Keith Athelstone goes home that night to his rooms, and feels in his
heart that he has been a coward.
He knows he has had no right to wring from a woman's weakness such a
concession as that which he has won from Lauraine. She is not of the
stuff that heroines are made of, and truly there is no "heroic"
element about himself. It is a great mistake to fancy people are
either very good or very bad in this world of ours. Only too often
there is simply a mixture of both in their characters, and
circumstances or strength of feeling alternately throw their weight
into the balance.
But alone to-night with his own thoughts, and with the fever-pulse of
passion dying slowly back into its natural beat, Keith remembers what
has passed, and has the grace to feel a little ashamed of it, even
though he declares to himself over and over again that he would act
in just the same way under similar circumstances.
It is always hard for a second person to judge of our actions. No
one can understand those secret springs--that inner mechanism which
moves us to do certain things by certain impulses. That one mad
moment had been to Keith Athelstone as the turning-point of his life.
A fiery temptation had to be withstood, or yielded to. He had chosen
to do the latter.
With his hot-blooded, impetuous temperament--with the knowledge in
his heart that he loved this woman beyond and above all others in the
world, beyond all possibility of forgetfulness--he knew also that
such a thing as mere cold, prosaic friendship was an utter
impossibility. At some moment like to-night, when senses and heart
thrilled with answering rapture, when passion ran riot in his veins,
when the aching and longing of his life spoke one impetuous desire
and hurled aside all scruples, as the strength of Samson rent asunder
the withes that bound his mighty limbs--at some such moment as this,
forms and ceremonies, right and wrong, all would be again forgotten,
and those words of Lauraine's would be verified when she said "there
can be no safety in such a compact."
He paces to and fro his rooms--the rooms Lauraine's judgment and
choice has selected and furnished--luxurious apartments that look out
on St. James's Park.
The radiance of the early summer dawn--beautiful even in a great
city--is over all the sky. A faint breeze rustles the trees--the
birds sing and chirp among boughs that are moist with the night's
rain, just some tender freshening shower that had fallen scarce an
hour before.
Those young tired eyes of Keith Athelstone's look out on it all, and
a sigh parts his lips.
"There are so many women in the world," he mutters, as he ceases his
restless pacing, and leans against the open window. "So many that
are beautiful and young, and easy to win, and yet all my life is but
a longing for one who can be nothing to me. How hard fate is!"
The cool, fresh air blows over his brow, but it does not still its
aching. His whole soul is hardened, and bitterly ashamed. He has
gained his will, he has forced Lauraine to say "_Stay_," but all the
same his triumph brings no satisfaction. That she loves him he
knows, but she is not a woman to lend herself to the base frailties
of a lax morality, to sink to the low level that pursues its joys in
secret, and smiles serenely on the face of society at large. There
would be no playing at innocence with her, and she was too proud as
well as too passionate not to suffer intensely in the struggle. And
then, after all, how would it end--how do these poor pretences ever
end? The barrier is so frail--a look, a word, a chance meeting, and
it is overthrown, and then----
He springs impetuously to his feet here. He dares not pursue that
train of thought any further.
"I won't think of the end," he mutters. "I shall see her still, and
sufficient unto the day is the--evil--thereof!"
The evil?
Might it come to that for Lauraine, and for himself!
"My dear," says Lady Etwynde to Lauraine, as she sits in the boudoir
of the latter, "your roses looked charming; there was something so
simple and artistic in that arrangement; not like a regular florist's
bouquet. But why did you leave them in the garden? I found them
lying on the grass when I walked there this morning, and as I love
roses, though they have not the subtle meaning of our own peculiar
flowers, I brought them in and put them in water."
Lauraine flushes hotly, and then grows as suddenly pale.
"I--I dropped them, I suppose," she says, bending over some crewels
she is sorting. "It is of no consequence. I get so many flowers."
Lady Etwynde glances quickly at the beautiful, troubled face. She
has taken a warm liking to Lauraine, and when alone with her drops
all her fantastic ways and conversation. She leans back now in her
low chair, and looks long and thoughtfully at her friend.
"I had not much time to speak to you last night," she says presently;
"and you left so suddenly. I was afraid you were ill."
"Oh no--I was only tired," answers Lauraine. "How charming your
evening was. I rarely hear such music as at your house."
"Yes; Signor Alfieri was delightful," agrees Lady Etwynde. "Did you
like his new song, by the way?"
"Do you mean the English one?" asks Lauraine, feeling an odd little
thrill at her heart as she remembers the passionate melody which had
so moved and stirred her. "It was perfectly exquisite."
"I wrote him the words," says Lady Etwynde calmly.
"_You!_" exclaims Lauraine, in surprise.
"Not that I believe in such sentiments," continues her friend,
smiling. "For the matter of that, I suppose no poet is quite idiot
enough to believe what he writes, unless they are things like the
'Boudoir Ballads.' But it sounds well to talk of love being all in
all, though no one believes it is--or, indeed, wants it to be.
Moonlight and kisses are all very well, but we want some more
substantial food in life than that."
"You don't believe in love, then?" questions Lauraine.
"Not much. I have outlived that faith. Most women do. At sixteen,
you know, we believe in all men; at twenty in _one_; at thirty in
none. I believe in none. I have given myself up to the pleasures of
the mind, and they suit me much better. I am a disciple of culture."
"I know," smiles Lauraine. "But you might find a kindred spirit even
there. What then?"
"Well, I have not much fear of that," says Lady Etwynde gravely.
"You see, the men I meet and associate with are more or less
hobby-riders. They each have a special subject, and devote
themselves to it--almost too much so, in fact. But I suppose it is
difficult to draw the line. A fair and adequate amount of culture is
delightful, but it leads people on to wild lengths sometimes. I am
wondering in my own mind how far the desire for its acquisition will
lead me. Still, one must have some object in life--especially if one
is a woman and not married; and I shall never be that."
"Why is it so improbable?" asks Lauraine.
"Why? Oh, because I don't care for such a prosaic termination to my
liberty for one thing, and I don't believe in men for another. And
society--society as it is now--has really very little interest for
me. It bores me, in point of fact. All the same, my dear, the men I
meet and whose society I cultivate are not at all the sort of men to
inspire romantic sentiments--do you think so?"
"Candidly, I do not," smiles Lauraine.
"And as a woman--however hard she strives to cultivate her mental
power--must also have some outlet for the weaker and more sentimental
portion of her nature, I take refuge in writing poetry. It is very
safe, and does no one either good or harm, which is more than we can
say of some of our modern poets. I have never shaped my actions by
what people think or believe, and I am not going to begin now. I am
called eccentric, but I would rather be that than commonplace. You,
now, are very different. You are full to the brim with romance, and
you still believe in 'moonlight and kisses.' Unfortunately, I can't
preach a mission to you, for you are married; and as for art and
culture, well, your position demands incessant sacrifices, and the
higher good must suffer. Perhaps, after all, it is best to live for
the life about one, not some abstract thing that only has interest
for a few. The one owns a wider range of sympathy, and has at least
the advantage of being understood."
"I think no amount of learning or mental culture--to use your
favourite expression--should destroy one's sympathy with the common
joys, and needs, and sorrows around us," says Lauraine thoughtfully.
"Life has to be lived; we can't get over that fact, and to shut
ourselves apart in the selfish absorption of one special idea, and
sneer at all who cannot understand or cannot pause to investigate it,
is really a sort of sin against ourselves and our fellow-beings."
"Do you mean that I do that?" asks Lady Etwynde.
"Oh, no; you have plenty of sympathy even for those outside the pale
of 'culture.' But a great many of those who surround and flatter you
at your æsthetic court are the most prejudiced and narrow-minded
individuals it has ever been my lot to meet."
"Ah," sighs Lady Etwynde. "I suppose you are right--it is a case of
'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.' I often wonder whether it
is best to take life very seriously, or laugh at it as a good joke."
"I should think our own natures could alone make either case
possible," says Lauraine.
"But the greatest mistake is to put your heart into it," continues
Lady Etwynde. "It is like giving a licence to your friends and
enemies alike. The purely selfish people are the only class who get
any real enjoyment out of life, after all."
"It can scarcely be enjoyment," says Lauraine. "A life apart from
love--from sympathy--from the interests of others--can never be an
entirely happy one, though it may be in a sense untroubled."
"We are having a very grave conversation for a morning call," says
Lady Etwynde; "and it all came about the flowers. Was that your own
idea, my love?"
"No--Keith--Mr. Athelstone suggested it," Lauraine answers, with
again that burning blush on her delicate cheek.
"You and he are very good friends, I suppose," remarks Lady Etwynde,
rising to make her adieux. "But all the same, my dear, I should
suggest to him to get married. A rich young man knocking about town
is sure to get into mischief. Yes, he'd be much better off married,
and there's that pretty American girl--whatever her name is; you know
her, don't you?--well, absolutely dying for love of him."
"Indeed?" says Lauraine coldly; "I should scarcely think she was the
sort of girl he would admire."
"I never said he admired her. Only I suppose there was something or
other between them in New York. At least they met there, and her
aunt is so awfully thick with him."
"He has never mentioned her name to me," answers Lauraine, wondering
why that sudden, sharp pain is at her heart--why the bare idea of
Keith Athelstone's marriage should be so hateful.
"Ah!--well, I suppose there is nothing in it but talk," says Lady
Etwynde. "You and he are just like brother and sister. He would be
sure to have told you."
Brother and sister! A hot, shamed flush creeps to Lauraine's brow,
and spreads itself over her face and down to the milk-white throat.
Brother and sister!--and on her lips still burns, and in her heart
still lives the memory of that kiss of last night.
Lady Etwynde goes, and Lauraine sits there alone, and thinks with
shame and terror of what she has weakly yielded--permission for his
visits, his presence, his old accustomed privileges that the world
deems so natural--that she knows to be so wrong now. At the bottom
of her heart lies a bitter contempt of herself and her folly--it
stings her to hot anger with him--to a haunting dread that will ever
pursue her. And yet ... and yet ...