ONLY PITY!
What was Elaine to do with her life?
In those weary days of the sick-room at Nîmes, and on the long railway
journey through Lyons, Besançon and Strasburg to Wiesbaden, Elaine had
turned over and over, in feverishly restless search for hope, the
possibilities that lay before her.
Her total capital was comprised in a few hundred pounds and the
furniture of the flat she shared in Paris with a girl friend--a student
at the Conservatoire. The money would see her through the expenses of Dr
Hegelmann's nursing home and for a few months afterwards--a year at the
outside. After that she must inevitably be dependent on the charity of
friends or on some charitable institution.
The thought of the time when her capital would be gone was like an icy
hand gripping at her heart. "Money is terribly useless," she had said to
Rivière, but there were times when she wished passionately that she had
the money with which to buy comforts for a life of blindness. Those were
craven moments, however--moments which she despised when they were past.
Of what use to her would be the silken-padded cage she had longed to
buy, when life held for her no work, no love?
Rivière she had thought of a thousand times. His every action and word
in the days of their first acquaintanceship came back to her with the
wonderful inner clarity of sight and hearing that belongs to those who
have no outer vision.
She saw him at the arena of Arles, standing on the topmost tier a few
yards distant from her, watching the red ball of the sun sink down into
the mists of the grey Camargue. He was aloof and cold--icy,
unapproachable, masked in reserve.
She saw him in the _ruelle_ of Arles, with the light from the shuttered
window falling on him in bars of yellow and black, fighting with Berserk
fury against the bare knife of the Provençal youth. Here he was
primitive man unchained--a Rodin figure with muscles knotted in a riot
of hot-blooded passion. He was battling for her.
No, not for her, but for the duty that a man owes to womankind. "I
didn't even know it was you," he had said curtly. That had hurt her at
the time, but now it seared into her. The rescue had meant nothing--it
had brought him no nearer to her. He was still cold and aloof.
She saw him in the Jardin de la Fontaine, lifting his hat with formal
politeness and making to move on. Still aloof, still encased in cold
reserve.
With deliberate intent she had set herself to melt him, and she had
succeeded. By the arbour of the Villa Clémentine she saw him, chatting
animatedly in keen enjoyment of her frank camaraderie. But that was only
casual friendship. Still aloof in what now mattered vitally to her.
She saw him seeking her out by the Maison Carrée, standing to watch her
sketch and passing to her the compliment of candid praise. Then he had
come nearer, but by such a little!
She saw him silvered in the moonlight by the Druids' Tower, standing at
her easel. Here he would surely have revealed himself if he had had
thoughts to utter of inner feelings. But he had remained silent.
Then there rang in her ears his passionate declaration of the sick-room:
"Elaine! Elaine! You have me by your side! I ask you to let me devote my
life to you!"
She weighed it scrupulously in the balance of reason, and judged it
Pity. It was the hasty word of a chivalrous man torn by the sight of her
helplessness. If it had been love, he would not have been stopped by her
refusal. Love is insistent, headstrong, ruthless of obstacles. Love
would have forced his offer upon her again and again. Love would have
divined the doubt in her mind. Love would have drowned it in kisses.
It was not Love but Pity that Rivière felt for her. And while she
silently thanked him for it, it was not enough. She would not encumber
the life of a man who felt merely Pity for her. That would be
degradation worse than the acceptance of public charity.
Out of all the turmoil of her fevered thoughts there came this one
conclusion: when her last money had been spent, when there only remained
for her the bitter bread of charity, she would pass quietly out of life
to a world where the outer sight would matter nothing.
Meanwhile, every casual word of Rivière's was weighed and re-weighed,
tested and assayed by her for the gold that might be hidden within.