“O Heart! O blood that freezes! blood that burns!
Earth’s returns for whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin:
Shut them in; with their triumphs and the glories and the rest—
Love is best!”
—ROBERT BROWNING.
VERY firm and self-reliant natures make sometimes the natural mistake of
under-estimating the power of passion. Their full self-control and
constant watchfulness ignore the possibility of the strange touch of
sudden lawlessness—the betrayal of the blood. That one could be one
moment standing reason-bound, content, a soul at peace, and in another
swept over the verge of thought into a sea of feeling, was absurd to
Muriel. Yet the swift flash takes place: the world, like a curtain,
rolls up, and all the conventions, the safeguards, the stationary
landscapes, disappear! It was such a moment which took possession of her
the very night that she had decided to give her lover to another woman.
The evening had passed pleasantly, and the still glory of the summer
night drew the party out into the dusk of the garden. Muriel slipped
away from the rest and wandered into a little wilderness some distance
from the house, wondering how best to carry out her plans, when suddenly
all the blood in her body rushed to her heart, for there beside her
stood the man she loved. It had been possible for her in the calm of
loneliness and heartache to dispose of Jack, but now—the moon’s gold
and silver gliding through the clouds; the thrushes calling heart to
heart their breathless rapture in a liquid continuity of song; all the
passion and the pain rushing into beauty, thrilled and throbbing with
the heart of night—it was difficult to resist now. And the stars, how
they shone down on love, each one a light struck from the royal conquest
of their queen, the moon! They were enwrapped in that dream so boundless
and so limited which for one breathless moment holds all the world can
teach, and then scatters and breaks into the hundred lesser lights of
life. A sigh broke the charm, and Muriel, wondering, withdrew herself
from his arms, abashed and yet elated at her defeat, so much more sweet
than any of the triumphs life had held for her.
“Now,” said Jack, smiling down at her, “are you going to tell me that
you don’t care?”
“I am afraid,” said Muriel, “that it would not be very convincing if I
did. It seems to me,” she added breathlessly, “as if before I had been
living only on the outskirts of life. I did not know it was like that!”
She looked at him wistfully, and asked humbly, “Is it quite right, Jack,
do you think?”
“What, my dearest?”
“To forget everything; to see nothing but the world a background, and
that one great avowal drowning all the rest?”
“I think it must be,” said Jack. “Just because it’s so powerful it must
be meant to be good—in itself, you know—only some of us poor chaps
don’t know how to use it.”
Muriel shivered a little; there was dampness in the air; the trees
seemed to quiver. She remembered Liz and the squalid scenes where the
power which meant heaven to her had meant darkness and life-long misery
to the other woman. Had she gained the world only to lose it? Jack
wrapped her shawl tenderly over her shoulders.
“You must go in, little woman,” he said practically. “Now you’re mine
you shan’t run any risks, not even summer ones. Shall I speak to your
uncle?” he asked her as they neared the little artificial lights of the
house.
“Not yet,” she whispered hoarsely, with a terrible fear in her eyes.
Jack followed her glance. It rested on a young girl’s face. Gladys was
standing close at the French window looking out into the
night—desperate, wild, despairing.
“There’s something wrong with the child,” Muriel said quick to
Jack—“bad news from home, I think,” for even at that moment she knew
she must keep the other woman’s secret. “Let me go to her,
darling—good-night! It’s awful, isn’t it,” she said, “to be so selfish
and so happy!”
She caught her hand from him, hurrying into the house. “It’s wicked,
it’s wicked,” she murmured, “to be happy at all.”
Gladys called out over the approaching figure, “There is a letter for
Captain Hurstly!” He came unwillingly forward into the light about the
window. Muriel stood now with her hand in the girl’s looking back at
him. Gladys herself seemed unaware of the touch. She was smiling
painfully; the “On Her Majesty’s Service” seemed to demand attention.
Jack opened it, read it, glanced for a moment to Muriel, and placed it
in his pocket.
“What does it say?” said Gladys, and Jack, so absorbed by its purpose
and the strangeness of the scene, never knew till afterwards that it was
not Muriel who had spoken. He tried to make light of it.
“Oh, I’m called off sooner than I expected.”
“When?” They both spoke at once this time. Again he only heard Muriel.
“The fact is—well, to-night,” he owned unsteadily. Gladys stepped
quickly forward; a little quivering light shone in her eyes; she caught
her breath and half unconsciously held out her hands.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Captain Hurstly!” she cried; “and I wish you—I wish
you the very best luck in the world.” He looked towards Muriel, but she
was gone. He met the girl’s eyes again. His own felt unaccountably
misty. Muriel was gone, and this little thing was wishing him the very
best luck in the world. He pressed her hands gratefully.
“Thank you, thank you awfully,” he murmured. “I think I’ve got it
to-night——”
“Oh, where’s that tiresome Jack Hurstly?” cried a voice from the window.
“I left him my fan to take care of, and——”
“I’ve got it here, Mrs. le Mentier,” cried Jack hastily, stepping
through the low French window with the missing fan in his hand.
When he drove off an hour later to catch the midnight train it was Edith
le Mentier who, side by side with Muriel, stood at the door to see him
off. Looking back he saw that it was with her he had left “the very best
luck in the world.” He had quite forgotten all about Gladys. From her
window she watched him go on fire with love and happiness. His last
words rang in her ears. She never doubted that they were meant for her.
He had no time to say more then; but when he came back, not Muriel in
all her beauty, nor any other woman, nor any other thing could ever come
between them again she thought. And he would come back! The moonlight
and the soft fragrance of the dusky night, what were they any of them
but the earth’s pledges to her that her heaven should come again to meet
that other heaven in her heart?
“I have broken my fan,” said Edith le Mentier to Muriel as they went up
to bed. “So stupid of me, wasn’t it; but at any rate I was not going to
let Captain Hurstly have another one.” Muriel looked straight before
her.
“Another one, Edith?” she repeated.
“Yes, stupid, didn’t you know men were in the habit of keeping people’s
fans when they were—well, rather—don’t you know?”
“I am afraid I’m rather dense—good-night,” said Muriel wearily. She
stopped outside Gladys’ door, but there was no light or sound. “She’s
asleep,” she thought, “I won’t disturb her,” and went on to her own
room. It seemed rather strange to her that anybody could sleep.