When I had left Barbara and Annette together, I took myself seriously
to task. I asked myself whether I understood Barbara's character, and
the answer seemed clear. I had not studied it; I did not understand
it. She was a beautiful creature with whom I had fallen in love; it
was surface love, and I had made no attempt to probe the inner life.
In this respect I was no worse off than multitudes of men and women
who marry without knowing each other. Was Barbara to blame for it? No.
She was in a state of dependence upon a brother whose character I
detested. I had offered myself and was accepted. For the fate in store
for me I, and I alone, was to blame.
I would be lenient towards her; I would devise some wise plan by which
she could be wooed from the wrong path. After all, she was, perhaps,
to be pitied. Thus did I argue, thus did I manufacture excuses for
her, thus did I school myself into a calmer frame of mind.
In this better mood I met her when Annette was not with her, and asked
where she would dine.
"Where you please," she answered, meekly.
Her softened tone filled me with pity and remorse.
"My wish is to please you," I said.
She glanced at me in surprise.
"Are you setting a trap for me?" she asked.
"No, Barbara, only I have been thinking that we do not quite
understand one another."
"It seems so," she admitted, in a mournful voice, "and it is making me
very unhappy."
"Well, don't let it make you unhappy any longer. We both have faults,
and we will try to correct them."
"You dear boy!" she cried, throwing her arms round my neck. "Then you
confess you were in the wrong?"
"Yes, I confess it, Barbara."
"And I confess that I was in the wrong. Now, we are equal."
After a pause:
"No one is quite perfect, John."
"It is not within human limits, Barbara."
"We agree--we agree!" she danced about the room in delight. "Isn't it
delightful? Oh, I was beginning to despair!"
There was really something childlike in her voice and manner, and I
followed her movements with admiration. Suddenly she stopped, and
throwing herself on the sofa, hid her face in the cushion, and began
to sob.
It was the first time that an act of mine had caused a woman to sob,
and it unmanned me. I sat by her side and soothed her with awkward,
endearing words, and my efforts were rewarded; she became calmer.
"It is so sweet, so sweet, when you are like this!" she murmured, and
dried her eyes. "You are my dear old boy again, just as you were
before we were married. Oh, John, why did you go over my boxes on the
sly?"
"It was wrong; I have confessed it."
"But I like to hear you say it. You were wrong!"
"Yes, I was wrong."
"You mean it, dear--you are not deceiving me?"
"No, Barbara, I am not deceiving you."
She pouted. "It is nothing but 'Barbara, Barbara.' 'Yes, Barbara,'
'No, Barbara.' Not so very long ago you would say, 'No, my love,'
'Yes, my darling.' Now, my dear, dear boy, say out of your very heart,
'I am not deceiving you, my darling.'"
I repeated the words; to have refused, to have hesitated, would have
destroyed the good work, the better understanding, of which I seemed
to see the promise.
"I am not deceiving you, my darling."
"Oh, how good it is to hear you speak like that! It is like waking out
of a horrid dream to a delightful reality. And you truly, truly love
me?"
Again I answered, under pressure. "I truly love you."
"Then I don't care for anything else in the wide, wide world, and I am
the happiest woman in it. You had almost forgotten, had you not, John,
that I was alone in this city, without a friend but you? I have only
you--only you. I hardly cared to live, for what is life without love?
But I was frightening myself unnecessarily--or were you doing it just
to try me. You will be kind to me, will you not, dear?'
"Indeed, I have no other desire."
"See how a foolish woman can create shadows that terrify her. That is
what I did; but they are gone now, all blown away by my dear boy's
tender words. And you don't mind my little faults--you will put up
with them."
I ventured a saving clause. "Yes, Barbara, and I will try to correct
them."
"Of course you will; I expect you to. But you must do it in a nice
way. Long lectures are horrid. When I try to correct yours--for that
will be only fair play, John, will it, not?--you will see how gentle I
will be."
"At the same time, Barbara, while we are correcting each other's
faults, we must help ourselves by trying to correct our own."
"I promise, with all my heart; and when I make a promise in that way
you may be perfectly sure that it will be performed. That is a virtue
I really possess. And so we will go on correcting each other till we
are old, old people, ready to become angels, when we sha'n't have any
faults at all to correct. For angels are faultless, you know. I am
deeply religious, John, dear. There are angels and devils. The good
people become angels, the wicked people devils."
"You are mixing up things, rather, are you not, Barbara?"
"Well, it is full of mystery, and who does know for certain? But one
can believe; there is no harm in that, is there?"
"None at all."
"And I believe there is a heaven and a hell. You believe it, too, of
course?"
"Assuredly I believe there is a heaven, but not that there is a hell
hereafter."
She pondered over the words. "A hell hereafter! Why the 'hereafter,'
dear?"
"Because I have a firm conviction that we may suffer hell in this
life, but not in the next."
"A hell in this life! That would be awful. We will not suffer it,
love."
"I trust not, sincerely."
"'Trust not!' You mean you are sure we shall not, surely."
"I am sure we shall not, Barbara."
I was as wax in her hands, standing, so to speak, forever on the edge
of a precipice of her creating, and compelled to the utterance of
sentiments to which I could not conscientiously subscribe, in order to
escape the wreck of a possible happiness.
"That I believe in hell fire and you do not," she said, thoughtfully,
"shall not be a cause of difference between us. Everybody thinks his
own ideas of religion are right. Perhaps bye and bye I will try to
convert you, and if you feel very strongly on the subject of hell you
shall try to convert me. Which do you think worse--a hell in this
life, or a hell in the next?"
"I have never considered it. Don't let us worry ourselves about
theological matters during our honeymoon."
"You are right, John; see how quickly I give in to you. I will tell
you why, sir--because it is a wife's duty. You will never find me
behindhand in that. Our honeymoon! How nicely you said it. There shall
be nothing but sunshine and flowers, and the singing of birds, and
love. Oh, what a happy, happy time! And you are no longer angry with
me that I have engaged Annette?"
"I am not angry with you at all."
"John," she said, shaking her finger playfully at me, "that is an
evasion, and you mustn't set me bad examples. Answer my question
immediately, sir."
"Well, Barbara, so long as she does not bring discord between us----"
She stopped me with a kiss. "No, John, that will not do--it really
will not do, you bad boy. You mustn't take unreasonable antipathies to
people. A lady's-maid has a great deal to put up with, and mistresses
are often very trying. There, you see, I don't spare myself--oh, no, I
am a very just person, and I like every one to be justly treated. Say
at once, sir, that you are no longer angry with me for engaging
Annette."
Mistrusting the woman as I did, I was forced, for the sake of peace,
to express approval of her. Barbara clapped her hands, and declared we
should be quite a happy family.
It was after this interview that Barbara had a religious fit. Twice a
day she went to the Madeleine, and spent an hour there upon her knees.
Sometimes Annette accompanied her, sometimes I, upon her invitation. I
asked her why she, a Protestant, frequented a Catholic place of
worship.
"What does it matter, the place?" she asked, in return, speaking in a
gentle tone. "It does one good to pray. Even to kneel in such a temple
without saying a prayer strengthens one's soul. Through the solemn
silence, broken now and then by a sob from some poor woman's broken
heart, a message comes from God. Women are greatly to be pitied,
John."
"Men, too, sometimes," I said.
"Oh, no," she answered, quickly, "there is no comparison."
A trifling incident may be set down here, in connection with the
brooch, with its device of two hearts, which I had purchased as a
present for Barbara on the first night we were in Paris, and which I
afterwards determined not to give her. I was in the sitting-room
clearing my pockets. Among the things I had taken out was the brooch,
which I had almost forgotten. I was still of the opinion that it would
be an unsuitable gift, and I was thinking what to do with it when
Annette passed through the sitting-room to the bedroom, her eyes, as
usual, lowered to the ground. In the course of the day I went to the
jeweler of whom I had purchased the brooch, and he took it back at
half the price I had paid for it. I thought no more of the matter.