No one could have been more surprised than the Reverend Eustace
Medlicott at the behavior of his betrothed. Far from showing any
contrition for her unseemly absence upon the arm of a perfect stranger,
and a foreigner to boot, Stella had returned to the fold of her
relations' group with a demure and radiant face, and when Eustace had
ventured some querulous reproaches, she had cut him short by saying she
had done as she wished and did not intend to listen to any remarks
about it.
"You will have to learn more humbleness of mind, my dear child," he
retorted sternly. "I cannot allow you to reply to your future husband
in this independent tone."
"I shall just answer as I please," said Stella, and felt almost
inclined to laugh, he looked so cross and amazed. Then she turned and
talked to the cousin, Mr. Deanwood, and took no further notice of him.
Mr. Medlicott burned with annoyance. Stella would really have to be
careful or he would not go on with the match--he had no intention of
taking to wife a woman who would defy him--there was Nancy Ruggles
ready to be his slave--and others besides her. And his career could be
just as well assisted by the Bishop's daughter as by Canon Ebley's
niece, even though her uncle was a crotchety and unknown Lord, patron
of two fat livings. But Stella, with a rebellious little curl loosened
on her snowy neck and a rebellious pout upon her cherry lips, was so
very alluring a creature to call one's own, the desire of the flesh,
which he called by any other name, fought hard with his insulted
spirit, though to give in would be too ignominious; she must say she
was sorry first, and then he could find it in his heart to forgive her.
But the opportunity to show this magnanimity was not vouchsafed to him
by fate--for other people were introduced to the party by Mr. Deanwood,
and he did not exchange a word alone with his erring fiancee until she
said a cold good-night in the hall of the Grand Hotel.
"Stella, remain for a moment, I wish to speak to you," he said in the
voice in which he was accustomed to read the burial service.
But she feigned not to hear and followed her Aunt Caroline's black
velvet train on to the lift and at that same moment a discreet-looking
foreign servant came up and handed him a note.
He read it in surprise--who could be sending him a note at a quarter
past twelve at night?
Dear Sir [it ran],
I shall be greatly obliged if you can spare to me half an hour before
retiring to your rest to converse upon a matter of importance. I had
the honor of making your acquaintance to-night at your Embassy. If you
will grant me this favor I will wait upon you immediately in the hall,
or, if you prefer, my sitting-room; my servant could conduct you here,
and we shall have the advantage of being entirely undisturbed. I
remain, sir, Yours truly.
SASHA ROUMOVSKI.
Eustace Medlicott gasped with astonishment. This Russian gentleman was
evidently in need of his ministrations and perhaps advice. He would go
to his room, certainly, there were still some people in the hall having
late coffee and refreshment after the theater.
He indicated by a condescending movement that he was ready to follow
the waiting servant, and soon found himself being shown into Count
Roumovski's sitting-room. It was luxuriously appointed and represented
every appearance of manly comfort. There were quantities of books and
papers about and the smell of excellent cigars, and put carelessly
aside were various objets d'art which antique dealers had evidently
sent for his grand seigneur's approval.
Count Roumovski was standing by the mantelpiece and looked very tall
and commanding in his evening dress.
"It is most good of you to come," he said, while he indicated a big
arm-chair for his visitor to sit in--he did not offer to shake hands.
"It was certainly my duty to have called upon you, my only apology for
getting you to ascend here is that the subject I wish to converse with
you is too serious for both of us to admit of interruptions."
"Indeed," said Mr. Medlicott, pompously--growing more surprised each
moment. "And may I ask the nature of your trouble?"
Count Roumovski did not change his position by the mantelpiece and he
kept still as a bronze statue as he spoke in a courteous tone:
"It is not a trouble at all," he began, gravely, "on the contrary, it
is a great joy and honor for me. I will state the facts immediately. I
understand that for a short while you have been engaged to be married
to Miss Stella Rawson, the niece of the respected English clergyman,
the Reverend Ebley--"
"Pardon me," interrupted Mr. Medlicott acidly, "but I do not see how my
private affairs can interest you, sir, I cannot--"
But the host in turn interrupted him.
"If you will be so good as to listen patiently, you will find that this
matter is of vital importance--may I proceed?"
Mr. Medlicott bowed; what more could he do? Count Roumovski went on:
"I understand that Miss Rawson never showed very strong affection for
you or great desire for this union--so what I have to ask now is, if
you, as a gentleman, will release her from her promise to you and set
her free."
"Upon my word, sir, this is too much," Mr. Medlicott exclaimed,
starting to his feet, "by what authority do you say these preposterous
things? You were only introduced to Miss Rawson and myself to-night.
You must be mad!"
"No, I am quite sane. And I say them upon the best authority," Count
Roumovski continued, "because I love Miss Rawson myself, and I am
deeply honored by believing that in return she loves me--not you at
all. Therefore, it is common sense to ask you to release her, and let
her be happy with the person she prefers--is it not so?"
Eustace Medlicott had grown white with anger and astonishment as he
listened, and now broke in hotly, forgetful of his intoning voice or
anything but his outraged dignity.
"When have you had the opportunity to try and undermine the faith of my
betrothed, may I ask? Supposing you are saying this seriously and not
as some ill-timed jest."
Count Roumovski lifted his eyebrows a little and looked almost with
pity at his adversary. "We are not talking in the heroic manner," he
replied, unmoved by the other's taunt, "we are, I presume, two fairly
intelligent men discussing this affair together--there has been no
question of undermining. Miss Rawson and myself found we understood
each other very soon after we first met. Surely, you must realize, sir,
that love cannot be commanded, it will not come or go at one's bidding.
These ridiculous bonds of convention, holding to a promise given when
the spirit to keep it is no longer there, can ruin people's lives."
Mr. Medlicott drew himself up, he was not quite so tall as the Russian,
but of no mean height, and his intense, ascetic face, emaciated to
extreme leanness, now reddened with passion, while the veins stood out
upon his high, narrow forehead. He was always very irritable when
crossed, and his obstinate nature was strongly combative.
"You forget, sir," he said angrily, "you are insulting my honor."
"Not the least in the world--you do not understand the point," Count
Roumovski returned calmly. "Listen for a minute--and I will explain. If
Miss Rawson were already your wife I should be, and you would have the
right to try and kill me, did your calling permit of that satisfaction
of gentlemen, because there is a psychological and physiological reason
involved in that case, producing the instinct in man which he is not
perhaps conscious of, that he wishes to be sure his wife's legitimate
offspring are his own--out of this instinct, civilization has built up
the idea of a man's honor--which you can see has a basic principle of
sense and justice."
Mr. Medlicott with difficulty restrained himself from interrupting and
the Russian went on.
"The situation of betrothed is altogether different: in it there have
merely been promises exchanged, promises, for the most part, which no
man or woman can honestly engage with any certainty to keep, because
feeling toward the other is not within his or her control--both are
promising upon a sentiment, not a reality."
"I totally disagree with you," Eustace Medlicott answered angrily,
"when men and women make promises to one another they should have wills
strong enough to keep them."
"For what sensible reason?" Count Roumovski asked. "In a case where the
happiness of both is involved, and where no damage has been incurred by
either--"
Mr. Medlicott clasped his hands convulsively but he did not reply--so
the Russian went on:
"Surely, you must see that a woman should be free to marry--that is, to
give herself and her power to become a mother where she loves--not to
be forced to bestow these sacred gifts when her spirit is
unwilling--just because she has made the initial mistake of affiancing
herself to a man, often through others' influence, who she discovers
afterward is distasteful to her. Cannot you realize that it is wise for
himself as well as for her that this man release her, before a life of
long misery begins for them both?"
Mr. Medlicott never analyzed reasons, and never listened to other
people's logic, and if he had any of his own he was too angry to use
it. He was simply conscious now that a foreigner had insulted him and
appeared to have stolen the affections of his betrothed, and his sacred
calling precluded all physical retaliation--which, at the moment, was
the only kind that would have given him any satisfaction. He prepared
to stalk furiously from the room after he should receive an answer to
an all-important question.
"The whole thing is disgraceful," he said, "and I shall inform Miss
Rawson's uncle and aunt of your highly insulting words to me, that they
may guard her from further importunity upon your part. But I should
like to know, in fairness, how far you are stating you have been able
to persuade my fiancee to agree to your view?"
"I am sorry you should have become so heated and angry," Count
Roumovski returned, "because it stops all sensible discussion. I deeply
regret having been forced to inflict pain upon you, but if you would
give yourself time to think calmly you would see that, however
unfortunate the fact may be for you of Miss Rawson's affections having
become fixed on me--these things are no one's fault and beyond human
control--Miss Rawson has left the breaking off of her engagement to you
in my hands, and has decided that she desires to marry me, as I desire
to marry her, as soon as she is free."
"I refuse to listen to another word," Mr. Medlicott flashed, "and I
warn you, sir, that I will give no such freedom at your bidding--on the
contrary, I shall have my marriage with Miss Rawson solemnized
immediately, and try, if there is a word of truth in your preposterous
assertion that she loves you, to bring her back to a proper sense of
her duty to me and to God, repressing her earthly longings by
discipline and self-denial, the only true methods for the saving of her
soul. And I and her natural guardians, her uncle and her aunt, will
take care that you never see her again."
Count Roumovski raised his eyebrows once more and prepared to light a
cigar.
"It is a pity you will not discuss this peacefully, sir," he said, "or
apparently even think about it yourself with common sense. If you would
do so, you would begin by asking yourself what God gave certain human
beings certain attributes for," he blew a few whiffs of smoke, "whether
to be wasted and crushed out by the intolerance of others,--or whether
to be tended and grow to the highest, as flowers grow with light and
air and water."
"What has that got to do with the case?" asked Mr. Medlicott, tapping
his foot uneasily.
"Everything," went on the Russian, mildly, "you, I believe, are a
priest, and therefore should be better able to expound your Deity's
meaning than I, a layman--but you have evidently not the same point of
view--mine is always to look at the facts of a case denuded of
prejudice--because the truth is the thing to aim at--"
"You would suggest that I am not aiming at the truth," the clergyman
interrupted, trembling now with anger, so that he fiercely grasped the
back of a high chair, "your words are preposterous, sir."
"Not at all," Count Roumovski continued. "Look frankly at things; you
have just announced that you would constitute yourself judge of what is
for Miss Rawson's salvation."
"Leave her name out, I insist," the other put in hotly.
"To be concrete, unfortunately, I cannot do so," the Russian said. "I
must speak of this lady we are both interested in--pray, try to listen
to me calmly, sir, for we are here for the settling of a matter which
concerns the happiness of our three lives."
"I do not admit for a moment that you have the right to speak at all,"
Mr. Medlicott returned, but his adversary went on quietly.
"You must have remarked that Miss Rawson possesses beauty of form,
sweet and tender flesh, soft coloring, and a look of health and warmth
and life. All these charms tend to create in man a passionate physical
love. That is cause and effect. For the sake of the present argument we
will, for the moment, leave out all more important questions of the
soul and things mental and spiritual. Well, who gave her these
attributes? Did you or I--or even her parents, consciously? Or did the
Supreme Being, whom you call God, endow her so? Admitted that He
did--have you, then, or anyone else, the right to crush out the result
of His endowment in a woman; crush her joy of them, force her into a
life where their possession is looked upon as a temptation? Seek to
marry her--remember that marriage physically means being certainly
actuated to do so by their attraction--and yet believing that you sin
each time you allow them to influence you." Count Roumovski's level
voice took on a note of deep emotion and his blue eyes gleamed. "Why,
the degradation is horrible to think of, sir, if you will face the
truth--and this is the fate to which you would condemn this young and
tender girl for your own selfishness, knowing she does not love you."
Eustace Medlicott walked up and down rapidly for a moment; he then
picked up a book and threw it aside again in agitation. He was very
pale now.
"I refuse to have the woman I have decided to marry snatched from me by
any of your sophistries," he said breathlessly. "I am better able than
you to save her soul, and she owes me honor and obedience--it is most
unseemly to even mention the aspects you have done in a bond which is a
sacrament of holy church and should be only approached in a spiritual
frame of mind, not a carnal one."
"You are talking pure nonsense, sir," returned Count Roumovski sternly.
"If that were the case the wording of your English marriage service
would be different. First and foremost, marriage is a contract between
two people to live together in union of body and to procreate children,
which is the law of God and nature. Men added arrangement and endowment
of property, and the church added spiritual sacrament. But God and
nature invented the vital thing. If it were not so, it would have been
possible for the spiritually minded, of which company you infer
yourself to be, to live with a woman on terms of brother and sister,
and never let the senses speak at all. There would then have been no
necessity for the ceremony of marriage for priests with your views."
Eustace Medlicott shook with passion and emotion as he answered
furiously: "You would turn the question into one of whether a priest
should marry or not. It is a question which has agitated me all my
life, and which I have only lately been able to come to a conclusion
upon. I refuse to let you disturb me in it."
"I had not thought of doing so," Count Roumovski returned tranquilly.
"You and your views and your destiny do not interest me, I must own,
except in so far as they interfere with myself and the woman I love.
You have proved yourself to be just a warped atom of the great
creation, incapable of anything but ignoble narrowness. You cannot even
examine your own emotions honestly and probe their meaning or you would
realize no man should marry, be he priest or layman, if he looks upon
the joys of physical love as base and his succumbing to them a proof of
the power of the beast in himself. Because he then lives under
continual degradation of soul by acting against his conscience."
Mr. Medlicott was now silent, almost choking with perturbation. So
Count Roumovski went on:
"The wise man faces the facts of nature. Looks straight to find God's
meaning in them, and then tries to exalt and ennoble them to their
loftiest good. He does not, in his puny impotence, quarrel with the
all-powerful Creator and try to stamp out that with which He thought
fit to endow human beings."
"Your words convey a flagrant denial of original sin, and I cannot
listen to such an argument," Mr. Medlicott flashed, his anger now at
white heat. "You would do away with a whole principle of the Christian
religion."
"No; I would only do away with a faulty interpretation which man
grafted upon it," Count Roumovski answered.
Then the two men glared straight into each other's eyes for a moment,
and Eustace Medlicott quailed beneath the magnetic force of the
Russian's blue ones--he turned away abruptly. He was too intolerant of
character and too disturbed now to permit himself to hear more of these
reasonings. He could but resort to protest and let his wrath rise to
assist him.
"It cannot benefit either Miss Rawson or ourselves to continue this
unseemly controversy over her," he said in a raucous voice. "I have
told you I will give no freedom upon your request--and I have warned
you of my action. Now I shall go," and he took three steps toward the
door.
But Count Roumovski's next words arrested him a moment; his tone was no
longer one of suave, detached calmness, but sharp and decisive, and his
bearing was instinct with strength and determination.
"Since we are coming to warnings," he said, "we drop the velvet glove.
The discourtesy to a lady conveyed in your words obliges me to use my
own way without further consulting you for assisting her wishes. I will
again thank you for coming up here and will have the honor to wish you
goodnight." With which he opened the door politely and bowed his
visitor out.
And when he was alone Count Roumovski sat down by the open window and
puffed his cigar meditatively for some minutes, smiling quietly to
himself as he mused:
"Poor, stupid fellow! If people could only be honest enough with
themselves to have a sensible point of view! It is all so simple if
they would get down to the reason of things without all this false
sentiment. Of what use to chain the body of a woman to one man if her
spirit is with another? Of what use to talk of offended honor with
high-sounding words when, if one were truthful, one would own it was
offended vanity? Of what use for this narrow, foolish clergyman to
protest and bombast and rave, underneath he is actuated by mostly human
motives in his desire to marry my Stella? When will the world learn to
be natural and see the truth? Love of the soul is the divine part of
the business, but it cannot exist without love of the body. As well ask
a man to live upon bread without water."
Then he moved to his writing table and composed rapidly a letter to his
beloved in which he recounted to her the result of the interview and
the threats of her late fiance, and the humor in which he had quitted
the room, and from that she might judge of what she must reasonably
expect. He advised her, as he was unaware of how far the English
authority of a guardian might go, to feign some fatigue and keep her
room next day and on no account whatever to be persuaded to leave Rome
or the hotel. He told her that in the morning he would endeavor to see
her uncle and aunt, but if they refused this interview, he would write
and ask formally for her hand, and if his request were treated with
scorn, then she must be prepared to slip away with him to the Excelsior
Hotel and be consigned to the care of the Princess Urazov, his sister,
who would have arrived from Paris. The business part of the epistle
over, he allowed himself half a page of love sentences--which caused
Miss Rawson exquisite delight when she read them some moments later.
She had not gone to bed directly, she was too excited and full of new
emotions to be thinking of sleep, and when she heard Ivan's gentle tap
at her door she crept to it and whispered without opening it:
"Who is there?"
A low voice answered: "Une lettre pour mademoiselle." And the epistle
was slipped into the little box for letters on the door. She went back
to her wide window and looked out on the darkness after she had read
it. She saw there would be trouble ahead, she knew Eustace Medlicott's
obstinate spirit very well, and also the rigid convention of Aunt
Caroline--but to what lengths they would go she formulated no guess.
It all seemed so secure and happy and calm now with such a man to lean
upon as Sasha Roumovski. Nothing need ruffle or frighten her ever any
more. And then she read the love sentences again and thrilled and
quivered there in the warm, soft night. Sasha Roumovski's influence
over her had grown so strong that not a questioning speculation as to
the step she meant to take any longer entered her head. She felt she
knew at last what love's meaning truly was, and nothing else mattered
in the world--which, indeed, was the truth!
Meanwhile, the Reverend Eustace Medlicott, burning with fury, had
stalked to his room, and there tried to think of what he had better do.
He feared it was too late to communicate with Canon and Mrs.
Ebley--they would have retired to bed, and Stella, also. Here his
thoughts were brought up with violent suddenness. Was she quite safe?
Heavens above! and he turned quite cold--foreigners might be capable of
any outrage--but presently he dismissed this fear. People always locked
their doors in hotels, and Stella, though she had apparently shown
herself sadly unworthy of his regard, was a thoroughly well brought-up
young woman, and would not be likely to bandy words in the night with
any young man. But on the morrow he would insist upon their all leaving
the hotel and Rome itself--no more chances of her communicating with
this hateful Russian count should be risked.
As the Ebley party had only arrived three days ago in the city, it was
clearly impossible that the affair could have gone far, and as he had
heard of their sightseeing and knew Mrs. Ebley would be extremely
unlikely to allow Stella out of her sight in any case, he could not
imagine how his fiancee and the Russian could have found a chance to
speak--and even a foreigner could not persuade a woman into this course
of action in half an hour's talk at the Embassy! The whole thing must
be the ravings of a madman, nothing more, and Stella herself would be
the first to explain that point on the morrow.
But even this comforting thought could not quite calm him--there
remained disquieting recollections of certain forcible arguments he had
been obliged to listen to against his will which had hit some part of
his inner consciousness usually impregnably protected by his
self-conceit. And it was an hour or two before he was able to drink his
barley water and retire to rest, which he felt he badly needed after
his long journey and uncomfortably exciting evening.