BE LOVE'S CRIMINAL. When we are losing balance on a precipice we do not
think much of the thing we have clutched for support. Our balance is
restored and we have not fallen; that is the comfortable reflection: we
stand as others do, and we will for the future be warned to avoid the
dizzy stations which cry for resources beyond a common equilibrium, and
where a slip precipitates us to ruin.
When, further, it is a woman planted in a burning blush, having to
idealize her feminine weakness, that she may not rebuke herself for
grovelling, the mean material acts by which she sustains a tottering
position are speedily swallowed in the one pervading flame. She sees but
an ashen curl of the path she has traversed to safety, if anything.
Knowing her lover was to come in the morning, Diana's thoughts dwelt
wholly upon the way to tell him, as tenderly as possible without danger
to herself, that her time for entertaining was over until she had
finished her book; indefinitely, therefore. The apprehension of his
complaining pricked the memory that she had something to forgive. He
had sunk her in her own esteem by compelling her to see her woman's
softness. But how high above all other men her experience of him could
place him notwithstanding! He had bowed to the figure of herself, dearer
than herself, that she set before him: and it was a true figure to the
world; a too fictitious to any but the most knightly of lovers. She
forgave; and a shudder seized her.--Snake! she rebuked the delicious
run of fire through her veins; for she was not like the idol women of
imperishable type, who are never for a twinkle the prey of the blood:
statues created by man's common desire to impress upon the sex his
possessing pattern of them as domestic decorations.
When she entered the room to Dacier and they touched hands, she rejoiced
in her coolness, without any other feeling or perception active. Not to
be unkind, not too kind: this was her task. She waited for the passage
of commonplaces.
'You slept well, Percy?'
'Yes; and you?'
'I don't think I even dreamed.'
They sat. She noticed the cloud on him and waited for his allusion to
it, anxious concerning him simply.
Dacier flung the hair off his temples. Words of Titanic formation were
hurling in his head at journals and journalists. He muttered his disgust
of them.
'Is there anything to annoy you in the papers to-day?' she asked, and
thought how handsome his face was in anger.
The paper of Mr. Tonans was named by him. 'You have not seen it?
'I have not opened it yet.'
He sprang up. 'The truth is, those fellows can now afford to buy right
and left, corrupt every soul alive! There must have been a spy at the
keyhole. I'm pretty certain--I could swear it was not breathed to any
ear but mine; and there it is this morning in black and white.'
'What is?' cried Diana, turning to him on her chair.
'The thing I told you last night.'
Her lips worked, as if to spell the thing. 'Printed, do you say?' she
rose.
'Printed. In a leading article, loud as a trumpet; a hue and cry
running from end to end of the country. And my Chief has already had the
satisfaction of seeing the secret he confided to me yesterday roared in
all the thoroughfares this morning. They've got the facts: his decision
to propose it, and the date--the whole of it! But who could have
betrayed it?'
For the first time since her midnight expedition she felt a sensation of
the full weight of the deed. She heard thunder.
She tried to disperse the growing burden by an inward summons to
contempt of the journalistic profession, but nothing would come. She
tried to minimize it, and her brain succumbed. Her views of the deed
last night and now throttled reason in two contending clutches. The
enormity swelled its dimensions, taking shape, and pointing magnetically
at her. She stood absolutely, amazedly, bare before it.
'Is it of such very great importance?' she said, like one supplicating
him to lessen it.
'A secret of State? If you ask whether it is of great importance to me,
relatively it is of course. Nothing greater. Personally my conscience is
clear. I never mentioned it--couldn't have mentioned it--to any one but
you. I'm not the man to blab secrets. He spoke to me because he knew
he could trust me. To tell you the truth, I'm brought to a dead stop. I
can't make a guess.
I'm certain, from what he said, that he trusted me only with it:
perfectly certain. I know him well. He was in his library, speaking in
his usual conversational tone, deliberately, nor overloud. He stated
that it was a secret between us.'
'Will it affect him?'
'This article? Why, naturally it will. You ask strange questions. A
Minister coming to a determination like that! It affects him vitally.
The members of the Cabinet are not so devoted.... It affects us all--the
whole Party; may split it to pieces! There's no reckoning the upset
right and left. If it were false, it could be refuted; we could despise
it as a trick of journalism. It's true. There's the mischief. Tonans did
not happen to call here last night?--absurd! I left later than twelve.'
'No, but let me hear,' Diana said hurriedly, for the sake of uttering
the veracious negative and to slur it over. 'Let me hear...' She could
not muster an idea.
Her delicious thrilling voice was a comfort to him. He lifted his breast
high and thumped it, trying to smile. 'After all, it's pleasant being
with you, Tony. Give me your hand--you may: I 'm bothered--confounded
by this morning surprise. It was like walking against the muzzle of a
loaded cannon suddenly unmasked. One can't fathom the mischief it
will do. And I shall be suspected, and can't quite protest myself the
spotless innocent. Not even to my heart's mistress! to the wife of the
bosom! I suppose I'm no Roman. You won't give me your hand? Tony, you
might, seeing I am rather...'
A rush of scalding tears flooded her eyes.
'Don't touch me,' she said, and forced her sight to look straight at him
through the fiery shower. 'I have done positive mischief?'
'You, my dear Tony?' He doated on her face. 'I don't blame you, I blame
myself. These things should never be breathed. Once in the air, the
devil has hold of them. Don't take it so much to heart. The thing's
bad enough to bear as it is. Tears! Let me have the hand. I came, on my
honour, with the most honest intention to submit to your orders: but if
I see you weeping in sympathy!'
'Oh! for heaven's sake,' she caught her hands away from him, 'don't be
generous. Whip me with scorpions. And don't touch me,' cried Diana. 'Do
you understand? You did not name it as a secret. I did not imagine it to
be a secret of immense, immediate importance.'
'But--what?' shouted Dacier, stiffening.
He wanted her positive meaning, as she perceived, having hoped that it
was generally taken and current, and the shock to him over.
'I had... I had not a suspicion of doing harm, Percy.'
'But what harm have you done? No riddles!'
His features gave sign of the break in their common ground, the widening
gulf.
'I went... it was a curious giddiness: I can't account for it. I
thought...'
'Went? You went where?'
'Last night. I would speak intelligibly: my mind has gone. Ah! you look.
It is not so bad as my feeling.'
'But where did you go last night? What!--to Tonans?'
She drooped her head: she saw the track of her route cleaving the
darkness in a demoniacal zig-zag and herself in demon's grip.
'Yes,' she confronted him. 'I went to Mr. Tonans.'
'Why?'
'I went to him--'
'You went alone?'
'I took my maid.'
'Well?'
'It was late when you left me...'
'Speak plainly!'
'I am trying: I will tell you all.'
'At once, if you please.'
'I went to him--why? There is no accounting for it. He sneered
constantly at my stale information.'
'You gave him constant information?'
'No: in our ordinary talk. He railed at me for being “out of it.” I must
be childish: I went to show him--oh! my vanity! I think I must have been
possessed.'
She watched the hardening of her lover's eyes. They penetrated, and
through them she read herself insufferably.
But it was with hesitation still that he said: 'Then you betrayed me?'
'Percy! I had not a suspicion of mischief.'
'You went straight to this man?'
'Not thinking...'
'You sold me to a journalist!'
'I thought it was a secret of a day. I don't think you--no, you did not
tell me to keep it secret. A word from you would have been enough. I was
in extremity.'
Dacier threw his hands up and broke away. He had an impulse to dash
from the room, to get a breath of different air. He stood at the window,
observing tradesmen's carts, housemaids, blank doors, dogs, a beggar
fifer. Her last words recurred to him. He turned: 'You were in
extremity, you said. What is the meaning of that? What extremity?'
Her large dark eyes flashed powerlessly; her shape appeared to have
narrowed; her tongue, too, was a feeble penitent.
'You ask a creature to recall her acts of insanity.'
'There must be some signification in your words, I suppose.'
'I will tell you as clearly as I can. You have the right to be my judge.
I was in extremity--that is, I saw no means... I could not write: it was
ruin coming.'
'Ah?--you took payment for playing spy?'
'I fancied I could retrieve... Now I see the folly, the baseness. I was
blind.'
'Then you sold me to a journalist for money?'
The intolerable scourge fetched a stifled scream from her and drove her
pacing, but there was no escape; she returned to meet it.
The room was a cage to both of them, and every word of either was a
sting.
'Percy, I did not imagine he would use it--make use of it as he has
done.'
'Not? And when he paid for it?'
'I fancied it would be merely of general service--if any.'
'Distributed; I see: not leading to the exposure of the communicant!'
'You are harsh; but I would not have you milder.'
The meekness of such a mischief-doer was revolting and called for the
lash.
'Do me the favour to name the sum. I am curious to learn what my
imbecility was counted worth.'
'No sum was named.'
'Have I been bought for a song?'
'It was a suggestion--no definite... nothing stipulated.'
'You were to receive money!'
'Leave me a bit of veiling! No, you shall behold me the thing I am.
Listen... I was poor...'
'You might have applied to me.'
'For money! That I could not do:
'Better than betraying me, believe me.'
'I had no thought of betraying. I hope I could have died rather than
consciously betray.'
'Money! My whole fortune was at your, disposal.'
'I was beset with debts, unable to write, and, last night when you left
me, abject. It seemed to me that you disrespected me...'
'Last night!' Dacier cried with lashing emphasis.
'It is evident to me that I have the reptile in me, Percy. Or else I
am subject to lose my reason. I went... I went like a bullet: I cannot
describe it; I was mad. I need a strong arm, I want help. I am given
to think that I do my best and can be independent; I break down. I went
blindly--now I see it--for the chance of recovering my position, as
the gambler casts; and he wins or loses. With me it is the soul that is
lost. No exact sum was named; thousands were hinted.'
'You are hardly practical on points of business.'
'I was insane.'
'I think you said you slept well after it,' Dacier remarked.
'I had so little the idea of having done evilly, that I slept without a
dream.'
He shrugged:--the consciences of women are such smooth deeps, or running
shallows.
'I have often wondered how your newspaper men got their information,' he
said, and muttered: 'Money-women!' adding: 'Idiots to prime them! And I
one of the leaky vessels! Well, we learn. I have been rather astonished
at times of late at the scraps of secret knowledge displayed by Tonans.
If he flourishes his thousands! The wonder is, he doesn't corrupt the
Ministers' wives. Perhaps he does. Marriage will become a danger-sign
to Parliamentary members. Foreign women do these tricks... women of a
well-known stamp. It is now a full year, I think, since I began to speak
to you of secret matters--and congratulated myself, I recollect, on your
thirst for them.'
'Percy, if you suspect that I have uttered one word before last night,
you are wrong. I cannot paint my temptation or my loss of sense last
night. Previously I was blameless. I thirsted, yes; but in the hope of
helping you.'
He looked at her. She perceived how glitteringly loveless his eyes had
grown. It was her punishment; and though the enamoured woman's heart
protested it excessive, she accepted it.
'I can never trust you again,' he said.
'I fear you will not,' she replied.
His coming back to her after the departure of the guests last night
shone on him in splendid colours of single-minded loverlike devotion.
'I came to speak to my own heart. I thought it would give you pleasure;
thought I could trust you utterly. I had not the slightest conception I
was imperilling my honour...!'
He stopped. Her bloodless fixed features revealed an intensity of
anguish that checked him. Only her mouth, a little open for the sharp
breath, appeared dumbly beseeching. Her large eyes met his like steel to
steel, as of one who would die fronting the weapon.
He strangled a loathsome inclination to admire.
'So good bye,' he said.
She moved her lips.
He said no more. In half a minute he was gone.
To her it was the plucking of life out of her breast.
She pressed her hands where heart had been. The pallor and cold of death
took her body.