He sat long in the twilight, now; rising insensibly about him. The garden
had become a grave, yet not unfriendly, place; the white straining Nereids
were taking on a tinge of violet, the verdure was of a deeper hue, that was
all; and the fountain plashed unhurriedly, as though measuring a reasonable
interval (he whimsically imagined) between the asking of a riddle and its
solution given gratis by the asker.
He loved the woman; granted: but did not love rise the higher above a
corner-stone of delusion? And this he could never afford. He considered
Claire to be not extravagantly clever, he could have improved upon her
ears (to cite one instance), which were rather clumsily modelled; her
finger-tips were a thought too thick, a shade too practical, and in fine
she was no more the most beautiful woman in the world than she was the
tallest: and yet he loved her as certainly he had loved none of his recent
mistresses. Even so, here was no infatuation, no roseate and kindly haze
surrounding a goddess, such as that which had by ordinary accompanied
Alison Pleydell....
"I am grown older, perhaps. Perhaps it is merely that I am fashioned of
baser stuff than---say, Achille Cazaio or de Soyecourt. Or perhaps it
is that this overmastering, all-engulfing love is a mere figment of the
poet, an age-long superstition as zealously preserved as that of the
inscrutability of women, by men who don't believe a syllable of the
nonsense they are transmitting. Ysoude is dead; and I love my young
French wife as thoroughly as Palomides did, with as great a passion as
was possible to either of us oldsters. Well! all life is a compromise; I
compromise with tradition by loving her unselfishly, by loving her with the
very best that remains in John Bulmer.
"And yet, I wish--
"True, I may be hanged at noon to-morrow, which would somewhat disconcert
my plan. I shall not bother about that. Always there remains the chance
that, somehow, Gaston may arrive in time: otherwise--why, otherwise I shall
be hanged, and as to what will happen afterward I decline to enter into any
discussion even with myself. I have my belief, but it is bolstered by no
iota of knowledge. Faith, let us live this life as a gentleman should, and
keep our hands and our consciences as clean as may be possible, and for the
outcome trust to God's common-sense. There are people who must divert Him
vastly by their frantic efforts to keep out of hell. For my own part, I
would not think of wearing a pelisse in the Desert of Sahara merely because
I happened to be sailing for Greenland during the ensuing week. I shall
trust to His common-sense.
"And yet, I wish--
"I wish Reinault would hurry with the supper-trays. I am growing very
hungry."