Things moved crazily, depending wholly upon blind chance. One works
steadily, even for years, bending all his energies to one single point,
and what is the result? Nothing! Another turns the knob of a door, walks
into a strange room, or, perhaps, writes a letter, and from that moment
his whole life is changed, for destiny lurks in hinges and abides upon
the written page.
For days, for months even, no single action may be significant, and
again, upon another day, a thoughtless word, or even a look, may be as a
pebble cast into deep waters, to reach, by means of ever-widening
circles, some distant, unseen shore.
[Sidenote: The One Affected]
All this had come from a single sentence. Louise Archer, upon her
death-bed, had harked back to her school days, and, thinking fondly of
Virginia Marsh, had bade her daughter go to her if she felt the need of
a mother's counsel when her own mother was past the power of giving it.
Years afterward, during a day of despondency, Edith had remembered. The
pebble had fallen deep and far and had become still again, but its final
circle had that day touched the ultimate boundary made by three lives.
It had, of course, made no difference to Madame, but two men and a woman
had been profoundly shaken by it, though not moved from their original
position. They would all stay where they were, of course--Alden with his
mother, and Edith with her husband. Then, with a shock, Edith remembered
Rosemary--she was the one who had been swept aside as though by a tidal
wave.
Poor Rosemary! Edith's heart throbbed with understanding pity for the
girl who had lost all. She had not asked how it had happened, merely
accepting Alden's exultant announcement. Now she hoped that it might
have been done delicately, so that Alden need not feel himself a brute,
nor Rosemary's pride be hurt.
[Sidenote: A Sleepless Night]
Then, through the night, came a definite perception, as though Alden
himself had given her assurance. Rosemary had done it herself, had she?
Very well--that was as it should be. For a moment she dwelt upon the
fact with satisfaction, then, a little frightened, began to speculate
upon this mysterious tie between herself and Alden.
The thing was absurd, impossible. She curled her short upper lip
scornfully in the darkness. "You know it is," she said, imperiously, in
her thought, as though in answer to a mocking question from somewhere:
"Is it?"
She turned restlessly. All at once her position became tiresome,
unbearable. She wanted to go to sleep, indeed she must sleep, for she
had a long hard day before her to-morrow, putting her things into her
trunks. Perhaps, if she rose and walked around her room a little----
One small, pink foot was on the floor, and the other almost beside it,
when a caution came to her from some external source: "Don't. You'll
take cold." She got back into bed, shivering a little. Yes, the polished
floor was cold.
Then she became furious with Alden and with herself. Why couldn't the
man go to sleep? It must be past midnight, now, and she would walk, if
she wanted to. Defiantly and in a triumph of self-assertion, she went to
the open window and peered out into the stillness, illumined by neither
moon nor stars. The night had the suffocating quality of hangings of
black velvet.
[Sidenote: Sitting in the Dark]
She lighted a candle, found her kimono and slippers, wrapped herself in
a heavy blanket, and drew up a low rocker to the open window. Then she
put out the light and settled herself to wait until she was sleepy.
The darkness that clung around her so closely seemed alive, almost
thrilling, as it did, with fibres of communication perceptible only to a
sixth sense. She marvelled at the strangeness of it, but was no longer
afraid. Her fear had vanished at the bidding of someone else.
Why was it? she asked herself, for the hundredth time, and almost
immediately the answer came: "Why not?"
Why not, indeed? If a wireless telegraph instrument, sending its call
into space, may be answered with lightning-like swiftness by another a
thousand miles away, why should not a thought, without the clumsy medium
of speech, instantly respond to another thought from a mind in harmony
with it?
A subtle analogy appeared between the earth and the body, the tower
from which the wireless signalled and the thought which called to
another. When the physical forces were at their lowest ebb, and the
powers of the spirit had risen to keep the balance true, why was not
communication possible always between soul and soul? And, if one lived
always above the fog of sense, as far as the earth-bound may, what would
be the need of speech or touch between those who belonged to one
another?
[Sidenote: Two Views]
She and Alden "belonged," there was no doubt of that. She had, for him,
the woman's recognition of her mate, which is never to be mistaken or
denied when once it has asserted itself. "Why," she thought, "will
people marry without it?" The other mind responded instantly: "Because
they don't know."
Marriage presented itself before her in two phases, the one sordid and
unworthy, as it so often is, the other as it might be--the earthly seal
upon a heavenly bond. But, if the heavenly relationship existed, was the
other essential? Her heart answered "No."
Slowly she began to see her way through the maze of things. "Dust to
dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes." Then she laughed outright, for
that was part of the burial service, and she had been thinking of
something else. And yet--earth to earth meant only things that belonged
together; why not soul to soul?
Warm tides of assurance and love flowed through her heart, cleansing,
strengthening, sweeping barriers aside in a mighty rush of joy. What
barriers could earth interpose, when two belonged to each other in such
heavenly ways as this? Step by step her soul mounted upward to the
heights, keeping pace with another, in the room beyond.
[Sidenote: Edith's Revelation]
Out of sound and sight and touch, with darkened spaces and closed doors
between, they two faced the world together as surely as though they were
hand in hand. Even Death could make no difference--need Life deny them
more?
Then, with a blinding flash of insight, the revelation came to
her--there was no denial, since they loved. Sense, indeed, was wholly
put aside, but love has nothing to do with sense, being wholly of the
soul. Shaken with wonder, she trembled as she sat in her chair, staring
out into the starless night.
No denial! All that Love might give was theirs, not only for the moment
but for all the years to come. Love--neither hunger nor thirst nor
passion nor the need of sleep; neither a perception of the senses nor a
physical demand, yet streaming divinely through any or all of these as
only light may stream--the heavenly signal of a star to earth, through
infinite darkness, illimitable space.
By tortuous paths and devious passages, she had come out upon the
heights, into the clear upper air of freedom and of love. Exquisitely,
through the love of the one had come the love of the many; the complete
mastery of self had been gained by the surrender of self; triumph had
rewarded sacrifice.
[Sidenote: Her Understanding of Love]
Nothing was difficult now--nothing would ever be hard again. To go where
she was wanted, to give what she could that was needed, steadily to set
self aside, asking for nothing but the opportunity to help, and through
this high human service renewing the spent forces of her soul at the
divine fountains that do not fail--this, indeed, was Love!
Oh, to make the others understand as she understood now--and as Alden
understood! In her thought they two were as one. Groping through the
same darkness, he had emerged, with her, into the same light; she felt
it through the living, throbbing night more certainly than if they stood
face to face in the blinding glare of the sun.
The heart-breaking tragedy of Woman revealed itself wholly to her for
the first time. Less materialistic and more finely-grained than Man, she
aspires toward things that are often out of his reach. Failing in her
aspiration, confused by the effort to distinguish the false from the
true, she blindly clutches at the counterfeit and so loses the genuine
forever.
Longing, from the day of her birth for Love, she spends herself
prodigally in the endless effort to find it, little guessing,
sometimes, that it is not the most obvious thing Man has to offer. With
colour and scent and silken sheen, she makes a lure of her body; with
cunning artifice she makes temptation of her hands and face and weaves
it with her hair. She flatters, pleads, cajoles; denies only that she
may yield, sets free in order to summon back, and calls, so that when he
has answered she may preserve a mystifying silence.
[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]
She affects a thousand arts that in her heart she despises, pretends to
housewifery that she hates, forces herself to play tunes though she has
no gift for music, and chatters glibly of independence when she has none
at all.
In making herself "all things to all men," she loses her own
individuality, and becomes no more than a harp which any passing hand
may strike to quick response. To one man she is a sage, to another an
incarnate temptation, to another a sensible, business-like person, to
another a frothy bit of frivolity. To one man she is the guardian of his
ideals, as Elaine in her high tower kept Launcelot's shield bright for
him, to another she is what he very vaguely terms "a good fellow," with
a discriminating taste in cigarettes and champagne.
Let Man ask what he will and Woman will give it, praying only that
somewhere she will come upon Love. She adapts herself to him as water
adapts itself to the shape of the vessel in which it is placed. She
dare not assert herself or be herself, lest, in some way, she should
lose her tentative grasp upon the counterfeit which largely takes the
place of love. If he prefers it, she will expatiate upon her fondness
for vaudeville and musical comedy until she herself begins to believe
that she likes it. With tears in her eyes and her throat raw, she will
choke upon the assertion that she likes the smell of smoke; she will
assume passion when his slightest touch makes her shudder and turn cold.
[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]
And, most pitiful of all, when blinded by her own senses, she will
surrender the last citadel of her womanhood to him who comes a-wooing,
undismayed by the weeping women around her whose sacred altars have been
profaned and left bare. They may have told her that if it is love, the
man will protect her even against himself, but why should she take
account of the experience of others? Has not he himself just told her
that she is different from all other women? Hugging this sophistry to
her breast, and still searching for love, she believes him until the day
of realisation dawns upon her--old and broken and bitter-hearted, with
scarcely a friend left in the world, and not even the compensating coin
thriftily demanded by her sister of the streets.
Under her countless masques and behind her multitudinous phases, lurks
the old hunger, the old appeal. Man, too, though more rarely, guessing
that the imperishable beauty of the soul is above the fog of sense and
not in it, searches hopefully at first, then despairingly, and finally
offers the counterfeit to the living Lie who is waiting for it with
eager, outstretched hands.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Clouds Break]
Stirred to the depths by the pity of it, Edith brushed away a tear or
two. She was not at all sleepy, but drew the blanket closer around her,
for the night grew chill as the earth swept farther and farther away
from the sun. The clouds had begun to drift away, and faintly, through
the shadow, glimmered one pale star. Gradually, others came out, then a
white and ghostly moon, with a veil of cloud about it, grey, yet
iridescent, like mother-of-pearl.
Blown far across the seas of space by a swiftly rising wind, the clouds
vanished, and all the starry hosts of heaven marched forth, challenging
the earth with javelins of light.
"Starbreak," murmured Edith, "up there and in my soul."
The blue rays of the love-star burned low upon the grey horizon, that
star towards which the eyes of women yearn and which women's feet are
fain to follow, though, like a will-o'-the-wisp, it leads them through
strange and difficult places, and into the quicksands.
[Sidenote: Fellowship with the World]
The body grows slowly, but the soul progresses by leaps and bounds.
Through a single hurt or a single joy, the soul of a child may reach
man's estate, never to go backward, but always on. And so, through a
great love and her own complete comprehension of its meaning, Edith had
grown in a night out of herself, into a beautiful fellowship with the
whole world.
Strangely uplifted and forever at peace, she rose from her chair. The
blanket slipped away from her, and her loosened hair flowed back over
her shoulders, catching gleams of starlight as it fell. She stretched
out her arms in yearning toward Alden, her husband, Madame--indeed, all
the world, having come out of self into service; through the love of one
to the love of all.
Then, through the living darkness, came the one clear call: "Mine?"
Unmistakably the answer surged back: "In all the ways of Heaven and for
always, I am thine."
XIX
If Love Were All
[Sidenote: When the Shadows Lengthen]
The last of the packing was done, and four trunks stood in the lower
hall, waiting for the expressman. Alden had not seen Edith that day,
though he had haunted the house since breakfast, waiting and hoping for
even a single word.
She had been too busy to come down to luncheon, and had eaten only a
little from the tray Madame sent to her room. She was to take the early
train in the morning.
The afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen when she came down, almost
as white as her fresh linen gown, but diffusing about her some radiance
from within that seemed not wholly of earth. He met her at the foot of
the stairs, and took her hand in his.
"Edith! I've been longing for you all day!"
"And I for you," she returned, avoiding his eyes.
"Listen, dear. Give me the rest of it, won't you?"
[Sidenote: For the Last Time]
"The rest of what?"
"The little time you have left with us--this afternoon and to-night."
For a moment she hesitated, then looked him full in the face, her eyes
mutely questioning his.
"I won't," he said. "I promise you that."
"Then I'll come."
"Out on the river?"
"Yes."
"It's for the last time, Edith," he said, sadly; "the very last time."
"I know," she returned. Her lips quivered a little, but her eyes did not
falter. Clear and steadfast they looked far beyond him into the future
where he had no part. The golden lights in them seemed signal fires now,
summoning him mysteriously onward to some high service, not alien, even
though apart from her.
They said no more until they were in the boat, swinging out upon the
sunlit river. Then Edith glanced at him, half shyly.
"Wasn't last night wonderful?"
"Wasn't it!" he echoed. "I never understood before."
"Nor I."
She trailed a white hand in the water as they sped up stream. The light
touched her hair lovingly, bringing gleams of gold and amber from the
depths.
[Sidenote: Alden's Silence]
"Dear," he said, "did you think that, after last night, I could urge you
to violate your solemn oath or even to break your word?"
"I hoped not, but I didn't know."
"I see it all clearly now. If more was meant for us to have, more would
be right for us to take. Back in the beginning this was meant for you
and me--just this, and nothing more."
"How could there be more? Isn't love enough?"
"Surely, but the separation hurts. Never even to see your face or touch
your hand again!"
"I know," she said, softly. "I'll want you, too."
A thousand things struggled for utterance, but, true to his word, he
remained silent. His whole nature was merged into an imperious demand
for her, the cry of the man's soul for the woman who belonged to him by
divine right.
"If love were all," she breathed, as though in answer to it, "I'd come."
"If love were all," he repeated. "I wonder why it isn't? What is there
on earth aside from this? What more can heaven be than love--without the
fear of parting?"
"No more," she replied. "We've lost each other in this life, but there's
another life to come."
[Sidenote: Whirling Atoms]
"'Helen's lips are drifting dust,'" he quoted.
"Perhaps not. That which once was Helen may be alive to-day in a
thousand different forms. A violet upon a mossy bank, a bough of apple
blossoms mirrored in a pool, the blood upon some rust-stained sword, a
woman waiting, somewhere, for a lover who does not come."
"And her soul?"
"Drawn back into the Universal soul, to be born anew, in part or all."
"What a pagan you are!"
"Yes," she responded, smiling a little, "I am pagan and heathen and
Christian martyr and much else. I am everything that I can understand
and nothing that I cannot. Don't you see?"
"Yes, I see, but what are we after all? Only two whirling atoms, blown
on winds of Fate. What difference does it make whether we cling
together, or are hopelessly sundered, as far apart as the poles?"
"The same difference that it makes to a human body whether its atoms
behave or not. You don't want to upset the Universe, do you?"
He laughed, a trifle bitterly. "I don't flatter myself that I could."
"Not you alone, nor I, nor even both together, but we mustn't set a bad
example to other atoms. As long as there's a preponderance of right in
the world, things are clear, but, shift the balance, and then----"
[Sidenote: What Is Right?]
"What is right?" he demanded, roughly. "Always to do the thing you don't
want to do?"
"That depends," she returned, shrugging her shoulders. "It is to do what
you think is right, and trust that it may be so."
Alden stopped rowing. He was interested in these vague abstractions.
"And," he said, "if a woman thinks it is her duty to murder her husband,
and does it, is she doing right?"
"Possibly. I've seen lots of husbands who would make the world better by
leaving it, even so--well, abruptly, as you indicate. And the lady you
speak of, who, as it were, assists, may merely have drawn a generous
part of Lucretia Borgia for her soul-substance, and this portion chanced
to assert itself while her husband was in the house and out of temper."
"Don't be flippant, darling. This is our last day together. Let's not
play a waltz at an open grave."
The long light lay upon the tranquil waters, and, as a mirror might, the
river gave it back a hundred-fold, sending stray gleams into the rushes
at the bend in the stream, long arrows of impalpable silver into the
far shadows upon the shore, and a transfiguring radiance to Edith's
face.
[Sidenote: A Rainbow]
Where the marsh swerved aside to wait until the river passed, the
sunlight took a tall, purple-plumed iris, the reflection of the
turquoise sky in a shallow pool, a bit of iridescence from a
dragon-fly's wing, the shimmering green of blown grasses and a gleam of
rising mist to make a fairy-like rainbow that, upon the instant,
disappeared.
"Oh!" said Edith. "Did you see?"
"See what, dearest?"
"The rainbow--just for a moment, over the marsh?"
"No, I didn't. Do you expect me to hunt for rainbows while I may look
into your face?"
The faint colour came to her cheeks, then receded. "Better go on," she
suggested, "if we're to get where we're going before dark."
The oars murmured in the water, then rain dripped from the shining
blades. The strong muscles of his body moved in perfect unison as the
boat swept out into the sunset glow. Deeper and more exquisite with
every passing moment, the light lay lovingly upon the stream, bearing
fairy freight of colour and gold to the living waters that sang and
crooned and dreamed from hills to sea.
"It doesn't seem," she said, "as though it were the last time. With
earth so beautiful, how can people be miserable?"
[Sidenote: A Perfect Spring Day]
"Very easily," he responded. The expression of his face changed ever so
little, and lines appeared around his mouth.
"I remember," Edith went on, "the day my mother died. It was a perfect
day late in the Spring, when everything on earth seemed to exult in the
joy of living. Outside, it was life incarnate, with violets and robins
and apple blossoms and that ineffable sweetness that comes only then.
Inside, she lay asleep, as pale and cold as marble. At first, I couldn't
believe it. I went outside, then in again. One robin came to the tree
outside her window and sang until my heart almost broke with the pain of
it. And every time I've heard a robin since, it all comes back to me."
"Yes," said Alden, quietly, "but all the life outside was made from
death, and the death within had only gone on to life again. You cannot
have one without the other, any more than you can have a light without a
shadow somewhere."
"Nor a shadow," Edith continued, "without knowing that somewhere there
must be light."
They stopped at the cleft between the hills, where they had been the
other day, but this time no one waited, with breaking heart, behind the
rustling screen of leaves. Against the rock, with some simple woodcraft
of stones and dry twigs, Alden made a fire, while Edith spread the white
cloth that covered Madame's basket and set forth the dainty fare.
[Sidenote: At Sunset]
They ate in silence, not because there was nothing to say, but because
there was so much that words seemed empty and vain. Afterward, when the
flaming tapestry in the West had faded to a pale web of rose and purple,
faintly starred with exquisite lamps of gleaming pearl, he came to her,
and, without speaking, took her into his arms.
For a long time they stood there, heart to heart, in that rapturous
communion wholly transcending sense. To him it was not because she was a
woman; it was because she was Edith, the mate of his heart and soul.
And, to her, it was a subtle completion of herself, the best of her
answering eagerly to the best in him.
At last, with a sigh, he pushed her gently away from him, and looked
down into her eyes with a great sadness.
"Never any more, beloved. Have you thought of that?"
"Yes, I know," she whispered. "Never any more."
"I'll want you always."
"And I you."
"Sometimes my heart will almost break with longing for you, craving the
dear touch of you, though it might be only to lay my hand upon your
face."
[Sidenote: The Day's Duty]
"Yes, I know."
"And at night, when I dream that we're somewhere together, and I reach
out my arms to hold you close, I'll wake with a start, to find my arms
empty and my heart full."
"The whole world lies between us, dear."
"And heaven also, I think."
"No, not heaven, for there we shall find each other again, with no
barriers to keep us apart."
"I shall live only to make myself worthy of finding you, dearest. I have
nothing else to do."
"Ah, but you have."
"What?"
"The day's duty, always; the thing that lies nearest your hand. You
know, I've begun to see that it isn't so much our business to be happy
as it is to do the things we are meant to do. And I think, too, that
happiness comes most surely to those who do not go out in search of it,
but do their work patiently, and wait for it to come."
"That may be true for others, but not for us. What happiness is there in
the world for me, apart from you?"
"Memory," she reminded him gently. "We've had this much and nobody can
take it away from us."
[Sidenote: Memories]
"But even this will hurt, heart's dearest, when we see each other no
more."
"Not always." As she spoke, she sat down on the ground and leaned back
against a tree. He dropped down beside her, slipped his arm around her,
and drew her head to his shoulder, softly kissing her hair.
"I remember everything," she went on, "from the time you met me at the
station. I can see you now as you came toward me, and that memory is all
by itself, for nobody at the very first meeting looks the same as
afterward. There is always some subtle change--I don't know why. Do I
look the same to you now as I did then?"
"You've always been the most beautiful thing in the world to me, since
the first moment I saw you."
"No, not the first moment."
"When was it, then, darling?"
"The first night, when I came down to dinner, in that pale green satin
gown. Don't you remember?"
"As if I could ever forget!"