AN ILLUSION DISPELLED.
The front door had closed after the last guest, the butler had turned
down the lights in the hall, Miss Starbruck had gone up-stairs, and
Hermia was standing by the library fire. She heard some one come down
the hall, and turned her head, her expression of indifference and mental
fatigue lifting a little. The portière was pushed aside and Cryder
entered the room.
* * * * *
The next morning Hermia stood gazing at her bedroom fire for a few
moments before going down-stairs. Her face wore a peculiar expression.
“Is there anything in love?” she murmured, half aloud. “_Is_ there?”
She went down to the library and sank listlessly into a chair, and
covered her face with her hands. She did not love Cryder. There was but
one answer to the question now. Imagination and will had done their
utmost, but had been conquered by fact. She had made a horrible mistake.
She felt an impulse to fling herself on the floor and shriek aloud. But
the self-control of years was stronger than impulse. In spite of the
softening influences of happier conditions, she must suffer or enjoy in
her old dumb way until something had smashed that iron in her nature to
atoms or melted it to lava.
But, if she was saturated with dull disgust and disappointment, her
conscience rapped audibly on her inactive brain. It was her duty to
herself and to Cryder to break the thing off at once—to continue it, in
fact, was an impossibility. But she shrank from telling Cryder that he
must go and not return. He loved her, not as she had wanted to be loved,
perhaps, but with his heart, his sentiment. She liked him—very much
indeed—and had no desire to give him pain. He might suffer the more
keenly because of the fineness of his sensibilities. Suppose he should
kill himself? Men so often killed themselves for women who did not love
them. She remembered that she had dreamed of men dying for hopeless love
of her; but, now that it seemed imminent, the romance was gone. It would
be nothing but a vulgar newspaper story after all.
What should she do? She must tell him. She turned to her desk, then sank
back into her chair. She could not write. He would come again that
evening. She would tell him then. Written words of that sort were always
brutal.
How she got through that day she never knew. It seemed as if the very
wheels of life were clogged. The sky was gray and the snow fell heavily;
the gas had to be lighted in the house. No one called; but Hermia was
willing to be left to solitude. She was not restless, she was dully
indifferent. The grayness of the day entered into her and enveloped her;
life in the Brooklyn flat had never looked colder and barer than in this
palace which her will and her wealth had created.
When evening came she gave orders that no one but Cryder should be
admitted. Somewhat to her surprise he did not come. She did not care
particularly, but went to bed at half-past nine, and had Miss Newton rub
her to sleep.
* * * * *