CHAOS.
She began to hate Cryder with a mortal hatred. When he left her he had
flown down the perspective of her past, but now he seemed to be crawling
back—nearer—nearer—
Had it not been for him she might have loved Quintard. But he had
scraped the gloss from life. He had made love commonplace, vulgar. She
felt a sort of moral nausea whenever she thought of love. What an ideal
would love have been with Quintard in this house! There was a barbaric,
almost savage element in his nature which made him seem a part of these
rooms and of that Indian wilderness.
And every nook and corner was eloquent of Cryder! Sometimes she thought
she would take another house. But she asked herself: Of what use? She
had nothing left to give Quintard, and her house was his delight. She no
longer pretended to analyze herself or to speculate on the future. Once,
when sitting alone by Bessie’s bed in the night, she had opened the door
of her mental photograph gallery and glanced down the room to that
great, bare plate at the end. It was bare no longer. On its surface was
an impression—what, she did not pause to ascertain. She shut the door
hurriedly and turned the key.
At times all the evil in her nature was dominant. She dreaded hearing
Quintard speak the word which would thrust her face to face with her
future; but the temptation was strong to see the lightning flash in his
eyes, to shake his silence as a rock shakes above the quivering earth.
And Quintard kept his control because he saw that she was trying to
tempt him, and he determined that he would not yield an inch until he
was ready.
* * * * *
She made up her mind to go away from all memory of Cryder and live on
some Mediterranean island with Quintard. She was not fit to be any man’s
wife, and life could never be what it might have been; but at least she
would have him, and she could not live without him. There were softer
moments, when she felt poignant regret for the mistake of her past, when
she had brief, fleeting longings for a higher life of duty, and of a
love that was something more than intellectual companionship and
possession.
Quintard’s book came out and aroused a hot dispute. He was accused of
coarseness and immorality on the one side, and granted originality and
vigor on the other. The ultra-conservative faction refused him a place
in American literature. The radical and advanced wing said that American
literature had some blood in its veins at last. Hermia took all the
papers, and a day seldom passed that Quintard’s name, either in
execration or commendation, did not meet her eyes. The derogatory
articles cut her to the quick or aroused her to fury; and the adulation
he received delighted her as keenly as if offered to herself.
He was with her in his periods of elation and depression, and it was at
such times that the better part of her nature was stirred. He needed
her. She could give him that help and comfort and sympathy without which
his life would be barren. She knew that under the hard, outer crust of
her nature lay the stunted germs of self-abnegation and sacrifice, and
there were moments when she longed with all the ardor of her quickening
soul to give her life to this man’s happiness and good. Then the mood
would pass, and she would look back upon it with impatience.
* * * * *