Jenny did not see Maurice after the party until the following night,
when he waited in the court to take her out.
"Come quick," he said. "Quick. I've got something to show you."
"Well, don't run," she commanded, moderating the pace by tugging at his
coat. "You're like a young race-horse."
"First of all," asked Maurice eagerly, "do you like opals?"
"They're all right."
"Only all right?"
"Well, I think they're a bit like soapsuds."
"I'm sorry," said Maurice, "I've bought you opals for a birthday
present."
"I do like them," she explained, "only they're unlucky."
"Not if you're an October girl. They're very lucky then."
They were walking through jostling crowds down Coventry Street towards
the Cafe de l'Afrique where Castleton would meet them to discuss a
project of gayety. Jenny's soft hand on his arm was not successful in
banishing the aggrieved notes from Maurice's petulant defense of opals.
"Oh, you miserable old thing!" she said. "Don't look so cross."
"It's a little disappointing to choose a present and then be told by the
person it's intended for that she dislikes it."
"Oh, don't be silly. I never said I didn't like it. How could I? I
haven't seen it yet."
"It's hardly worth while showing it to you. You won't like it. I'd
throw it in the gutter, if it wasn't for this beastly crowd of fools
that will bump into us all the time."
"You are stupid. Give it to me. Please, Maurice."
"No, I'll get you something else," he retorted, determined to be
injured. "I'm sorry I can't afford diamonds. I took a good deal of
trouble to find you something old and charming. I ransacked every
curiosity shop in London. That's why I couldn't meet you till to-night.
Damned lot of use it's been. I'd much better have bought you a turquoise
beetle with pink topaz eyes or a lizard in garnets or a dragon-fly that
gave you quite a turn, it was so like a real one, or a----"
"Oh, shut up," said Jenny, withdrawing her arm.
"It's so frightfully disheartening."
"But what are you making yourself miserable over? I haven't said I don't
like your present. I haven't seen it."
"No, and you never will. Rotten thing!"
"You are unkind."
"So are you."
"Oh, good job."
"You're absolutely heartless. I don't believe you care a bit about me. I
wish to God I'd never met you. I can't think about anything but you. I
can't work. What's the good of being in love? It's a fool's game. It's
unsettling. It's hopeless. I think I won't see you any more after
to-night. I can't stand it."
Jenny had listened to his tirade without interruption; but now as they
were passing the Empire, she stopped suddenly, and said in a voice cold
and remote:
"Good night. I'm off."
"But we're going to meet Castleton."
"You may be. I'm not."
"What excuse shall I make to him?"
"I don't care what you tell him. He's nothing to me. Nor you either."
"You don't mean that?" he gasped.
"Don't I?"
"But Jenny! Oh, I say, do come into the Afrique. We can't argue here.
People will begin to stare."
"People! I thought you didn't mind about people?"
"Look here, I'm sorry. I am really. Do stay."
"No, I don't want to."
Jenny's lips were set; her eyes dull with anger.
"I know I'm a bad-tempered ass," Maurice admitted. "But do stay. I meant
it to be such a jolly evening. Only I was hurt about the opals. Do stay,
Jenny. I really am frightfully sorry. Won't you have the brooch? I'm
absolutely to blame. I deserve anything you say or do. Only won't you
stay? Just this once. Do."
Jenny was not proof against such pleading. There was in Maurice's effect
upon her character something so indescribably disarming that, although
in this case she felt in the right, she, it seemed, must always give
way; and for her to give way, right or wrong, was out of order.
"Soppy me again," was all she said.
"No, darling you," Maurice whispered. "Such a darling, too. I hope
Castleton hasn't arrived yet. I want to tell you all over again how
frightfully sorry I am."
But when they had walked past the Buddha-like manager who, massive and
enigmatical, broods over the entrance to the cafe, they could see
Castleton in the corner. It was a pity; for the constraint of a lovers'
quarrel, not absolutely adjusted, hung over them still in the presence
of a third person before whom they had to simulate ease. Maurice,
indeed, was so boisterously cordial that Jenny resented his dramatic
ability, and, being incapable of simulation herself, showed plainly all
was not perfectly smooth.
"What is the matter with our Jenny to-night?" Castleton inquired.
"Nothing," she answered moodily.
"She feels rather seedy," Maurice explained.
"No, I don't."
"Do you like the opal brooch?" Castleton asked.
"I haven't seen it," Jenny replied.
"I was waiting to give it to her in here," Maurice suggested.
Jenny, who was examining herself in a pocket mirror, looked over at him
from narrowing eyes. He turned to her, defending himself against the
imputation of a lie.
"Castleton helped me to choose it. Look," he said, "it's an old brooch."
He produced from his pocket a worn leather case on the faded mauve
velvet of whose lining lay the brooch. It was an opal of some size set
unusually in silver filigree with seed pearls and brilliants.
"It's rather pretty," Jenny commented without enthusiasm. In her heart
she loved the old-fashioned trinket, and wanted to show her delight to
Maurice; but the presence of Castleton was a barrier, and she was
strangely afraid of tears that seemed not far away. Maurice, who was by
now thoroughly miserable, offered to pin the brooch where it would look
most charming; but Jenny said she would put it in her bag, and he sat
back in the chair biting his lips and hating Castleton for not
immediately getting up and going home. The latter, realizing something
was the matter, tried to change the subject.
"What about this Second Empire masquerade at Covent Garden?"
"I don't think we shall be able to bring it off. Ronnie Walker would be
ridiculous as Balzac."
"There are others."
"Besides, I don't think I want to be Theophile Gautier."
"Don't be, then," advised Castleton.
"Anyway, it's a rotten idea," declared Maurice.
"What extraordinary tacks your opinions do take!" retorted his friend.
"Only this afternoon you were full of the most glittering plans and had
found a prototype in 1850 for half your friends."
"I've been thinking it over," said Maurice. "And I'm sure we can't work
it."
"Good-by, Gustave Flaubert," said Castleton. "I confess I regret
Flaubert; especially if I could have persuaded Mrs. Wadman to be George
Sand and smoke a cigar. However, perhaps it's just as well."
"Who's Mrs. Wadman?" asked Jenny.
"The aged female iniquity who 'does' for Maurice and me at Grosvenor
Road. I'm sure on second thoughts it would be unwise to let her acquire
the cigar habit. I might be rich next year, and I should hate to see her
dusting with a Corona stuck jauntily between toothless gums."
"Oh, don't be funny," said Maurice. "You've no idea how annoying you are
sometimes. Confound you, waiter," he cried, turning to vent his temper
in another direction. "I ordered Munich and you've brought Pilsener."
"Very sorry, sir," apologized the waiter.
"It was I who demanded the blond beer," Castleton explained. Then, as
the waiter retired, he said:
"Why not get him to come as Balzac?"
"Who?"
"The waiter."
"Don't be funny any more," Maurice begged wearily.
"Poor Fuz," said Jenny. "You're crushed."
"I now know the meaning of Blake's worm that flies in the heart of the
storm."
Even Castleton was ultimately affected by the general depression; and
Jenny at last broke the silence by saying she must go home.
"I'll drive you back," said Maurice.
"Hearse or hansom, sir?" Castleton asked.
"Good night, Fuz," said Jenny on the pavement. "I'll bring Madge and
Maudie to see you some time soon."
"Do," he answered. "They would invigorate even a sleepy pear. Good
night, dear Jenny, and pray send Maurice back in a pleasanter mood."
For a few minutes the lovers drove along in silence.
It was Maurice who spoke first:
"Jenny, I've been an idiot, and spoilt the evening. Do forgive me,
Jenny," he cried, burying his face in her shoulder. "My vile temper
wouldn't have lasted a moment if I could just have been kissed once; but
Castleton got on my nerves and the waiter would hover about all the time
and everybody enraged me. Forgive me, sweet thing, will you?"
Jenny abandoning at once every tradition of obstinacy, caught him to
her.
"You silly old thing."
"I know I am, and you're a little darling."
"And he wasn't ever going to see me again. What a liberty! Not ever."
"I am an insufferable ass."
"And he wished he'd never met me. Oh, Maurice, you do say unkind
things."
"Were you nearly crying once?" he asked. "When I gave you the brooch?"
"Perhaps."
"Jenny, precious one, are you nearly crying now?" he whispered.
"No, of course not."
Yet when he kissed her eyelids they were wet.
"Shall I pin the brooch now?"
She nodded.
"Jenny, you don't know how I hate myself for being unkind to you. I hate
myself. I shall fret about this all night."
"Not still a miserable old thing?" she asked, fingering the smooth face
of the opal that had caused such a waste of emotion.
"Happy now. So happy." He sighed on her breast.
"So am I."
"You're more to me every moment."
"Am I?"
"You're so sweet and patient. Such a pearl, such a treasure."
"You think so."
"My little Queen of Hearts, you've a genius for love."
"What's that?"
"I mean, you're just right. You never make a mistake. You're patient
with my wretched artistic temperament. Like a perfect work of art,
you're a perfect work of love."
"Maurice, you _are_ a darling," she sighed on the authentic note of
passionate youth in love.
"When you whisper like that, it takes my breath away.... Jenny are you
ever going to be more to me even than you are now?"
"What do you mean, more?" she asked.
"Well, everything that a woman can be to a man. You see I'm an artist,
and an artist longs for the completion of a great work. My love for you
is the biggest thing in my life so far, and I long to complete it. Don't
you understand what I mean?"
"I suppose I do," she said very quietly.
"Are you going to let me?"
"Some day I suppose I shall."
"Not at once?"
"No."
"Why not? Don't you trust me?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Kiss me," she said. "I can't explain. Don't let's talk about it any
more."
"I can't understand women," Maurice declared.
"Ah!"
She smiled; but in the smile there was more of sadness than mirth.
"Why waste time?" he demanded passionately. "God knows we have little
enough time. Jenny, I warn you, I beg you not to waste time. You're
making a mistake. Like all girls, you're keeping one foot in a sort of
washy respectability."
"Don't go on," Jenny said. "I've told you I will one day."
"Why not come abroad with me if you're afraid of what your people will
say?"
"I couldn't. Not while my mother was alive."
"Well, don't do that; but still it's easy enough not--to waste time.
Your mother need never find out. I'm not a fool."
"Ah, but I should feel a sneak."
Maurice sighed at such scruples.
"Besides," she added, "I don't want to--not yet. Can't we be happy like
we have been? I will one day."
"You can't play with love," Maurice warned her.
"I'm not. I'm more in earnest than what you are."
"I don't think you are."
"But I am. Supposing if you got tired of me?"
"I couldn't."
"Ah, but that's where men are funny. All of a sudden you might take a
sudden fancy to another girl. And then what about me? What should I do?"
"It comes to this," he argued. "You don't trust me yet. You don't
believe in me. Good heavens, what can I do to show you I'm sincere?"
"Can't you wait a little while?" she gently asked.
"I must."
"And you won't ask me again?"
"I won't promise that."
"Well, not for a long time?" Jenny pleaded.
"I won't even promise that. You see I honestly think you're making a
mistake--a mistake for which you'll be very sorry one day. I wish you
understood my character better."
"All men are the same." She sighed out the generalization.
"That's absurd, my dear girl. I might as well say all women are the
same."
"Well, they are. They're all soppy."
"Isn't it rather soppy to go as far as you have with me, and not go
farther?" Maurice spoke tentatively.
"Oh, _I've_ properly joined the soppy brigade. I did think I was
different, but I'm not. I'm well in the first line."
"Don't you think," Maurice suggested--"of course, I'm not saying you
haven't had plenty of experience--but don't you think there's a
difference between a gentleman and a man who isn't a gentleman?"
"I think gentlemen are the biggest rotters of all."
"I don't agree with you."
"I do. Listen. You asked me just now to come away with you. You didn't
ask me to marry you."
Maurice bubbled over with undelivered explanations.
"Wait. I wouldn't marry you not if you asked me. I don't want you to ask
me. Only------"
"Only what?" Maurice inquired gloomily.
"Only if I did all you wanted, I'd be giving everything--more than you'd
give, even if you married a ballet girl."
"Do let me explain," Maurice begged. "You absolutely misunderstand
me.... Oh, Lord, we're nearly at Hagworth Street.... I've only time to
say quite baldly what I mean. Look here, if you married me you wouldn't
like it. You wouldn't like meeting all my people and having to be
conventional and pay calls and adapt yourself to a life that you hadn't
been brought up to. I'd marry you like a shot. I don't believe in class
distinctions or any of that humbug. But you'd be happier not married.
Can't you see that? You'd be happier the other way.... There's your
turning. There's no time for more.... Only do think over what I've said
and don't misjudge me ... darling girl, good night."
"Good night."
"A long kiss."
Reasons, policies, plans and all the paraphernalia of expediency
vanished when she from the steps of her home listened to the bells of
the hansom dying away in the distance, and when he, huddled in a corner
of the cab, was conscious but of the perfume of one who was lately
beside him.
In her bedroom Jenny examined the brooch. Perhaps what showed more
clearly than anything the reality of her love was the affection she felt
for Maurice when he was away from her. She was never inclined to
criticise the faults so easily forgotten in the charms which she
remembered more vividly. Now, with the brooch before her, as she sat
dangling her legs from the end of the bed, she recalled lovingly his
eagerness to display the unfortunate opal. She remembered the brightness
of his blue eyes and the vibrant attraction of his voice. He was a
darling, and she had been unkind about opals. He was always a darling to
her. He never jarred her nerves or probed roughly a tender mood.
Jenny scarcely sifted so finely her attitude towards Maurice. She summed
him up to herself in a generalization. In her mind's eye he appeared in
contrast to everybody else. All that the rest of mankind lacked he
possessed. Whatever mild approval she had vouchsafed to any other man
his existence obliterated. She had never created for herself an ideal
whose tenuity would one day envelop a human being. Therefore, since
there had never floated through her day-dreams a nebula with perfect
profile, immense wealth and euphonious titles, Maurice had not to be
fitted in with a preconception. Nor would it be reasonable to identify
her with one of the world's Psyches in love with the abstraction of a
state of mind and destined to rue its incarnation. She had, it may be
granted, been inclined to fall in love in response to the demand of her
being; but it would be wrong to suppose her desire was gratified by the
first person who came along. On the contrary, Maurice had risen suddenly
to overthrow all that had gone before, and, as it seemed now, was likely
to overthrow anything that might come after.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she was hypnotized into a meditative
coma by the steady twin flames of the candle and its reflection in the
toilet-glass. She was invested with the accessories favorable to
crystal-gazing, and the brooch served to concentrate faculties that
would under ordinary circumstances have lacked an object. Contrast as an
absolute idea is often visualized during slightly abnormal mental
phases. Fever often fatigues the brain with a reiteration of images in
tremendous contrast, generally of mere size, when the mind is forced to
contemplate again and again with increasing resentment the horrible
disparity between a pin's point and a pyramid. In Jenny's mind Maurice
was contrasted with the rest of the universe. He was so overpowering and
tremendous that everything else became a mere speck. In fact, during
this semi-trance, Jenny lost all sense of proportion, and Maurice became
an obsession.
Then suddenly the flame of the candle began to jig and flicker; the
spell was broken, and Jenny realized it would be advisable to undress.
Action set her brain working normally, and the vast, absorbing
generalization faded. She began to think again in detail. How she longed
for to-morrow, when she would be much nicer to Maurice than she had ever
been before. She thought with a glow of the delightful time in front of
them. She pictured wet afternoons spent cosily in the studio. She
imagined herself, tired and bored, coming down the court from the stage
door, with Maurice suddenly appearing round the corner to drive
weariness out of London. It was glorious to think of someone who could
make the worst headache insignificant and turn the most unsatisfactory
morning to a perfect afternoon. Quickened by such thoughts, she got into
bed without waking May, so that in a flutter of soft kisses she could
sink deliciously to sleep, enclosed in the arms of her lover as an
orchard by sunlight.
About two o'clock Jenny woke up to another psychic experience not
unusual with hypersensitive temperaments. The ardor of the farewell
embrace had consumed all the difficulties of the situation discussed on
the journey home. This ardor of merely sensuous love had lasted long
enough to carry her off to sleep drowsed by a passionate content.
Meanwhile her brain, working on what was originally the more vital
emotion, brought her back to consciousness in the middle of the
problem's statement. Lying there in the darkness, Jenny blushed hotly,
so instant was the mental attitude produced by Maurice's demand. In
previous encounters over this subject, her protagonists had all been so
manifestly contemptible, their expectations so evident from the
beginning, that their impudence had been extinguished by the fire of
merely social indignation. Jenny had defeated them as the representative
of her sex rather than herself. She had never comprehended the
application of their desires to herself as a feasible proposition. They
were a fact merely objectively unpleasant like monkeys in a cage,
physically dangerous, however, with certain opportunities Jenny's
worldly wisdom would never afford. In the case of Maurice the encounter
was actual, involving a clash of personalities: the course of her
behavior would have to be settled. No longer fortified by the hostility
of massed opinion, she would be compelled to entrust her decision to
personal resolution and individual judgment. For the first time she was
confronted with the great paradox that simultaneously restricts and
extends a woman's life. She remembered the effect of Edie's announcement
of surrender. It had sickened her with virginal wrath and impressed her
with a sense of man's malignity, and now here was she at the cross-roads
of experience with sign-posts unmistakable to dominate her mental
vision.
It was not astonishing that Jenny should blush with the consciousness of
herself as a vital entity; for the situation was merely an elaboration
of the commonplace self-consciousness incident to so small an action as
entering alone a crowded room. Years ago, as a little girl, she had once
woken up with an idea she no longer existed, an idea dispelled by the
sight of her clothes lying as usual across the chair. Now she was
frightened by the overwhelming realization of herself: she existed too
actually. This analysis of her mental attitude shows that Jenny did not
possess the comfortable mind which owes volition to external forces. Her
brain registered sensations too finely; her sense of contact was too
fastidious. Acquiescence was never possible without the agony of
experience. Her ambition to dance was in childhood a force which was
killed by unimaginative treatment. Once killed, nothing could revive it.
So it would be with her love. In the first place, she was aware of the
importance of surrender to a man. She did not regard the step as an
incident of opportunity. All her impulses urged her to give way. Every
passionate fire and fever of love was burning her soul with reckless
intentions. On the other hand, she felt that if she yielded herself and
tasted the bitterness of disillusionment, she would be forevermore
liable to acquiesce. She would demand of her lover attributes which he
might not possess, and out of his failure by the completeness of her
personality she would create for herself a tragedy.
Finally a third aspect presented itself in the finality of the proposed
surrender. She was now for the first time enjoying life with a fullness
of appreciation which formerly she had never imagined. She was happy in
a sense of joy. When Cunningham was playing in the studio, she had felt
how insecure such happiness was, how impatient of any design to imprison
it in the walls of time. Indeed, perhaps she had seen it escaping on the
echoes of a melody. Then suddenly over all this confusion of prudence,
debate, hesitation, breathless abandonment and scorching blushes, sleep
resumed its sway, subduing the unnatural activity of a normally indolent
mind.
She lay there asleep in the darkness without a star to aid or cross her
destiny. She and her brooch of opals were swept out into the surge of
evolution; and she must be dependent on a fallible man to achieve her
place in the infallible scheme of the universe.