subtle gaze, that sinister +smile, of what did it remind him? All Nature was laughing at him, +cruelly laughing; yet all Nature was consoling him. + +His love and Kitty's was a flower rooted in death and contradiction. Not +affinity, not the growing needs of normal life had brought them +together; only the magic of doom and the craving to be loved. + +Poor Kitty; she did not know. It was his love she loved, his love she +clung to and watched for and caressed. She did not know it, but she +would rather have him dead than have him loveless. That was the truth +that smiled the sinister smile. One might summon one's courage to smile +back at it, but one was rather glad to be leaving it--and Kitty. + +And, in the days that followed, when from the pretence of passion he +could find refuge only in the pretence of dying, disgust crept into the +weariness, he began to wonder when the pretence would become reality. He +began to want to die. + +This weariness, this irritation, this disgust belonged to life rather +than to death; it was a sharp longing to escape from consciousness of +Kitty--Kitty, alert and agonised in her suspicion. It was a nostalgic +longing for the old, tame, dusty life, his work, his selfless interests. +The month was almost up, and yet he was no worse; was he really going to +last for another month? + +He said to Kitty one morning that he must go up to town. Her face grew +ashen. "The doctor! You are going to the doctor, Nicholas?" + +"No, no; it's only that Collier is passing through. I heard from him +this morning. He wants to see me." + +"Why should you bother and think about work now, darling?" + +"Why, dearest, I must be of any use I can until the end." + +He tried to keep lightness in his voice and patience out of it. + +"Let him come down here. I'll write myself and ask him." She, too, was +assuming something. She, too, was afraid of him, as he of her. + +"He hasn't time. He is on his way to the Continent." + +"It will be bad for you to travel now. And London in August!" Her voice +was grave, reproachfully tender. + +"No, dear, I promise you I will run no risk." + +"Promise as much as you will"--now, gaily, sweetly, falsely, but how +pathetically, she clasped her hands about his arm;--"but I couldn't +think of letting you go alone: you didn't really believe I'd let you go +alone, darling: I'll come too, of course. Won't that be fun!--Oh, Nick, +you _want_ me to come! You don't want to get away!"--The falsity broke +down and the full anguish of her suspicion was in her voice and eyes. It +was this sincerity that pierced him and made him helpless--sick and +helpless. He was able now to blindfold its dreadful clear-sightedness by +swift resource: he acted his delight, his gratitude: he hadn't liked to +ask his dearest--all the bother for only a day and night; he had thought +it would bore her, for he must be most of the time with Collier; but, +yes, they would go together, since she petted him so; they would do a +play; he would help her choose a new hat; it would be great fun. + +Yet, while he knotted the handkerchief around her eyes, turned her +about and confused her sense of direction, as if in a merry game, he +knew that fear and suspicion lurked for them both in their playing. + +He had, indeed, meant to go to the doctor, but now that must be +postponed. The meeting with Collier, his chief at the Home Office, was +his only gulp of freedom. At the hotel Kitty waited, and his heart smote +him when he found her sitting just as he had left her, mute, white, +smiling and enduring. She hadn't even been to her dressmaker's or done +any shopping as she had promised him to do. "I know I am absurd;--I know +you think me, silly;--but I can't--I can't do anything--think +anything--but you!" she said, her lips trembling. + +"Absurd, darling, indeed!" he answered, "as if you couldn't think of me +and order a new dress at the same time! You know I told you I wanted to +see you in a pale blue lawn--isn't lawn the pretty stuff?--And what of +the hat? You do want one?--Come, let us go out and I'll help you to +choose it." + +But she did not want to go out; she only wanted to sit near him, lean +her head against him, have him make up to her for the hours of +loneliness. He knew that night at the play that she hardly heard a word, +and that when once or twice, he was lured from his absorption and made +to laugh, really forgetting, really amused, his laughter hurt her. She +gazed at the stage with wide, vacant eyes. He felt the strain of being +in town with this desperate devotion beside him worse than the strain of +being shut up with it in the country; for there Kitty need hide and +repress nothing, and his danger of hurting her by forgetfulness was not +so great. He was like a prisoner led about by his gaoler, manacles on +his wrists and ankles and a yoke on his neck; there was a certain relief +in going back to prison where, at all events, one wasn't so tormented by +the sights and sounds of freedom, nor so conscious of chains and the +watchful eye upon one. + +"This is the end," he thought, as, in the train, they sat side by side, +holding hands and very silent, but that, from time to time, when their +eyes met, she would smile her doting, hungry smile and murmur: +"Darling." + +After this, the prison again; the high walls and stifling sweetness of +Paradise, and then, thank goodness, release. + +How strange a contrast to the journey a month ago, when, stunned, shot +through, he had only felt the bliss of home-coming, the longing for the +nest. It was all nest now; there was no space for the fear of death. He +was shut in, smothered by this panting breast of love. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +He knew that evening that Kitty was horribly frightened from the fact +that she was horribly careful. She did not once press for assurances or +demonstrations of love. She foresaw all his needs, even his need of +silence. Delicately assiduous, she pulled his chair near the lamp for +him, lit his cigar, cut the pages of his review, even brought a +footstool for his feet, saying, when he protested, "You are tired, +darling; you must let me wait on you." + +"And won't you read, or sew,--or do something, dear?" he asked, as she +drew her low chair near his. + +"I only want to sit here quietly, and look at your dear face," she said. + +And she sat there, quietly, not moving, not speaking, only mutely, +gently, fiercely watching him. Holland felt his hand tremble as he +turned the pages. + +A full hour passed so. Accurately, punctually, he turned the pages; he +had not understood one page; and he had not once looked up. + +It was almost a sense of nightmare that grew upon him, as if he were +going to sit there for ever, hearing the clock tick, hearing Kitty +breathe, knowing that he was watched. Fear, pity, and repulsion filled +his soul. + +He longed at last to hear her voice. He did not dare to hear his own; +something in it would have broken and revealed him to her; but if she +would but speak the nightmare might pass. And, with the longing, +furtively, involuntarily, he glanced round at her. + +Her eyes were on him, fixed, shining. How horrible;--how ridiculous. +Their gaze smote upon his heart and shattered something,--the nightmare, +or the repulsion. An hysterical sob and laugh rose in his throat. He +dropped the review, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head +in his hands, and the tears ran down his face. + +She was there, of course, poor creature, there, close, holding him, +moaning, weeping with him. He could do nothing but yield to her arms, +feel his head pillowed on her breast, and mingle his tears with hers; +but horribly, ridiculously, he knew that laughter as well as weeping +shook him. + +And he heard her saying "Oh, my darling--my darling--is it because you +must leave me?"--and heard himself answering "Yes, because I must leave +you." + +"You love me--so much--so much----" + +"So much," he echoed. + +And, her voice rising to a cry, he knew how dead, as if sounded from the +cavern, his echo had been: "You are not dying! Not now!" And it was +again only the echo he could give her: "Not now," it came. Why not now? +Why could it not be, mercifully now? When in heaven's name was he going +to die? + +A strong suspicion rose in him and seemed to pulse into life with the +strong beat of his heart. How strong a beat it was; how faint and far +any whispers of the old ill. What if he were not going to die? What if +he were to go on loving Kitty for a lifetime? + +And at that the mere hysterics conquered the tears; he burst out +laughing. There, on Kitty's breast, he laughed and laughed, helpless, +cruel and ridiculous. + +Terrified, she tried to still him. When he lifted his face he saw that +hers was ashen, set to meet the tragedy of imminent parting. Did she +think it the death rattle? + +He flung his head back from her kisses, flung himself back from her +arms. Still laughing the convulsive laugh he got up and pushed away the +chair. + +"I'm tired--I'm so tired, Kitty," he said. + +She sat, her hands fallen in her lap, staring at him. + +"You are tired, too," he went on; "it's been a tiring day, hasn't +it?--we have been through a lot, haven't we, poor Kitty? Poor Kitty:--do +go to bed now. Will you go to bed, and leave me here to rest a little?" + +"Nicholas, are you mad--what has happened to you?" she murmured, +spellbound, not daring to move. + +"Why, I'm ill, you know; I'm very ill. I'm not mad--I'm only so +abominably tired. You mustn't ask questions; I can't stand it,--I can't +stand it----" And, leaning his arms on the back of the chair, resting +his face on them, with tears of sheer fatigue, tears untouched by +laughter--"I'm so tired. I want to be alone," he sobbed. + +The abominable moments that followed were more full of shame for him +than any he had even known:--of shame, and of relief. He had torn his +way, with his words, out of the nest; he had fallen to the ground. He +was ashamed and horrified, yet--oh, the joy, the deep joy of being on +the ground, out in the cold, fresh world, out of the nest. + +At last he heard her speak, slowly, softly, with difficulty, as though +she were afraid of angering him. "Shall I go away, Nicholas?" + +His face was still hidden. "Yes, do go to bed," he answered. + +"I can do nothing for you?" + +"Nothing, dear." + +"You are not dying?" + +"No; I'm not feeling in the least ill." + +"You would--send for me--if you were dying?" + +"Dear Kitty,--of course." + +"And----" she had risen, not daring to draw near, he knew that the +trembling voice came through tears:--"And, you love me? you love me a +little?" + +"Dear Kitty--of course I love you." + +It was over. She was gone. She had not asked for his good-night kiss. It +was like a sword between them. + +He drew a long breath, lifting his head. + +Alone. There was ecstasy in the thought. + +He walked out into the garden and looked up at the stars as he walked. +There had been no stars in the nest. + +He didn't think of death. There had been too much thinking of death; +that was one of the things he was tired of. Still less did he want to +think of Kitty or of himself. + +He looked at the stars and thought of them, but not in any manner +emotional or poetical; he thought of astronomical facts, dry, sound, +delightful facts: he looked at the darkened trees and dim flowers and +thought of botany: the earth he trod on was full of scientific interest; +the Pierrots, the fairies and the angels--yes, the angels too--were +vanished. He hungered for impersonal interests and information. + +Kitty would, indeed, have thought him mad; after the calming walk he +came in, lit a cigar and sat for hours studying. + +Before Kitty was up next morning he was on his way back to London to see +the great specialist. + +It was a long visit he paid, an astonishing visit, though the +astonishment, really, was not his; life had seemed deeply to have +promised something when he had ceased to think of death--when he had +ceased to want death, even. That strong beating of his heart had been a +mute forestalling. The astonishment was the good, great doctor's, and it +was reiterated with an emphasis that showed something of wounded +professional pride beneath it. It was, indeed, humiliating to have made +such a complete mistake, to have seen only one significance in symptoms +that, to far-sightedness clairvoyant enough, should have hinted, at all +events, at another, and, as a result, to have doomed to speedy death a +man now obviously as far from dying as oneself: "I can't forgive myself +for robbing you of a month of life," the doctor said. "A month with +death at the end of it can't be called a month of life." + +"Very much of life," said Holland. "So much so that I hardly know yet +whether I am glad or sorry that you were mistaken." + +He indeed hardly did know. All the way down in the train he was thinking +intently of the new complicated life that had been given back to him, +and of what he should do with it. At moments the thought seemed to +overwhelm him, to draw him into gulfs deeper than death's had been. + +All through that month life had meant the moment only. The vistas and +horizons seemed now to open and flash and make him dizzy. How could he +take up again the burden of far ends and tangled purposes? The dust of +coming conflicts seemed to rise to his nostrils. Life was perilous and +appalling in its fluctuating immensity. + +But, with all the disillusion and irony of his new experience, with all +the unwholesome languor that had unstrung his will, some deeper wisdom, +also, had been given him. He could turn from the nightmare vision that +saw time as eternity. + +The walk in the night had brought a message. He could not say it, nor +see it clearly, but the sense of its presence was like the coolness and +freshness of wings fanning away fevers and nightmare. Somewhere there it +hovered, the significance of the message, somewhere in those allied yet +contrasted thoughts of eternity and time. + +There had been his mistake, his and Kitty's, the mistake that had meant +irony and lassitude and corruption. To heap all time into the moment, to +make a false eternity of it, was to arrest something, to stop blood from +flowing, thought from growing, was to create a nightmare distortion, a +monstrous, ballooned travesty of the eternity that, in moving life, +could never be more, could never be less, than the ideal life sought +unceasingly. + +As for Paradise, what more grotesque illusion than to see it with walls +around it, what more piteous dream than to feel it narrowed to a nest? + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +He found Kitty alone in the drawing-room, alone, with empty hands and +empty, waiting eyes. He saw that she had wept, and that his departure, +only a brief note to break it to her, had added deep indignation to her +sorrow. She was no longer timid, nor cowed by the change she felt in +him. She had cast aside subtlety and appeal. It was a challenge that met +him in her eyes. + +He had intended to tell her his news at once and the preparatory smile +was on his lips as he entered, a smile, though he did not know this, +strangely like that smile of reassurance and consolation that had met +her in the library a month ago. + +But she gave him no time for a word. + +Leaping from her chair she faced him, and with a vision still clearer +than that which had showed him subtlety a month ago, he saw now her +pettiness, her piteousness, her girlish violence and weakness. "Cruel! +Cruel! Cruel!"--she cried. + +He remained standing at a little distance from her, looking at her sadly +and appealingly. Her words of reproach rushed forth and overwhelmed him +like a frenzied torrent. + +"To leave me without a word, after last night! You treat me like a dog +that one kicks aside because it wearies one with its love. You have no +heart--I've felt it for days and days!--No heart! You hate me! You +despise me! And what have I done to deserve it but love--love--love +you--like the poor dog! But I know--I know--It is Sir Walter. You can't +forgive me that--It has poisoned everything--that ignorant folly of +mine. At first you thought you could forgive, and then you grew to hate +me. And I--I--" her voice choked, gasped into sobs;--"I have only loved +you--loved you--more and more----" + +"Kitty, you are mistaken," said Holland. "I've never given Sir Walter a +thought." It was a reed she grasped at in the torrent, he saw that +well;--a desperate hope. + +"It's false!" she cried. "You have! You thought at first that you would +be magnanimous and save me,--you could be magnanimous because you were +going to die--it's easy enough to be magnanimous if you are going to +die! easy enough to be peaceful and sad--and to stand there and smile +and smile as if you were only sorry for me. But you found out that you +were alive enough to be jealous after all, and that you could not really +forgive me, and then you hated me." + +"Kitty--you know that you do not believe what you are saying." + +"Can you deny that if you had been going to live you would not have +forgiven me?" + +"I can. I could have forgiven. But then, as I said to you--that day, +Kitty, on the lawn,--it would have been more difficult to save you." + +"Your love, then, was a pretence to save me!" + +"Nothing was pretence, at first," he answered her patiently. "At first I +was only glad for your sake that I was going to be out of the way so +soon; and when I found that you could care for me again I was glad that +I had still a month to live with you." + +His words smote on her heart like stones. He saw it and yearned over her +pain; but such yearning, such dispassionate tenderness was, he knew, the +poison in her veins that maddened her. + +She looked, now, at last, at the truth. He had not put it into words, +but with the abandonment of her specious hope she saw and spoke it. + +"It was, then, because it was only for a month." + +He hesitated, seeing, too. "That I was glad?" + +"That you loved me." + +Across the room, in a long silence, they looked at each other. And in +the silence another truth came to him, cruel, clear, salutary. + +"Wasn't it, perhaps, for both of us, because it was only for a month?" + +The shock went as visibly through her as though it had, indeed, +been a stone hurled at her breast. "You mean--you mean--" she +stammered--"Oh--you don't believe that I love you--You believe that it +could pass, with me, as it has with you!" She threw herself into the +chair, casting her arms on the back, burying her face in them. + +Holland, timidly, approached her. He was afraid of the revelation he +must make. "I believe that you do love me, Kitty, and that I love you; +but not in the way we thought. We neither of us could go on loving like +that; it was because it was only for a month that we thought we could. +It wasn't real." + +"Oh," she sobbed, "that is the difference--the cruel difference. You +love me in that terrible way--the way that could give me up and not +mind; but I am in love with you;--that's the dreadful difference. Men +get over it; but women are always in love." + +Perhaps Kitty saw further than he did. Holland was abashed before the +helpless revelation of a mysterious and alien sorrow. For women the +brooding dream; for men the active dusty world. Yet even here, on the +threshold of a secret, absurd, yet perhaps, in its absurdity, lovelier +than man's sterner visions, he felt that, for her sake, he must draw her +away from the contemplation of it. That was one thing he had learned, +for Kitty. She, too, must manage to fly--or fall--out of the nest; she +must get, in some way, more dust into her life. He had forgotten the +news he was to tell her; he had forgotten all but her need. + +"Perhaps that is true, dear Kitty," he said; "but isn't it, in a way, +that women are _merely_ in love. It's not with anybody; or, rather, it +is with anybody--with me or with Sir Walter; I mean, anybody who seems +to promise more love. Horrible I sound, I know. Forgive me. But I wish I +could shake you out of being in love. I want you to be more my comrade +than you have been. Don't let us think so much of love." + +But Kitty moaned: "I don't want a comrade. I want a lover." + +And, in the silence that followed, lifting her head suddenly, she fixed +her eyes on him. + +"You talk as if we could be comrades," she said. "You talk as if we were +to go on living together. What did the doctor say? I don't believe that +you are going to die." + +He felt ridiculous now. The real tragedy was there, between them; but +the tragedy upon which all their fictitious romance had been built was +to tumble about their ears. + +It was as if he had all along been deceiving, misleading her, acting on +false pretences, winning her love by his borrowed funereal splendour. +Almost shamefacedly, looking down and stammering over the silly +confession, he said: "It was all a mistake. I'm not going to die." + +He did not look at her for some moments. He was sure that she was deaf +and breathless with the crash and crumbling. + +Presently, when he did raise his eyes, he found that she was staring at +him, curiously, intently. She had found herself: she had found him; +and--oh yes--he saw it--he was far from her. The stare, essentially, was +one of a hard hostility. She had been betrayed and robbed; she could +not forgive him. + +"Kitty," he said timidly, "are you sorry?" + +Her sombre gaze dwelt on him. + +"Tell me you're not sorry," he pleaded. + +She answered him at last: "How dare you ask me that? How dare you ask me +whether I am sorry that you are not going to die? You must know that it +is an insult." + +"I mean--if I disappointed--failed you so--" + +"I must wish you dead? You have a charming idea of me." + +How her voice clashed and clanged with the hardness, the warfare, the +uproar of the outer world. After the hush, the gentleness of Paradise, +it was like being thrown, dizzy and bewildered, among the traffic and +turmoil of a great city. + +"Don't be cruel," he murmured. + +"I? Cruel!" she laughed. + +She got up and walked up and down the room. A fever of desperate, +baffled anger burned in her. He saw that she did not trust herself to +speak. She was afraid of betraying, to herself and to him, the ugly +distortion of her soul. + +He was not to die; he was not her lover; and Kitty was the primitive +woman. She could be in love, but she could not love unless pity were +appealed to. His loss of all passion had killed her romance. His loss of +all pathos had, perhaps, killed even human tenderness. For it was he who +had drawn away. She was humiliated to the dust. + +And that she made a great effort upon herself, so that to his eyes the +ugliness might not be betrayed, he guessed presently when, looking +persistently away from him and out at the garden--their garden! +alas!--where a fine rain fell silently, she said: "I am glad that your +sorrow is over. I hope that you will find happier things--and realler +things--than you have found in this month. I will remember all that you +have said to-day. I think that you have cured me for ever. I shall not +be in love again." + +"Kitty! Kitty!" he breathed out. She hurt him too much, the poor child, +arming its empty heart against him. "Don't speak like that. +Remember--the month has been beautiful." + +The tears rose in her eyes, but the hostility did not leave them. +"Beautiful? When it has not been real?" + +"Can't we remember the beauty--make something more real?" he now almost +wept. But there it was, the shallow, the hard child's heart. He was not +in love with her. And, like a nest of snakes, the memory of all her +humiliations--her appeals, her proffered love, his evasions and +withdrawals--was awake within her. She smiled, a smile that, seeking +magnanimity, found only bitterness. "You must speak for yourself, dear +Nicholas. For me it was real, and you have spoiled the beauty." + +The servants came in while she spoke and she moved aside to make way for +the placing of the tea-table. Traces of the fever were upon her yet; her +delicate face was flushed, her eyes sparkled. But she had regained the +place she meant to keep. She would own to no discomfitures deeper than +those that were creditable to her. Moving here and there, touching the +flowers in a vase, straightening reviews scattered on a table, she was +even able to smile again at him a smile almost kind, and keeping, before +him, as well as for the servants, all the advantage of composure. + +That smile would often meet him throughout life, and so he would see +her, moving delicately and gracefully, making order and comeliness about +her, for many years. She set the key. It was the key of their future +life together, Holland knew, as he heard her say: "Do sit down and rest. +You must want your tea after that tiresome journey." + + + + +THE WHITE PAGODA + + +The drama of the drawing-rooms had begun years ago, but Owen Stacpole +did not come into it until the day on which his cousin Gwendolen, after +examining the box of bric-a-brac, remarked, refolding the last pieces of +china in their dusty newspapers, that they were rubbish, and silly +rubbish, too, of just the sort that Aunt Pickthorne had always +unerringly accumulated. The box had arrived that morning, a legacy from +this deceased relative; it had been brought up to the drawing-room and +placed upon a sheet near the fire, so that Mrs. Conyers might examine +its contents in comfort, and Owen, while he wrote at the black lacquer +bureau in the window, had been aware of Gwendolen's gibes and +exclamations behind him. Now, when she asserted that she would send the +whole futile collection down to Mr. Glazebrook and see if he would give +her enough for it to buy a pair of gloves with, Owen rose and limped to +join her and to look down at the wooden box into which she was +thrusting, with some vindictiveness, the dingy parcels. + +"Have you looked at them all?" he inquired. "I forget--was your Aunt +Pickthorne a Mrs. or a Miss? And how long has it been since she died?" + +"About six months, poor old thing. And these treasures have evidently +never been dusted since. She was a Mrs. Her husband was old Admiral +Pickthorne--don't you remember?--and they lived, after he retired, at +Cheltenham. Two more guileless Philistines I've never known. It used to +make me feel quite ill to go and stay with them when I was a girl. I've +hardly been at all since then, and that's probably why she selected all +the most hideous objects in her drawing-room to leave me. How well I +remember that drawing-room! Crocheted antimacassars; and a round, +mahogany centre-table on which a lamp used to stand in the evening; and +the wall-paper of frosted robin's-egg-blue, with stuffed birds in cases, +and terracotta plaques framed in ruby plush, hanging upon it--a +perfectly horrible room. Half a dozen of the plaques are in there; the +birds she spared me. She had one or two lovely old family things which +I'd allowed myself to hope for; a Spode tea-set I remember. But, no; +there's nothing worth looking at." + +Mrs. Conyers lightly dusted her hands together, and rose from her knees. +She was, at thirty-eight, a very graceful woman; tall, of ample form, +and attired with fashionable ease and fluency. Fashion had been a late +development with Gwendolen. In her gaunt and wistful girlhood she had +worn her hair in drooping Rossettian masses, and her throat had been +differently bare. Now she was as accurate as she was easy. Her hair was +even a little too sophisticatedly distended, and her long pearl +ear-rings, though they became the tender violet of her eyes, emphasized, +as her former Pre-Raphaelite ornaments had not seemed to do, a certain +genial commonplaceness in the contours of her cheek and chin. But almost +fat and decisively unpoetical as she had become, it was undeniable that +this last phase of dress and, in especial, these widow's weeds, with +sinuous lines of jet and lustrous falls of fringes, became her better +than any in which Owen remembered to have seen her. + +Gwendolen's drawing-room, too, had undergone, since the days of her +girlhood, as complete a metamorphosis as she had. When she had married +and left the big house in Kensington where Owen had spent many a happy +holiday--when she had married crabbed old Mr. Conyers, the Chislebridge +dignitary, and gone to live in Chislebridge, her convictions had at once +expressed themselves luxuriantly in large-patterned wall-papers and +deep-cushioned divans and in Eastern fabrics draping the mantelpiece or +cast irrelevantly over carved Indian screens. Her teas had been brought +in on trays of Indian beaten brass, and the mosque-like opening between +the front and back drawing-room had been hung with translucent curtains +of beaded reeds, through which one had to plunge as though through a +sheet of dropping water. Owen well remembered their tinkle and rattle +and the perfume of burning Eastern pastilles that greeted one when, +emerging, one found oneself in the dim, rich gloom among the divans and +the brasses and the palms. In those days Gwendolen had been draped +rather than dressed, and the gestures and attitudes of her languid arms +and wrists seemed more adapted to a dulcimer than to a tea-pot. But she +dispensed excellent tea, and though her eyes were appropriately +yearning, her talk was quite as reassuringly commonplace as Owen had +always found it. + +It was only in the course of years that the reed curtains and the +carved Indian screens and the divans ebbed away; but the change was +complete at last, and he found Gwendolen, with undulated hair puffed +over a frame, and a small waist,--large waists not having then come +in,--receiving her visitors in the most clear, calm, austere of rooms, +with polished floor, Sheraton furniture, and Japanese colour-prints +framed in white hanging on pensive spaces of willow-leaf-green wall. +Gwendolen talked of Strauss's music and of the New English Art Club, was +indignant at the prohibition of "Monna Vanna," and to some no longer apt +remark of an aspiring caller answered that to speak so was surely to +Ruskinize. He realized on this occasion that Gwendolen had become the +arbiter of taste in Chislebridge. He followed her into several +drawing-rooms and observed that she had set the fashion in furniture and +wall-paper; that some were pushing their way toward Japanese prints, and +some were even beginning to babble faintly of Manet. Five years had +passed since then, and now, on this his first visit to Chislebridge +since old Mr. Conyers's death, another change had taken place. +Gwendolen's hips were compressed, her waist was large once more, though +of a carefully calculated largeness, and only in a fine bit of the old +furniture here and there did a trace of the former green drawing-room +remain. This was certainly the most interesting room that Gwendolen had +yet achieved. There had been little character, if much charm, in the +green drawing-room; one knew so many like it. With a slight +self-discipline, its harmonies were really easy to attain. But it was +not easy to attain a mingled richness and austerity; to be recondite, +yet lovely; to set such cabinets of rosy old lacquer near such Chinese +screens or hang subtle strips of Chinese painting on just the right +shade of dim, white wall. It took money, it took time, it took knowledge +to find such delicate cane-seated settees framed in black lacquer, and +to pick up such engraved glass, such white Chinese porcelain and white +Italian earthenware. Melting together in their dim splendour and shining +softness, they had so enchantingly arrested Owen the night before that, +pausing on the threshold, he had said with a whole-heartedness she had +never yet heard from him, "Well, Gwen, yours is the loveliest room I've +ever seen." + +It was indeed triumphantly lovely, although, examining it more +critically by the morning light, he had found slight dissatisfactions. +It was perhaps a little too much like an admirably sophisticated +curiosity-shop. It was an object to be examined with delight, hardly a +subject to be lived with with love. And it almost distressed him to see +the touch of genial commonplaceness expressing itself pervasively in the +big bowls and jars and vases of pink roses that burgeoned everywhere. +They showed no real sense of what the lacquer and glass and porcelain +demanded; for they demanded surely a more fragile, less obvious flower. +And one or two minor ornaments, though evidently selected with +scrupulous conscientiousness, seemed to him equally at fault. Still, he +had again that morning, before seating himself to write, repeated in all +sincerity, "This is really the loveliest room," and Gwendolen, from +where she knelt above Aunt Pickthorne's box, had answered, following his +eyes, "I am _so_ glad you like it, dear Owen." + +Gwendolen was very fond of him, and her fondness had never been so +marked. It was of that he had been thinking as he wrote. He had never +felt fonder of Gwendolen. Her drawing-room was lovely, her widow's weeds +became her, and she was, as she had always been, the kindest of +creatures. In every sense the house would be a pleasanter one to stay at +than in old Mr. Conyers's lifetime. Owen had not liked old Mr. Conyers, +who had had too much the air of thinking himself an historical figure +and his breakfast historical events, who snubbed his wife and quoted +Greek and Latin pugnaciously, and took the cabinet ministers and +duchesses who sometimes sojourned under his roof, with an unctuousness +that made more marked the aridity of his manner toward less illustrious +guests. The Conyers had come to count in the eyes of Chislebridge and +the surrounding country as the social figure-heads of the studious old +town, and Owen had found himself, as Gwendolen's crippled, writing, +cousin, year by year of relatively less importance in the eyes of +Gwendolen's husband. Actually, as it happened, he had during those years +become almost illustrious himself; but his austere distinction, such as +it was, had been as moonrise rather than dawn, and had left him as +gently impersonal as before, and even more impoverished. +Negligible-looking as he knew he was, he had sometimes been amused to +note old Mr. Conyers's bewilderment when a cabinet minister or a duchess +manifested their pleasurable excitement in meeting him. As for +Gwendolen, her essential loyalty and kindness had always remained the +same since the days when she had protected him from the sallies of her +boisterous brothers and sisters in the Kensington family mansion--the +same till now. Last night and to-day he had recognised a difference. He +wondered whether he was a conceited fool for imagining in Gwendolen a +dwelling tenderness, a brooding touch, indeed, of reminiscent +wistfulness. Was it to show an unbecoming complacency if he allowed his +mind to dwell upon the possibilities that this development in Gwendolen +presented to his imagination? He was delicate and poor and, despite a +large visiting-list, he was lonely. He was fond of Gwendolen and of her +two nice, dull boys. She amused him, it was true, as she had always +amused him; for though her drawing-room had become interesting, though +she had developed a sense of humour, or at least the intention of +humorousness, though she often attempted playfulness and even irony, she +was still at heart as disproportionately earnest as she had been in +youth. But Gwendolen would make no romantic demands upon him, and she +would not expect him to take even red lacquer as seriously as she did, +or to follow with the same breathlessness the erratic movements of +modern aestheticism. She was accustomed to his passive unresponsiveness, +and would resent it no more in the husband than in the friend. +Altogether, as he sat there writing at Gwendolen's lovely bureau, he +knew that a sense of homely magic grew upon him. + +Next morning, wandering about the pleasant streets of the old town, he +found himself before the window of Mr. Glazebrook's curiosity-shop--a +shop well known to more than Chislebridge. He paused to look at the +objects disposed with a dignified reticence against a dark background, +and his eye was attracted by a very delightful red lacquer box that at +once made him think of Gwendolen's drawing-room. Just the thing for her, +it was. But as he entered the shop, Mr. Glazebrook leaned from within +and took it from its place in the window. He was showing it to another +customer. + +Owen now quite vehemently longed to possess the box, which, he saw, as +Mr. Glazebrook displayed it, was cunningly fitted with little inner +segments, beautifully patterned in gold. Feigning an indifferent survey +of the shop, he lingered near, hoping that his rival would relinquish +her opportunity. + +"Five pounds! O dear, that is too much for me, I'm afraid," he heard her +say, and, at the voice, he turned and looked at her. The voice was +unusual--a rapid, rather husky voice that made him think of muffled +bells or snow-bound water, gay in rhythm, yet marred in tone, almost as +though the speaker had cried a great deal. She was an unusual figure, +too, though he could not have said why, except that her dress seemed to +recall bygone fashions quaintly, though without a hint of dowdiness or +affectation. She wore a skirt and jacket of soft gray, with pleated lawn +at neck and wrists, and her small gray hat was wreathed with violets. +She held the lacquer box, and her face, rosy, crisp, decisive, and +showing, like her voice, a marred gaiety, expressed her reluctant +relinquishment and her strong desire. Owen had seen a child look at a +forbidden fruit with just such an expression and he suddenly wished that +he could give the box to her rather than to Gwendolen, to whom five +pounds was a matter of small moment. + +"I think I mustn't," she repeated, after a further hesitation, and +setting the box down with cherishing care. "Not to-day. And I have so +much red lacquer. It's like dram-drinking." + +Mr. Glazebrook smiled affably. He was evidently on old-established terms +with his customer. "Perhaps you'd like to look round a bit, Mrs. +Waterlow," he suggested. "There are some nice pieces of old glass in the +inner room, quite cheap, some of them--a set of old champagne glasses." +Mrs. Waterlow, saying that she wanted some old champagne glasses, moved +away. + +"Do you think the lady has given up that box?" Owen asked. "I don't want +to buy it if there's a chance of her changing her mind." + +Mr. Glazebrook said that there was no such chance, the lady being one +who knew her own mind; so the box was bought and Owen ordered it to be +sent to Gwendolen. He said then that he would like to have a look round, +too. He really wanted to have another look at the lady with the rosy +face and the small gray hat trimmed with violets. He peered into +cabinets ranged thickly with old glass and china, examined the Worcester +tea-set disposed upon a table and the case of Chinese tear-bottles and +Japanese netzukes, and presently made his way into the smaller, dimmer +room at the back. + +"Oh, Mr. Glazebrook," said the lady in gray. She had heard his step, but +had not turned. She was kneeling before an open packing-case and holding +an object that she had drawn from it. Owen suddenly recognised the case. +It was the one that Gwendolen yesterday had sent down to Mr. Glazebrook. +He called this person, raising his hat, and the lady looked round at +him, too preoccupied to express her recognition of her mistake by more +than a vague murmur of thanks. "Mr. Glazebrook," she said, holding up a +whitish object, "may I have this? Is it expensive?" + +"Well, really, I only glanced over the box. A customer sent it down to +me to dispose of, and I didn't think there was anything in it worth +much. Let me see, Mrs. Waterlow; it's a pagoda, I take it, a Chinese +pagoda. We've had them from time to time, in ivory and smaller than +this." + +"This is in porcelain," said the lady, "and beautifully moulded." + +"I see, I see," said Mr. Glazebrook, taking the fragile top segment of +the disjointed pagoda in his hand, and rather at a loss; "and it's +slightly damaged." + +The lady in gray evidently was not a shrewd bargainer. "Only a little," +she said. "One or two bits have been chipped out of the roofs, and it's +lost one or two of its little crystal rings; but I think it's in quite +good condition, and I have it all here." She was placing one segment +upon the other. "They are all made to fit, you see, with the little +openings in each story." + +She had built it up beside her as she knelt on the floor, and it stood +like a fragile, fantastic ghost, with the upward tilt of its tiled +roofs, its embossed patterns, and the crystal rings trembling from each +angle of the roofs like raindrops. "What a darling!" said Mrs. Waterlow. +"How much do you ask for it, Mr. Glazebrook?" + +Mr. Glazebrook, adjusting his knowledge of the limitations of Mrs. +Waterlow's purse to his present appreciation of the pagoda and of her +desire for it, said genially, after a moment, that from an old customer +like herself he would ask only forty-five shillings. + +"Well, I think it's a great bargain, Mr. Glazebrook," said Mrs. +Waterlow. "And I'll have it." + +"Shall I send it round?" Mr. Glazebrook asked. + +"Yes, please; or, no, it isn't heavy,"--she lifted it with both hands, +rising with it and looking like a Saint Barbara holding her tower,--"I +can manage it to just round the corner. Wrap it up for me, and I'll +carry it off myself." + +When Owen saw his cousin again at lunch, the red lacquer box had not yet +arrived, and, with a touch of friendly mockery, he said: + +"Well, you have been unlucky, my dear Gwen. There was the most charming +piece of old Chinese porcelain in that scorned Cheltenham box, and I saw +Mr. Glazebrook sell it this morning to a lady who wasn't to be put off +by dust and newspapers and plush-framed plaques. She carried it off in +triumph, saying that it was a great bargain. And so it was; but she +might have had it for half the money if she hadn't informed Mr. +Glazebrook of its probable value." + +Gwendolen fixed her mild, violet eyes upon him. "A piece of old Chinese +porcelain? Do you mean that silly white pagoda?" + +"You did see it, then?" + +"See it? Haven't I seen it all my life? It stood on a purple worsted mat +on a little bamboo table between the Nottingham lace curtains in one of +Aunt Pickthorne's drawing-room windows, and looked like some piece of +childish gimcrackery bought at a bazaar, where, I'll wager, she did buy +it." + +"Well, Mrs. Waterlow evidently didn't think it gimcrackery, or, if she +did, she didn't mind. It looked to me, I confess, an exquisite thing. +But her admiration may have lent it its enchantment." + +Gwendolen's eyes now fixed themselves more searchingly than before. + +"Mrs. Waterlow? Did Mrs. Waterlow buy it? How did you know it was Mrs. +Waterlow? I thought you'd never met her." + +"I haven't; but I heard Mr. Glazebrook call her by her name. She'd +wanted to buy a red lacquer box that I spotted in the window and had +gone in to get for you, my dear Gwen. It was too expensive for her,--so +that it is yours,--and she went rummaging into the back shop and found +your box with the things just as you and Mr. Glazebrook had left them, +and in no time she'd disinterred the pagoda." + +Gwendolen apparently was so arrested by his story that she forgot for +the moment to thank him for the lacquer box. + +"Do you know her?" he asked. + +"Know her? Know Cicely Waterlow? Why, I've known her since she first +came to live here, years ago. She's a very dear friend of mine," +Gwendolen said, adding: "How much did she pay for it? That wretched man +gave me only fifteen shillings for the lot." + +"He made her pay forty-five shillings for the pagoda. I suspect myself +that it's worth ten times as much. Does she care for things, +too--lacquer and engraved glass?" + +Gwendolen still showed preoccupation and, he fancied, a touch of +vexation. + +"Care for them? Yes; who with any taste doesn't care for them? Cicely +has very good taste, too, in her little way. She doesn't know anything, +but she picks up ideas and puts them together very cleverly. I can't +help thinking that she'd never have given the pagoda a thought if my +white porcelain hadn't educated her. I really can't believe that it's +good, Owen." + +Owen waived the point. + +"Who is Mr. Waterlow?" he asked. + +"He has been dead for fifteen or sixteen years. He died only a year +after their marriage. A very delightful man, so people say who knew him. +And Cicely lost her little girl, to whom she was passionately devoted, +five years ago; she has never really recovered from that. She used to be +so pretty, poor Cicely! She's lost it all now. She cried her very eyes +out. She has a little money and lives with her mother-in-law, old Mrs. +Waterlow, who is very fond of her. They don't entertain except in the +quietest way, or go out much, and I do what I can to give Cicely a good +time. I often have her here to tea when I have interesting people +staying." + +"Oh, that's good. Do count me as interesting enough and ask her while +I'm here." + +"Interesting enough, my dear Owen! I don't suppose that Cicely often has +a chance of meeting such an interesting man as you. Of course I'll ask +her," said Gwendolen. Then, remembering his gift: "It _was_ nice of you +to get me a red lacquer box, Owen. I adore red lacquer, and I'm quite +sure, whatever you and Cicely Waterlow may say, that it's worth a +hundred of your white pagodas." + +Mrs. Waterlow came to tea next afternoon, the last of Owen's stay. The +drawing-room was crowded, and Owen, when she was announced, was enjoying +a talk with a dismal-looking old philosopher who had plaintive, white +hairs on his nose and trousers that bagged irremediably at the knees. + +"Yes, indeed, I know her well," said Professor Selden, as Owen +questioned him. "I play chess with her once a week. Her little girl was +a great pet of mine. You never saw the little girl?" + +"Never, and I've not yet met Mrs. Waterlow. She is most +charming-looking." + +"The little girl was so much like her," said Professor Selden, sadly. +"Yes, she is a charming woman. Don't let me keep you from meeting her. I +am going to sit down here while our young friend Dawkins plays. You +know Dawkins? Between ourselves, Mrs. Conyers thinks too highly of +him." + +Mrs. Waterlow's eyes turned upon him as he limped up to her and +Gwendolen, and smiling, she said, "Why, I saw you yesterday in Mr. +Glazebrook's shop." + +"Yes," said Owen, "and there is the red lacquer box." + +"And you, Cicely, bought my pagoda," said Gwendolen. + +"Your pagoda?" Mrs. Waterlow questioned, her eyes, that seemed to open +with a little difficulty, resting on her hostess with some surprise. +"Was the pagoda yours?" + +"Yes, mine," said Gwendolen. "It came in a box of rubbish,--you saw the +kind of rubbish,--a legacy from an old aunt, and I bundled it off to +Glazebrook. Owen says it is really good. Is it?" + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Waterlow. + +"I'm sure it is," said Owen, "and I liked the accuracy with which you +fell in love with it at first sight." + +"I did fall in love with it, good or bad," said Mrs. Waterlow. "Don't +tell me that you want it back again, Gwendolen. But if it was a mistake, +of course----" + +He recognised in her the note of guilelessness and, with some decision, +for he actually perceived an eagerness in Gwendolen's glance, interposed +with, "But Gwendolen thinks it gimcrackery, and wouldn't have it at any +price. Isn't it so, Gwendolen?" + +Poor Gwendolen was looking a little glum; but she was the most +unresentful of creatures. + +"Indeed, it is," she said. "I did think it gimcrackery; but, to tell the +truth, I never really saw it at all. I can't believe you'd have seen it, +Cicely, standing on its worsted mat in my Aunt Pickthorne's +drawing-room. But I wouldn't dream, of course, of taking it back; and if +it's really good, I'm more glad than I can say that my loss should be +your gain. Now, won't you and Owen sit down here and listen to my +wonderful Perceval Dawkins? Oh, he is going to astonish the world some +day." + +Mrs. Waterlow and Owen, in the intervals of the ensuing music, talked +together. Seen more closely, he found that her face, though not +beautiful, was even more singularly delightful than he had thought it. +She had eyes merry, yet tired, like those of a sleepy child, and sweet, +small, firm lips and a glance and smile at once very frank and very +remote. There was about her none of that aroma of sorrow that some +women distil from the tragedies of their lives, and wear, even if +unconsciously, like an allurement. He felt that in Mrs. Waterlow sorrow +had been an isolating, a bewildering, a devastating experience, making +her at once more ready to take refuge in the trivialities of life and +more unable to admit an intimacy into the essentials. Yet the spring of +vitality and mirth was so strong in her that in all she said he felt a +quality restorative, aromatic, fragrant, as if he were walking in spring +woods and smelt everywhere the rising sap and the breath of violets. She +was remote, blighted, yet buoyant. When she rose to go, he realised with +sudden dismay that to-day was his last in Chislebridge and that he +should not see her again for who knew how long. + +"Is the pagoda placed?" he asked her. "Does it fulfil your +expectations?" + +"Yes, indeed," she said. "I spent two hours yesterday in washing and +mending it. It is immaculate now, as lovely as a pearl." + +"I wish I could see it," said Owen. + +"Why, pray, then, come and see it. Can you come to tea with me and my +mother-in-law to-morrow?" + +"I'm going away to-morrow," said Owen, dismally. And then he bethought +him. "Can't I walk back with you now? Is it too late? Only +five-thirty." + +"Not in the least too late. Mamma will still be having tea, and she +loves people to drop in. But ought you to come away?" Mrs. Waterlow +glanced round the crowded room. + +"I'll not be missed," he assured her with some conscious speciousness. + +Gwendolen, indeed, had time only for a little stare of surprise when he +told her that he was going to look at the pagoda with Mrs. Waterlow. She +was receiving new guests, richly furred and motor-veiled ladies who had +come in from the country and were expatiating over the beauties of the +red lacquer cabinets, Gwendolen's latest acquisitions. + +"That will be delightful," she said; "and now Owen will see that sweet +drawing-room of yours, dearest. You have made it so pretty!" + +Owen observed that Mrs. Waterlow, while maintaining all the suavities of +intercourse, did not address Gwendolen as dearest. + +It was not far to Mrs. Waterlow's, and he said, in reply to her +question, that he liked walking, if she didn't mind going slowly on his +account. He found himself telling her, then, about his lameness. A bad +fall while skating in boyhood had handicapped him for life. The lamps +had just been lighted and the evening of early spring was blurred with +mist. Catkins hung against a faintly rosy sky, and in the gardens that +they passed the crocuses stood thickly. Owen had a sense of adventure +poignant in its reminiscent magic. Not for years had he so felt the +savour of youth. He realised, with a deep happiness, that Mrs. Waterlow +liked him; sometimes she laughed at things he said, and once or twice +when her eyes turned on him he fancied in them the same expression of +happy discovery with which she had looked at the pagoda. Well, he +reflected, if she thought him delightful, too, she had had to get +through a great many dusty newspapers to find him. + +Mrs. Waterlow lived, away from the gardened houses of Chislebridge, in a +small but rather stately house with a Georgian facade which stood on one +of the narrower, older streets. They went up two or three stone steps +from the pavement and knocked at a very bright and massive knocker, and +the door was opened by a middle-aged Quakerish maid. The drawing-room +was on the ground floor, and Mrs. Waterlow led him in. + +Owen's astonishment, when he entered, prompted him to stand still and +to gaze about him; but luckily he could not yield to the impulse, for he +had to cross to the fire, near which, behind her tea-table, old Mrs. +Waterlow sat, and had to be presented to her and to the middle-aged, +academic-looking lady who was having tea with her. He was glad of the +respite, for he had received a shock. + +Old Mrs. Waterlow had dark, authoritative eyes and white hair much +dressed under black lace, and the finest of hands, decorated with old +seals and old diamonds. She must, he felt, be a companion at once +inspiriting and disquieting, for she had the demeanour of a naughty, +haughty child, and, as she held Owen in talk for some moments, he +perceived that her conversation was of a sort to cause alarm and +amusement in her listeners. Poor old Professor Selden, who was +mentioned, offered her an opportunity for the frankest witticisms, +and,--when her daughter-in-law protested,--"Yes, dear, I know you are +fond of him," the old lady replied, "and so am I; but he is, all the +same, very like a damp potato that has begun to sprout." + +"Now look at my pagoda, Mr. Stacpole," said young Mrs. Waterlow, +laughing, yet, he saw, not pleased, and turning from the fire where she +had been standing with her foot on the fender. + +"Does Mr. Stacpole care for bric-a-brac, too?" old Mrs. Waterlow +inquired. "Cicely came home with this last treasure in as much triumph +as if some one had left her a fortune. I resent the pagoda because it +means that she will go without a spring hat. She is always coming home +in triumph and always doing without hats; and I sit here without an atom +of taste, and get the credit for hers. Frankly, Sybilla, my dear," she +addressed the academic lady, "I'd be quite content to sit upon red reps +and to cover my tea-pot with a pink satin cosy with apple-blossoms +painted on it. I had such a cosy given to me this Christmas; but Cicely +wouldn't let me use it." + +Owen had risen to face his ordeal. Mrs. Waterlow, he had seen it in the +first astonished glance, had, like everybody else in Chislebridge, been +imitating Gwendolen, and his whole conception of her was undergoing a +reconstruction. He followed her to the table on which the white pagoda +stood, glancing about him and taking in deep drafts of disillusion. Red +lacquer and Japanese prints, white porcelain and dimly shining jars of +old Venetian glass--it was a replica, even to its white walls, of +Gwendolen's drawing-room, but hushed and saddened, as it were, humbly +smiling, with folded hands and no attempt at emulation. And in the +midst, beautifully in place on its little black lacquer table, was the +pagoda, offering him not a hint of help, but seeming rather, to smile at +him with a fantastic and malicious mirth. He was aware, as from the +pagoda he brought his eyes back to young Mrs. Waterlow, that he was +dreadfully sorry. In another woman he would not have given the naive +derivativeness a thought; but in her, whom he had felt so full of savour +and independence? One thing only helped him, beside the effortless +atmosphere of the room, and that was the fact--he clung to it--that the +glasses set everywhere among the red and black and white were filled +not, thank goodness! with pink roses, but with poppy anemones, white and +purple and rose. And the first thing he found to say of the pagoda to +Mrs. Waterlow was, "It looks lovely in here," and then, turning to the +nearest bowl of delicate colour, he added, "and how beautifully these +flowers go with your room!" + +He wondered, as their eyes met over the anemones, whether Mrs. Waterlow +guessed his discomfiture. + +When he saw Gwendolen that evening she asked him at once whether he +liked old Mrs. Waterlow. She did not ask him how he liked young Mrs. +Waterlow's drawing-room, and he reflected that this was really very +magnanimous of her. + +"She seems a witty old lady," he said. "Her daughter-in-law can't be +dull with her." + +"She's witty, but I always feel her a little spiteful, too," said +Gwendolen. "We never get on, she and I. I hate hearing my neighbours +scored off, and she has such an eye for people's foibles. I don't think +that Cicely always quite likes it, either; but they are devoted to each +other. If it weren't for old Mrs. Waterlow, I'd try to see a great deal +more of Cicely; I'm really fond of her." + + * * * * * + +He did not go to Chislebridge for another six months. Gwendolen asked +him very pressingly on various occasions, but twice he was engaged and +once ill and too depressed and jaded to make the effort. It was the time +of all others when Gwendolen and her ministrations would have been most +acceptable, but he shrank from submitting himself to their influences, +feeling that in his very need he might find too great a compulsion. The +thought of Gwendolen and of her possible place in his life must be +adjourned--adjourned until she was well out of her mourning and he was +able to meet it more impartially. + +He saw Gwendolen in London and gave her and her boys tea at his rooms, +the dingily comfortable rooms near Manchester Square from which for many +years he had not had the initiative to move. There was more potency, he +found, in the imaginary Gwendolen than in the real one. The sight of her +brought back vividly the thought of Mrs. Waterlow. Curiously, they +seemed to have spoiled each other. Gwendolen had all the ethical +advantages and even, if it came to that, all the aesthetic ones; yet, +ambiguous as the image of the other had become, its charm challenged +Gwendolen's virtues and Gwendolen's achievements. He even felt that he +could be sure of nothing until he next stayed with Gwendolen, when he +must see Mrs. Waterlow and weigh the possible friendship with her, +tarnished though it were, against the comfortable solutions that +Gwendolen held out to him. Again, curiously, he knew that the two could +not be combined. + +Gwendolen, however, was gone away to the south of France when he wrote +to her in November and asked if he might stop a day and night on his way +through Chislebridge to a country week-end. But he had a two-hours' +wait at the station, and he suddenly determined, when he found himself +on the platform, to go and have tea with Mrs. Waterlow. + +He drove up to the peaceful street where, above the college wall that +ran along its upper end, a close tracery of branches showed against the +sky, and he found that a welcoming firelight shone in the spacious +windows of the Georgian house. His dismay, therefore, was the more +untempered when the mildly austere maid told him that Mrs. Waterlow was +away. His pause there on the threshold expressed his condition, and the +maid suggested that he might care to come in and see old Mrs. Waterlow. +This, he felt, was indeed better than not to go in at all. So he was led +for a second time into the drawing-room. + +He had been obliged on the former visit to conceal astonishment; but now +he found himself alone, and no concealment was needed. And the former +astonishment was slight compared with this one. He felt almost giddy as +he gazed about him. Nothing was the same. Everything was fantastically, +incredibly different, except--his eye caught it with a sharpened pang of +wonder--the white pagoda; for there, in the centre of the room, upon a +round, mahogany table, with heavily bowed and richly carven legs, the +white pagoda stood, and under it an old bead mat,--a mat of faded, old +blue beads,--his eyes were riveted on the pagoda and its setting,--of +white and gray and blue beads dotted with pink rosebuds. At regular +intervals, raying out from the centre, books were placed upon the +table--small, sober books bound in calf. + +So the pagoda stood, the pivot of an incredible room; yet, inconceivable +as it seemed, as right there, all its exquisite absurdity revealed, as +it had been right in the other. It was the one link that joined them, +the one thread in the labyrinth of his astonishment; and it seemed, with +its ambiguous, fantastic smile, to symbolize its absent owner. Was it an +exquisite, extravagant, elaborate joke that she and the pagoda were +having together? + +For the whole room was now a joke. It was furnished with a suite of +black satin--sofas, easy-chairs, little chairs with carved, excruciating +backs, all densely buttoned and richly fringed. Over the backs of the +easy-chairs were laid antimacassars of finely crocheted white lace. Upon +two tall pieces of mahogany, ranged up and down with knobbed drawers and +recalling in their decorous solidity the buttoned bodices of +mid-Victorian matrons, stood high-handled, white marble urns. An oval +gilt mirror hung above the mantelpiece, and upon it stood two lustres +ringed with prisms of glass and a little clock of gilt and marble, +ornamented with two marble doves hovering over a gilt nest wherein lay +marble eggs. Between the clock and the lustres, on either side, was a +vase of Bohemian glass, each holding a small nosegay of red and white +roses. Mahogany footstools with bead-worked tops stood before the fire, +and upon the walls hung, exquisite in their absurdity, like the pagoda, +a whole botanical series of flat, feeble old flower-pieces, neatly +coloured drawings, as accurate and as lifeless as vigilant, uninspired +labour could make them. + +No, it was a dream, an insane, delightful dream; for, with it all, above +it all, how and why he could not say, the room was delightful. It seemed +to set one free from some burden of appreciation that all unconsciously +one had been carrying and had been finding heavy. One could live in it, +laughing at and with it. For it all laughed--surely yes; and the elfish +chorus was led by the white pagoda, standing like a Chinese Pierrot, at +the centre of the revels. + +Old Mrs. Waterlow at last came sailing in, and her black lace shawl and +lace-draped head looked as appropriate in the room as everything else +seemed to do. Her eyes dwelt on him with a certain fixity, and in them +he seemed to read further significances. They held an intention, gay, +precise, such as he had felt in the room; and they held, too, it might +be, a touch of light-hearted cruelty. + +"Yes, isn't it changed?" she said, and he knew that his state of +astonishment had spoken from his face. + +He stared round him again, smiling. + +"It makes me feel," he said, "like the old woman in the nursery rhyme +whose skirts were cut up to her knees while she was asleep. One says, +'If I be I.'" + +"And I'm the little dog," said Mrs. Waterlow; "but one who doesn't bark +at you, so that you can be assured of your identity. I am really more +aware of my own in this room than in any I've lived in for years. It is +like one of the rooms of my girlhood. Rooms weren't so important then as +they are now, and the people who lived in them, I sometimes think, were +more so. It amuses me nowadays," said the old lady moving to her +tea-table and seating herself, "to observe the way in which people are +assessed by their tastes and their belongings. You say of some one that +she is a dull or a disagreeable woman, and the answer and rebuke you +receive is, 'Oh, but she has such wonderful Chinese screens!' Sit down +here, Mr. Stacpole. It is very nice to see you again." + +"But tell me, where is the other room?" Owen asked, drawing his chair to +the table, "Is it disbanded, dissolved, gone for ever?" + +Mrs. Waterlow looked at him with an air of half-malicious mystery. + +"That is a secret, my own little secret, just as this room is, in a way, +a little joke which, for my sake, Cicely has made for me. It was +finished last week, by the way, and you are the first person to see it. +Your cousin is in the south of France, isn't she?" said Mrs. Waterlow, +with bland inconsequence. + +"Yes; I'm only passing through. Gwendolen's been gone for nearly a +month." + +"Yes; I know," Mrs. Waterlow pursued, still with the genial blandness. +"And as to our little joke, Mr. Stacpole, this room, in fact, is in many +ways a room of my girlhood. The furniture was my mother's, and Cicely, +when the idea struck her, had it brought from the garret of my old home, +where it has stood in disgrace for many a year. She has been clever +about it, hasn't she?" + +"It's genius," said Owen, "What made her think of it?" And then, with a +pang, he wondered whether Gwendolen had thought of it first. Was it +imaginable that Gwendolen could have turned away from beauty and plunged +herself into such gay austerities of ugliness? + +"Well, things are in the air, you know," said Mrs. Waterlow, pouring out +the tea,--"that's what Cicely always says, at all events,--reactions, +repulsions, wearinesses. This room is, she says, a discipline." + +"Things in the air": had Gwendolen felt them first, and Mrs. Waterlow +felt them after her? This question of priority became of burning +interest for him. + +"The trouble is that one may get too much of any discipline," he +commented, "if it ceases to be self-inflicted and is imposed upon us. +How would your daughter like it if all Chislebridge took to buttoned +black satin and old flower-pieces? It's as an exception that it has its +charm and its meaning. But if it became a commonplace?" + +"Well, that's the point," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "Will it? It has very +much vexed me for years to watch Chislebridge picking Cicely's brains. +And I said to her that I wondered whether it would be possible for her +to make a room that wouldn't be copied, and she said that she believed +she could. If she could achieve ugliness, she said--downright ugliness, +she believed they would fall back. The room is a sort of wager between +us, for I am not at all convinced that she will succeed. Sheep, you +know, will leap into the ditch if they see their leader land there." + +Owen's head was whirling. It was as though suddenly the little crystal +rings of the pagoda had given out a sportive, significant tinkle. This, +then, was what it meant? It was a jest, a game; but it was also a trap. +For whom? Chislebridge, on old Mrs. Waterlow's lips, could mean only +Gwendolen. He did not know quite what he hoped or feared, but he knew +that he must conceal from old Mrs. Waterlow his recognition of her +meaning. + +"I felt from the first moment that I saw her in the curiosity-shop that +Mrs. Waterlow was the sort of person who would always find the white +pagodas," he said, smiling above his perturbation; "but I shouldn't have +supposed that Chislebridge was intelligent enough, let us put it, to +realise it, too, and to follow her lead." + +"It's not that they realise it," the old lady interpreted, salting her +scone; "it's something deeper than realisation. It's instinct--the +instinct of the insignificant for aping the significant. They would +probably be annoyed if they were told that they aped Cicely. They hardly +know they do it, I will say that for them, if it's anything to their +credit. And then since she is poor and they--some of them--rich, their +copies are seen by a hundred to the one who sees her original, and +Cicely, to some people, I've no doubt of it, seems the ape. It has very +much vexed me," Mrs. Waterlow repeated. + +Owen, for all his loyal feint of unconsciousness, was growing rather +angry with Gwendolen. + +"I don't wonder that it should," he said. "It vexes me to hear about it. +Has it gone on for long?" + +"Ever since we came to live here after my son's death. People at that +time had draped, crowded drawing-rooms,--you remember the dreadful +epoch. The more pots and pans and patterns and palms they could squeeze +into them, the better they were pleased. Cicely had simple furniture and +quiet spaces and plain green wall-paper when no one else in +Chislebridge had. She fell in love with Japanese prints in Paris and +bought them when no one else in Chislebridge thought of doing so.--It's +wrong, now, I hear, to like them. Chinese paintings are the correct +thing.--Chislebridge stared at them and at her empty room, and wondered +how she could care for those hideous women. They stared only for a year +or two. When they saw that she was quite indifferent to their opinion +and intended to remain in the ditch, they jumped in after her. I was +amused when I first saw Japanese prints on some one else's green walls +and heard the Goncourts and Whistler being quoted to Cicely. Then by +degrees Cicely got tired of green paper, especially since everybody in +Chislebridge by then had it, and she put, with her white walls, the red +lacquer and the glass and that beautiful old set of cane-seated +furniture that you saw; and no one else in Chislebridge at that time had +white walls or a scrap of lacquer. She shifted and rearranged like a +bird building its nest, and Chislebridge stared again and said that the +white walls were like a workhouse; and then they began to look for +lacquer and to put up white paper. Her very grouping has been copied, +the smallest points of adjustment. It's not," Mrs. Waterlow pursued, +"that I mind people imitating, if they do it frankly and own themselves +plagiarists. We must all see the things we like for the first time. But +it's not because they like the things that they have them; they have +them because some one else likes them. They dress themselves in other +people's tastes and make a fine figure as originators." The vexation of +years was crystallized in the lightness and crispness of her voice. + +Poor, stupid Gwendolen! After all, one must not be too hard on her. He +felt Mrs. Waterlow to be so hard that he reacted to something +approaching pitying tolerance, Gwendolen could be stupid in such good +faith. There was nothing, when he came to think of it, surprising in +this revelation of her stupidity, nothing painful, as there had been in +suspecting Cicely Waterlow of stupidity. Gwendolen was so sincerely +unaware of having no ideas of her own. He wondered, as he said good-bye +to old Mrs. Waterlow and told her that he felt convinced that she had at +last reached a haven, whether she guessed that she had made him happy +rather than unhappy. + +She had made him so happy, with his recovered ideal, that as he drove +away it was with a definite thrust of fear that he suddenly remembered +Gwendolen's kindly criticism of old Mrs. Waterlow. Was it not possible, +after all, that she had been indulging in sheer malice at Gwendolen's +expense? Wasn't it possible that Gwendolen and Cicely Waterlow had had +the same inspirations independently? But no two people could stumble at +once on such a drawing-room as that he had just left. Horrid +thought--what if Gwendolen's drawing-room at this moment showed just +such a singular reversion to ugliness? After his delicious relief, he +could not bear the doubt. + +He drove to Gwendolen's. Yes, the old housekeeper, who knew him, said he +could of course go up and look at the red lacquer. The red lacquer! He +could almost have embraced her for the joy her words gave him. Gwendolen +would not have retained red lacquer with a black satin suite. And on the +threshold of Gwendolen's drawing-room he received full reassurance. The +lovely room was intact. The blacks and whites and reds and golds were +all there, unchanged, not a breath of the ambiguous discipline upon +them. And in the midst of them all it was not Gwendolen, but Cicely +Waterlow, whom he seemed to see smiling upon him, merry, tired, and +tolerant. She had, as it were, demonstrated her claim not only to her +present, but to her past. For if she had not copied Gwendolen in the +mid-Victorian backwater, why should she have copied her in this? She had +been first in both, and in her backwater she was now safe. + + * * * * * + +Many months passed before he saw Gwendolen's drawing-room again. He was +felled early in the winter by a long and dangerous illness. When he was +able to crawl about, he went to the south of France and stayed there for +over a year. He was so ill, so tired, and so weak that, if Gwendolen and +the boys hadn't joined him, if she hadn't nursed and amused and +encouraged him from day to day, he felt that he should probably have +died and made an end of it. Gwendolen was more than kind. She was at +once tender and tactful, and the only claim she made was that of her +long-standing solicitude on his account. Upon this, as upon a +comfortable, impersonal cushion that she adjusted for his weary head, +she invited him to lean, and upon it for months of dazed invalidism and +dubious convalescence he did lean. Lapped round by this fundamental +kindness, the flaws and absurdities of Gwendolen's character +disappeared. The long pearl ear-rings dangled now over the most +delicious beef-teas, which she herself made for him; the graceful hands +could perform efficient tasks. Of how very little importance it was that +a woman should not show originality in her drawing-room when she could +show in taxing daily intercourse such wisdom and resource and sweetness! +Life had contracted about them, and on these simple and elementary terms +he found that Gwendolen neither bored nor ruffled him. When she at last +left him he knew that the bond between them, unspoken as it remained, +was stronger than it had ever yet been, and that when he next saw her he +would probably find it the most natural of things to ask her to marry +him, and to take care of him for ever. Poor, good, kind Gwendolen! It +was with a pensive humility and mirth that he resigned himself to the +thought of the bad bargain she would make. + +He came back to England in the spring following that in which he had +left it, and went at once to Chislebridge. It was late afternoon when he +drove, in a twilight like his own mood of meditative acceptance, to the +well-known house. Ample and benignant it stood behind its walls and +lawns and trees, and seemed to look upon him with eyes of unresentful +patience. + +He limped in and Gwendolen met him in the hall. + +"My dear, dear Owen, how are you? Yes, I had your wire this morning. +Good; I see that the journey has done you no harm. But you are tired, +aren't you? Will you go to your own room or have tea with me at once? +It's just been brought in." + +He said that he would have tea with her. She did not actually help him +up the stairs, but as, with skill impaired, he swung himself from step +to step, the touch of her tactful and ready hand was upon his arm, a +caress rather than a sustainment. Passing the hand through his arm, she +led him into the drawing-room. + +Owen looked about him. He stood for a long moment in the door and +looked. He then allowed himself a cautious, side-long glance at +Gwendolen. Her eyes, unaware in their bland complacency, had followed +his and rested upon her room. + +"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten that you hadn't seen my new drawing-room," she +said. "We've had great changes." + +Even in his horror, for it was hardly less, he was touched to realize +that Gwendolen was thinking far less of her drawing-room than of him. +She might have forgotten that it had changed, had he not so helplessly +displayed his amazement. + +"Yes, indeed," he said. He limped to the fire and sank heavily into the +deep, black satin easy-chair drawn before it. He leaned his elbow on his +knee and rested his head on his hand, and as he did so he observed that +before the fire stood a mahogany footstool with a bead-worked top. + +"You are tired, dear Owen. Do you feel ill?" Gwendolen hovered above his +chair. + +"I do feel a little giddy," he confessed. "I'm not all right yet, I +see." + +He raised his head. It was to face the mantelpiece, with its oval, gilt +mirror and crystal lustres and gilt-and-marble clock. No, there were not +doves and a nest upon it. This was a finer clock than the one with the +doves, and the lustres were larger, and the flowers that stood between +were mauve orchids. Gwendolen always went astray over her flowers. + +"Here is tea," she said, seating herself at a little mahogany table with +bowed and decorated legs. "Of course you're bound to feel tired, dear +Owen, after your journey. Tea will be the very thing for you." + +He turned now a furtive eye along the wall. Flower-pieces, dim, flat, +old flower-pieces and arid steel-engravings and tall pieces of mahogany +furniture with marble vases upon them--no mistakes had been made here, +for if the vases were not urns, they were of marble and in their places. + +"How do you like it in this phase?" Gwendolen asked him, tactfully +turning from the question of his weakness. "I love it myself, I own, +though of course Chislebridge thinks I've lost my wits. To tell you the +truth, Owen, I was tired of beauty. One may come to that. One may feel," +said Gwendolen, pouring out the tea, "that one needs a discipline. This +room is my discipline, and after it I know that I shall find +self-indulgence almost vulgar." + +No; his mind was working to and fro between the present and the past +with the rapidity and accuracy of a shuttle threading an intricate +pattern--no, he had never mentioned to Gwendolen that late autumnal +visit of his to Chislebridge eighteen months ago. Had that been because +to mention it and the transformation he had been the first to witness in +Mrs. Waterlow's drawing-room would have been, in a sense, to give +Gwendolen a warning? And had he not, in his deepening affection for her, +conceived her to be above the need of such warnings? Yes; for though he +had been glad to recover his ideal of young Mrs. Waterlow, though he had +been more than willing that Gwendolen should occupy the slightly +ridiculous and humiliating position that he had imagined to be Mrs. +Waterlow's, he had never for a moment imagined that Gwendolen's +disingenuous docility would go as far as this. So many people might love +red lacquer and old glass with a clear conscience, once they had been +brought to see them; but who, with a clear conscience, could love black +satin furniture and marble vases? + +"It is a very singular room," he found at last, in comment upon her +information. "How--and when--did you come to think of it?" He heard the +hollow sound of his own voice; but Gwendolen remained unaware. The fact +of her stupidity cast a merciful veil of pitifulness over her. + +"I hardly know," she said, handing him his tea and happy in her theme. +"These things are in the air at a given time--reactions, repulsions, +wearinesses--I think. It grew bit by bit; I've brought it to this state +only since my return from the Riviera. The idea came to me, oh, long +ago--long before your illness. Alec Chambers is perfectly entranced with +it, and vows it is the most beautiful--yes, beautiful--room in +existence. It is witty as well as beautiful, he says, and he is going to +paint it for the New English Art Club. Rooms have a curious influence +upon me, you know, Owen. I really do feel," said Gwendolen busying +herself hospitably with his little plate and hot, buttered toast, "that +I've grown cleverer since living in this one." + +Owen, while she talked and while he drank his tea, had been more frankly +looking about him. Flagrant as was the plagiarism, Gwendolen, as before, +had protected herself by a more illustrious achievement. It was a +stately, not a staid room; it carried the idea higher, and thereby +missed it. It was not an amusing room, nor witty, to any one who had +seen the original. It was impressive, oppressive, almost forbidding. +Gwendolen, for one thing, had had more space to fill. The naivete of +mere flower-pieces would not furnish her walls, and she had lapsed into +sheer ugliness with the large and admirably accurate steel-engravings. +Caution, too, had been mistakenly exercised here and there; the black +satin furniture had no antimacassars and the centre-table no ornament +except a vase of orchids and calf-bound books. + +Owen felt no indignation; he would always remain too fond of Gwendolen, +too tolerant of her folly, to feel indignant with her; it was with a +mild but final irony that he brought his eyes back at last to his +unconscious and hapless cousin. And he wondered how far Gwendolen had +gone, how far she could be made to go. "There's only one thing that it +lacks," he said. "Shall I tell you?" + +"Oh, _do_" she urged, beaming over her tea. "You know how much I value +your taste." + +"Oh, I haven't much taste," said Owen, "I've never gone in for having +taste. And doesn't your room prove that taste is a mistake if indulged +too far? It's more a sense of literary fitness I allude to. Yours is +meant to be a soulless room, isn't it? That's your intention?" + +"Exactly," said Gwendolen, with eager apprehension; "that is just it--a +soulless room. One is sick of souls, just as one is sick of beauty." + +"Exactly," Owen echoed her. "But, since you have here a travesty of +beauty, what you need to complete your idea is a travesty of soul. You +need a centre that draws it all into focus. You need something that, +alas! you might have had, and have lost for ever. The white pagoda, +Gwendolen, that Mrs. Waterlow found. Your room needs that, and only +that, to make it perfect." + +He spoke in his flat, weak invalid's voice, but he was wondering, almost +with ardour, if Gwendolen, this touchstone applied, would suspect or +remember and, from penitence or caution, redeem herself by a confession. +For a moment, only a moment, she looked at him very earnestly; and he +was aware that he hoped that she was going to redeem herself--hoped it +almost ardently, not for his own sake--those sober hopes were dead for +ever--but for the sake of the past and what it had really held of +fondness and sympathy and essential respect. + +Gwendolen looked at him earnestly; it was as though a dim suspicion +crossed her; and then, poor thing! she put it aside. Yes, he was very +sorry for her as he listened to her. + +"Owen, that is clever of you," she said, "but very, very clever. That is +precisely what I've been saying to myself ever since the idea came to +me. I can't forgive myself for that piece of stupidity--my only one, I +will say, in regard to such recognitions and perceptions. I may be a +stupid woman about a great many things, but I'm not stupid about rooms. +The horror of Aunt Pickthorne's room dulled my eyes so that in all truth +I can say that I never saw that pagoda. And from the moment I've had my +idea I've moaned--but literally moaned--over having lost it. Of course +it is what the room needs, and all that it needs--the travesty of a soul +standing on that mahogany table." + +"Yes, the centre-table is the place for it," said Owen. + +"It _is_ clever of you to feel it just as I do, Owen, dear," she went +on. "The pagoda was meant for this room and for this room only; for, you +know, I didn't think Cicely Waterlow at all happily inspired in placing +it as she had." + +"As she had?" He rapped the question out with irrepressible quickness. + +"Yes, among all that rather trashy lacquer and glass in that rather +gimcrackery little drawing-room of hers. The pagoda looked there, what +it had always looked in Aunt Pickthorne's room--a gimcrack itself." + +"Looked?" he repeated. "How does it look now? How has she placed it +now?" + +And, for the first time in all their intercourse, he saw that Gwendolen +was suddenly confused. He had hardly trapped her. She had set the trap +herself, and inadvertently had walked into it. A faint colour rose to +her cheek. She dropped for a moment her eyes upon the fire. Then, +covering her self-consciousness with a show of smiling vivacity, she +knelt to poke the logs, saying: + +"I don't know, I really don't know, Owen. Cicely is always changing her +room, you know. She is very quick at feeling what's in the air--as quick +as I am really--and I haven't seen her for ages. She has gone to live in +London--oh, yes, didn't you know? Yes, she came into a little money over +a year ago, and she and old Mrs. Waterlow have taken a house in Chelsea, +and are coming back to Chislebridge only for two or three months in +every year. They are very fond of Chislebridge. So I haven't an idea of +what her drawing-room is like now." + +"Perhaps it's like yours," Owen suggested. "The one I saw was rather +like yours, I remember." + +Gwendolen opened kind and repudiating eyes. + +"Do you think so, Owen? Like mine? Oh, only in one or two superficial +little things. She hadn't a Chinese screen or a lacquer cabinet or a +piece of Chinese painting to bless herself with, poor little Cicely! No, +indeed, Owen; I don't think it would be at all fair to say that Cicely +copied me. These things are in the air." + + * * * * * + +Before he left Chislebridge he asked Gwendolen for Mrs. Waterlow's +London address, and observed that she did not flinch in giving it to +him. He inferred from this that Mrs. Waterlow's black satin suite had +not left Chislebridge and that Gwendolen knew that she had nothing to +fear from a London visit. Would she indeed fear anything from any visit? +Her placid self-deception was so profound that it would be difficult to +draw a line fairly between skilful fraud and instinctive +self-protection. Gwendolen, without doubt, conceived herself completely +protected. She would never suspect him of suspecting her. + +He felt, when he got back to London, a certain reluctance in going to +see Mrs. Waterlow. It was not only that he shrank from reading in old +Mrs. Waterlow's malicious eyes the recognition of his discovery; in +regard to young Mrs. Waterlow there was another shrinking that was +almost one of shyness. She had been wronged, grossly wronged, by some +one to whom he must show the semblance of loyalty, and the consciousness +of her wrongs affected him deeply. A fortnight passed before he made his +way one afternoon to Chelsea, a fortnight in which the main +consciousness that filled his sense of renewal was that of his merciful +escape. Mrs. Waterlow's house was in St. Leonard's Terrace, one of the +narrow, old houses that face the expanse of the Royal Hospital Gardens. +The spring sun, as he limped along, was shining upon their +facades--dull, old brick and dim, white paint-like slabs of ancient +wedding-cake with frosted edging. + +After all the expense of his illness, he was very poor in these days, +and had come with difficulty in a 'bus. As he opened the gate and went +into the flagged garden, where white tulips grew, he glanced up and saw +young Mrs. Waterlow standing looking out at the drawing-room window. Her +eyes met his in surprise, they had not seen each other for so long a +time; then, as lifting his hat he smiled at her, he thought he saw in +them a sudden pity and gravity. He did of course look so much more +battered than when she had last seen him. The nice, middle-aged maid let +him in--he was glad of that--and, as he followed her up the narrow +staircase, with its white, panelled walls, he wondered which +drawing-room it was to be, and felt his heart sink strangely at the +thought that perhaps, after all, Mrs. Waterlow had transplanted her +discipline to London. + +But, no; like a soft gush of sunlight, like bells and clear, running +water, the first room greeted him in a medley of untraceable +associations. It was the first room, with the delicate cane-seated +chairs and settees, the red lacquer and the glass, all looking lovelier +than ever against the panelled white, all brighter, sweeter, happier +than in the rather dim room on the ground floor in Chislebridge. And +touches of green, like tiny flakes of vivid flame, went through it in +the leaves of the white azaleas that filled the jars and vases. He saw +it all, and he saw, as Mrs. Waterlow came toward him, that the white +pagoda stood on its former little black lacquer table in one of the +windows. + +Mrs. Waterlow shook his hand and her eyes examined him. + +"You have been ill. I was so sorry to hear," she said. + +"Yes, I've been wretchedly ill; for years now, it seems," he replied. + +They sat down before the fire. Old Mrs. Waterlow, she told him, was away +on a visit to Chislebridge, from which she was to return that evening at +six o'clock. It was only four. He had two hours before him, and he felt +that in them he was to be very happy. They talked and talked. He saw +that she liked him and expected him to stay on and talk. All the magic +and elation and sense of discovery and adventure was with him as on +their first encounter. She knew him, he found, so much better than he +could have guessed. She had read everything he had written. She +appreciated so finely; she even, with a further advance to acknowledged +friendship, criticized, with the precision and delicacy expressed in all +that she did. And the fact that she liked him so much, that she was +already so much his friend, gave him his right to let her see how much +he liked her. The two hours were not only happy; they were the happiest +he had ever known. + +The clock had hardly struck six when old Mrs. Waterlow's cab drove up. + +"Don't go; mamma will so like to see you," said Mrs. Waterlow. "She so +enjoyed that little visit you paid her over a year ago, you know." + +This was the first reference that had been made to the visit. He +wondered if she guessed what it had done for their friendship. + +Old Mrs. Waterlow came in, wearing just such a delightful, flowing black +satin cloak and deep black satin bonnet as he would have expected her to +wear. And seeing him there with her daughter-in-law, she paused, as if +arrested, on the threshold. Then, her eyes passing from the tea-table +and its intimacy of grouping with the two chairs they had risen from, +and resting brightly on her daughter's face, where she must read the +reflection of his happiness, Owen saw that she cast off a scruple, came +to a decision, and renewed the impulse that had brought her up the +stairs, he now realised, at an uncharacteristic speed. + +"My dear Cicely," she exclaimed, after she had greeted him, "you've lost +your wager!" + +Cicely Waterlow gazed at her for a moment and then she flushed deeply. + +"Have I, mamma?" she said, busying herself with the kettle. "Well, that +pleases you, and doesn't displease me. You'll want some tea, won't you?" + +"Yes, indeed, I want some tea. But you'll not put me off with tea, my +dear. I want to talk about my wager, too; and Mr. Stacpole will want to +hear about it, for it was his wager as well. You did say that you felt +convinced that I was safe in my haven, didn't you, Mr. Stacpole? Well, +I've lost it, and I'm not at all pleased to have lost it. I'm +triumphant, if you will, but savage, too. You'll forgive me, I know, Mr. +Stacpole, if I'm savage with your cousin when I tell you that she has +been inspired with a black satin suite and mahogany furniture and +bead-work since seeing Cicely's new drawing-room in Chislebridge." + +"Mamma!" Cicely protested. "Two people can perfectly well have the same +idea at the same time! There's no reason in the world why Gwendolen +shouldn't feel just my fancy for funny, old, ugly things." + +"She didn't show any fancy for them when she saw them a year ago, did +she, dear?" said the intractable old lady, seating herself at the +tea-table. "She was very guarded, very mute, though very observant. Yes; +people may have the same idea, but they'll hardly have the same black +satin furniture and the same beaded footstools, will they?" + +Seeing the deep embarrassment in which his friend was plunged, Owen now +interposed. + +"Don't try to defend Gwendolen on my account," he said. "She really +can't be defended. I know it, for I've seen her drawing-room." + +"You have seen it? And what do you think of it?" asked old Mrs. +Waterlow. + +"I thought, as I told her," said Owen, "that it lacked but one thing, +and that was the travesty of a soul. It lacked the white pagoda." + +"You told her that? It was what she told me. She told me that she could +not forgive herself for having parted with the pagoda, for it was the +travesty of a soul that her room still needed. 'You mean,' I said, 'the +pagoda placed as Cicely placed it on the centre-table in her new room?' +She gazed at me and laid her hand on my arm and asked: 'But, dear Mrs. +Waterlow, how had Cicely placed the pagoda? I really don't remember. I +really don't remember at all what Cicely's new room was like, except +that it was mid-Victorian, and had old water-colours on the walls. +Surely you don't think that I've copied Cicely?' + +"'My dear Mrs. Conyers,' I said to her, 'I don't think, but know, that +you've done nothing else since you came to Chislebridge. But in this +case you are farther from success than usual, for Cicely's drawing-room +is gay, and yours is _grand serieux_.'" + +Mrs. Waterlow's bomb seemed to fill the air with a silvery explosion, +and, as its echoes died, in the ensuing stillness, the eyes of Cicely +and Owen met beneath the triumphant gaze of the merciless old lady. It +was from his eyes that hers caught the infection. To remain grave now +was to be _grand serieux_, and helpless gaiety was in the air. Owen +broke into peals of laughter. + +"Oh--but--" Cicely Waterlow protested, laughing, too, but still flushed +and almost tearful--"it isn't fair. It's as if we had taken her in. She +doesn't know she does it, really she doesn't; she is so well-meaning--so +kind." + +"She knows now," said old Mrs. Waterlow, who remained unsmiling, but +with a placidity full of satisfaction; "and she'll hardly be able to +forget." + +"I'm quite sure," said Cicely, "that she really believes that she cares +for the new drawing-room. People can persuade themselves so easily of +new tastes. And why shouldn't they have them? I believe that Gwendolen +does like it." + +"Yes, she does indeed," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "She says so. She says +she never cared for any room so much and that she intends to live and +die with it. Her only refuge now is to go on faithfully loving it. So +there she is, buttoned into her black satin for ever!" + + * * * * * + +Until now Mrs. Conyers has remained faithful, and her consistency is +still made good to her; for none of her drawing-rooms has brought her +such appreciation. Chislebridge has never dared to emulate it; Mr. +Chambers and his friends have often painted it, and Mrs. Waterlow's +original, like a gay jest, uttered and then gone for ever, is no longer +in existence to vex and perplex her with its mocking smile. Moreover, +her own drawing-room no longer lacks its travesty of a soul. Owen +married Cicely Waterlow in the autumn, and Gwendolen, magnanimous, and +burning her bridges behind her, sent them for their wedding-present her +two lovely and unique red lacquer cabinets. One stands in the front, and +one in the back drawing-room in the little house in St. Leonard's +Terrace, and Cicely said to Owen on the day they arrived that any wrong +of the past, if wrong there had been, was now atoned for. And when they +married and went round the world for their wedding-trip, they found in +China a white pagoda, unflawed, larger, more sublimely elegant than the +old one. This they brought back to Gwendolen, and with unfaltering +courage she has placed it upon her mahogany centre table. + + + + +THE SUICIDE + +A COMEDY + + +She took the bottle from its wrappings and looked at it--at its apparent +insignificance and the huge significance of the glaring word "Poison" +printed across it. She looked resolutely, and as resolutely went with it +to the other side of the room, and locked it away in the drawer of her +dressing-table. She paused here, and her eyes met her mirrored eyes. The +expression of her face arrested her attention. Did people who were going +to die usually look so calm, so placid? Really, it was a sort of +placidity that gazed back at her, so unlike the disfigured, tear-blinded +reflection that had been there that morning--when she had read the +paper. After the tempest of despair, the frozen decision, the nightmare +securing of the means of death (if any one should guess! stop her!) it +was indeed a sort of apathy that drenched her being, as if already the +drug had gone through it. The face in the mirror was very young and +very helpless and very charming. It was like the face of a little +wind-blown ghost, with its tossed-back hair and wide, empty, gazing +eyes. The sweetness of the wasted cheeks and soft, parted lips suddenly +smote on the apathy, and tears came. She pressed her hands over her +eyes, struggled, and mastered herself again. Her own pathos must not +unnerve, and her unbearable sorrow must nerve, her. + +She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Just three. She could give +herself ample time for writing the letter; then she must go and post it. +Before five she would be back here--locked in her room. Before six-- + +She went to the writing-table, unlocked a drawer,--the key hung on a +ribbon around her neck, under her bodice,--and took out a thick packet +of closely written papers. Sitting there, hesitating a moment, she +wondered if she would look back at those records of hope and +suffering--more than a whole year of beautiful suffering, beautiful +hope. The rising of tears again warned her that such a retrospect would +make her more unfit for writing the last letter as it must be +written--with full possession of her best and deepest meaning. She must +be her most courageous self to write now. The writer of those past +records seemed a little sister half playing with her grief, beside the +self that sat here now, stricken and determined. + +Drawing pen and paper to her, she wrote: + + MY DEAREST--MY BEST BELOVED: This is the last of the letters. I + am going to send them all to you now, so that you may know all. + I read this morning in the paper that you were to be married. + And now there is nothing left for me but to die. When you read + this I shall be dead. + + You must not blame me, or think me too cowardly. I am a fragile + person, I know, and my life hung on you. Without hope it can't + go on; it's too feeble to find anything else to live for. And + you could never, never blame yourself. How could you have + helped it? How could you have dreamed that I loved you? If you + had you could have done nothing but be sorry--and irked. But it + comforts me in dying to let you know how I have loved you; it + is like a dying gift I make you,--do you see?--all the love + that I have hidden. If I had lived I could never have made the + gift. Had you guessed, or had I told you, it would have been a + burden, a ludicrous burden. But as you read this, knowing that + I am dead, my love must come to you as a blessing; you must + feel it as something, in its little way beautiful, and care for + it; for any love that only gives and makes no claim is + beautiful, is it not? I think I find dying so much easier than + living because in dying I can give you the gift. + + All these letters, written from the first day I met you, almost + a year and a half ago, will tell you step by step what I have + felt. Don't let the hopes that flickered up sometimes hurt you; + the strength of my feeling made the flame, nothing that you + ever said or did. + + How I remember that first day, in the country, at the + Ashwells', when mamma and I came on to the lawn where you were + all sitting, and mamma laughed at me for stumbling over a + chair--and you smiled at me. From the moment I saw you then, I + loved you. You were like some dream come true. You never knew + what joy it gave me (only joy; the pain was in not being with + you) when we walked together and talked; the letters will tell + you that. But to-day it all comes back, even the little things + that I hardly knew I was seeing or hearing--the late white + roses in the garden; and the robin sitting on the garden wall + (we stopped to look at it, and it sat still, looking at us: I + wonder if you remember the robin); and the distant song some + labourers were singing in the fields far away. + + And here in London, the dinners we met at, the teas you came + to, the one or two books you gave me and that we wrote + about--what I felt about it all, these meteors through my gray + life, I have written it all down. Did I not act well? You could + never have guessed, under my composure and cheerfulness, could + you? I am a little proud of myself when I think of it. + + And that this is no sudden rocking of my reason you will see, + too, from the growing hopelessness, of emptiness in the last + months, when I have not seen you. In the bottom of my heart I + had always the little hope that some day I might give you these + myself, that we might read them together, you and I, smiling + over my past sorrow. And if I had died, and you had not loved + me, you were to have had them, as I told you, for I wanted to + give you my love; I could not bear that it should go out and + that you should never know. + + I wish that I could have died, and need not have killed myself; + I am so afraid that that may give you pain, though it ought not + to, if you think justly of it all. + + Of course you will be sorry for me--I am afraid that I want you + to be _sorry_; but don't be too sad. I am so much happier in + dying than I could have been in living; and in loving you I + have felt so much, I have lived so much--more perhaps than many + people in a whole lifetime. + + See the gift you have given _me_, dearest one. Good-bye. + Good-bye. + + ALLIDA. + +It was over,--the last link with life, her last word spoken or +written,--and the echo of it seemed to come to her already as across a +great abyss that separated her from the world of the living. + +With the signing of her name she had drawn the shroud over her face. + +Only the mechanical things now remained to be done: dying was really +over; she really was dead. + +She wrapped this last letter around all the others, kissed it, and +sealed it in a large envelope; then, putting on her hat and coat and +holding the letter in her ulster pocket, she left her room and went down +the stairs. + +The house was a typically smart, flimsy London house, of the cheaper +Mayfair sort--a narrow box set on end and fitted with chintz and gilt +and white mouldings; a trap to Allida's imagination--an imagination that +no longer shrank from the contemplation of the facts of her life; for +they, too, were seen from across that abyss. + +In the drawing-room, among shaded lamps, cushions, and swarming +bric-a-brac, her mother had flirted and allured--unsuccessfully--for how +many years? She had felt, since the time when, as a very little girl, +she had gone by the room every day coming in from her walk at tea-time +with her governess, and heard inside the high, smiling, artificial +voice, with its odd appealing quality, its vague, waiting pauses, the +shrinking from her mother and her mother's aims. Later on the aims had +been for her, too, and their determination had been partly, Allida felt, +hardened by the fact of a grown-up daughter being such a deterrent--so +in the way of a desperate, fading beauty who had never made the +brilliant match she hoped for. That she had never, either, made even a +moderate match for her, Allida, the girl felt, with a firmer closing of +her hand on the letter, she perhaps owed to _him_. What might her +weakness and her hatred of her home not have urged her into had not that +ideal--that seen and recognized ideal--armed her? The vision of old +Captain Defflin, his bruised-plum face and tight, pale eyes, rose before +her, and the vacuous, unwholesome countenance of young Sir Alfred Cutts. +How often had she been dexterously left alone with them in the +drawing-room! Thank God! all that was far, far behind her. Death was +dignified, sweet-smelling in its peace, when she thought of all that the +gilt-and-chintz drawing-room stood for in her memories. Death was sweet +when life was so ugly. + +Now she was in the street, the door closed behind her, and no servant +had seen her. + +It was a foggy afternoon, and the soiled white houses opposite were +dim. A thin, stray cat rubbed against the area railings and mewed as +Allida stood, pausing for a moment, on the steps. + +Which was the nearest pillar-box? At the end of the street, just round +the corner. The plaintive, nasal cry of the cat caught her attention. +Poor creature! She ought to spare some poison for it. The irony of the +idea almost made her smile as she stooped and patted the dingy head. The +cat, leaning like a ship in a stiff wind, walked to and fro across her +dress, looking up at her as it still plaintively, interrogatively mewed. +Its appeal put aside for a moment the decision as to which pillar-box. +She picked up the cat and returned to the door. The maid answered her +ring. + +Allida was a little sorry that she must speak once more, after all, on +this mundane plane. The finish of her tragedy seemed slightly marred by +this episode. But she heard her calm voice telling the maid to feed the +cat--"And keep it until you can find a home for it. Cook won't mind, +will she?" + +"Oh, no, miss; cook is fond of cats. Poor thing, then," said the maid, +who was tender of heart. + +Again the door was shut, and again the pillar-box was the last act but +one of her drama. + +She walked swiftly down the street, thinking, oddly, more about the cat +than about her destination or the letter she held clutched in her +pocket. The stripes on the cat's head, its rough, sooty fur, the sharp +projection of its backbone and the grotesque grimace of its mew--her +mind dwelt on these trivial details; and under all was a funny added +contentment at this further proof of the mercilessness and ugliness of +the world she was leaving. + +The corner of the street was reached and turned. There, in the fog, +stood the red shaft of the pillar-box. Beyond it a street lamp, already +lighted, made a blur of light in the thick air and cast upward a long +cone of shadow. + +Allida's heart suddenly shrank and shuddered. + +The lamp and the pillar-box looked horrible. Death was horrible. To see +him no more was horrible. She felt only horror as mechanically she took +out the letter and dropped it into the box. + +The heavy sound of its fall turned her shuddering heart to ice. + +She had felt horror, she had been prepared for horror, but not for such +horror as this. It would all be like this now, she knew, until the end. +Let her hurry through it, then; let her escape quickly; and, at all +events, her own room, her familiar little room, with its fire, its +books, its quiet white bed, would be a refuge after this terrible, empty +street. She thought only of her room,--the thought blotting out what +would happen in it,--knowing only that she longed to be there, with a +longing like a wounded child's for its mother's arms. And yet she still +stood staring at the slit in the pillar-box. + +"Miss Fraser," a voice said beside her. + +It was a voice of carefully quiet greeting, guarded interrogation, +guarded expostulation. + +She looked up, feeling something shatter in her, fearing that she was +going to faint. It was almost like the crash of death and like a +swooning into a new consciousness. She only dimly, through the swooning +sense of change, recognized the face that looked at her, smiling, but so +puzzled, so pained--so pained that she guessed that her own face must +show some strange terror. + +She had seen the face, in the chintz-and-gilt drawing-room,--it had +seemed out of place there,--she had seen it often; but memory was +blurred. Had he not taken her down to dinner somewhere only the other +day? Yes; she knew him well; only she was dead, a ghost, and reality, +familiar reality, looked different. + +"Mr. Haldicott," she said, putting out her hand. Her voice was +normal--she heard that; she felt that she could almost have smiled. Yet +something was fearfully shattered, some power in herself that had +directed her so resolutely till now. The cat had been disconcerting, but +the appearance of this man, whom she knew quite well, who might talk, +might question her, might walk back beside her, seemed fatally +disconcerting. For could she act? Could she still speak on normally? And +further delay, now that every link was broken, now that to all real +intents and purposes she was dead, was a torture too fearful to be +contemplated. Yet how evade it? She felt that her hand, which he still +held, held very tightly, was trembling. + +"You are ill," he said. + +She shook her head. + +"No; not at all. I only came out for a little walk. And I must go back +to tea." + +"Your mother is at home?" + +"No; she is out of town. She doesn't get back till to-morrow." + +"You are going to have tea all alone?" + +Allida gazed at him. How should she evade him if he offered to come +back? + +"I haven't had my walk yet. I came out for a little walk," she repeated. + +By the blurred light of the street lamp he still looked at her, still +held her trembling hand. His face showed his perplexed indecision. +Suddenly he drew the hand within his arm. + +"Let us have the little walk, then," he said, "only you must let me come +with you. You are in some great trouble. Don't bother to deny it. Don't +say anything. Your face showed me that something dreadful was happening +to you. Don't speak--I saw it as I was passing on the other side of the +street. The lamp was just lighted, else I shouldn't have recognised you. +Now walk quietly on like this. Don't even think. I'm not a meddling +idiot; I know I'm not. You are desperate about something, and anything, +any one, even a complete stranger, and I'm not that, who steps in +between desperation and an act is justified--perhaps a Godsend." + +He was walking beside her, half leading her, talking quickly, as if to +give her time to recover, and glancing at her stricken, helpless face. + +As they walked they heard behind them the rattling fall of letters into +a postman's bag; the pillar-box had been emptied. + +The youth of the face, its essential childishness, the web of soft hair +that hung disarranged over her cheek, made her look like a very little +girl, and was in strange contrast with the look of terror. + +They walked on and on, down streets, across wide, phantasmal squares. + +Haldicott held the hand on his arm,--he did not speak,--and Allida felt +herself moving with him through the fog like an Eurydice led by Orpheus, +a shade among the shades. And all the while there hovered before her +thoughts the vision of that quiet room, that white bed, still waiting +for her. Suddenly she broke into sobs. She stopped. She leaned +helplessly against his arm. + +"Good heavens! you will tell me now," Haldicott exclaimed. "Cross the +road here. Lean on me. We will go into the park. No one can see you." + +She stumbled on blindly beside him, both hands clutching his arm. + +All she knew was that she had left life behind her, and yet that she +must go back to that room, and that the room now was more horrible than +the pillar-box had been. She had left life behind her, and yet she +still clung to it--here beside her. Life! life! warm, kind life! + +In the park he led her into a deserted path. A bench stood beneath a +tall, leafless tree, its branches stencilled flatly on the yellow-gray +fog. Haldicott and Allida sat down side by side. + +"Now tell me. You can trust me utterly. Tell me everything," said +Haldicott. + +His fine face, all competence and mastery, studied hers, its shattered +loveliness. She leaned her head back against the bench. Life was there, +and a great peace seemed to flow through her as the mere consciousness +of its presence filled her. As long as he held her hand she could not be +frightened; and since she was only a ghost, since all her past seemed to +have dropped from her, she could look at it with him, she could tell him +what he asked. As if exhausted, borne along by his will, she said, "I am +going to commit suicide." + +Haldicott made no ejaculation and no movement. Her eyes were closed, and +he studied her face. Its innocent charm almost made him smile at her +words; and yet the expression he had seen from across the street, as she +dropped that letter into the box and stood frozen, had gone too well +with such words. He reflected silently. He had long known Allida Fraser, +never more than slightly; and yet from the frequency of slight knowledge +he found that he had accumulated, quite unconsciously, an impression of +her, distinct, sweet, appealing. He saw her, silent and gentle, in her +tawdry mother's tawdry house; he heard her grave quiet voice. He had +thought her, not knowing that he thought at all, charming. He had always +been glad to talk to her, to make her gravity, the little air of chill +composure that he had so understood, and liked, in the daughter of a +desperate, faded flirt, warm into confident interest and smiles. +Thinking of that quiet voice, that gentle smile, the poise and dignity +of all the little personality, he could not connect them with hysterical +shallowness. But he had, he now recognized, thought of her as older, +more tempered to reality. There was a revelation of desperate youth, and +youth's sense of the finality of desperation, on her face; and, with all +the rigid resolve he had seen, he could guess in it youth's essential +fluidity. She was resolved, and yet all resolves in a soul so young were +only moods, unless circumstances let them stand still, stagnate, and +finally freeze. She was not frozen yet. It was only a mood standing +still; shake it, and it would fluctuate into surprising changes. Allida +opened her eyes while he reflected, and many moments had gone by since +her words. + +"How amazing that I should tell you, calmly tell you, isn't it?" she +said. "And yet I can't feel it as amazing. Nothing could amaze me. I +seem to have passed beyond any feeling of that sort. But since I am so +really dead already, that I can tell you, you must respect my confidence +in you. You must not try to prevent me. I trust you." + +"I shan't prevent you," said Haldicott. + +Again she closed her eyes. "Thanks. It is almost a comfort to be able to +tell some one. I know now how fearfully lonely I have been. And yet--I +wish I hadn't met you--or I will wish it. Now I can wish nothing, and +feel nothing--except that you are there, alive, and that I am going to +die. But it will be harder to do now. Everything seems so vague, +everything seems left behind. The very sorrow that makes me do it seems +so far away--like a dream. I can't go through all the realization again, +and when I do it now, it will seem to be for something unreal." Her +voice trailed off. + +"Are you sure you are going to do it?" Haldicott asked presently. + +They spoke very slowly, with long pauses, as though a monotony of +leisure were about them; as though, in some quiet, dim place of departed +spirits, time had ceased. + +"Yes; quite sure. I have bought it--the poison--I had a doctor's +prescription--I have thought it all out carefully. It's in the top +drawer of my dressing-table." + +She would, he saw, tell him everything. + +Again he paused. + +"Is it an irremediable sorrow that makes life impossible, or is it life +itself, in general, that you can't go on with?" + +"Both--both," said Allida. + +Again a long, long silence grew; every moment, Haldicott felt, a drop in +the deep cup of oblivion that, unconsciously, she was drinking, that +would make the past more and more unreal, until from oblivion she woke +into the sane world of struggle and life. + +"Yet you are so young," he said at last, "with everything before +you--real joys as well as--forgive me!--realer sorrows; they would +balance better if you would live a little longer. You know, if you +waited for just one year, let us say, you would look back with wonder +at this, with thankfulness that you hadn't." + +"Perhaps," she said. "Only I don't want to live that year." + +"And when were--when are you going to do it?" + +"This evening. I had meant to do it long before this. Mamma is away. +There could be no better time. Besides, it must be this evening. I've +written." + +"To her? To tell her?" + +"No," Allida answered; "not to her." And she added, "I don't love her." + +"Your mother?" + +"This is my dying confession, so I will say the truth. No, I don't love +her. She has made me so unhappy--made life so ugly." + +"Then you wrote to some one whom you do love?" + +"Yes," said Allida, after another pause. Her hat had loosened as she +leaned her head back, and her disordered hair was about her face; she +still kept her eyes closed with her expression of weary abandonment to +the peace of confession. + +He looked at her keenly, with most intent interest, most intent pity, +and yet with a flicker of amusement in the look. She could do it. He +believed her. Yet it would be as absurd as it would be tragic if she +did. It wasn't a face made for tragedy; it had strayed into it by +mistake. + +"This some one you love," he said gently, "will it not hurt them +terribly? Have you thought of that?" + +He saw the tears come. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. She faintly +whispered: + +"He doesn't love me." + +Haldicott could feel no amusement now, the pity was too great. He put +his other hand on the hand he held. + +"Used he to love you?" he asked. + +"No," said Allida; "he never loved me." + +For a moment Haldicott struggled with a half-nervous wish to laugh; +relief was in the wish. + +"And he knows that you love him?" he controlled his voice to ask. + +"He will--when he gets my letter." + +"Poor devil!" ejaculated Haldicott. + +"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Allida. She opened her eyes and sat +upright, drawing her hand from his. "How could you understand? You think +it's a sort of vengeance I'm taking--for his not loving me. I can't drag +myself through explanations, indeed I can't. Of course I see that my +tragedy to you must be almost farce. I must go. Why should I have told +you anything? I am desecrating it all, making it all grotesque, by being +still alive." + +"No, no; you mustn't go yet," said Haldicott, seizing her hand firmly, +yet with not too obvious a restraint. "You mustn't go, not at peace with +me. You have all the evening still before you,--it's not six yet,--and +it doesn't take long to kill one's self with poison. Trust me. You must +trust me. Don't think about its being grotesque; most things are in +certain aspects. I think that we are both behaving very naturally, +considering the circumstances. The circumstances, I grant you, are a +little grotesque--not the circumstance of your being still alive, but of +your wishing to die. But, indeed, I shall understand, you poor child, +poor sweet child, if you will explain." + +Again the mirage sense of compulsion, of peace in yielding to it, of +letting this ghost-like consciousness shut out the long past and the +short future, crept over her. She sank back again beside him. + +"But how can I explain? Where shall I begin?" + +"Listen to me now, dear Allida--we can use Christian names, I think, in +a case of last dying confession like this. I am not going to prevent +you, or put any constraint upon you; but I want you to explain as +clearly and fully as you can, so that, in trying to make me see, you may +see yourself, clearly and fully, what you are doing, where you are. +Probably you are in a condition of absolutely irrational despair. Let us +look at it together. I may be able to show you something else. Begin +with him. Who is he?" + +Allida had leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. She dropped her face +into her hands as she answered: + +"Oliver Ainslie." + +"Yes; I know him." + +"Yes; you know him." + +"He is--a charming fellow," said Haldicott. + +"I met him over a year ago," said Allida. "I am very miserable at home. +I have grown up alone. My mother and I have never been at all +sympathetic. I hardly saw her when I was growing up. She only wanted to +marry me off as soon as possible, and--she hasn't found it easy to marry +me off. I haven't money--or looks in particular--oh, but I can't go into +all that! You know mamma. I have hated my life with her." + +"Yes, yes. I understand." + +"Not that there is any harm in mamma," Allida amended, with a weary +exactitude; "everybody understands that, too. Only she is so utterly +silly, so utterly selfish. This all sounds horrible." + +"I understand." + +"I met him. I had never seen any one so dear, so sympathetic. I seemed +to breathe with happiness when he was there. It was like morning +sunlight after a hot, glaring ballroom, being with him. He never cared +one bit for me; but--the first time I saw him he smiled at me, and he +was kind and dear to me,--as he would be to any one,--and from that +first moment I loved him--oh, loved him!" + +She paused, a sacred sweetness in the pause. + +Haldicott, sitting beside her in the fog, felt the presence of something +radiant and snowy. + +"And I sometimes thought and hoped--that he would care for me. I wrote +to him all the time, letters I never sent; but I wrote as if he were to +see them--some day. It's almost strange to me to think that such love +didn't bring him to me by its very force and yearning. One hears, you +know, of thoughts making themselves felt--becoming realities. I wonder +where all those thoughts of mine went!" + +He saw them all--those white, innocent thoughts--flying out like birds, +like a flock of white birds, and disappearing in the darkness. How could +a soul not have felt them fluttering about it, crying vainly for +admittance? He almost shared Allida's wonder. + +"And to-day, I sent all the letters with the last one telling of my +death. For--I saw it this morning--he is engaged. So I couldn't go on. I +could never love any one else; I shouldn't want to. My heart broke when +I read the paper; really it broke. And I explained it all to him, so +that it could not hurt him, that I was dying because life had become +worthless to me--and yet that there was joy in dying because I could, in +dying, tell him. There had been beauty and joy in loving him; he must +not be too sorry; and he must care for my love. It was a gift--a gift +that I could give him only in going away for ever myself." + +She was silent. The evening was late by now, and the fog about them shut +them into a little space, a little island just large enough for their +bench, a bit of path, a dim border of railing opposite, and a branch of +tree overhead. The muffled sound of cautious traffic was far away. They +were wonderfully alone. + +Haldicott took one of the hands on which she leaned, and raised it to +his lips. + +"Sweet, foolish child!" he said. + +She turned her head and looked at him; it was almost as if she saw him +for the first time--the man, not only Life's personification. They could +still see quite clearly each other's faces, and for a long time, +gravely, they looked into each other's eyes. + +"Don't you see that it's all a dream?" said Haldicott. + +"A dream?" Allida repeated. "The reality of a whole year?" + +And yet it was a dream to her; even while she had told him of that year +it was as if she told of something far behind her, lived through long, +long ages ago, in another, a different life. + +But she struggled to hold the vanishing pain and beauty of it all--the +reality that, unreal, would make her whole being seem like a little +handful of thin cloud dying away into emptiness. + +"This is a dream," she said, still looking at him, "_this, this_. What +am I doing here?" She rose to her feet, gasping now. "Oh! he will get +the letter--and I shall not be dead! I must go at once--at once!" + +"To save yourself from being ridiculous? You are going to kill yourself +so as to keep a tragic attitude that you've taken before this man who +doesn't care for you--an attitude that's really disarranged? +Dear--pitiful--enchanting little idiot!" said Haldicott. + +He had risen too, and, holding her hands, he still, but not too +obviously, kept her near him. + +His words were almost cruel in their lightness; his voice had a feeling +that, more than any words, any supplication or remonstrance, made her +past life seem illusory, and she herself, with it, disappearing into +pure nothingness. The world rocked with her. Only the feeling in that +voice seemed real. + +"Are you sure, are you sure," he said, "that you can never love anybody +else? Won't you wait a year to find out? Won't you wait a month? Allida, +won't you wait a day?" + +"Why do you try to humiliate me?" she gasped, and the tears fell down +her face. He almost feared that he had been brutal, that she was going +to faint. + +"I am not trying to humiliate you. I am trying to wake you. Perhaps the +truth will wake you. Will you wait a day, an hour, Allida, and see?" + +"See what?" + +"That this is a dream; that you wove it out of nothing to fill the +emptiness of your sad life; that it would have gathered round the first +'dear sympathetic' person who smiled at you. And after you see that, +will you wait and see----" he paused. + +"What?" she repeated. + +"How much I can make you love me," said Haldicott. + +"Why do you mock me?" Allida said. "Why, unless you think me mad?" + +"Well, of course you _are_ mad, in a sense; any coroner's inquest would +say so. But _mock_ you! I love you, Allida." + +Her face had now as wild, as frozen a look on it as the one he had seen, +not three hours before, after she had slipped the letter into the +pillar-box; but it was with another wildness--of wonder rather than of +despair. + +"But how can you?" she faltered. + +"I can tell you how, but you must wait an hour--more than an hour--to +hear. You will wait--Allida?" + +"It is pity, to save me." + +"To save you? Why, I'd hand you over to the nearest policeman if I only +wanted to save you. I _do_ want to save you--for myself." + +There drifted through her mind a vision of her little room, where, by +this time, she might have been lying on the bed, the empty bottle of +poison near her. And that vision of death was now far away, across an +abyss, and she was in life, and life held her, claimed her. + +"But I can't understand. How is it possible?" She closed her eyes. "My +letter," she whispered. + +Haldicott put his arm around her and led her down the path. + +"Ainslie is a dear fellow," he said. "We will write him another letter +as soon as we get in." + +She was hardly aware of the walk back to the little house in Mayfair, +back to the doorstep where, such aeons ago, she had paused to look at +the crying cat. If she had not paused, if she had gone a little earlier +to the pillar-box, before the lamp was lighted----Her mind was blurred +again. All--all was dream, except that life, near her, was claiming her. + +Now they were in the drawing-room, among the shaded lamps, the gilt, the +chintz and bric-a-brac. + +Haldicott sent for wine and made her drink. He said to the maid that +Miss Fraser had felt faint during her walk. For a long time Allida +leaned back in the chair where he had put her, shading her eyes with her +hand. + +"Can you write to Ainslie now?" Haldicott asked at last. "We will send +your letter by special messenger." + +"Yes, yes; let me write." She drew off her gloves, and Haldicott put +paper and pen before her. + +She looked up at him. + +"What shall I say?" she asked. + +This time, uncontrollably, he wanted to laugh; if he did not laugh he +must burst out crying; he leaned his elbows on the table as he sat +beside her, burying his face on his arms, his shoulders shaking. + +Allida sat with the pen in her hand, gazing at him. The nightmare, after +all, was too near for her to share his dubious amusement; but that she +saw its point as well as he did was evinced in her next question, asked +in still the faltering voice: + +"Shall I say that I've decided to wait a day?" + +Haldicott looked up. + +"Thank Heaven, you _have_ a sense of humour. It was my one anxiety about +you--all through. Say, dearest Allida, that you are awake." + +She looked at him, and now, though she did not smile, her wan face was +touched by a pale, responsive radiance. + +"It is so strange--to be awake," she murmured, bending to her paper. + +But hardly had the first slow line been written when running steps were +heard outside, the door was flung open before the amazed maid could +reach it, and Oliver Ainslie, white and distraught, darted into the +room. + + * * * * * + +He did not glance at Haldicott. The distraction of his look had only +time to break into stupefied thanksgiving before the same rush that had +brought him in carried him to Allida. He fell on his knees before her. +Clasping her round the waist, he hid his face, crying, "Thank God!" + +Allida sat, still holding her pen. She did not look at Ainslie, but +across the room at Haldicott, and again, before her look, as of one +confronted with her own utter inadequacy to deal with the situation, +Haldicott could almost have laughed. But the moment for light +interpretations had gone. Anything amusing in the present situation was +only grimly so for him. The fairy prince had turned up--a real fairy +prince, for a wonder, and three hours of everyday reality had no chance +of counting against a year of fairy-tale with such a lasting chapter. +After all, it was very beautiful; he was able to see that, thank +goodness! Yet Allida's perfectly blank look held him. She was evidently +unable to deal single-handed with her dilemma--to explain to her fairy +prince why he found her alive rather than dead. Haldicott turned to the +mantelpiece and moved, unseeingly, the idiotic silver ornaments upon it, +waiting for an opportunity to strike a blow for her deliverance. + +Ainslie had lifted his face to hers. + +"It was a mistake, that announcement: it's my cousin who is to be +married; we have the same name. Oh, Allida! darling Allida! if I had not +come in time! That I should have found you--_you_! And only just in +time!" + +He became now, perhaps from the blankness of her face, aware more fully +of Haldicott's unobtrusive presence. + +To the silent query of his eyes she answered: + +"He knows--everything." + +"He prevented you! He met you and prevented you! I see it all. +Haldicott, it _is_ you, isn't it----" + +Haldicott reluctantly turned to him. + +"My dear fellow, can I ever thank you enough? My dear Haldicott, it's +all too astonishing. You know? And _why_ she was going to? The poor, +darling child!" He had risen, and, with his arm around Allida's +shoulders, was gazing at her. + +"I saw Miss Fraser posting her letter to you, and guessed from her +expression that something very bad was up," said Haldicott. "I forced +her to walk a little with me, and I made her tell me the story; and then +I made her see that the truer love for you would be shown in living. She +had just recognised that,"--Haldicott smiled at her,--"and she was going +to write, and see if she couldn't waylay that letter--spare you the pain +of it and, at all events, tell you that she wasn't going to burden you +with unfair remorse for the rest of your days. That's about the truth of +it all, isn't it?" And he so believed it to be, now, the only essential +truth, or, at least, the half-truth that she had better believe in, that +his smile had not a touch of bitterness. + +Allida still held her pen and still gazed at him. + +"Ah! thank God for it all--for the fact that the letter wasn't waylaid, +and for the fact that you _were_, Allida! When I think of it--that gift +coming to me--your gift, Allida--and not too late--not too late!" + +The young man, in his rapturous thankfulness, indifferent to the +guardian presence, raised her hand to his lips, kissing it with a +fervour where tears struggled with smiles. + +"I'll go now," Haldicott said gently. "I'm so--immensely glad for you +both." + +But Allida, at this, started from her helpless apathy. + +"No, no! Don't--don't go!" she cried. "I can't think. It's all so +impossible. Do you mean," and her eyes now went to Ainslie while she +drew her hand from his--"do you mean that you love me?" + +"Love you, darling Allida? Don't you see it?" + +"Because you got the letter," Allida said, as if linking in her mind a +chain of evidence. "If you hadn't got it--you would not love me now." + +"Forgive me, dearest, for my blindness! I should not have known you if I +had not got it." + +Allida still looked at him. + +"You are just as dear--even dearer than I thought you; you are even more +worthy of any love than I dreamed," she said. Her face had lost all +apathy, all helplessness. It was with the stricken resolution that it +could so strangely show that she pushed back her chair and rose, moving +away from the young man, who, enchantingly a fairy prince, gazed at her +with adoring eyes. + +"It was written in a dream," said Allida, clasping her hands and +returning his gaze. "It was written in a dream," she repeated. "It was +all--all the whole year--a dream--only a dream." + +The trust of his gaze was too deep for understanding to sink through it. + +"I am awake now," said Allida; "you are dearer than I ever dreamed, but +I am awake." + +"When reality comes, the past always seems rather dream-like," Ainslie +said. He felt and understood as well, as truly as the other had done. +"Darling Allida, I can never be worthy of such a love as yours, but I +will try. And now that you are awake, you will find how much better +waking is than any dream." + +She gasped at this, and retreated before him. + +"But I am horrid; I am unbelievable. There isn't any reality. There +isn't any love to be worthy of," she cried, and covered her face with +her hands. + +Ainslie, from her attitude of avowal and abasement, looked his +stupefaction at Haldicott, and, for all answer, got a stupefaction as +complete. + +"What _does_ she mean?" the younger man at length inquired. + +"I don't think she knows what she means," Haldicott answered. "I think +she is, naturally, overwrought. All feeling, all meaning, is paralyzed. +She probably won't mean anything worth listening to for a good while." + +They were speaking quite as if Allida, standing there with her hidden +face, were a lunatic, the diagnosis of whose harmless case was as yet +impossible in the absence of fresh symptoms. But a symptom was +forthcoming. + +"I mean _that_," she said. "I don't understand. I can't explain. It's as +if something were broken in me. There isn't any love; there never will +be. If you can ever forgive me, please tell me so--when you do. It +mustn't be more than a dream for you, too--a dream only an hour long." + +The two men again exchanged glances, but now with more hesitation. + +"But, Allida,"--Ainslie spoke with gentle pain--"I love you. I am not +dreaming. Do you mean to say that you can't love me? Do you mean to say +that if I had loved you, with no letter to awaken me, you would have +thought your love a dream, merely because it was answered?" + +"It isn't that. I can't explain. Something broke. You came too late. +It's as if I had died--and become almost another person. I know it's +unbelievable; I don't understand it myself; but it is true. It is all +over, really." + +"All over?" dazedly Ainslie repeated. "But why? After those letters? +After what you were going to do? Allida!" + +She dropped her hands, and once more her eyes went to Haldicott in that +look--the appeal of incompetence. But there was more in it: suffering +and shame, and a strength that strove to hide them from him. + +"Perhaps, my dear Ainslie, you had better go," said Haldicott, "for the +present at least." But, in its wonder, his answering look now appealed +and was helpless in its incomprehension. + +Ainslie stared at her. + +"Good-bye," he said at last. + +"Oh, good-bye," said Allida, with a fervor of relief that all her +humility and pity could not dissemble. + +"Good-bye," he repeated, holding her hand, "sweet, strange, cruel +Allida." + +She put her hand over his and looked clearly at him. + +"Remember," she said--"remember how absurd I am." + +He was gone. Allida did not turn to Haldicott. She remained looking at +the door that had closed on the exit of her "best beloved." + +"But _why_?" said Haldicott. He repeated Ainslie's broken words almost +faintly. "When the dream came true--why didn't you take it?" + +She made no reply. + +"I never meant that because it had been a dream it couldn't become a +reality," he went on. + +She looked vaguely round the room. Indeed, things swam to her; the +nearest support was the mantelpiece. She leaned against it, looking +down. + +"It's not anything I said--in my efforts to shake you awake? You _were_ +in love with him, you know. Weren't you in love with him, Allida?" + +"Yes; I suppose so. How can I tell you anything? All I know is that I +was dreaming." + +"But--why did the dream go?" + +"You killed it, perhaps," she said in a colourless voice, leaning her +forehead upon her hand, and still looking fixedly down. + +"I--_I_ killed it? You mean--that any one who had come then--would have +stopped you--made you see your own folly--waked you?" + +"They might have stopped me--they might have saved me," she said, and +she paused. + +"But only I could wake you? Only I could prevent the coming true of your +dream?" Again in his wondering, groping voice was the feeling that, like +a torch, had led her up from Tartarus--up through blackness to the sweet +air again. + +She still hid her eyes, not daring to look or trust. + +"Allida!" he supplicated. + +"Oh," she said in a voice so low that it did not shake--it was as if she +just dared to let it sound at all--"was your dream true, or was it only +the rope you threw out to me to drag me on shore with?" + +Haldicott stretched out his hand to her. + +"Do you mean that my three hours of reality count for more than +his--than his, backed by your whole year of dreaming? Allida, are you +really absurd enough to say that I count for more than Oliver Ainslie?" + +She put her weary, ashamed head down on the arm that leaned upon the +mantelpiece. She did not take his hand. + +"What can I say? Everything I say seems unbelievable. Can anything I say +be more absurd than anything else? Yes, you do count for more. You +count for everything. Did I love him--or did I only love love? I don't +know. I only know that what you said--and are--made it all a dream. And +now you will think that I am going to kill myself because _you_ don't +love me! But my absurdity is over, I promise you. Really, I am awake." + +"Allida, darling," said Haldicott--he went to her and took both her +hands, so that she must raise her head and look at him--"if I've made +fun of you when I was feeling horribly frightened, and called you +ridiculous when I found you as tragic and adorable as you were +grotesque, _that_ was the rope. Now I will take an hour, or a day, or a +whole week, if necessary, to make you believe it; but _I_ could have +committed suicide--I assure you I could--when I saw Oliver Ainslie come +into the room." + + + + +A FORSAKEN TEMPLE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MILLY + + +"It is the emptiness, the loneliness, the lack of response and +understanding," said Milly. "It is as if I were always looking at a face +that never really saw me or spoke to me. Such a mistake as I have +made--or as others have made for me--is irretrievable. An unhappy +marriage seems to ruin everything in you and about you, and you have to +go on living among the ruins. You can't go away and leave them behind +you, as you can other calamities in life." + +Milly Quentyn and Mrs. Drent were alone this afternoon in the +country-house where they had come really to know each other, and Milly, +acting hostess for her absent cousin, had poured out Mrs. Drent's tea +and then her own, leaving it untouched, however, while she spoke, her +hands falling, clasped together, in her lap, her eyes fixed on vacancy. +The contemplation of ruins for the last five years had filled these eyes +with a pensive resignation; but they showed no tearful repinings, no +fretful restlessness. They were clear eyes, large and luminous, and in +looking at them and at the wan, lovely little face where they bloomed +like melancholy flowers, Mrs. Drent's face, on the other side of the +tea-table, grew yet more sombre and more intent in its brooding +sympathy. "Why did you----" she began, and then changed the first +intention of her question to--"Why did you--love him?" This was more +penetrating than to ask Mrs. Quentyn why she had married him. + +The extreme lowness of Mrs. Drent's voice muffled, as it were, its +essential harshness; one felt in it the effort to be soft, as in her one +felt effort, always, to quell some latent fierceness, an eager, almost +savage energy. She was thirty years old, six years older than Milly +Quentyn. Her skin was swarthy, her eyes, under broad, tragically bent +eyebrows, were impenetrably black. Her features, had they not been so +small, so finely finished, would have seemed too emphatic, significant +as they were of a race-horse nervousness and of something inflexible in +the midst of an expression all flexibility. Her hands were curiously +slight and small, and as she now, in looking at her companion and in +asking her question, locked them together with a force that made them +tremble, they showed the same combination of an excessive strength +informing an excessive fragility. + +Milly Quentyn's gaze drifted to her and rested upon her in silence. + +Presently she smiled. + +"How kind you are to care so much, to care at all!" + +"I do care." + +"Are you, will you, be my friend, always?" asked Milly, leaning towards +her a little, and the smile seemed to flutter to the other woman like an +appealing and grateful kiss. + +"I am your friend; I will be your friend, always," Mrs. Drent replied, +in an even lower tone than before. + +The tears came softly into Milly's eyes while they looked at each other +she gently, Mrs. Drent still sombrely. Then leaning back again with a +sigh, she continued, "Why I loved him? I didn't love him. Isn't that the +almost invariable answer? I was nineteen; I had just left the +schoolroom; I was in love with my own ideal of love--you know, you must +know, the silly, pathetic, sentimental and selfish mixture one is at +nineteen;--and Mamma said that he was that ideal; and he said nothing; +so I believed her! Poor Dick! He was in love, I think, really, and not a +bit with himself, and with only enough articulateness to ask me to marry +him; and of course he was, and is, very good-looking. You know Mamma. +She has married us all off very well, they say; you know how they say +it. In her determination to ensconce the family type comfortably she is +as careless of the single life as nature itself. In this case what +appeared to be a very cosy niche offered itself for me and she shoved me +into it. I have grown up since then; that is all my story." + +"They are terrible, terrible, such marriages," said Mrs. Drent, looking +away. + +Her tone struck Milly, with all her consciousness of pathos, as perhaps +a little misplaced. "Terrible? No, hardly that, I think. I did believe +that I loved him. He did love me." + +"You were a child who did not know herself, nor what she was doing." + +"Yes; that is true." + +"And it is terrible for him if he still loves you." + +"Oh," said Milly, with another sigh, "if you can call it love. He is +rather dismayed by the situation; sorry that we don't hit it off better, +as he would express it; jocosely resigned to what he would call my +unkindness and queerness. But as for tragedy, suffering;--one can't +associate such perturbing things with imperturbable Dick. I haven't to +reproach myself with having hurt his life seriously, and, Heaven knows! +I don't reproach his simplicity and harmlessness for having broken mine. +Marriage and a wife were incidents--incidents only--to him, and if they +have failed to be satisfactory incidents, he has other far more +absorbing interests in his life to take his mind off the breakdown of +his domestic happiness. Indeed, domesticity, when he cares to avail +himself of it, is always there in its superficial forms and ceremonies. +I can't pretend to love him, but I take care of his money and his house, +I entertain his friends, I give him his tea at breakfast and a decorous +kiss when he comes back from shooting animals in some savage country. +One could hardly call us separated, so discreetly do I bridge the chasm +with all the conventional observances. Thank Heaven! the shooting is his +one great passion, so that he is usually wandering happily in distant +jungles and not requiring too many _tete-a-tetes_ at breakfast of me." + +"He is probably very good and kind," said Mrs. Drent, "but it is +incredible that such a man should be married to such a woman as you." + +Again Milly gazed for a moment, aware of inappropriateness. "You have a +very high ideal of marriage, haven't you?" she said. Mrs. Drent's +husband had died five years before, and her baby when it was born. She +wore black, exquisite and unobtrusive always, and, unobtrusively, she +was known to be inconsolable. Yet Milly had heard it whispered that +Gilbert Drent had married her for her money and that, charming person +though he had been, she had passionately idealized him. There was, +therefore, with these memories at the back of her mind, something +painful as well as pathetic to her in the voice in which Mrs. Drent, +crimsoning deeply, said: "My own marriage was ideal. I don't understand +marriage unless it is ideal." + +There was a silence after that for a moment and then Milly said, "It +must be wonderful to have such a memory. All I know is that I wish with +all my heart I had never married Dick, and I believe with all my heart +that one shouldn't marry unless everything is there." + +"That is it," said Mrs. Drent, "everything must be there for it to be +right;--affinity, and understanding, and devotion. Some women can find +enough in the mere fact of a home and a shared life to be satisfied +without them; but not a woman like you." + +"I think you idealize me," Milly said smiling a little sadly; "but I +believe in that too. I don't claim at all any remarkable individuality; +but what I have Dick doesn't understand at all, doesn't even see. He +goes blundering about the dullest, most distant parks and preserves of a +castle; that is as near as he ever gets to the castle, such as it is, of +my personality. And he doesn't really care about the castle; it hardly +worries him that he can't find it. There might be wonderful pictures on +its walls, and jewels in its cabinets, and music in its chambers; but +even if he got inside and were able to see and hear, he wouldn't care a +bit about them; he would say: 'Awfully nice,' and look for the +smoking-room. And there," said Milly, pressing her hands together while +her eyes filled suddenly with tears, "there is the little tragedy. For +of course every woman thinks that she has pictures and jewels and music, +and longs--oh longs!--to show them to the one, the one person who will +love to see and hear. And when she finds that no one sees or hears, or +knows, even, that there is anything to look for, then the music dies, +and the pictures fade, and the jewels grow dim, and at last everything +magical vanishes from life and she sees herself, not as an enchanted +castle, but as a first-class house in Mayfair, with all the latest +improvements;--as much a matter of course, as much a convenience, as +unmysterious and as unalluring as the telephone, the hot water pipes and +the electric lighting. It is only as if in a dream--a far, far +dream--that she remembers the castle, and feels, sometimes, within her, +the ruins, the empty ruins." + +"Oh--my dear!" breathed Mrs. Drent. It was as if she couldn't help it, +as if, shaken from her passionate reserve, she must show her very heart. +She leaned round the table and took one of Milly's hands. "Don't--don't +let the magic vanish! There's nothing else in life! All the rest is +death. It's only when we are in the castle--with our music and our +pictures and our jewels--that we are alive. You know it; you feel it; +it's what makes the difference between the real and the unreal people. +You are one of the real ones, I saw it at once; you aren't meant to +wither out and to become crisp and shallow. Don't cease to believe in +the pictures, the jewels, the music. They are there. _I_ see. _I_ hear." + +"How--_sweet_ of you!" faltered Milly. + +She was startled, she was touched, she, who rarely felt it, felt +shyness. She had known that this dark, still woman was observing her, +and had known, for all the other's reserve, that the observation was not +antagonistic. Something in Mrs. Drent had made her feel that it would be +easy, a relief, to talk to her about all one's miseries and desolations. +But the sudden leap of spiritual fire found her unprepared. She was a +little ashamed, as though her own reality were somewhat unreal beside +Mrs. Drent's belief in it. There had been something pleasant in the +tracing of her little tragedy, something sweet in the thought of that +sad castle of her soul, with its stilled music, its fading enchantments; +but Mrs. Drent had seen only the tragedy; and had felt the danger of +withering, of becoming acquiescent and commonplace, with an intensity of +which she herself was incapable. Such response, such understanding, +might well take one's breath away. + +This scene was the beginning of their long friendship. It was a charming +friendship. Milly Quentyn, for all the clouds of her background, was a +creature of sunshine, of sunshine in a mist, a creature of endearing +fluctuations. Indeed, Christina told her afterwards, when they analyzed +the beginnings, it had been her childlike radiance, her smiles, her air +as of rifts of blue over a rainy landscape--(for everybody knew that +Dick and Milly Quentyn didn't hit it off)--it had been these sweet, +these doubly pathetic qualities that had first attracted her. "I am not +easily attracted," said Christina. "Had there been a languishing hint of +the _femme incomprise_ about you, any air of self-pity, I should never +have so longed to take care of you, to try to help to make you happier. +But you were made for happiness and beauty, and if you didn't succeed in +keeping them one saw that it would hurt you dreadfully. It was that that +so appealed." + +And Milly confessed to Christina that she had been at first a good deal +afraid of her, as the distinguished young poetess, and had thought of +her as a sombre and humourless little personage, only reassuring in +being so enchantingly well-dressed. + +In Christina Drent's poetry the numbness that had descended upon her +after her husband's death had found a partial awakening. The poems were +not great things, but they were written without a touch of artifice. +They were sudden, spontaneous and swift, and it was as if, in reading +them, one heard a distant wail or saw across a bleak sky the flight of +an unknown bird. In her own little world of fashion they had made her a +tolerably famous figure. But it was an echo only of her regrets and +longings that Christina was able to put into her poems, all perhaps that +she chose to put; they were never intimate or personal. The essence of +her was that passionate reserve and, with it, that passionate longing to +devote herself, lavishly, exclusively, upon one idolized and, +inevitably, idealized object. She was full of a fervour of faith, once +the reserve was broken down, and her idol, high on a pedestal in its +well-built temple, was secure henceforth from overthrow. + +Such an idol her husband had been. Such an idol her child would have +been. The doors of that sanctuary were sealed for ever, the sacred +emptiness for ever empty; Christina could never have remarried. But +beside it rose a second temple, only less fair, and in it, lovingly +enshrined, stood Milly Quentyn. + +Happily Milly was an idol worthy of idealization, perhaps even worthy of +temple-building. She was sweet and tender, in friendship most upright +and loyal. She loved to be loved, to see her own tenderness blossom +about her in responsive tenderness. She was not vain, but she loved +those she cared for to find her exquisite, and to show her that they +did. Like a frail flower, unvisited by sunlight, she could hardly live +without other lives about her, fortifying, expanding her own. Her +disappointment in her husband had turned to something like a wan +disgust. His crude appreciations of her, which, in the first girlish +trust of her married life, she had taken as warrant of all the subtle, +manifold appreciations that she needed, were now offences. Poor Dick +Quentyn blundered deeper and deeper into the quagmire of his wife's +disdain. His was a boyish, unexacting nature. He asked for no great +things, and the lack of even small mercies left him serene. As he had +never thought about himself at all, it did not surprise him that his +wife thought very little of him; he did not, because of it, think less +well of himself. Milly's indifference argued in her a difference from +most women, facilely contented as they usually seemed. It did not change +or harm him or make him either assertive or self-conscious. + +He had soon discovered that the things he cared to talk about wearied +her--sport, the estate, very uncomplex politics or very uncomplex +books; and after a little while he discovered, further, that for him to +try to adapt himself to her, to try to talk about the things she cared +for, exasperated her. She listened, indeed, with a bleak patience, while +he admired, with a genial endeavour to do the right thing, all the wrong +pictures at the shows where they went together. She sat silent, her eyes +aloof, dimly smiling, while he tried to win her interest in a very jolly +book,--watered Dumas, as a rule, decantered into modern bottles. He saw +that she made an effort to care about the big game he shot--the hall and +dining-room bristled with trophies, one walked over them everywhere--and +she looked at pictures of them in the books of travel he eagerly put +before her; but it was as pictures that they interested her, remotely, +not as animals suitable for shooting. + +Dick Quentyn, with an unmysterious, undifficult wife, could have been a +very gracefully affectionate husband; his manners were as charming as +his mind was blundering; but with this chill young nymph any attempt at +marital pettings and caressings seemed clumsy and grotesque. With Milly, +he soon felt it, the barrier between their minds was inevitably a +barrier shutting him out from even these manifestations of tenderness. +He was not at all dull in feeling that; not at all dull in his quick +withdrawal before her passive distaste; not dull in knowing that if he +were not to withdraw the distaste would become more than negative. He +had now, cheerfully, it seemed, recognized that his marriage was a +failure and, as Milly had said, it did not seem, after an unpleasant +wrench or two when he did show an uncontrollable grimace of pain, to +make very much difference to him. She endured him; she did not dislike +him at all--at a distance; and, very gaily, with a debonair manner of +perfect trust, he kept at a distance. He travelled constantly, and it +was rarely that he required her to pour out his tea for him. + +Milly poured out his tea for a fortnight during Christina's first visit +to Chawlton House, the Quentyns' country-place. Christina looked forward +to meeting her friend's inappropriate husband almost with trembling. She +felt that she might be called to the great and happy mission of +reconciliation, that Milly might have been mistaken and Dick +undervalued. Milly's trust in her and dependence upon her had grown with +leaps and bounds, and she hoped that with tact and time she might do +much to rebuild the broken life, if there were materials with which to +build it. The first glance at Dick showed her the futility of such +hopes. He was a dear; that at once was obvious to her; and he was +delightful looking; his small head well set on broad shoulders, his +short nose expressive of courage and character; his grey eyes as free +from all malice and uncharitableness as they were from introspection. +But he was a boy, a kind, good boy, an ingenuous, well-mannered +materialist, living, as it were, by automatic functions, and as +incapable of spiritual initiative as he was of evil. What ground of +meeting could there be between him and her Milly, compact as she was of +subtleties, profundities and possibilities? No; Dick offered no +materials for the building of a shrine, and unless marriage was a shrine +Christina could not contemplate it. There had been a deep instinct, like +one of nature's cruel yet righteous laws, in Milly's withdrawal; to have +consented, to have compromised, would have been to stifle and stultify +herself. + +Christina so justified her, and yet it pained her that Milly, in her +treatment of her husband, should be almost unbeautiful. The streak of +hardness, almost of cruelty, like nature's own, showing itself in her +darling, distressed her. She did not care so much about Dick's very +problematic discomfort. He showed none; he talked with great good +spirits, made cheerful, obvious jokes and looked eminently sane, fresh +and picturesque in his out-of-door attire. Yet even he must know that +every fibre of Milly's face, every tone of her voice, expressed her +indifference and her oppression. "Really, dear, you are not kind," +Christina protested. Milly opened innocent eyes. "You think I'm wrong +about Dick?" + +"Not wrong about him; wrong to him. Surely, just because you are so +right in what you feel to be impossibility, you can afford to be kind." + +"You think I behave badly to Dick? Oh, Christina!--you are displeased +with me?" + +They were very sincere with each other, these two, and bared their souls +to each other relentlessly. + +"Only because you are so dear to me, Milly." Mrs. Drent flushed a little +as she looked tenderly at her friend. "Only because I want to see you +always right, exquisitely right. You make me uncomfortable when you are +not. He has done you no wrong. Why should you treat him as you did this +morning, using me as a foil to show him his own stupidity? Not that I +do find him stupid, Milly; only very, very simple." + +"I know it! Oh, I know it!" Milly wailed. "If only he had done me a +wrong it would be so much easier! He irritates me so unspeakably, and I +seem to feel it more, now that I have you. That laboured chaffing of you +at breakfast--how could you have borne it? I can't pretend amusement, +and chaff is his only conception of human intercourse. I know I'm +horrid--I know it; but it is the long, long accumulations of repressed +exasperation that have made me so--worse than exasperations. I remember, +during the first months of our married life, when I was becoming +dreadfully frightened, catching glimpses on every side of my awful +mistake--I remember once kissing him and saying something playful that +hid an appeal for comfort, comprehension, reassurance. And do you know, +he answered me with a chaffing jest--a stupid, stupid jest--some piece +of would-be gallant folly. It was like a dagger!" + +"Perhaps it pleased him so much, your kissing him, that it made him +shy," Christina suggested, but Milly said:--"Dick shy! Oh no, he is not +sensitive enough for shyness. He doesn't feel things at all as you, with +your exquisiteness, imagine. He isn't shy at all, and I'm afraid he is +sometimes immensely, hideously stupid." + +After all, as Christina came to see, Dick's inevitable loss was her own +gain. Milly, who could not be her husband's, was hers, almost as a child +might have been. Christina, for the first time in her life, knew the +intoxicating experience of being sought out and needed. It was Milly who +turned to her; Milly who put out appealing hands, like a lonely child; +who nestled her head on her shoulder, contentedly sighing, as she begged +her please, please not to go until she had to--and couldn't she, +wouldn't she, stay on until the winter? + +Why shouldn't she? Her own life was empty. It ended in her passing most +of the winter with Milly in the country after Dick had gone off to +India. It was a blissful winter, the happiest, in reality, that +Christina had ever known, though she was not aware of this nor aware +that it was the first time in her life that she was the recipient of as +much devotion as she gave. They read and rode and walked and talked and +carried on energetic reforms and charities in the village. Christina was +full of ardent enthusiasms which infected Milly. In spite of her +physical delicacy, for she had a weak heart, she showed an enterprise +and endurance that Milly was not capable of. The winter went by and life +was full of significance. + +Then Christina asked Milly to come and stay with her in London for the +spring, and so, by degrees, they both came to think of home as the being +together. Christina's little house in Sloane Street became a centre of +discriminating hospitality; they had an equal talent for selection and +recognition, and Milly possessed the irradiating attractive qualities +that Christina lacked. Together they became something of a touchstone +for the finer, more recondite elements in the vortex of the larger +London life. All their people seemed to come to them through some +pleasant affinity, the people who had done clever things; the people +who, better still, shone only with latent possibilities and were the +richer for their reticences; and dear, comfortable, unexacting people +who were not particularly clever, but responsive, appreciative and +genuine. + +Christina still wrote a little, but not so much. She and Milly studied +and travelled and, in the country, at the proper seasons, rusticated. +With all its harmony, their life did not want its more closely knitting +times of fear, as when Milly was dangerously ill and Christina nursed +her through the long crisis, or when Christina's heart showed alarming +symptoms and hurried them away to German specialists. + +There were funny little quarrels, too, funny to look back upon, though +very painful at the moment; for Milly could be fretful, and Christina +violent in reproach. The swift reconciliations atoned for all, when, +holding each other's hands, they laughed at each other, each eager to +take the blame. Certain defects they came to recognize and to take into +account, tolerant, loving comprehension, the ripest stage of affection, +seeming achieved. Milly was capricious, had moods of gloom and +disconsolateness when nothing seemed to interest her, neither books nor +music nor people, not even Christina, and when, sunken in a deep +armchair, she would listlessly tap her fingers on the chair-arms, her +eyes empty of all but a monotonous melancholy. These moods always hurt +Christina,--Milly herself seemed hardly aware of them, certainly was not +aware of their hurting,--and she hid the hurt in a gentle sympathy that +averted tactful eyes from her friend's retirement. But she did not quite +understand; for she never wished to retire into herself and away from +Milly. + +And Milly discovered that Christina could be unreasonable--so she +tolerantly termed a smouldering element in her friend's nature; +Christina, in fact, could be fiercely jealous. They shared all their +friends, many of them dear friends, but dear on a certain level, below +the illuminated solitude where they two stood in their precious +isolation. And Milly protested to herself that she was the last person +to wish that isolation disturbed. No one knew her, understood her, +helped and loved her as Christina did; there was no one like Christina, +no one so strong, so generous, so large-natured. Why then should +Christina, like a foolish school-girl, show unmistakably--her efforts to +hide it only making her look dim-eyed, white-lipped--a sombre misery if +Milly allowed anyone to absorb her? This really piteous infirmity was +latent in Christina; she did not show it at all during the first years +of their companionship; it grew with her growing devotion to Milly. +Milly discovered it when she asked little Joan Ashby to go to Italy with +them. Christina, at the proposal, had been all glad, frank acquiescence. +Unsuspectingly Milly petted and made much of the girl whose adoration +was sweet to her. She went about with her sight-seeing, when Christina +said that she was tired and did not care to see things, not remembering +that when they were alone together Christina had never seemed tired. She +laughed and talked till all hours of the night with Joan, when Christina +had gone to bed saying that she was sleepy. All had seemed peaceful and +normal. Milly was stupefied when, by degrees, a consciousness of a +difference in Christina crept upon her. + +Christina smiled much, was alert, crisply responsive; but ice was in the +smile, the response was galvanized. She was suffering--the realization +rushed upon Milly once her innocent eyes were opened, and all her +strength went to hiding the suffering. Milly, watching, felt a helpless +alarm, really a shyness, gaining upon her in the face of this +development. She found Christina sobbing in her room one night when she +cut short her talk with Joan and came upon her unexpectedly. + +Milly's tender heart rose at a bound over alarm and shyness. But when +she ran to her, Christina pushed her fiercely away. "You know! Of course +you know! Go back to her if you like her better!" + +She was like a frantic child. Milly could have laughed, had not the +exhibition in her grave, staunch Christina frightened her too much, +made her too terribly sorry and almost ashamed for her. + +Later, when Christina, laughing quiveringly at her own folly, yet +confessing her own powerlessness before it, put her arms around her neck +and begged for forgiveness, Milly in all her soft, humorous reproaches +daring now to tease and rally, had yet the chill of a new discovery to +reckon with. A weight seemed to have come upon her as she realised how +much Christina cared. It was as if Christina had confessed that she +cared so much more than she, Milly, could ever do. She had not before +thought of their friendship as a responsibility. It was too dear, and +silly and pathetic in Christina, but it seemed to manacle her. + +She must be very careful to like no Joans too much in the future. +Christina protested passionately that she must talk to Joan and love +Joan--any number of Joans, young or old, male or female, as much as +before, more than before, since now her folly was dissipated by +confession; but Milly in her heart knew better than to believe her. She +filled Christina's life completely, to the exclusion of any other deep +affection, and Christina could never be happy unless her friend's life +were equally undivided. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +DICK + + +Four years passed, and during them Dick Quentyn had wandered about the +world, not at all disconsolately. He spent several seasons with friends +in India; he went to Canada and to Japan; when he came home he filled +his time largely with shooting and hunting. + +It was almost as a guest that, in the country and in his own house, he +passed a few weeks with Milly and Christina and entirely as a guest that +he dined now and then with them in London. + +It was a rather ludicrous situation, but he did not seem depressed or +abashed by it. Christina always felt that by some boyish intuition he +recognized in her a friendly sympathy, a sympathy which he must +certainly see as terribly detached, since it was she who had now fixed +definitely Milly's removal from his life, made it permanent and given it +a meaning. But it was a sympathy very friendly, even slightly humorous. +He would catch her dark eyes sometimes as he sat, a guest at her +dinner-table--(he never took Milly in, all the negations of married life +were still his)--and in them he saw and responded to an almost +affectionate playfulness. He evidently saw the joke and it amused him. +Christina often reflected that Dick was a dear, in all his +impossibility, and that Milly was not nearly nice enough to him. But +Milly was nicer than she had been; the new effectiveness and happiness +of her own life made it less of an effort to be so. From her illumined +temple she smiled at him, a smile that gained in sweetness and lost its +chill. She handed on to him a little of the radiance. + +"Since we can't hit it off together, Milly, I must say there is no one +you could have chosen for a friend that I could have liked so much as +Mrs. Drent," Dick said to his wife one evening in the drawing-room after +dinner. They often had an affable chat before the wondering eyes of the +world. Milly chatted with great affability. Dick, as Christina so often +reminded her, was a dear. No one could have less suggested shackles. + +"Now, Dick," she said, smiling, "what do _you_ find to like in +Christina?" Even in her new tolerance there lurked touches of the old +irrepressible disdain. + +Dick, twisting his moustache, contemplated her. "Do you mean that I'm +not capable of liking anything or anybody that you do?" he inquired. +Milly flushed, though the mildness of her husband's tone, one of purely +impersonal interest, suggested no conscious laying of a coal of fire +upon her head. It was what she had meant. That Dick should like +Christina, Christina Dick, was wholly delightful, but that Dick should +seem to like what she liked for the same reasons irked her a little. It +was rather as if he had expressed enthusiasms about her favourite Brahms +Rhapsody. She rather wanted to show him that any idea he might entertain +of a community of tastes was illusory. How could Dick like a Brahms +Rhapsody, he whose highest ideals of music were of something sedative +after a day's hard riding? And how could Dick really like Christina? If +he really did, and for any of her reasons, there must be between them +the link, if ever so small a one, of a community of taste--a link that +she had never recognized. + +"I think that we could only like the same things in a very different +way," she confessed. "Why do you like Christina?" + +He did not reply at once, and she went on, looking at him, smiling--they +were sitting side by side on a little sofa; "it isn't her charm, for +you think her ugly." + +"Yes; she's ugly certainly," Dick assented, quite as dully as she had +hoped he would, "though her figure is rather neat." + +Milly's smile shifted to its habitual kindly irony. "She is subtle and +delicate and sensitive," she said, rehearsing to herself as much as to +him all the reasons why Dick could not really like Christina. "Her +truths would never blunder and her silences never bore." "As Dick's +did," was in her mind. It was cruel to be so conscious of the contrast +when he looked at her with such unconsciousness; to reassure herself +with the expression of it was rather like mocking something blind and +deaf and trusting. A sudden pity confused her, and, with a little +artificiality of manner which masked the confusion, she went on: "One +could never be unhappy without her knowing it, and then one would be +glad she did know, for she can sympathise without hurting you with +sympathy. She feels everything that is beautiful and rare, everything +that is sad and tragic; she feels everything and sees everything, and +she sees and feels in order to act, to give, to help. Is it all this you +like in her?" Milly finished. + +Dick Quentyn still looked mildly at his wife. "Yes; I suppose so," he +said. + +"You see these things in Christina?" + +"In a different way," he smiled. It was almost a very clever smile. + +Milly might have felt startled at it had he not gone on very +simply:--"One sees that she is such a thoroughly good sort; so loyal; +she would go through thick and thin for anyone she cared about; and so +kind, as you say; she would talk as nicely to a dull person as to a +clever one; she'd never snub one or make one feel a duffer." + +For a moment Milly was silent. "Do you mean that I used to snub you--and +make you feel a duffer?" she then asked. + +"Oh, I say, Milly!" Dick, genuinely distressed, looked his negative. +"You didn't suppose?----" + +"I know that I was often horrid." + +"Well, if you were, you didn't suppose I'd tell you in that roundabout +fashion. Besides, all that's done with long ago." He looked away from +her now and down at the floor. + +Again Milly was silent. Strangely to herself, she felt her eyes fill +with tears. She waited to conquer them before saying very gently: +"Dick, do forgive me for having been so horrid." + +He stared up at her. "Forgive you, Milly?" The request seemed to leave +him speechless. + +She was able to smile at him. "You do?" + +"You never were. It's more to the point for me to ask you to forgive +me." + +"For what, pray?" She had to control a quiver in her voice. + +"Oh--for everything--for being so wrong, so altogether the wrong person, +you know," said Dick, smiling too. He again looked away from her, across +the room, now, at Christina; and, after a silence, filled for Milly with +perplexing impulses, he added: "But the real reason I like her so much +is that she is so tremendously fond of you." + +Milly had to bring her thoughts back with an effort to Christina; she +must let his remark about being forgiven remain as casual as he had +evidently felt it; and it was something else that he had said which more +emphatically held her attention. She thought of it all the evening, +after he had gone; and, while her hair was being brushed, she looked at +her reflection in the mirror and saw herself in that time, "long ago." +It was as if Dick had shown her a dead thing, and had turned the key on +it with his quiet words of acquiescence. + +She looked in the mirror. Surrounded by the softly falling radiance of +her hair, her face was still girlish in tint and outline; but already +her eyes had in them the depth of time lived through, her cheeks and +lips were differently sweet; and as the realization of time's swift +passage stole upon her, a vague, strong protest filled her, a sense of +deep, irremediable disappointment with life. + +Dick Quentyn went that winter to Africa, and Milly gave her husband a +farewell all kindness and composure, when he came to bid Christina and +her good-bye. Composure was a habit, and she was unaware of a new +discontent and protest that stirred beneath it, though aware that the +kindness she felt for her husband was greater than what her words of +farewell expressed. + +Dick always wrote punctually, once a fortnight, to his wife, short +bulletins, to which, as accurately and as laconically, she responded. +This winter the bulletins were often delayed, sometimes altogether +missing. + +Dick had joined an exploring party, and his allusions, by the way, to +"Narrow shaves," "Nasty rows with natives," and "A rather beastly +fever," explained these irregularities. + +"He really ought to write a book about it. They have evidently been in +danger, and had an heroic time of it altogether," Christina said, during +a sympathetic perusal of these documents which were always handed on to +her, as, for any intimacy they contained, they might have been handed on +to anybody. They began--"Dear Milly"; and ended--"Yours aff'ly, D. Q." +The "affectionately" was always abbreviated. + +"I suppose they really are in a good deal of danger," said Milly, +nibbling at her toast,--they were at breakfast. + +"That, I suppose, was what they went for," Christina replied, her eyes +passing over the letter. + +Milly, leaning her elbow on the table, watched and read. "Poor Dick!" +she said presently. + +Christina had laid down the letter and was going on with her coffee. + +"Why poor, dear? It's what he enjoys." + +"If he were killed to-morrow I suppose it would hardly affect us more +than the death of any of the men who had tea here yesterday." + +"Milly!" said Christina. She put down her cup. + +"Would it?" Milly insisted. "Would you really mind more?" + +"Your husband--my child!" This elder-sister mode of address was often +Christina's. + +"Why should a husband one hasn't been able to live with count for as +much as a friend one is glad to see?" + +"Because he has counted for so much." + +"But, Christina, you can't deny that you would hardly be sorry, and that +you would not expect me to be sorry--only solemn." + +"I should expect you to be both." + +"Sorry because a man I have no affection for--a man I have almost +hated--is dead?" + +"Yes; if only for those reasons; and that it should be only for those +reasons is what you meant when you said: 'Poor Dick,'" Christina +demonstrated with an air of finality that showed her displeased with +what she felt to be an unbecoming levity. + +Milly was thinner, paler; Christina noticed that, though she did not +notice how often she returned to the subject of her husband's danger and +the irony of her own indifference to it. And Milly's listless moods +followed one other so closely this winter as to become almost permanent. +She was evidently bored. More and more frequently, when they were +talking over their _tete-a-tete_ tea, the very dearest hour of the day, +Christina saw that Milly did not hear her. After these four years of +comprehension and mutual forbearance the apparent indifference or +preoccupation could not, at first, seriously disturb her; hurt her it +always did. Picking up a book she would read and cease to talk. The mood +always passed the sooner for not being recognised, and Milly would come +out of the cloud, unaware of it, sunnier, sweeter, more responsive than +before. But this winter she did not come out. That she should be so +bored, so apathetic, began to disturb as well as to hurt Christina. +There came a quick pulsing of fear; did some new attachment account for +it? Her mind, in a swift, flame-like running around the circle of +possibilities, saw them all as impossibilities, and put the fear away. + +One day, taking Milly's face between her hands, yet feeling, strangely, +a sudden shyness that made the complete confession of her alarms too +difficult, she asked her if she were unhappy. + +"Unhappy, dear Christina? Why should I be?" Milly put an affectionate +arm about her friend's neck. + +"But are you? Is there anything you would like to do? Anywhere you +would like to go? I am sure that you are frightfully bored," Christina +smiled. "Confess that you are." + +"Have I seemed bored? No. I can't think of anything that would interest +me. One comes on these Sahara-like times in life, you know--stretches of +dull sands. Or is it that I am getting old, Christina?" + +"You old? You, child!" + +"I feel old," said Milly. "Really old and tired." + +Christina still smiled at her, but smiled over a sudden choking in her +throat. It was not sympathy for her friend's _Weltschmertz_; it was the +recognition of something in her eyes, her voice--something she could not +analyze, as if a faint barrier wavered, impalpable, formless, between +them, and as if, did she say that it was there, it would change suddenly +to stone and perhaps shut her out for ever. + +What was it in Milly that made her afraid that to cry out her fears +might make them permanent? She battled with them all the winter. They +had arranged to go to Sicily and Greece for the spring, and Christina +looked forward to this trip as a definite goal. It would break the +spell, turn the difficult corner,--for all her fierce idealism she was +too wise a woman not to know that every human relation must have +corners; and, indeed, in talking over plans, getting up information, +burnishing historical memories, Milly showed some of her old girlish +eagerness. She and Christina even read the Greek tragedies over +together, in order, Milly said, that they should steep themselves in the +proper atmosphere. It was therefore with a shock of bitter surprise and +disappointment that Christina, only a fortnight before the time fixed +for their departure, heard Milly announce, with evident openness, though +she flushed slightly, that she thought she would rather put off the +trip; she would rather spend April at Chawlton; and, at once going on, +looking clearly at her friend: "You see, dear, I have just had a letter +from Dick. He gets back next week and is going down there. He says that +he wants to see the primroses after that horrid Africa;--quite a +poetical touch, isn't it,--for Dick! And I think it would be really a +little too brutal of me, wouldn't it, if I sailed off without seeing him +at all--without pouring out his tea for even one week." + +Milly was smiling, really with her own soft gaiety; the flush had gone. +Christina was convinced of her own misinterpretation. Duty had called +Milly away from pleasure, and she had feared, for a moment, that her +friend would think too much sacrifice to it. + +"Of course, dearest, of course we will put it off," she said. "And of +course we will go down to welcome home the wanderer. It is sweet of you +to have thought of it." + +Milly kissed her. "You see I am becoming quite a virtuous woman," she +said. "And it is a pity to miss the primroses." + +The packing projects turned topsy-turvy, servants to be redistributed, +Christina saw to all, while Milly, with still her new cheerfulness, +flitted in the spring sunshine from shop to shop, decking herself in +appropriate butterfly garments. They were to get to Chawlton only a day +or two before Dick's arrival. + +The gardens, the lawns, the woods, were radiant, and Milly, in the +environment of jocund revival, shared the radiance. All barriers seemed +gone, were it not that Christina, full of strange presages, felt the +very radiance to make one. + +Milly gathered primroses in the woods, hatless, her white dress and fair +head shining among the young greys and greens. She came in laden with +flowers, and the house smiled with their pale gold, their innocent and +fragile gaiety. "Isn't the country delicious?" she said to Christina. +"Much nicer than dreary Greece and tiresome ruins, isn't it?" + +"Much," said Christina, who was finding the country, the spring, the +sunshine, the very primroses, full of a haunting melancholy. + +"I have a thirst for simplicity and freshness and life," Milly went on, +looking at the sky, "and how one feels them all here. Oh, the cuckoo, +Christina, isn't it a sound that makes one think of tears and +happiness!" + +Of tears only, not of happiness, thought Christina; of regret--regret +for something gone; lost for ever. The cuckoo's cry pierced her all day +long. + +Simplicity and freshness and life; Christina did not recall the words +definitely when she saw Dick Quentyn spring up the steps to greet his +wife at the threshold of the house; but something unformulated echoed in +her mind with a deepened sense of presage. + +Milly stretched out both her hands. "Welcome home, Dick," she said. And +she held her cheek to be kissed. There was no restraint or shyness in +her eyes. She looked at the bronzed, stalwart, smiling being with as +open and happy a gaze as though he had been an oak-tree. The happiness +of gaze was new; but then it was only part of Milly's revival; and +then, he had been in danger. Christina took comfort, she knew not for +what. + +"It is good to be at home again," Dick asseverated more than once during +the day; and, "I say, how jolly those primroses look," he exclaimed in +the long drawing-room. + +Milly, her arm in Christina's, stood beside him. "I gathered them, Dick, +all of them, and arranged them, in honour of your return." + +"Oh, come now!" Dick Quentyn ejaculated with humorous incredulity. + +Milly smiled, making no protest. He, she and Christina walked about the +grounds. Christina had felt a curious shrinking from joining them, a +shrinking, in any normal condition of things between husband and wife, +so natural that it was only with a shock of amazement that she +recognized its monstrousness as applied to the actual one. She leave +Milly alone with her husband! What a revolution in all their relations +would such a withdrawal have portended! To leave them would have been to +yield to morbid imaginations, to make them almost real; at all events to +make them visible to Milly; and Milly certainly did not see them. Milly, +indeed, seemed to see nothing. + +She still held Christina's hand drawn through her arm while they walked +and listened to Dick's laconic and much prompted recital of his African +adventures. + +"I do hope you won't go off on any more terrible expeditions of this +sort for a very long time, Dick," said Milly. "I expected every morning +to read in the newspaper that you'd been eaten by savages." + +"Well, I wasn't among cannibals, you know," literal Dick objected, "and +I think I'll have to have another brush at it. Harvey is going out in a +month or so." + +"And you are going with him?" + +"Well, I rather think I shall," said Dick. "He is a splendid fellow, and +it seems my sort of thing." + +Before dinner, in the drawing-room, he joined Christina, who was sitting +alone looking out at the evening. "As inseparable as ever, you and +Milly, aren't you?" he said, coming and standing over her, his genial +eyes upon her. + +"Just as inseparable," she assented, looking up at him. She smiled with +an emphasis that was faintly defiant, though neither she nor Dick +recognized defiance. + +"Milly is looking a little fagged, don't you think," he went on. "Has +she been doing too much this winter? You are frightfully busy, aren't +you? Milly always likes going at a great pace, I know." + +"I should not have thought there was anything noticeable," said +Christina. "She was a little fagged, perhaps; but the country has +already refreshed her wonderfully." + +"London always does pull one down, I hate the beastly place," said Dick. +And he went on: "She is being awfully nice to me. I don't remember her +ever having been so nice--since, I mean, we decided that we couldn't hit +it off. One would really say that she rather liked seeing me!" and Dick +smiled, as if the joke were very comical. + +"You have been in such danger. Milly can but feel relief." Her voice was +full of an odd repression, discouragement, but Dick was altogether too +innocent of any hope to be aware of discouragement or repression. + +"She was worried about me? Really? That was awfully good of her," he +said. + +Christina was remembering that Milly had only expressed indifference as +to Dick's danger. + +The ensuing evening was, to Christina, uncanny in its unapparent +strangeness. She and Dick were both aware of novelty and Milly was aware +of none. Her cheerful kindness was as natural and spontaneous as though +she had been a girl greeting a long absent brother. She questioned +Dick, and, as her questions showed interest--interest and a knowledge +horribly surprising to Christina--Dick talked with unusual fluency. +Christina looked at them and listened to them, while Milly, leaning an +arm on the table, gazed with gravely shining eyes at her husband. The +arm, the eyes, the lines of the throat, were very lovely. Christina's +mind fixed upon that beauty, and she wished that Milly would not lean so +and look so. Milly, again, was unaware. It was Christina who was aware; +Christina who was quivering with latent, unformulated consciousness. +After dinner, Milly and Dick still talked; she still listened. She knew +nothing about Africa. + +For three or four days this was the situation; a reunited brother and +sister; a friend, for the time being, necessarily incidental. Then, +suddenly, the presages grew plainly ominous. Was it her own realization +of loneliness, of not being needed, that so overwhelmed her? or the +sense of some utter change in her darling--a change so gradual that +until its accomplishment it had seemed madness to recognize it? The +moment of recognition came one day, when, on going into the library, +she found Dick and Milly sitting side by side at the table, their heads +bent over a map; and they were not looking at the map; they were looking +at each other; still like brother and sister, but such fond brother and +sister, while they smiled and talked. + +Milly turned her head and saw Christina, and Christina knew that some +evident adjustment went over her own face, for Milly jumped up, eagerly, +too eagerly, and pulled a chair back for her and said; "Sit down, +dearest. Dick is telling me adventures." + +What was it that drove into Christina's heart like a knife? Milly smiled +at her, eagerly smiled; and yet she was miles and miles away; had she +been in the jungles of Africa with her husband she could not have been +further; and she was greeting her as though she were a guest, greeting +her with conventional warmth and courteous sweetness. Christina was not +wanted; through the warmth and sweetness she felt that. + +Smiling, she said she had come for a book. Going to the book-cases she +sought for one accurately--why she should seek, as though she had come +in with the intention of finding it, a volume of frothy eighteenth +century French memoirs she could not have told--and, smiling again upon +them with unconstrained lightness, she left them. She walked steadily to +her room, locked the door, and, falling upon her knees beside the bed, +broke into an agony of tears. + + * * * * * + +The end had come; not of Christina's love, not of her need, but of +Milly's. At first her mind refused to face the full realization--groped +among the omens of the past, would not see in Dick, even now, the cause +of all. She could trace the gradual, the dreadful severance; Milly's +slow loss of interest in her and in their life together. It was at first +only for the fact of loss that she wept, that loss, only, she could look +at. But by degrees, as her stifled sobs grew quieter, she was able to +think, to think clearly, fiercely, with desperate snatchings at hope, +while she crouched by the bed; pushing back her hair from her forehead; +pressing her hot temples with icy hands. + +Why should Milly lose interest? How could she? How could love and truest +sympathy, truest understanding--how could they fail? + +"Love begets love. Love begets love," she whispered under her breath, +not knowing that she spoke, and, in this hour of shipwreck, clinging +unconsciously to such spars and fragments of childish, unreasoning trust +as her memory tossed her. No other friendship threatened hers; she was +first as friend, irrevocably, she knew it. First as friend did not mean +to Milly, could never mean, the deep-dwelling devotion that it meant to +her; but such affinity and attachment as Milly felt could not die +without some other cause than mere weariness. And the truth no longer to +be evaded broke over her. It was the simplest while the most absurd of +truths. Milly was falling in love; Milly was falling in love with Dick; +and she was frank and happy because she did not know it; and he did not +know it. Like two children with a fresh day of play and sunshine before +them, they were engaged in merry, trivial games, picnics, make-believes, +no thought of sentiment or emotion in them to account for the new +sympathy; but from these games they would return hand in hand, all in +all to each other, bound together in the lover's illusion and needing no +one else. Maps! Travels! Africa! Did they not see these things as silly +toys, as she did? What could Milly care for such toys? That she should +play with them, as if she placed tin soldiers and blew a tin trumpet, +showed the fatal glamour that was upon her; glamour only, a moonshine +mood of vague restlessness and craving. How dignify by the sacred name +of love this sentiment, all made of her weakness, her emotionalism, her +egotism, that swayed her now so ludicrously towards the man whom, +open-eyed, she had rejected and scorned for years? + +Passionate repudiation of the debasement for Milly swept through the +stricken friend and mingled with the throes of her anguish for herself. +For how was she to live without Milly? How could she live as Milly's +formal friend, kept outside the circle of intimate affection, the circle +where, till now, she had reigned alone? Ah! she understood Milly's +nature too well; she saw that with all its sweetness it was slight. +Love, with her, would efface all friendships. Like a delicate, narrow +little vase, her heart could hold but one deep feeling. She would come, +simply, not to care for Christina at all. Would come? Had she not come +already? In her eyes, her smiles, the empty caressing of her voice, was +there not already the most profound indifference? And all the forces of +Christina's nature rose in rebellion. She felt the rebellion like the +onslaught of angels of light against powers of darkness; it was the +ideal doing battle with some primal, instinctive force. She must fight +for Milly and for herself. For she, too, had her claim. She measured +herself beside Dick Quentyn, her needs beside his. His life was +cheerful, contented, complete; hers without Milly would be a warped, a +meaningless, a broken life. Strangely, her thoughts, in all their +anguish, turned in not one reproach upon her friend; rather, her +comprehension, from maternal heights of love, sorrowed over her with +infinite tenderness. For, so she told herself, she could have resigned +her, in spite of her own bereavement, to true companionship, true +fulfilment. But Milly--her Milly--made hers by all these years--in love +with Dick Quentyn! It was a calamity, a disease which had befallen her +darling. Asking no heights, this love would lead her down to contented +levels, and Milly's life, too, in all true senses, would be warped and +meaningless and broken. + +Meanwhile, in the library, Dick said to his wife: "An't I interrupting +you? Don't you read or talk or do something with Mrs. Drent at this time +of the day?" + +And at the question alone, contentedly alone with him as she was, dimly +enlightened, too, by Christina's guarded glance, Milly made a swift, +surprised survey of the situation. She did not want to talk to +Christina; she wanted to go on talking to Dick. She had not as yet +realized that Christina's presence had become an interruption, a burden; +Christina's personality had seemed blurred, merely, and far away. She +was now aware of this, aware, for the first time, of something to hide +from Christina, and a sense of awkwardness and almost of confusion came +upon her. + +"Oh no, you are not interrupting us. Christina and I will have heaps of +time for talking and reading when you are gone," she said, smiling and +blushing faintly. + +Dick, even more unconscious than she of its meaning, gazed at the blush, +and then they went on with their talk about crocodiles. + +When Christina saw Milly again that evening, it was evident to her that +Milly had at last become aware of something changed, and that her own +composure urged Milly into a self-protecting overdemonstrativeness. She +was completely composed. She stood aside, mild, unemphatic, unaware, +seeming not to see, making no effort to hold; and as her desperate dread +thus instinctively armed her, she saw that no other attitude could have +been so efficacious. When she stood aside, Milly was forced to draw her +in; when she pretended to see nothing, Milly must pretend--to her and to +Dick--that there was nothing to see. Milly was afraid of her; that +became apparent to her during the ensuing days, terrible, lovely days of +spring, when, as if with drawn breath and cold, measuring eye, she +crossed an abyss on a narrow plank laid above the emptiness. Milly was +afraid; of her scorn and incredulity, perhaps; perhaps only of her pain. +Milly was cowardly in her shrinking from giving pain; it would be +impossible for her to go to her friend and say:--"I have fallen in love +with my husband, and you and I must part." In that impossibility for +Milly lay her only hope. If Milly and Dick could be held apart, and by +Milly's own cowardice rather than by any word or gesture of her own, the +wretched interlude might pass and Milly come to look back upon it with +shame and amazement and to thank her friend for the strength and control +that had made escape possible. + +And the first-fruits of her strategy were soon apparent. Milly saw less +and less of Dick. Dick, as of old, made no attempt to seek her out and, +obviously, it was now impossible for Milly, with Christina's quiet eyes +upon her, to seek him. Milly took up again the idea of Greece and said +that, after all, they must go that spring. They would all, she gaily +declared, go up to London and depart to their different quarters of the +globe at the same time, Dick to Africa and she and Christina to Greece. +This was said in Dick's presence and he cheerfully acquiesced. Christina +wondered if Milly had not hoped for some protest or suggestion from him. +In Dick's blindness lay, she began to see, an even greater hope than in +Milly's cowardice. Milly could not very well come to her and avow her +love for Dick when Dick, it was evident, did not dream of avowing his +for her. And Milly became aware of this as she did. Her manner towards +Dick changed. She rallied him with a touch of irritability; she scored +off him as she had used to do, by means of Christina; she put forward +Christina and her relation to Christina constantly, and seemed to taunt +him, as of old, with his own inadequacy. All her innocent gaiety was +gone; she hid her deep disquiet under an air of feverish brightness, and +poor stupid Dick, accepting Milly's alteration as he had always accepted +things from her, showed no hurt and no reproach; he merely effaced +himself, cheerfully, once more. + +Christina understood it all and the breathless subterfuges in which +Milly's perturbation concealed itself. She was longing that Dick should +see what she could not show, and that he should break through the web +with an avowal. She was longing that Christina, if Dick remained blind, +should mercifully give Dick and her their chance. Christina knew the +horrible risk she ran in remaining blandly unaware, in continuing to +take Milly at her word, in keeping there, between her and Dick, where +Milly herself placed her. She might part them, but Milly might come to +hate her. + +Milly's plan was carried out: they all went up to town together, Milly +to her friend's house, Dick to his bachelor's chambers. And it was +Christina who asked Dick to come and dine with them the night before he +left for Africa. She maintained every appearance. The very air that +night was electric with the restraints ready to burst into +reverberations which would surprise no one but Dick. Christina herself +was aware of a strange little dart of impatience with him. His stupidity +helped her as nothing else could have helped; yet, while she blessed it, +she could feel for Milly, and actually, while she blessed, resent it. +It was true that she read in his eyes a slight shyness as they rested +upon his wife. He was bewildered, and it was evident he was not happy. +And Milly had dropped her shield of flippancy. She sat silent, absent, +absorbed, looking up at her husband now and then, with curious eyes, +eyes cold and deep and suffering. Christina saw it all. Should she leave +them now, it was inevitable that the revelation would come, and it would +come from Milly. Mutely, in their respective unconsciousness and +consciousness, they were begging her to go; and she sat on. Her +inflexible determination upheld her over the terrible falsity of her +position. Milly, now, must know that she knew; yet she sat on, smiling, +talking, until the hour was late. + +Then, as Dick rose, it was Milly who went towards the barrier that she +herself had raised and showed Dick that it had an unlocked gate. From +her deep knowledge of Milly's nature, Christina could gauge, with a +dreadful accuracy, what the strength of the feeling must be that could +nerve her, rising and sauntering to the door beside him, to say in a +strange, in a nonchalant voice: "How about a walk in the park to-morrow, +Dick? You don't go till the evening, do you?" + +Dick stared for a moment. He was pitiably, mercifully stupid. His stare +might really have been interpreted as one of mere astonishment. Then: + +"Really?" he asked. "Aren't you and Mrs. Drent too busy?" + +"No, indeed. Our arrangements are all made." + +"Shall I come for you here?" + +"Do. At eleven." + +They shook hands, and Dick took Christina's hand. She felt, always, that +Dick looked upon her as a friend. His eyes, now, revealed to her his +boyish wonder and gladness. She and Milly were left alone. Milly, still +with the sauntering step, went to the mantelpiece and touched her hair, +looking in the glass. "Dear me, how late!" she said, her eyes turning to +the clock. "How dreadful of us to have kept poor Dick up so late. Shall +we go to bed, dearest? I'm dreadfully sleepy." + +"You didn't mean me to come for the walk, too, did you?" Christina +asked, in a voice as easy, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "It's our +usual hour;--that's why I ask. But you meant him to understand that you +wanted it to be a _tete-a-tete_, didn't you? It's all right. I can go to +Mrs. Pomfret's for my fitting at eleven." + +"But, dearest, of course you are coming," said Milly instantly. + +Their eyes were on each other now, and their faces armed and masked. +Christina measured the depth of estrangement in all that the flexible, +disingenuous acquiescence hid of disappointment, bitterness, even +hatred. + +"Oh no, no, indeed; I think you ought to have your good-bye walk alone," +she insisted. "He will expect it now. I'm sure he thought that you +particularly wanted it to be alone." + +"He couldn't have thought anything so unlikely," said Milly. "It is our +good-bye walk with you." + +So Christina went with them. She felt herself still trembling in every +nerve from the appalling risk she had run, and ran; for which was the +greater risk, that Milly should realize her guile and hate her, or that +Milly and Dick should come to an understanding? She could not tell; nor +where she stood; yet triumph trembled in her fear. She had succeeded. +They had not spoken together. In the park she and Milly bade Dick +good-bye. Dick's train was to go in the early evening. Milly, when they +reached home--and she had talked lightly if not gaily in the +hansom--said that she had rather a headache. She would have her luncheon +in her room and sleep through the afternoon and be fit and fresh for the +play that night. Christina knew in an instant that a last desperate hope +cowered beneath the affected languor and lightness; and it watched her, +feverishly, like the eyes of a tracked animal creeping in an underbrush +past enemies' guns. When she replied, kissing her friend tenderly, that +a good rest was the best of cures for a headache and that she herself +would do some shopping and go to the tea for which they were engaged, +these large, sick eyes of Milly's hope and fear widened and shone with a +recovered security. She wanted to be left alone that afternoon. She +would not go to Dick; Christina knew her too accurately to believe that +possible, and Dick had been too stupid to make it conceivable; but what +Milly hoped for was a sudden illumination of Dick's stupidity; some tug +of unendurable pain or surmise that would bring him back on the chance +of seeing her again. Milly's logic was instinctive, but Christina +believed that it was sound. Dick, she, too, felt sure of it, would come. +She lunched and then she sat at her writing-table and wrote some notes, +looking out at the street, and then, when an hour approached in which a +caller might appear, she went out. + +It was one of the suddenly hot days in May that London sometimes offers. +It was so hot that Christina's head, as she walked slowly up Sloane +Street, swam and turned, and the lines of cabs and omnibuses and +carriages in the roadway, upon which she fixed her eyes, seemed to pulse +and float as they went by. Three o'clock had struck. Dick, if he came, +must come before five, and she must walk up and down Sloane Street for +perhaps nearly two hours. If she lay in wait in the house, Milly, who no +doubt was already up and dressed and waiting, would discover her. Milly, +too, might be watching from the drawing-room windows. Her peril was +desperate, and her safest course was to walk on the side of the street +near the house where Milly could not see her. This she did, turning +regularly in her little beat, indifferent to the odd spectacle she must +present, and scanning the passers-by. She had not long to wait. +Half-an-hour had not elapsed, when, in an approaching hansom, she saw +the broad shoulders and perplexed yet resolute features of Dick Quentyn. +He, too, had come to final decisions on this fateful day. + +Christina walked towards the hansom smiling. With her opened parasol and +delicate dress of white and black she had the most unalarming and casual +air. She seemed to have just stepped from her own doorway. She had held +up her hand in signal, and Dick, arresting his cabman, sprang out. +Christina greeted him gaily. + +"Well, this is very nice. Can you really stop and speak to me? You're +not running a risk of losing your train?" + +Dick hardly smiled in answer. His face showed his uncertainty, his +anxiety, his trouble. + +"My train? Oh no;--I've over an hour yet. Heaps of time.--In fact--I was +on my way to your house. I thought I'd have a last glimpse of you and +Milly. Are you just going out?" + +"Just going out. And as to Milly,--it's too bad," said Christina, "but +she is getting a little sleep this afternoon and particularly asked that +she shouldn't be disturbed. We are going to the play to-night. You'll +walk with me for a little way, though, won't you?" + +There was nothing ambiguous in her words or manner. They were certainly +in keeping with the situation, and poor Dick Quentyn, although he looked +almost haggard, turned obediently and walked beside her. He walked +silently for a little way, while Christina talked, then, as they came +out into Knightsbridge, he said, suddenly;--"Mrs. Drent,--may I ask you +about something?--Do you mind? Shall we go into the park for a little +while?" + +"Of course; of course," said Christina, kindly and mildly. + +They went into the park and sat down on two chairs that faced the stream +of carriages and had rhododendrons behind them. When they sat down, +Christina's head swam so giddily that she feared she might be going to +faint. She closed her eyes for a moment, mastering her weakness with a +desperate effort. Dick did not notice her pallor. "You see," he said, +leaning forward and boring small holes in the gravel with the point of +his stick--"You see,--I think I must tell you--ask you for your +advice--because you know Milly so much better than any one else in the +world. You can tell me if I'm mistaken--or advise me what to do, you +know. It's just this: I thought, when I first came home, that Milly had +begun to care for me again--or, at all events, that she'd got over +disliking me." + +"Care for you? Dislike you?" Christina murmured vaguely. "Oh--I don't +think it was ever that--of late years--since you'd so tactfully and +charmingly understood and made everything so easy for her." + +"No. Yes; it seemed she'd particularly got over it," Dick, rather +puzzled, assented. "And I mean, by caring, that she seemed so happy when +I was there--at first, happier than I'd ever known her." + +"She can dare to be happy with you now, you see; just because you have +made her so secure." + +"So secure?" + +"Yes," Christina met his eyes. "So sure that you'll never ask anything +of her, make anything difficult for her again." + +Dick Quentyn grew red. "I never did do that, as far as I remember, after +I understood." + +"That is what Milly so deeply appreciates," Christina returned. + +There was a little silence after this and Christina, in it, controlled +her breaths from trembling. Then Dick, groping painfully among his +impressions, put forward another. "She did mind, very much, my being in +danger last winter; you told me that. She was worried, really worried +about me?" + +Like a hurried, jangling bell somewhere in the background of her mind +Christina, as she, too, gathered together her impressions and memories, +seemed to hear a reiterated "No lies; above all, no lies." But he had +put the weapon into her hand, and though she felt as if she held it +lifted above some innocent life, it fell relentlessly. + +"Did I say that Milly was worried about you? It was hardly that, I +think; though, of course, she was glad to see you out of danger. Of +course she was glad; how could anyone so gentle-hearted as Milly not be? +But if you ask me what she did feel, I must tell you the truth. You want +the truth, don't you? It is much better--for you and for Milly, isn't +it, that there should be no misunderstandings?"--Dick nodded--his eyes +fixed on her. "What Milly said, in the winter, when we had news of your +danger,--was that it was rather dreadful to realize that if you were +killed it would hardly affect her more than the death of any of the men +who had come to tea with us the day before." + +The knife had fallen and her victim, after a moment, turned dazed eyes +away from her. "Milly said that? About me?" + +"I was shocked," Christina murmured. She heard, as if from a far +distance, the strange, hushed quality of her voice. Her own blood seemed +to have been arrested. + +"She wouldn't have minded more than that?" + +"She said, when I reproached her, that I could only expect her to be +solemn, not sorry, over the death of a man for whom she had no +affection, a man she had almost hated. Mr. Quentyn, I am so grieved for +you. Of course, she doesn't hate you now; but I am afraid you have +allowed yourself false hopes about Milly." + +Dick, now, had risen to his feet and, facing her as she sat, he gazed +over her head at the rhododendrons. "I wonder why she wanted me to come +for a walk this morning. Yes, I did have false hopes. I thought that +meant something. I've thought that all sorts of little things might mean +something." + +"Milly is so sweet and kind when she feels no pressure, no alarm. I +thought, for a moment last night, that she meant you to have the walk +alone. But as soon as you were gone she insisted on my coming with you. +I've tried to help you, Mr. Quentyn. I've given you every chance. But +there isn't any chance." It was well to do it thoroughly. + +There was bewilderment and humiliation--at last humiliation--on Dick's +face; but of incredulity not a trace. "I know how kind you've been," he +said. "I've felt it." + +Christina, now, had also risen. A dart of keenest pity, even admiration, +went through her, horridly painful. "I am so dreadfully sorry," she +murmured. "I had to tell you--since you asked me;--I didn't want you to +hurt Milly--and yourself--uselessly." + +"I know. I perfectly understand," said Dick. + +They walked in silence to Albert Gate, and there, as they paused in +farewell, Christina suddenly, seizing his arm and speaking in a hurried +whisper, said: "You have been splendid. I can't tell you how I feel it. +If I can ever--at any time--do anything----" It was the truth, yet the +falseness of such speech, from her to him, appalled her while she spoke. +Her voice trailed off. "Forgive me. Good-bye--" she said. + +They grasped each other's hands and Dick, as she broke away, saw that +the tears were running down her face. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CHRISTINA + + +He was gone. She had triumphed. And only pain and horror, as if for the +innocent life she had taken, were about her. No joy, no triumph, in +having snatched Milly from degradation. + +At the thought of Milly the fear that drove upon her was so intense that +it induced a curious lightness of head. She was uplifted and upheld +above her own fear. The unnatural buoyancy became almost a lightness of +heart. All was over. If she were a criminal she must profit by her crime +and shelter herself from suspicion. They would be happy--of course they +would be happy again--she and Milly. "Love begets love. Love begets +love." She heard herself muttering the words almost gaily, like an +incantation, as she walked down Sloane Street. + +When she crossed the street and looked up at the house she saw that +Milly was standing at the drawing-room window looking down at her. +Something in Milly's attitude there, in her beautiful dress and in her +unsmiling gaze, suggested to Christina the thought of a captive princess +watching the approach of some evil enchantress. Milly--her prisoner--her +victim! Her darling Milly!--She beat away the black vision. + +She went slowly upstairs and came slowly into the drawing-room. Milly +had turned from the window and, with the same hard, unsmiling gaze, +stood and watched her enter. Christina sank into a chair. + +"Well," said Milly after a moment, and in a voice that Christina had +never heard from her, "he did not come, you see. I am up and +dressed--yes--you know that I intended to get up and dress as soon as +you were gone, I am sure--and I have been waiting here for an hour--and +he has not come. He has not cared enough to come. So there are no +roundabout questions for you to ask or evasive answers for you to hear. +You have the truth before you." + +Christina was not at all surprised, though there was something so +horrible in this unshrinking frankness from one so reticent, so delicate +as Milly. She knew, as she heard her speak, that it was what she had +expected. The subterfuges of the past weeks lay in ruin about them. She +sat, her eyes fallen, drawing off her gloves, and she said gently, "I am +sorry, Milly, if you hoped that he would come." + +"No," said Milly, not moving from her place. "You are not sorry, +Christina. You are glad. You are sorry that I care and you are glad that +he does not care, because you think that it will keep us together. But +that is your mistake. It is all impossible now, and you have made it so. +I am going away. I am going back to the country. I want to be alone." + +Again Christina was not surprised; this was the fear which she had +glanced down at from her haze of uncanny lightness. + +"Have I made it so impossible? What have I done, Milly?" she asked, +after a moment. + +Milly sat down in the nearest chair. She had passed beyond fear. There +was no mist or illusion in her calmness. "You didn't give us a chance," +she said. "Not a chance. You saw how I cared. You saw how I had come to +need him. You saw how stupid he was and unless he were helped he would +see nothing. I was afraid to hurt you. Of course I was. Of course I was +sorry for you, horribly sorry. And you traded on that. You saw that +unless you stood aside I could do nothing." + +"I thought that I did stand aside, Milly," said Christina after another +moment. + +"Never really," said Milly. + +"I don't quite see what you mean by really, Milly," said Christina. "I +left you with him whenever you gave me the opportunity for doing so. +Perhaps you mean that I ought to have committed suicide." + +"No; I don't mean that," Milly returned sullenly, with an unaltered +hostility. "There are different ways of standing aside. You could have +made it possible for me to tell you, openly, what I felt; you could have +made me feel that you would be glad to have me happy with him. You need +not have made me feel in everything you did and said--and didn't do or +say--that if I went back to Dick I should be going to him over your dead +body." + +"I think you mean, Milly," Christina answered in her dull and gentle +voice, "that I ought not to have loved you. That is my crime, is it +not?" + +"Yes; perhaps that is your crime, if you want to put it so," said Milly. +"I don't blame you, you know. You could not help it. But your love has +always been a prison. As long as I was contented in the prison you made +it a very charming place to live in. But when I wanted to be free, to +have other, deeper, realler loves, I knew that I had a gaoler to get +past, a gaoler who would not kill me, but whom I would have to kill. So +that I sat in my cell and did not dare turn the key in the lock for fear +of what would happen to you. And it isn't true to say that you left the +door open. You pretended to, of course. But when I did make my one +effort, when I did try to creep out under your eyes, you turned the key +on me quickly enough. The walk this morning. You knew that I hoped for +it alone. You knew that it was our last chance." + +While Milly spoke these words to her, Christina sat with her head bent +down and her hands pressed tightly together in her lap, and it seemed to +her that she was weeping inwardly, tears of blood. It was shame, +unutterable shame, that she felt, mixed with the anguish, and weighing +her down to the earth. Shame for what she had done in sacrifice to the +love she heard thus abused; shame for the truth, the cruel half-truth, +in Milly's words; and shame for Milly that she could find it in her to +speak such words to her. Deeper? Realler? Could any love, though tricked +out in romantic conventions, be deeper or realler than the love she had +for Milly? In the innermost chambers of her heart she knew that, in +spite of the cruel half-truth, what Milly said was not the whole. She +would--oh yes, she would have given her up--with gladness--as a mother +gives up her child--to a love that she could have recognized as +ennobling. It had not been her own selfish clinging, only, that had +nerved her. It had been the thought of Milly's truest good. And if she +were to say this to Milly, she knew now what withering laughter she +would hear. + +The thought of this laughter from Milly's lips, of Milly's cruelty to +her, hunted her down the first turning of concealment open to her. "I +didn't want to come with you," she said. "You made me come. But I was +glad--for your sake--because it shielded you. You had made it so obvious +to him that you wanted it to be alone. I thought that you had made it +too obvious." + +Milly drew a long breath and a vivid red mounted to her cheeks. For some +moments she sat still, saying nothing. Then, not meeting her friend's +eyes, for they were now fixed on her, she rose. + +"Yes. I have been unfair," said Milly. "I have been ungrateful and +unkind, and unfair. I know that you have thought only of me; and you +saw what I've only realised in this last hour. It has hurt so terribly +to realise it--to realise that I've had my chance of happiness and +thrown it away and that now it's too late to get it back again--it's +hurt so terribly that it has made me cruel. You have been right all +along and I have been a fool. But there it is. I love him and I'm +broken-hearted, and now all that I can do is to go away and hide +myself." + +She was going, actually going. Their life together was over, shattered. +The intolerable realisation crashed down upon Christina's abasement. She +stood up, staring at her friend. "You are going to leave me, Milly?" she +asked. + +Milly averted her eyes. "Yes, Christina. I want to be alone." + +"But you will come back?" + +"I don't know," said Milly. Still she averted her eyes; but, in the +rigid silence that followed, compunction evidently wrought upon her. She +glanced round at her suffering friend and Christina's eyes met hers. +They hurt her. They were glazed, like the eyes of a deer, waiting for +the hunter's final blow. + +"Christina," she said, and her voice showed her pity; "won't you try to +learn to live without me? Really--really--it can't come back again, as +it was. You must see that. Not after all that we have said, all that has +happened. Learn to live without me. Get some nice woman and go to Greece +and try to forget me. I can only mean suffering for you now, and I'm not +nearly good enough for you." + +At this Christina broke into dreadful sobs. She did not move towards her +friend, but she stretched her clasped hands out towards her and said, +while her voice, half-strangled, came in gasps: "Milly--Milly--Have you +forgotten everything?--All the years when we were so happy +together?--When he was nothing to you?--For all these years, +Milly--nothing--nothing.--How can you care--suddenly--like this--when +you have almost hated him for so long?--You know what you said, in the +winter, Milly--that you would not care if he were to die." + +Milly's eyes had hardened. She moved towards the door. + +"Milly!" Christina's cry arrested her. She had to stop and listen, +though her hand was on the door. "Wait! Forgive me!--I don't know what I +am saying!--And it was true! It was! You did not care!--Oh don't be +cruel to me. I shall die if you leave me. What have I done that you +should change so?" + +"You have done nothing, Christina," said Milly in a voice of schooled +forbearance. "It is I who have changed, and been cruel, first to Dick +and then to you. I am a shallow, feeble creature, but the shallowness +was in thinking that I couldn't love my husband--not in loving him now. +I don't want the things you and I had together. I only want the stupid, +simple things that he could have given me. I want someone to be in love +with me. That is it, I think. I am the most usual, common sort of woman, +who must have someone in love with her and be in love. And I am in love +with Dick. And I am too unhappy to think of anyone but myself." + +Christina stood with her face covered. Convulsive sobs shook her. + +"Good-bye," said Milly. + +She did not reply. She moved her head a little, in negation? +acquiescence? appeal?--Milly did not know. And since Christina still +said nothing, she turned the handle softly and left her. + + * * * * * + +Milly went down to Chawlton. In the country, alone, she could sit and +look at her life and at the wreckage she had made in it without feeling +that another's eyes were watching her. It pained her, when she could +turn her mind from the humiliation of her own misery, to see how +completely all love for poor Christina had died from her, to see how the +perhaps crude and elemental love had killed the delicate, derivative +affection. It was even sadder to realise that under the superficial pain +lay a deep indifference. She was very sorry for Christina. She had +accepted Christina's life and used it, and now, through the strange +compulsion of fate, she must cut herself away from it, even if that were +to leave it broken and bleeding. For if she were to remain sorry for +Christina, to look back at her with pity and compunction, she must not +see her. Words, glances, silences of Christina's rankled in her, and +when she thought of them she could not forgive her. Christina had seen +too much, understood too much. She was a blight upon her love, a menace +to her tragic memory of it. Under everything, deeper than anything else +in her feeling about Christina, was a dim repulsion and dislike. + +That Christina had submitted showed in her letters, for Milly, before +many days had passed, wrote kindly and mildly, in the tone which, for +the future, she intended to use towards Christina. Milly surprised +herself with her own calm ruthlessness. She found that the gentle and +the cowardly can, when roused, be more cruel than the harsh and +fearless. Her letters to Christina were serene and impersonal. They +recognised a bond, but they defined its limits. They might have been +letters written to a former governess, with whom her relation had been +kindly but not fond. They never mentioned her husband's name, nor +alluded, even indirectly, to her mistimed love; and to ask Christina's +forgiveness again for her unjust arraignment of her would have been to +allude indirectly to it. + +And Christina's letters made no appeal. They were infrequent, hardly +affectionate; amazingly tactful letters. Milly shrank in recognising how +tactful. It showed Christina's power that she should be so tactful, +should so master herself to a responsive calm. Milly had come to dread +Christina's tact, her patience and her reticence, more than all the +vehemence and passionate upbraidings of former years. Beneath the +careful words she knew that a profound, undying hope lay hidden; pain, +too, profound and undying. The thought of such hope, such pain, made +Milly feel at once the pity and the repulsion. + +In none of Christina's letters was there any mention of her health. +Milly knew how fragile was her hold on life and how much had happened of +late to tax it; but it was with a shock of something unrealisable, +unbelievable, that she read one autumn morning, in a blurred and shaking +hand: "I am very ill--dying, they say. Come to me at once. I must tell +you something." + +Christina dying. She had said that it would kill her. And what had she +not said to Christina that might not well have killed her? Milly was +stricken with dreadful remorse and horror. + +She hastened to London. + +The maid at the door of the little house in Sloane Street told her that +Mrs. Drent was rapidly sinking. Milly read reproach in her simple eyes. +"I did not know! Why was I not told?--Why was I not told?"--she repeated +to the nurse who came to meet her. Mrs. Drent, the nurse said, would not +have her sent for, but during these last few days she had become +slightly delirious and had spoken of something she wished to tell, had, +at last, insisted on writing herself. She could hardly live a day +longer. Heart-failure had made her illness fatal. + +In the sick room, Milly paused at the door. Was that Christina? That +strange face with such phantom eyes? Christina's eyes did not look at +her with reproach or with sorrow, but, it seemed, with terror, a wild, +infectious terror; Milly felt it seize her as she stood, spellbound, by +the door. Then a rush of immense pity and comprehension shook her +through and through. Christina was dying, delirious, and what must she +be feeling in her haunted abandonment and desolation? She ran to the bed +weeping. She knelt beside it. Her tears rained upon Christina's hands, +as she took her in her arms and kissed her. "Christina!--dearest +Christina!--Forgive me! Forgive me!--I did not know!--Why did you not +let me come and nurse you?--I have always nursed you! Why did you not +tell me?--Oh, Christina!" + +Holding her, kissing her, she could not see clearly the illumination +that, at her words, illuminated the dying woman's face. Life seemed +suddenly to leap to her eyes and lips. The terror vanished like a ghost +in the uprising of morning sunlight. With a rapture of hope and yearning +which resumed all her ebbing power, physical and spiritual, she +stretched out her arms and clasped them about Milly's neck. "Do you +love me again?" she asked. Her voice was like a child's in its ecstasy. + +"My darling Christina!--Love you?--Who is there in all the world but +you!" Milly cried. No affirmation could be too strong, she felt, no +atonement too great. + +"Better than you love him?" + +Milly did not even hesitate. Lies were like obstacles hardly seen as, in +the onrush of her remorse and pity, she leaped them.--"Yes,--Yes. You +are everything," she reiterated. "I love you best. It has passed--that +feeling." + +"It has passed! I knew that it would pass!" Christina seemed to gasp and +smile at once. "You know, now, that it was not right;--that it was not +you;--that it was an illness;--something that would pass?--You see it +too, Milly?--And you will be happy with me again?" + +"Yes, yes, dearest Christina." + +Still smiling, Christina closed her eyes and Milly laid her back upon +her pillows. Her fingers closed tightly on Milly's hand. "It has +passed," she said. "It could not have been right. You were everything to +me. And he could not have seen the pictures, the jewels, Milly; or heard +the music." + +"No, dear, no." Milly covered her own eyes. Ah!--those cravings to +which Christina had responded;--now so dead. + +"I shall get better," said Christina. "I feel it now; I know it. I shall +get better and be always with you. My darling. My Milly. My little +Milly." Her voice had sunken to a shrouded whisper. + +Held by those cold, clutching fingers, Milly sat sobbing. Christina +would not get better; and, with horror at herself, she knew that only at +the gates of death could she love Christina and be with her. And, +glancing round at the head on the pillow--ah!--poor head!--Christina's +wonderful head!--more wonderful than ever now, so eager, so doomed, so +white, with all its flood of black, black hair--glancing at its ebony +and marble, she saw that she need have no fear of life. Christina would +not get better. + +She spoke again, brokenly. "If you had loved him, you would have hated +me. Now you will never hate me." + +"I love you." + +"You will not send for him? You will not see him alone? You will stay +with me?" + +"I will stay with you." + +"And be glad with me again." + +"With you again, dear Christina." + +"I shall get better," Christina repeated, turning her head on Milly's +arm. But the disarray of her mind still whispered on in vague +fragments.--"It was not useless.--I was right.--I did not need to tell; +you were mine; I had not lost you." + +A few hours afterwards, her head still turned on Milly's arm, Christina +died. + + * * * * * + +Sitting alone on a winter day in the library of Chawlton, Milly heard +the sound of a motor outside. Since Christina's death she had shut +herself away, refusing to see anyone, and she listened now with +apathetic interest, expecting to hear the retreating wheels. But the +motor did not move away. Instead, after some delay at the door, steps +crossed the hall, familiar, wonderful, dear and terrible. Dick had +returned. + +All the irony and humiliation of her married life rose before her as she +felt herself trembling, flushing, with the joy and terror. He had come +back; and so he had not guessed. Or was it that he had guessed and yet +was too kind not to come? She had only time to snatch at conjecture, for +Dick was before her. + +Dick's demeanour was as unemphatic as she remembered it always to have +been. It was almost as casual as if he had returned from a day's hunting +merely. Yet there was difference, too, though what it was her hurrying +thoughts could not seize. She felt it as a radiance of pity, warm and +almost vehement. + +"My dear Milly," he said coming to her and taking her hand; "I only +heard yesterday.--I only got back yesterday.--And I felt that I must see +you. I'm not going to bother you in any way. I've only come down for the +afternoon. But I wanted to ask you if I could do anything--help you in +any way, be of any use." In spite of his schooled voice his longing to +see her, his delight in seeing her, showed in his clouded, candid eyes. +Milly felt it as the difference, the vague warmth and radiance. + +"How kind of you, dear Dick," she said, and her poor voice groped vainly +for firmness. "I am so glad to see you. It was good of you to come. Yes; +it has been dreadful. You know;--Christina--our friendship"--But how to +confess to Dick her remorse or explain to Dick why she had left +Christina? Her pride broke. With this human kindness near her, she could +not maintain the decorum of their tangled relations as man and woman; +the simple human relation alone became the most real one; the +loneliness and the grief of a child overwhelmed her. She sank, sobbing +helplessly, into her chair. + +"Oh--Milly!"--said poor Dick Quentyn. And the longing to comfort and +console effacing his diffidence and the memory of her long unkindness +towards himself, he knelt down beside her and took her into his arms. + +Milly then said and did what she could never have believed herself +capable of saying and doing. No pride could hold her from it, no +dignity, not even common shame. She could not keep herself from dropping +her face on his shoulder and sobbing;--"Oh--Dick--try--try to love me +again. I am cold and selfish. I have behaved cruelly to everyone who +loved me;--but I can't bear it any longer." + +It was a startling moment for Dick Quentyn, the most startling of his +life. "Try to love you?" he stammered. He pushed her back to look at +her. "What do you mean, Milly?" + +"What I say," Milly gasped. + +"But what does it mean?" Dick repeated. "It isn't for you to ask me to +love you. You know I love you. You know there's never been another woman +in the world for me but you. It's you who have never loved me, Milly." + +Her appeal had been like a diving under deep waters--she had not known +when or where or how she would come up again. Now she opened her eyes +and stared at her husband. She seemed, after that whirlpool moment of +abysmal shame, to have come up from the further reaches of darkness, and +it was under new, bewildering skies. Strange stars made her dizzy. + +"Then why didn't you come and say good-bye to me--that day--in London +this spring?" was all she found to say. + +Dick was not stupid now. The lover's code was at last open between them, +and he as well as she could read the significance of seemingly trivial +words. + +"Did you expect me?" he asked. + +"Of course I expected you. I thought you saw how much," said Milly. + +"I didn't think you expected me at all; why should I have thought it? +But I did come. Didn't you know it?" said Dick. + +"You did come?" In its extremity her astonishment was mild. + +"That is to say--I never got there. Mrs. Drent met me. She told me how +you'd gone to sleep, you know. She thought you'd gone to sleep, Milly. +She didn't know you expected me either, you see. It was in the park we +talked, just there by the rhododendrons." + +"She told you I had gone to sleep?--But why did that keep you from +coming?" Milly had suddenly risen to her feet. She had grown pale. + +"Why--it was obvious--you wouldn't want to be disturbed. She said that. +And--everything else. She told me--for I confided in her then--she'd +always been so kind to me; and I thought she might help me--but she told +me how little you cared for me." + +Milly had grasped his shoulder as she stood above him. "What did +Christina tell you? What did she say about me? Let me understand." + +"Why, Milly--what is it?--She told me--I didn't blame you, though it +hurt, most unconscionably--because I'd always believed that, in spite of +everything, you had some sort of kindly feeling for me--as though I'd +been a well-intentioned dog who didn't mean to get in your way--she told +me that I mustn't have any hopes. And she told me that that very winter +you had said to her that you'd feel my death less than that of any of +the men who came to tea with you. Yes, she told me so, Milly--and wasn't +it true?" + +Milly now looked away from him and round at the room, stupor on her +face. "Yes, it was true I said it," she said in the voice of a +sleep-walker. "Yes; I said it, Dick. But it was so long ago. How did she +remember?--And I knew when I said it that it wasn't true." + +"But she thought it was true." Dick now had risen, and he, too, very +pale, looked at his wife. + +"Yes; then, she may have thought it. I wanted her to think it because I +did not want her to guess how much I was getting to care. But, +afterwards--after you had come back--she did not think it then. She +knew, then, everything. She knew before I did. It was she who showed it +to me.--Oh, Dick!--She knew that I loved you--and she kept you from +coming to me!" She was gazing at him now, stupefied, horrified, yet +enraptured. It was of him she thought, her lover, her husband, rather +than of the unhappy woman who had parted them. But Dick still did not +see. + +"What do you mean, Milly?" he said. "Kept me from coming? But she loved +you, Milly? She'd given her life to you. You can't mean what you are +saying." + +"Yes," Milly kept her grasp of his shoulder. "It is true. She loved me, +but it was a madness of jealousy. Her love was a prison. I told her so. +We spoke of it all on that day, when she came back from seeing you and +did not tell me that she had seen you. I told her that her love was a +prison and that she had kept you from me, and that I was going to leave +her. And even then she did not tell me. We parted and I did not see her +again until the day she died. She sent for me to come to her. Yes--" her +eyes, deep with joy and horror, were on him.--"That is what she was +going to confess to me; and died without confessing. She kept us apart +because she knew that we loved each other and she could not bear to give +me up." + +They stood in the firelight and he took her hands and they looked at +each other as though, after long wanderings, they had found each other +at last. There would yet be much to tell and to explain, but Dick saw +now what had happened. Only after many moments of grave mutual survey, +did he say, gently, with a sudden acute wonder and pity--"Poor thing." + +"Horrible, oh horrible!" said Milly, leaning her head on his shoulder. +"You might have died away from me--never knowing.--I might never have +seen you again.--Horrible woman!--Horrible love." + +"Poor thing," Dick repeated gently. He kissed his wife's forehead and, +his arm around her;--"I haven't died.--She is dead. I do see you +again.--She doesn't see you. I have got you.--She has lost you." + +Milly still shuddered; she still looked down the black precipice, only +just escaped. "Yes, she has lost me for ever. I wish I did not feel that +I hate her; but I do. It may be cruel, it is cruel. But all that I can +feel for her now is hatred." + +"Ah--but she loved you tremendously. And she's dead," said Dick. "All +that I can feel is that." + +But Milly only said: "I love you all the more for feeling it." + + + + +MISS JONES AND THE MASTERPIECE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Manon Lescaut," Carrington repeated. He did not show any particular +enthusiasm. + +"Yes, Manon Lescaut. I see the thing. It would be really superb." + +"You don't mean to say, my dear boy, that you are falling into anecdote? +You are not going to degrade your canvas with painted literature?" + +Carrington's voice betrayed some concern, for he took a friendly +interest in my career. + +"The title--a mere label--suggests it. But nothing of the sort. I am +going to paint a portrait of Manon--and of her ilk." + +"A portrait?" + +"Yes; the portrait of a type." + +Carrington smoked on, stretched comfortably in a chair. His feet were on +another chair, and the broad soles of his slippers so displayed implied +ease and intimacy. + +"It will look like the portrait of an actress in character; a costume +picture," he said, presently; "the label isn't suggestive to me." + +"There will, I promise you, be no trace of commonplace realism in it. It +will be Velasquez dashed with Watteau. Can you realize the modest flight +of my imagination? Seriously, Carrington, I intend to paint a +masterpiece. I intend to paint a woman who would sell her soul for +pleasure--a conscienceless, fascinating egotist--a corrupt +charmer--saved by a certain _naivete_. The eighteenth century, in fact, +_en grisette_." + +"Manon rather redeemed herself at the end, if I remember rightly," +Carrington observed. + +"Or circumstances redeemed her, if you will. She had a heart, perhaps; +it never made her uncomfortable. Her love was of the doubtful quality +that flies out of the window as want comes in at the door. Oh! she was a +sweet little _scelerate_. I shall paint the type--the little +_scelerate_." + +"Well, of course, everything would depend on the treatment." + +"Everything. I am going to astonish you there, Carrington." + +"Oh, I don't know about that," Carrington said, good-humouredly. + +"I see already the golden gray of her dim white boudoir; the satins, the +laces, the high-heeled shoes, the rigid little waist, and face of pretty +depravity. The face is the thing--the key. Where find the face? I think +of a trip to Paris on purpose. One sees the glancing creature--such as I +have in my mind--there, now and then. I want a fresh pallor, and gay, +lazy eyes--light-brown, not too large." + +"I fancy I know of someone," Carrington said, meditatively. "Not that +she's _dans le caractere_," he added: "not at all; anything but +depraved. But--her face; you could select." Carrington mused. "The line +of her cheek is, I remember, mockingly at variance with her staid +innocence of look." + +"Who is she? Manon could _look_ innocent, you know--was so, after a +fashion. I should like a touch of childish _insouciance_. Who is she, +and how can I get her?" + +"Well," said Carrington, taking his pipe from his lips and contemplating +the fine colouring of the bowl, "she's a lady, for one thing." + +"Oh, the devil!" I ejaculated; "that won't do!" + +"Well, it might." + +"Shouldn't fancy it. Ill at ease on her account, you know. How could one +tell a lady that she was out of pose--must sit still? How could one pay +her?" + +"Very simple, if she's the real article." + +"I never tried it," I demurred. + +"Well"--Carrington had a soothing way of beginning a sentence--"you +might see her, at least. Her father is a socialist; a very harmless and +unnecessary one, but that accounts for her posing." + +"Do the paternal unconventionalities countenance posing for the +_academie_? That savors of a really disconcerting latitude." + +"The _academie_? Dear me, no! Oh, no; Miss Jones is a model of the +proprieties. One indeed can hardly connect her with even such mild +nonconformity as her father's socialism. He was a parson; had religious +scruples, and took to rather aimless humanitarianism and to very +excellent bookbinding in Hampstead. He binds a lot of my books for me; +and jolly good designing and tooling, too. You remember that Petrarch of +mine. That's really how I came to know him. It was the artist in him +that wrestled with and overthrew the parson. He seems a happy old chap; +poor as Job's turkey and absorbed in his work. He has rather longish +hair--wavy, and wears a leather belt and no collar." Carrington added: +"That's the first socialistic declaration of independence--they fling +their collars in the face of conventionality. But the belt and the lack +of collar are the only noticeable traces socialism seems to have left on +Mr. Jones, except that he lets his daughter make money by posing. He +must know about the people, of course. She usually sits for women. But I +can give you a recommendation." + +I felt, to a certain extent, the same lack of enthusiasm that Carrington +himself had shown at the announcement of my "label," but I thanked him, +and said that I should be glad to see Miss Jones. + +"And her mother was French, too," he added, as a cogent afterthought. +"That accounts for the rippled cheek-line." Miss Jones's cheek had +evidently made an emphatic impression. Indeed, Carrington's enthusiasm +seemed to wax on reflection, and, as interpreted by Miss Jones, my Manon +became tangible. + +"How's her colouring?" I asked. + +"Pale; her mouth is red, very red; charming figure, nice hands; I +remember them taking up the books--she was dusting the books. I've only +seen her once or twice; but I noticed her, and she struck me as a +type--of something." + +The pale skin and red mouth rather pleased me, and it was arranged that +Carrington should see Mr. Jones, and, if possible, make an appointment +for Miss Jones to call on Monday afternoon at my studio. + +Carrington had rooms next door, in the little court of artists' quarters +in Chelsea. + +Carrington wrote reviews and collected all sorts of expensive things, +chiefly old books and Chinese porcelain. He and I had art-for-art +sympathies, and, being lucky young men from a monetary point of view, we +could indulge our propensities with a happy indifference to success. + +I had painted now for a good many years, both in Paris and in London, +and had a pleasant little reputation among people it was worth while to +please, and a hearty and encouraging philistine opposition. I had even +shocked Mrs. Grundy in an Academy picture which wasn't at all shocking +and was very well painted, and I had aroused controversy in the pages of +the _Saturday Review_. + +I felt Manon Lescaut. + +This epitome of the soullessness of the eighteenth century whirled in +its satin frivolity through all my waking thoughts. + +On Monday I awaited Miss Jones, fervently hoping that her face would do. + +Punctual to the minute came the young lady's rap at my door. I ushered +her in. She was rather small; and self-possessed, very. In the cut of +her serge frock and the line of her little hat over her eyebrows I +fancied I saw a touch of the mother's nationality. With a most +business-like air she removed this hat, carefully replacing the pins in +the holes they had already traversed, took off her coat (it was +February), and turned to the light. She would do. Evident and delightful +fact! I at once informed her of it. She asked if she should sit that +morning. I said that, as I had sketches to make before deciding on pose +and effect of light, the sooner she would enter upon her professional +duties the better. + +The gown I had already discovered--a _trouvaille_ and genuinely of the +epoch; an enticing pink silk with glowing shadows. + +Miss Jones made no comment on the exquisite thing which I laid lovingly +on her arm. She retired with a brisk, calm step behind the tall screen +in the corner. + +When she reappeared in the dress, the old whites of the muslins at +elbows and breast falling and folding on a skin like milk, I felt my +heart rise in a devout ejaculation of utter contentment. The Manon of my +dreams stood before me. The expression certainly was wanting; I should +have to compass it by analogy. My imagination had grasped it, and I +should realize the type by the aid of Miss Jones's pale face, narrowing +to a chin the French would call _mutin_, her curled lips and curiously +set eyes, wide apart, and the brows that swept ever so slightly upward. +The very way in which her fair hair grew in a little peak on the +forehead, and curved silky and unrippled to a small knot placed high, +fulfilled my aspirations, though the hair must be powdered and in it the +vibrating black of a bow. + +Miss Jones stood very well, conscientiously and with intelligence. Pose +and effect were soon decided upon, and in a day or two I was regularly +at work, delighting in it, and with a sensation of power and certainty I +had rarely experienced. + +Carrington came in quite frequently, and, looking from my canvas to Miss +Jones, would pronounce the drawing wonderfully felt. + +"Degas wouldn't be ashamed of the line of the neck," he said. "The turn +and lift of her head as she looks sideways in the mirror is really +_emouvant_, life; good idea; in character; centred on herself; not bent +on conquest and staring it at you. Manon had not that trait." + +Miss Jones on the stand gazed obediently into the mirror, the dim white +of an eighteenth century boudoir about her. She was altogether a most +_posee_, well-behaved young person. + +One could not call her manner discreet; it was far too self-confident +for that. Her silence was natural, not assumed. During the rests she +would return to a book. + +I asked her one day what she was reading. She replied, looking up with +polite calm: + +"'Donovan.'" + +"Oh!" was all I could find in comment. It did rather surprise me in a +girl whose eyes were set in that most appreciative way and whose father, +as a socialistic bookbinder, might have inculcated more advanced +literary tastes. Still, she was very young; this fact seemed emphasized +by the innocent white the back of her neck presented to me as she +returned to her reading. + +When I came to painting, I found that my good luck accompanied me, and +that inspiring sense of mastery. Effort, yes; but achievement followed +it with a sort of inevitableness. I tasted the joys of the arduous +facility which is the fruition of years of toil. + +The limpid grays seemed to me to equal Whistler's; the pinks--flaming in +shadow, silvered in the light--suggested Velasquez to my happy young +vanity; the warm whites, Chardin would have acknowledged; yet they were +all my own, seen through my own eyes, not through the eyes of Chardin, +Whistler, or Velasquez. The blacks sung emphatic or softened notes from +the impertinent knot in the powdered hair to the bows on skirt and +bodice. The rich _empatement_ was a triumph of supple brush-work. I can +praise it impudently for it was my masterpiece, and--well, I will keep +to the consecutive recital. + +Miss Jones showed no particular fellow-feeling for my work, and as, +after a fashion, she, too, was responsible for it and had a right to be +proud of it, this lack of interest rather irritated me. + +Now and then, poised delicately on high heels and in her rustling robes, +she would step up to my canvas, give it a pleasant but impassive look, +and then turn away, resuming her chair and the perusal of her romance. + +It really irked me after a time. However little value I might set upon +her artistic acumen, this silence in my rose of pride pricked like a +thorn. + +Miss Jones's taste in painting might be as philistine as in literature, +but her reserve aroused conjecture, and I became really anxious for an +expression of opinion. + +At last, one day, my curiosity burst forth: + +"How do you like it?" I asked, while she stood contemplating my +_chef-d'oeuvre_ with a brightly indifferent gaze. Miss Jones turned +upon me her agate eyes--the eyelashes curled up at the corners, and it +was difficult not to believe the eyes, too, roguish. + +"I should think you had a great deal of talent," she said. "Have you +studied long?" + +Studied? It required some effort to adjust my thoughts to the standard +implied; but perceiving a perhaps lofty conception of artistic +attainment beneath the query, I replied: + +"Well, an artist is never done learning, is he? And in the sense of +having much to learn, I am still a student, no doubt." + +"Ah, yes," Miss Jones replied. + +She looked from my picture up at the sky-light, then round at the +various studies, engravings, and photographs on the walls. This +discursive glance was already familiar to me, and its flitting lightness +whetted my curiosity as to possible non-committal depths beneath. + +"Inspiration, now," Miss Jones pursued, surprising me a good deal, for +she seldom carried on a subject unprompted, "that of course, is not +dependent on study." + +I felt in this remark something very derogatory to my Manon--an +inspiration, and in the best sense, if ever anything was. Did Miss Jones +not recognize the intellectual triumphs embodied in that presentment of +frail woman-hood? I was certainly piqued, though I replied very +good-humouredly: + +"I had rather flattered myself that my picture could boast of that +quality." + +Miss Jones's glance now rested on me rather seriously. + +"An inspired work of art should elevate the mind." + +I could not for the life of me tell whether she was really rather clever +or merely very banal and commonplace. + +"I had hoped," I rejoined, politely, "that my picture--as a beautiful +work of art--would also possess that faculty." + +Miss Jones now looked at the clock, and remarked that it was time to +pose. She mounted the low stand and I resumed my palette and brushes, +feeling decidedly snubbed. Carrington sauntered in shortly after, his +forefinger in a book and a pipe between his teeth. He apologized to Miss +Jones for the latter, and wished to know if she objected. Miss Jones's +smile retained all its unabashed clearness as she replied: + +"It _is_ a rather nasty smell, I think." + +Poor Carrington, decidedly disconcerted, knocked out his pipe and laid +it down, and Miss Jones, observing him affably while she retained her +pose to perfection, added: "I have been brought up to disapprove of +smoking, you see; papa doesn't believe in tobacco." + +Miss Jones's aplomb was certainly enough to make any man feel awkward, +and Carrington looked so as he came up beside me and examined my work. + +"By Jove! Fletcher," he said, "the resemblance is astonishing--_and_ the +lack of resemblance. That's the triumph--the material likeness, the +spiritual unlikeness." + +Indeed, Miss Jones could lay no claim to the "inspiration" of my work; +in intrinsic character the face of my pretty _scelerate_ was in no way +Miss Jones's. + +"Charming, charming," and Carrington's eye, passing from my canvas, +rested on Miss Jones. + +"Which?" I asked, smiling, and, of course, in an undertone. + +"It depends, my dear boy, on whether you ask me if I prefer Phryne or +Priscilla--pagan or puritan; both are interesting types, and the +contrast can be very effectually studied here in your picture and your +model." + +"Yet Priscilla lends herself wonderfully to be interpreted as Phryne." + +"Or, rather, it is wonderful that you should have imagined Manon into +that face." + +In the next rest, when Carrington had gone, Miss Jones said: + +"Mr. Carrington walked home with me yesterday. Papa thinks rather highly +of him. It is a pity his life should be so pointless." + +It began to be borne in upon me that Miss Jones had painfully serious +ethical convictions. + +"I suppose you mean from the socialistic standpoint," I said. + +"Oh, no--not at all; I am not a socialist. Papa and I agree to differ +upon that as upon many other questions. Socialism, I think, tends to +revolt and license." + +I did not pursue the subject of Carrington's pointlessness nor proffer +a plea for socialism. I was beginning to wince rather before Miss +Jones's frankness. + +On the following day she again came and stood before my picture. + +"I posed for Mr. Watkins, R.A., last year," she said. "The picture was +in the Academy. Did you see it? It was beautiful." + +The mere name of Mr. Watkins ("R.A.") made every drop of aesthetic blood +in my body curdle. A conscienceless old prater of the soap and salve +school, with not as much idea of drawing or value as a two-year +Julianite. + +"I don't quite remember," I said, rather faintly; "what was--the picture +called?" + +"'Faith Conquers Fear,'" said Miss Jones. "I posed as a Christian +maiden, you know, tied to a stake in the Roman amphitheatre and waiting +martyrdom. The maiden was in a white robe, her hair hanging over her +shoulders (perhaps you would not recognize me in this costume), looking +up, her hands crossed on her breast. Before her stood a jibing Roman. +One could see it all; the contrast between the base product of a vicious +civilization and the noble maiden. One could read it all in their faces; +hers supreme aspiration, his brutal hatred. It was superb. It made one +want to cry." + +Miss Jones, while speaking, looked so exceedingly beautiful that I +almost forgot my dismay at her atrocious taste; for Watkins's "Faith +Conquers Fear" had been one of the jokes of the year--a lamentably +crude, pretentious presentation of a theatrical subject reproduced +extensively in ladies' papers and fatally popular. + +At the same moment, and as I looked from Miss Jones's gravely enrapt +expression to Manon's seductive graces, I experienced a sensation of +extreme discomfort. + +"I think a picture should have high and noble aims," Miss Jones pursued, +seeing that I remained silent, and evidently considering the time come +when duty required her to speak and to speak freely. "A picture should +leave one better for having seen it." + +I could not ignore the kind but firmly severe criticism implied; I could +not but revolt from this Hebraistic onslaught. + +"I don't admit a conscious moral aim in art," I said. "Art need only +concern itself with being beautiful and interesting; the rest will +follow. But a badly-painted picture certainly makes me feel wicked, and +when I go to the National Gallery to have a look at the Velasquezes and +Veroneses I feel the better for it." + +"Velasquez?" Miss Jones repeated. "Ah, well, I prefer the old masters--I +mean those who painted religious subjects as no one since has painted +them. Why did not Velasquez, at least, as he could not rise to the +ideal, paint beautiful people? I never have been able to care for mere +ugliness, however cleverly copied." + +I felt buffeted by her complacent crudity. + +"Velasquez had no soul," she added. + +"No soul! Why he paints life, character, soul, everything! Copied! What +of his splendid decorativeness, his colour, his atmosphere?" My +ejaculations left her calm unruffled. + +"Ah, but all that doesn't make the world any better," she returned, +really with an air of humouring a silly materialism; and as she went +back to her pose she added, very kindly, for my face probably revealed +my injured feelings: + +"You see I have rather serious views of life." + +"Miss Jones--really!" I laid down my palette. "I must beg of you to +believe that I have, too--very serious." + +Gently Miss Jones shook her head, looking, not at me, but down into the +mirror. This effect of duty fulfilled, even in opposition, was most +characteristic. + +"I cannot believe it," she said, "else why, when you have facility, +talent, and might employ them on a higher subject, do you paint a mere +study of a vain young lady?" + +This interpretation of Manon startled me, so lacking was it in +comprehension. + +"Manon Lescaut was more than a vain young lady, Miss Jones." + +"Well," Miss Jones lifted her eyes for a moment to smile quietly, +soothingly at me. "I am not imputing any wrong to Miss Manon Lescaut; I +merely say that she is vain. A harmless vanity no doubt, but I have +posed for other characters, you see!" Her smile was so charming in its +very fatuity that the vision of her lovely face, vulgarized and +unrecognizable in "Faith Conquers Fear," filled me with redoubled +exasperation. Her misinterpretation of Manon stirred a certain deepening +of that touch of discomfort--a sickly unpleasantness. I found myself +flushing. + +Miss Jones's white hand--the hand that held the mirror with such beauty +in taper finger-tips and turn of wrist--fell to her side, and she fixed +her eyes on me with quite a troubled look. + +"I am afraid I have hurt your feelings," she said; "I am very sorry. I +always speak my mind out; I never think that it may hurt. It is very +dull in me." + +At these words I felt that unpleasant stir spring suddenly to a guilty +misery. I felt, somehow, that I was a shameful hypocrite, and Miss Jones +a priggish but most charming and most injured angel. + +"Miss Jones," I said, much confused, "sincerity cannot really hurt me, +and I always respect it. I am sorry, very sorry, that you see no more in +my picture. I care for your good opinion" (this was certainly, in a +sense, a lie, and yet, for the moment, that guilty consciousness upon +me, I believed it), "and I hope that though my picture has not gained +it, I, personally, may never forfeit it." + +Still looking at me gravely, Miss Jones said: + +"I don't think you ever will. That is a very manly, a very noble way of +looking at it." + +But the thought of Manon Lescaut now tormented me. I had finished the +head; my preoccupation could not harm that; but this lovely face looking +into the mirror, with soulless, happy eyes, seemed to slide a smile at +me, a smile of malicious comprehension, a smile of _nous nous +entendons_, a smile that made a butt of Miss Jones's innocence and +laughed with me at the joke. + +I soon found myself rebelling against Manon's intrusion. I wished to +assure her that we had nothing in common and that, in Miss Jones's +innocence, I found no amusing element. + +That evening Carrington came in. He wore a rather absorbed look, and +only glanced at my picture. After absent replies to my desultory +remarks, he suddenly said, from his chair: + +"I walked home with Miss Jones this afternoon." Carrington, with his +ultra-aesthetic sensibilities, must find Miss Jones even more jarring +than I did, and his act implied a very kindly interest. + +"That was nice of you," I observed, though at the mention of Miss Jones +that piercing stab of shame again went through me, and my eyes +unwillingly, guiltily sought the eyes of my smiling Manon. + +"She was rather troubled about something she had said," Carrington +pursued, ignoring my approbation, "about the picture. Of course she +doesn't know anything about pictures." + +"No," I murmured, "she doesn't." + +"By Jove!" added Carrington, "that's the trouble. She doesn't understand +anything!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, I mean that she could never see certain things from our +standpoint; she is as ignorant and as innocent as a baby. She's never +read 'Manon Lescaut'--that came out _en passant_--and, by Jove, you +know, it _does_ seem a beastly shame! A girl like that! A snow-drop!" + +Carrington cast a look of unmistakable resentment at my poor Manon. + +"Well," I said, lamely--indeed I felt maimed--"how was I to know? And +what am I to do?" + +"Why, my dear fellow," and Carrington spoke with some fierceness, +"you've nothing to do with it! _I'm_ to blame! I told you about her. +Said she had the type! Dull, blundering fool that I was not to have seen +the shrieking incongruity! The rigidly upright soul of her! That girl +couldn't tell a lie nor look one; and _Manon_!" + +Carrington got up abruptly; evidently his disgust could not be borne in +a quiescent attitude. + +"You said at the first that her face was innocent," I suggested, in a +feeble effort to mitigate this self-scorn; "we neither of us misjudged +the girl for a moment, though we overlooked her ignorance." + +"Yes, and her ignorance makes all the difference. Another girl--as good, +to all intents and purposes--might know and not object; but this one! I +really believe it would half kill her!" + +Carrington gave another savage glance at my unlucky picture, and his +gaze lingered on it as he added: + +"If it's kept from her, all's well--as well as a lie can be." + +And then, if only for a moment, the Greek gained its triumph over this +startling exhibition of Hebraism. + +"It is a masterpiece!" said Carrington, slowly, adding abruptly as he +went, "Good-night!" + +But my night was very bad. Whatever Miss Jones might say or think, I +_did_ take life seriously. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +A few days followed in which Miss Jones showed herself to me in a sweet +and softened mood, the mood that wishes to make amends for salutary +harshness. My meekness under reproof had evidently won her approbation. +In the rests she talked to me. She gave me her opinions upon many +subjects, and very admirable they were and very commonplace. One thing +about Miss Jones, however, was not commonplace. She would certainly +act up to her opinions. Her sense of duty was enormous; but she bore +it pleasantly, albeit seriously. She had a keen _flair_ for +responsibilities. I began to suspect that she had assumed my moral +well-being as one of them. + +Her priggishness was so unconscious--so sincere, if one may say so--that +it staggered me. Her calmly complacent truisms confounded any subtleties +by marching over them--utterly ignoring them. One could not argue with +her, for she was so sublimely sure of herself that she made one doubt +the divine right of good taste, and wonder if flat-footed stupidity were +not right after all. + +And, above all, however questionable her mental attributes might be, her +moral worth was certainly awe-inspiring. The clear, metallic +flawlessness of her conscience seemed to glare in one's eyes, and poor +everyday manhood shrunk into itself, painfully aware of spots and +fissures. + +"Yes," Miss Jones said, leaning back in her incongruous robes; "yes, the +longer I live the more I feel that, as Longfellow says: + + "Life is real, life is _earnest_." + +She emphasized the quotation with solemnity: "We can't trifle with our +lives; we can't play through them. We must _live_ them. We must make +something of them." + +"Each man after his own nature," I suggested, feebly, for I felt sure +that "we can't _paint_ through them" was implied, and wished to turn +from that issue, with which I felt myself incapable of grappling. + +But Miss Jones was not to be balked of her moral. + +"We build our own characters," she said, and her look held kind warning. +"We must not act after our own nature if that nature is base or +trivial." + +"I know," I murmured. + +"It is only by holding firmly to an ideal that we rise, step by step, +beyond our lower selves." + +Beyond "Manon Lescaut" to "Faith Conquers Fear" this might mean. + +"And ideals we must have," she pursued. Then rising, her little air of +guide and counsellor touched with a smile: "But I must not preach too +much, must I?" + +It was comforting to dwell on the ludicrous aspects of this mentorship, +for, when my thoughts led me to a contemplation of Miss Jones's ideals, +I felt my position to be meanly hypocritical, if not "base." Manon was +almost finished. Ah! it was superb!--but even my joy in Manon rankled +and had lost its savour. Manon was there under false pretences, her +presence a subtle insult to Miss Jones. Miss Jones in her flaming gown +took on symbolical meanings. An unconscious martyr wearing, did she but +know it, the veritable robe of Nessus! A sense of protectorship, tender +in its self-reproach, grew upon me--a longing for atonement. I had +sacrificed Miss Jones to my masterpiece, and its beauty was baleful, +vampire-like. + +It was indeed a small thing to take Miss Jones's homilies humbly. +Indeed, for this humility I could claim no element of expiation, for I +really liked to hear her; she looked so pretty when she talked. It was +all so touching and so amusing. + +I am not sure that she had read Dante, but if she had she no doubt saw +herself something in the guise of a Beatrice stooping from heights of +wisdom to support my straying, faltering footsteps. She brought me one +day a feeble little volume of third-rate verse, with a page turned down +at a passage she requested me to read. The badly constructed lines, +their grandiloquent sentimentality, jarred on me; but in them I +perceived a complimentary application that might imply much +encouragement. Miss Jones evidently thought that I was rising step by +step, and put this cordial to my lips. I thanked her very +earnestly--feeling positively shrivelled--and then, turning from the +subject with a haste I hoped she might impute to modesty--and indeed +modesty of a certain humiliating kind did form part of it--I told her +that Manon would only require another sitting after that day. + +"Ah! is it finished, then?" + +She went to look at it. + +"_Is_ my left eye as indistinct as that?" she asked, playfully. "Can't +you see my eyelashes? That is impressionism, I suppose." I felt my +forehead growing hot. + +"The left eye is in shadow," I observed. + +"I am afraid shadows are convenient sometimes, aren't they? I like just +a plain, straight-forward telling of the truth, with no green paint over +it! You accept a little well-meant teasing, don't you?" + +I accepted it as I had to accept her various revelations of stupefying +obtuseness, and smiled over the sandy mouthful. + +"Yes," she pursued, carefully looking up and down the canvas--certainly +a new sign of interest in me and my work--"you will need quite two days +to finish it; the hands especially, they are rather sketchy about the +finger-tips." She might have been a genial old professor giving me +advice mingled with the good-humored _raillerie_ of superiority. The +hands were finished; but I kept a cowardly silence. + +"And the dress must be a good bit more distinctly outlined; I can't see +_where_ it goes on this side; and then the details of the background--I +can hardly tell what those dashes and splashes on the dressing-table are +supposed to represent." + +"I think you are standing a little too near the canvas," I said, in a +voice which I strove to free from a tone of patient long-suffering. "If +you go farther away, you will get the effect of the _ensemble_." + +"No, no!" she laughed; she evidently thought that her ethical +relationship justified an equally frank aesthetic helpfulness, and her +air of competence was bewildering. "No, we must not run away from the +truth! A smudge is a smudge from whatever standpoint one looks at it, +and a smear a smear." + +The masterly treatment of porcelains, ivories, and silver on the +dressing-table, glimmering and gleaming from the soft shadows, to be +qualified in such terms! + +"You are rather severe," I said. My discomfort was apparent, but she +naturally took it to be on my own behalf, not, as it was, on hers. + +"Oh! you mustn't think _that_! I hope I am never unduly severe. You will +easily mend matters to-day and to-morrow and polish over that rather +careless look. And, as far as that goes, I am at your service as long as +you need me." + +"As model _and_ critic," I observed, with a touch of bitterness. + +"As model _and_ critic," she repeated, brightly. "Do you know," she +added, mounting the stand, "I found 'Manon Lescaut' on a bookshelf this +morning. I didn't know that it was a French book. I am going to read it +this evening." + +I was struck dumb. This possibility had never presented itself to me. + +"I shall find the scene you have painted," she continued, looking down +at her gown and patting a fold into place; "I shall see whether you have +illustrated it conscientiously." + +"The book wouldn't interest you at all! Not at all!" I burst out, +conscious of a feverish intensity in the gaze I bent upon her. "It +is--it is decidedly _dull_!" + +"Is it?" said Miss Jones, indifferently. "Now I can't quite believe +that. You evidently didn't think it too dull to illustrate. There must +be some nice bits in it, and I mean to find the bit where the heroine, +in a pink silk gown, looks at herself in a mirror." + +"Well, you'll find no such bit. I haven't illustrated it!" I strove to +keep my voice fairly cool. "I merely took the heroine's name as +indicative of a class, and chose the epoch as characteristic. The book +is dull, old-fashioned." + +"Ah, but I might not agree with you there. Is it an historical novel? I +like them, even if they are rather slow. One gets all sorts of ideas +about people of another age." + +"It isn't historical." Despite my efforts my voice was growing sharply +anxious, and Miss Jones was beginning to notice my anxiety. "And the +characters in it are not people you would care to have ideas about. It +is merely one of the first attempts to write a psychological study, in +the form of romance, made in France." + +"Oh, but that is exceedingly interesting." + +"You would only find the rather crude analysis of a--a disagreeable +girl." + +"You think _I_ am like a disagreeable girl, then!" said Miss Jones, +still laughing. "From the first I have had a bit of a grudge against you +for finding me so suitable. I am sure I am not vain." + +"Manon was more than vain. She was heartless, a liar." I felt myself +stumbling from bad to worse. "Not in the least like you in anything, +except that she was beautiful." My explanation, with this bald piece of +tasteless flattery, had hardly helped matters. Indeed, Miss Jones became +rather coldly silent. I painted on, my mind in a disturbing whirl of +conjecture. I felt convinced that I had merely whetted her curiosity and +that she would go straight home to the perusal of "Manon"; and to +expect from her the faintest literary appreciation of the distinction +and the delicacy of the book was hopeless. She would fasten with horror +on the brazen immorality of a character she had been chosen to embody. +The blood surged up to my head as I painted. + +As Miss Jones was preparing to go, I held out my hand. + +"Good-bye," I said, feeling very badly. + +"Good-bye? Am I not coming to-morrow?" She had paused in the act of +neatly folding her umbrella, which had been thoughtfully left open to +dry while she posed. It had now stopped raining. + +"Yes--yes, of course," I stammered. + +She secured the elastic band, and then looked at me. + +"Miss Jones," I blurted out, abruptly, "don't read 'Manon Lescaut'; +please don't." + +Her glance became severely penetrating: + +"I really don't understand you," she said, and then added: "I most +certainly shall read it." + +"Well, if you do"--my urgent tone delayed her going--"try to judge it +from an artistic standpoint, you know. A study--a type. Don't +apply--ah--_modern_ standards." + +"I shall apply _my_ standards. I know no other method of judging a +book." + +"Well, then,"--my manner was becoming pitiful--"remember that the +physical resemblance between you was merely in my imagination." + +"I have always believed the face indicative of the character, and I'm +sorry that mine should have suggested to you the character of a liar," +said Miss Jones. It was evident that already she was hurt and, +disregarding my reiterated "It did not! It did not! upon my honour," she +opened the door to go. I still detained her. + +"Miss Jones," I said, standing before her, "I know that you are going to +misjudge me, and that, because you see certain things from an ethical +and I from a purely aesthetic point of view." + +"I can't admit the division. But no; I hope I shall never _misjudge_ +you." She gave me a brief little smile and walked quickly away. + +Carrington did not come in that evening, and I was glad that my mental +anguish had no observer. + +The next afternoon at two I awaited Miss Jones. My picture, virtually +finished, stood regally dominant in the centre of the studio. + +I hated and I adored it. I saw it with Miss Jones's eyes and I saw it +with my own; but her crude ethics had, on the whole, poisoned my +aesthetic triumph. + +At two there came the familiar rap. Miss Jones entered. I was sitting +before the picture and rose to meet her. Her face was very white and +very cold, and from under the tipped brim of the little hat her eyes +looked sternly at me. I looked back at her silently. + +"I have read 'Manon Lescaut,'" said Miss Jones. I found nothing to say. + +"You will understand that I cannot sit to-day. You will understand that +I never should have sat for you at all had I _known_," Miss Jones +pursued. + +I said that I understood. + +"I have come to-day to bring you back the money that I have earned under +false pretences." + +She laid the little packet down upon the table. I turned white. "And to +ask you"--here Miss Jones observed me steadily--"whether you do not feel +that you owe me apologies." + +"Miss Jones," I said, "I have unwittingly, unintentionally, given you +great pain; that, with my present knowledge of your exceptional +character, I now see to have been inevitable. I humbly beg your pardon +for it, but I also beg you to believe that from the first I never +thought of you but with respect and admiration." + +Miss Jones's face took on quite a terrible look. + +"Respect! Admiration! While you were looking from me to _that_!" She +pointed to Manon. "While I was clothing your imagination, personifying +to you that vile creature!" + +I tried to stop her with an exclamation of shocked denial, but she went +on, with fierce dignity: + +"Exceptional! You call it exceptional to feel debased by that +association? Can I ever look at my face again without thinking: 'The +face of Manon Lescaut?' Can I ever forget that we were thought of as +one? No"--she held up her hand--"let me speak. Do you suppose I cannot +see now the cleverness, yes, the diabolical cleverness, of your picture +of me there? The likeness is horrible; and there I shall stand for the +world to gaze at as long as the canvas lasts and as long as people look +at any pictures. There _I_ shall be, gibbeted in that woman's smile! No, +I have not done! There will be no escape possible. Somewhere--I shall +always feel it like a hot iron searing me--somewhere that other I will +be all my life long, and when I am dead, and for centuries perhaps, she +will smile on, and my image will be looked at as a type of vice! I see +it now," and with a sort of grandeur of revelation she turned upon +Manon, "I see that it is a masterpiece!" + +I placed myself between her and it. + +"Miss Jones," I said, "this is rather a supreme moment for me, more +supreme than you will ever understand. I forgot you for my picture; I +will not forget my picture for you." The icy fire of her eyes followed +me while I went to the table and took up a sharp, long dagger which lay +beside the little packet of money. I returned to the picture and, giving +it one long look, I ripped the canvas from top to bottom. Miss Jones +made neither sound nor sign. With dogged despair I pierced the smiling +face, I hacked and rent the exquisite thing. The rose-coloured tatters +fell forward; in five minutes "Manon Lescaut" was dead, utterly +annihilated, and Miss Jones surveyed the place where she had been. I +turned to her, and I have no doubt that my face expressed my exultant +misery. + +"And now!" I exclaimed. + +"Now," said Miss Jones, looking solemnly at me, "you have done right, +you have done _nobly_, and you will be the happier for it." + +"Shall I?" I said, approaching her. "Shall I?" + +"Yes. I can confidently say it. That bad thing would have poisoned your +life as it would have poisoned mine." I ignored the misstatement. + +"Miss Jones," I said, "for your sake I have destroyed the best thing in +my life; may I hope for a better? I love you." + +Her pale and beautiful face looked very little less calm, but certainly +a little dismayed, certainly a little sorry. + +"The best thing has been this act of sacrifice," she said; "don't spoil +that by any weak regret. You have gained my admiration and my respect; +but for better things, if better there are, I accepted Mr. Carrington +last night." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps I don't regret. Though she was a prig, I had loved her in the +half hour's exaltation. I am certainly not sorry that she married +Carrington. They seem to be very happy. But the chivalrous moment was +worth while--perhaps. However that may be, since then I have never +painted anything as good as Manon Lescaut. + + +THE END + + + + +Other Books by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + + +TANTE + + + A masterpiece of character creation and delineation, the + fascinating story of a woman of genius, whose genius is matched + only by her wayward temperament. + + + +FRANKLIN WINSLOW KANE + + + The story, exquisitely told, of two men and two women, and of + the unraveling of their strangely tangled love-affairs. + + + +AMABEL CHANNICE + + + "For poignancy of emotional effect few love romances equal this + drama, wherein the love of mother and son is raised to its + height of heroic possibility." + + + +A FOUNTAIN SEALED + + + "To have known and loved Valerie Upton, even in a book, is to + have added a new store of sweetness to one's life. In the wide + range of modern fiction, one cannot recall a feminine figure of + such immense attractiveness."--_Manchester Guardian._ + + + +THE SHADOW OF LIFE + + + A study of love's psychology, with, in the beginning, a most + exquisite picturing of two children--later lovers--and their + life in the Scottish open. + + + +PATHS OF JUDGEMENT + + + As unusual as all of Anne Douglas Sedgwick's novels, notable + for its penetrating and beautiful character portrayal. + + + +THE RESCUE + + + The plot turns upon the question of heredity. "It is a long + time since a story of character so distinct, so searching, and + so convincing has appeared." + + + +THE CONFOUNDING OF CAMELIA + + + A modern "Taming of the Shrew." + + + +THE DULL MISS ARCHINARD + + + "Anne Douglas Sedgwick is a finished writer. Her work is as + characteristic of people, places, and things of to-day as is + Jane Austen's of her day." + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Nest, The White Pagoda, The +Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and the Masterpiece, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEST *** + +***** This file should be named 33519.txt or 33519.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/5/1/33519/ + +Produced by Peter Vachuska, H. V., Mary Meehan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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