WHAT HE WANTED
In the lightest and sunniest rooms of an unpretending flat forming part
of the Bendor Mansions, Westminster, sat a young man of six-and-twenty.
You have already seen him when he called upon his irresponsive ancestor
at the family seat in the shire of Buckingham. He was now in his study
and seated at what used to be called his desk. This simple piece of the
scholar’s furniture has long since given way to a table as big as the
dimensions of the room permit--in this case one of eight feet long and
five broad. It did not seem to be any too large for the object of its
construction, because it was completely covered with books, papers,
Blue-books, French and German journals, as well as Transactions of
English learned and scientific societies. There was no confusion. The
papers were lying in orderly arrangement; the books stood upright along
the back of the table facing the writer. They were all books of
political history, political economy, or of reference. A revolving
bookcase stood ready at hand filled with other books of reference.
These, it might have been observed, were principally concerned with
statistics of trade--histories of trade, books on subjects connected
with trade, Free Trade, Protection, the expansion of trade, and points
connected with manufactures, industries, exports, and imports.
Mr. Leonard Campaigne was already in the House. It would be too much to
say that he had already arrived at a position of authority, but he was
so far advanced that on certain subjects of the more abstruse kind,
which he endeavoured to make his own and to speak upon them with the
manner of a specialist, he was heard with some deference and reported at
some length. More than this is not permitted to six-and-twenty.
These subjects were such as demand a clear head, untiring industry, the
grasp of figures, and the power of making them attractive. They also
required a prodigious memory. All these valuable qualities this young
man possessed. At Cambridge, where he went out in mathematics, he tore
himself reluctantly away from examiners who gave him all they could,
with tears that it could be no more than “Part II., Division I., Class
I.,” and wept that they could not, as all good examiners hope to do
before long, carry their examinations on to Part III., divided into
three parts and each part into three classes, and then to Part IV., also
divided into three divisions and each division into three classes, and
so to go on examining their candidates, always decreasing in number,
once a year for the rest of their natural lives, ending with a
disgraceful pluck at eighty.
“Part II., Division I., Class I.” No one can do better than that. I
believe that only one man in Leonard’s year did as well. Therefore he
went down having a very good record and a solid reputation for ability
to begin with. As to private fortune, he was independent, with an income
derived from his mother of about £800 a year, and with those
expectations which, as you have seen, were certainties. He also had a
Fellowship worth at least five shillings a year, it having gone up
recently in consequence of an unexpected looking-up or recovery in the
agricultural interest. He came up to London, therefore, thus adequately
equipped, entered at the Bar, got called, without any intention of
practising, looked out for a borough, nursed it carefully for a
twelvemonth, and got in, without a contest, at a by-election, on the
Liberal side. So far he had followed the traditions of his family. He
was the third, in sequence of father to son, of University distinction.
His grandfather, son of the dumb recluse whom you have already seen, had
also done well at Cambridge, and had also entered the House, and had
also made a highly successful beginning when he was cut off prematurely
at the early age of thirty-two. His father, who in his turn
distinguished himself at the University, also in his turn entered the
House, and was also in his turn considered a young man of promise, when
he, too, was carried off at about the same age. There were moments when
Leonard asked himself whether this untoward fate was to be his as well.
There were, indeed, special reasons for asking this question, of which
he as yet knew nothing. Meantime, he asked no questions of the future,
nor did he concern himself about the decrees of fate.
The study was pleasantly furnished with two or three easy chairs and the
student’s wooden chair. Books lined the walls; two or three cups stood
on the mantelshelf, showing that the tenant of the room was no pale
student, consumer of the midnight oil; above it there was a drawing of a
country house, the same house which you have already seen. One observed
also, with pleasure, further proofs that the occupant had his hours of
relaxation. Tobacco and that vulgar thing the briar-root were
conspicuously present. That a young man who hoped to rise by the most
severe of all studies should habitually smoke a pipe should be, to any
well-regulated mind, a most promising circumstance. The study opened
into the dining-room, which was a dining-room only, and a formal, even a
funereal place, with a few books and a few pictures--evidently not a
room which was inhabited. The tenant took his breakfast in it, and
sometimes his luncheon, and that was all. There were two bedrooms;
beyond them, the kitchen and the room for the man and wife who “did” for
Mr. Campaigne.
The occupant of the flat presently laid down his pen, and sat up
turning his face to the light. Then he rose and paced the chamber.
He was a young man of somewhat remarkable appearance. In stature, as you
have seen, he was much above the average, being at least six feet two
and of strong build, though not so massive a man as his
great-grandfather, the hermit of Campaigne Park. His features were good
and strongly marked; his forehead was broad rather than high; his eyes,
small rather than large, were keen and bright, the eyebrows were nearly
straight. His appearance at this moment was meditative; but, then, he
was actually meditating; in conversation and in debate his expression
was alert, and even eager. He did not, in fact, belong to that school
which admires nothing, desires nothing, and believes in nothing. He
believed strongly, for instance, that the general standard of happiness
could be raised by wise laws--not necessarily new laws--and by good
education--not necessarily that of the School Boards. And he ardently
desired to play his part in the improvement of that standard. That is a
good solid lump of belief to begin with. For a statesman such a solid
lump of belief is invaluable.
Presently he sat down again and renewed the thread of his
investigations. After an hour or so he threw aside his pen; he had
accomplished what he had proposed to do that morning. If a man is going
to succeed, you will generally find that he knows what he means to do
and the time that he will take over it, and that he sets to work with
directness as well as resolution.
The task was finished, then, and before twelve o’clock Leonard pushed
back his chair and sprang to his feet with a sigh of relief. Much as men
may love work, it is always a satisfaction to get it done. On the table
beside his papers lay a little pile of letters not yet opened. He took
up one and opened it. The letter was from the editor of a leading
magazine, accepting a proposal to contribute a paper on a certain
economic theory. Leonard smiled with satisfaction. The _Nineteenth
Century_ is the ladder of ambition. It is by means of this magazine, and
of one or two like unto it, that the ambitious young man is enabled to
put himself forward as a student, if not yet an authority, on any
subject--a more rapid way of advance than by means of the House.
Leonard had already written on this subject, and with success, as a
student; he was now to write upon it with authority. You will understand
from all this that Leonard was a young man whose mind was fully
occupied, even absorbed, with work which was at once his greatest
delight and the ladder for his ambitions; that he occupied a good
position in society, and that his work, his thoughts, his relaxations
were those of one who lived and moved habitually on a high level, free
from meanness or sordid cares or anxieties of any kind.
On the same staircase and the same floor was a flat exactly
corresponding in every particular to his own except that the windows
looked out towards the opposite pole. This flat, into which we will not
penetrate, was occupied by a young lady, who lived in it, just as
Leonard lived in his, with a man and his wife to look after her. People
may be neighbours in a “Mansion” and yet not know each other. It is not
likely that Leonard would have made the acquaintance of Miss Constance
Ambry but for the fortunate circumstance that he belonged to the same
club as well as the same collection of flats; that he was introduced to
her at the club; that he met her at dinner day after day; that he
speedily discovered the fact that they were neighbours; that they became
friends; that they often dined together at the club, and that they
frequently walked home together.
It will be understood, therefore, that Miss Constance Ambry would have
been called, a few years ago, an emancipated young woman. The word has
already become belated; in a year or two it will be obsolete.
Emancipation has ceased to carry any reproach or to excite any
astonishment. Many girls and unmarried women live alone in flats and
mansions and similar places; they have their latch-key; they marvel that
there could have been formerly a time when the latch-key was withheld
from girls; they go where they like; they see what they wish to see;
they meet people they wish to meet. The emancipated woman twenty years
ago thought it necessary, in order to prove her superiority of
intellect, to become at least an atheist. That was part of the
situation; other prancings and curvettings there were; now she has
settled down, the question of comparative intellect being no longer
discussed, and goes on, in many respects, almost as if she were still in
the ancient House of Bondage. In this case there were strong reasons,
comfortably running into a good many hundreds a year, why Constance
Ambry should dare to go her own way and live at her own will. She began
her independent career by three years at Girton. During her studentship
she distinguished herself especially by writing critical essays, in
which it was remarked that the passion of Love, as depicted and dwelt
upon by poets, was entirely ignored by the critic; not so much, her
friends explained, from maidenly reserve, as from a complete inability
to sympathize even with the woman’s point of view--which, indeed, women
who write poetry and love-songs have always done their utmost to
conceal, or mendaciously to represent in the same terms and under the
same form as the masculine passion. On leaving Girton she accepted a
post as Lecturer on English Literature in a women’s college. It was a
poorly-paid office, and hitherto it had been difficult to find a good
lecturer to keep it. Constance could afford not only to take it, but
also to make it the sole object of her work and thoughts. One is pleased
to add that her ideas of the liberty of women included their liberty to
dress as well as they can afford. She presented to her admiring and
envious class the constant spectacle of a woman dressed as she should
be--not splendidly, but beautifully. The girls regarded their lecturer,
clad, like a summer garden, in varied beauty, with far greater awe than
they had entertained for her predecessor, who was dumpy, wore her hair
short, and appeared habitually in a man’s jacket.
The two were friends close and fast. Leonard was not afraid of
compromising her by taking tea in her drawing-room, nor was Constance
afraid of compromising herself by venturing alone into the opposite flat
if she wanted to talk about anything. It is a dangerous position even
for a young man whose ambitions absorb his thoughts; who has put the
question of marriage into the background--to be taken up at some
convenient moment not yet arrived. It is dangerous also for a girl even
when she is emancipated.
As regards the young man the usual consequences happened. First he
perceived that it gave him a peculiar pleasure to sit beside her at
dinner and to walk home with her: then he became disappointed if he did
not meet her: presently he found himself thinking a great deal about
her: he also detected himself in the act of confiding his ambitions to
her sympathetic ear--this is one of the worst symptoms possible. He had
now arrived at that stage when the image of the girl is always present
in a young man’s mind: when it sometimes interferes with work: when an
explanation becomes absolutely necessary if there is to be any peace or
quiet work. The Victorian lover no longer speaks or writes about flames
and darts, but he is still possessed and held by the dominant presence
in his mind, night and day, of his mistress.
In these matters, there comes a time, the one moment, when words have to
be spoken. As with a pear which has half an hour of perfect ripeness, so
in love there is a day--an hour--a moment--when the words that mean so
much must be spoken. It is a most unfortunate thing if the lover chooses
the wrong moment. It is also very unfortunate if the ripeness is on one
side only.
Leonard Campaigne made this mistake. Being a self-contained young man,
he thought about himself a great deal more than he thought of other
people: it is not necessarily a sign of selfishness or of
obtuseness--not at all; it is a defect with men of strong natures and
ambitious aims to think habitually about themselves and their aims.
Therefore, while he himself was quite ripe for a declaration, he did not
ask himself whether the ripeness was also arrived at by the other person
concerned. Unfortunately, it was not. The other person concerned was
still in the critical stage: she could consider her friend from the
outside: she felt, as yet, no attraction towards the uncritical
condition, the absorption of love.
Leonard did not suspect this arrest, so to speak, of development. He
assumed that the maiden’s heart had advanced _pari passu_ with his. He
wrote a letter, therefore, a method of wooing which is less embarrassing
than that of speech--I believe that girls prefer the latter. Certainly,
it is difficult to be glowing in a letter; nor, if there should be any
doubt, is a letter so persuasive as the voice, aided by the pressure of
the hand and the ardour of the eye.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,
“I am about to imperil a situation the preservation of which is my
greatest happiness. You have allowed me to talk to you freely about
my cherished ambitions. You have even done me the honour of
consulting me about your own. I would not throw away this position
of confidence for any consideration whatever. Let me, however,
venture to put before you a simple question. I ask you to consider
the possibility of a change in this situation. This change--there
is only one which we can consider--would not in any way affect this
confidence, but should draw it more closely. How it would affect me
I will tell you if you allow me.
“Your friend,
“L. C.”
Not a loverlike letter at all, is it? Yet there were possibilities about
it. You see, he held out the hope that more would be told. The young
lady answered by asking a few days for consideration. She was to send or
bring her reply that morning.
Constance knocked at the door. She came in from her rooms without a hat.
She took a chair--Leonard’s own wooden chair--and sat down, beginning to
talk about other things, as if such a matter as a proposal of marriage
was of no importance. But that was only her way, which was always
feminine.
“I was told last night,” she said, “at the club--fancy, at the
club!--that I have been compromising myself by dining night after night
with you and letting you walk home with me. That is their idea of
woman’s liberty. She is not to form friendships. Don’t abuse our
members. Pray remember, Leonard, that I do not in the least mind what
they say.”
At the first glance at her face, one could understand that this girl was
not in the least alarmed as to what women might say of her. It was a
proud face. There are many kinds of pride--she might have been proud of
her family, had she chosen that form; or of her intellect and
attainments; or of her beauty--which was remarkable. She was not proud
in any such way; she had that intense self-respect which is pride of the
highest kind. “She was a woman, therefore, to be wooed,” but the wooer
must meet and equal that intense self-respect. This pride made her seem
cold. Everybody thought her intensely cold. Leonard was perhaps the only
man who knew by a thousand little indications that she was very far from
cold. The pose of her head, the lines of the mouth, the intellectual
look in her eyes, the clear-cut regularity of her features, proclaimed
her pride and seemed to proclaim her coldness.
“I always remember what you say, Constance. And now tell me what you
came to say.”
She rose from the chair and remained standing. She began by looking at
the things over the mantel as if she was greatly interested in tobacco
and cigarettes. Then she turned upon him abruptly, joining her hands.
“What I came to say was this.”
He read the answer in her face, which was frank, hard, and without the
least sign of embarrassment, confusion, or weakening. It is not with
such a look that a girl gives herself to her lover. However, he
pretended not to understand.
“What is it?”
“Well, it is just this. I have thought about it for a whole week, and it
won’t do. That is my answer. It won’t do for either of us. I like you
very much. I like our present relations. We dine together at the club. I
come in here without fuss. You come to my place without fuss. We talk
and walk and go about together. I do not suppose that I shall ever
receive this kind of invitation from any man whom I regard so much. And
yet----”
“‘Yet!’ Why this obstructive participle? I bring you”--but he spoke with
coldness due to the discouragement in the maiden’s face--“the fullest
worship of yourself.”
She shook her head and put up her hand. “Oh no!--no!” she said.
“Worship? I want no worship. What do you mean by worship?”
“I mean the greatest respect--the greatest reverence--the greatest
admiration----”
“For what?”
“For Constance Ambry.”
“Thank you, my friend. Some of the respect I accept with gratitude, not
all of it. Still, I dare say, at this moment, you mean it all. But
consider a little. Do you worship my intellect? Confess, now. You know
that it is distinctly inferior to your own. I know it, I say. If you
came to me pretending to worship an intellect inferior to your own, I
should lose my respect for you, or I should lose my faith in your
truthfulness. It cannot be my intellect. Is it, then, worship of my
genius? But I have no genius. And that you know very well. Is it worship
of my attainments? They are far below most of the scholars of your
University and the Fellows of your college. You cannot possibly pretend
to worship my attainments----”
“Let me worship Constance Ambry herself.”
She laughed lightly.
“It would be very foolish of you to do so. For you could not do so
without lowering your standards and your character, by pretending what
is not the case. For I am no higher than yourself in any of the virtues
possible to us both: not a bit higher: I believe that my standards of
everything--truth, honour, courage--patience--all--all--everything are
like my intellect, distinctly lower than your own. Such is the respect
which I entertain for you. Therefore, my friend, do not, pray, think of
offering me worship.”
“You wrong yourself, Constance. Your nature is far higher than mine.”
She laughed again. “If I were to marry you, in a week you would find out
your mistake--and then you might fall into the opposite mistake.”
“How am I to make you understand?”
“I do understand. There is something that attracts you. Men are so, I
suppose. It is face, or voice, or figure, or manner. No one can tell why
a man is attracted.”
“Constance, is it possible that you are not conscious of your beauty?”
She looked him full in the face, and replied slowly: “I wish I
understood things. I see very well that men are more easily moved to
love than women. They make the most appalling mistakes: I know of
some--mistakes not to be remedied. Do not let us two make a mistake.”
“It would be no mistake, believe me.”
“I don’t know. There is the question of beauty. Women are not fascinated
by the beauty of other women. A man is attracted by a face, and
straightway attributes to the soul behind that face all the virtues
possible. Women can behold a pretty face without believing that it is
the stamp of purity and holiness. Besides--a face! Why, in a dozen
years what will it be like? And in thirty years---- Oh! Terrible to
think of!”
“Never, Constance. You could never be otherwise than wholly beautiful.”
She shook her head again, unconvinced. “I do not wish to be worshipped,”
she repeated. “Other women may like it. To me it would be a humiliation.
I don’t want worship; I want rivalry. Let me work among those who truly
work, and win my own place. As for my own face, and those so-called
feminine attractions, I confess that I am not interested in them. Not in
the least.”
“If you will only let me go on admiring----”
“Oh!” she shook that admirable head impatiently, “as much as you
please.”
Leonard sighed. Persuasion, he knew well, was of no use with this young
lady; she knew her own mind.
“I will ask no more,” he said. “Your heart is capable of every
emotion--except one. You are deficient in the one passion which, if you
had it, would make you divine.”
She laughed scornfully. “Make me divine?” she repeated. “Oh, you talk
like a man--not a scholar and a philosopher, but a mere man.” She left
the personal side of the question, and began to treat it generally. “The
whole of poetry is disfigured with the sham divinity, the counterfeit
divinity, of the woman. I do not want that kind of ascribed divinity.
Therefore I do not regret the absence of this emotion which you so much
desire; I can very well do without it.” She spoke with conviction, and
she looked the part she played--cold, loveless, without a touch of
Venus. “I was lecturing my class the other day on this very subject. I
took Herrick for my text; but, indeed, there are plenty of poets who
would do as well. I spoke of this sham divinity. I said that we wanted
in poetry, as in human life, a certain sanity, which can only exist in a
condition of controlled emotion.”
It was perhaps a proof that neither lover nor maiden really felt the
power of the passion called Love that they could thus, at what to some
persons would be a supreme moment, drop into a cold philosophic
treatment of the subject.
“Perhaps love does not recognise sanity.”
“Then love had better be locked up. I pointed out in my lecture that
these conceits and extravagancies may be very pretty set to the music of
rhythm and rhyme and phrase, but that in the conduct of life they can
have no place except in the brains of men who have now ceased to exist.”
“Ceased to exist?”
“I mean that the ages of ungoverned passion have died out. To dwell
perpetually on a mere episode in life, to magnify its importance, to
deify the poet’s mistress--that, I told my class, is to present a false
view of life and to divert poetry from its proper function.”
“How did your class receive this view?”
“Well--you know--the average girl, I believe, likes to be worshipped. It
is very bad for her, because she knows she isn’t worth it and that it
cannot last. But she seems to like it. My class looked, on the whole, as
if they could not agree with me.”
“You would have no love in poetry?”
“Not extravagant love. These extravagancies are not found in the nobler
poets. They are not in Milton, nor in Pope, nor in Cowper, nor in
Wordsworth, nor in Browning. I have not, as you say, experienced the
desire for love. In any case, it is only an episode. Poetry should be
concerned with the whole life.”
“So should love.”
“Leonard,” she said, the doubt softening her face, “there may be
something deficient in my nature. I sincerely wish that I could
understand what you mean by desiring any change.” No, she understood
nothing of the sacred passion. “But there must be no difference in
consequence. I could not bear to think that my answer even to such a
trifle should make any difference between us.”
“Such a trifle! Constance, you are wonderful.”
“But it seems to me, if the poets are right, that men are always ready
to make love: if one woman fails, there are plenty of others.”
“Would not that make a difference between us?”
“You mean that I should be jealous?”
“I could not possibly use the word ‘jealous’ in connection with you,
Constance.”
She considered the point from an outside position. “I should not be
jealous because you were making love to some unseen person, but I should
not like another woman standing here between us. I don’t think I could
stay here.”
“You give me hope, Constance.”
“No. It is only friendship. Because, you see, the whole pleasure of
having a friend like yourself--a man friend--is unrestrained and open
conversation. I like to feel free with you. And I confess that I could
not do this if another woman were with us.”
She was silent awhile. She became a little embarrassed. “Leonard,” she
said, “I have been thinking about you as well as myself. If I thought
that this thing was necessary for you--or best for you--I might,
perhaps--though I could not give you what you expect--I mean--responsive
worship and the rest of it.”
“Necessary?” he repeated.
There was no sign of Love’s weakness in her face, which had now assumed
the professional manner that is historical, philosophical, and
analytical.
“Let us sit down and talk about yourself quite dispassionately, as if
you were somebody else.”
She resumed the chair--Leonard’s own chair--beside the table; it was a
revolving chair, and she turned it half round so that her elbow rested
on the blotting-pad, while she faced her suitor. Leonard for his part
experienced the old feeling of standing up before the Head for a little
wholesome criticism. He laughed, however, and obeyed, taking the
easy-chair at his side of the fireplace. This gave Constance the slight
superiority of talking down to instead of up to him. A tall man very
often forgets the advantage of his stature.
“I mean, if companionship were necessary for you. It is, I believe, to
weaker and to less fortunate men--to poets, I suppose. Love means, I am
sure, a craving for support and sympathy. Some men--weaker men than
you--require sympathy as much as women. You do not feel that desire--or
need.”
“A terrible charge. But how do you know?”
“I know because I have thought a great deal about you, and because I
have conceived so deep a regard for you that, at first, when I received
your letter I almost--almost--made a great mistake.”
“Well--but tell me something more. To learn how one is estimated may be
very good for one. Self-conceit is an ever-present danger.”
“I think, to begin with, that of all young men that I know you are the
most self-reliant and the most confident.”
“Well, these are virtues, are they not?”
“Of course, you have every right to be self-reliant. You are a good
scholar, and you have been regarded at the University as one of the
coming men. You are actually already one of the men who are looked upon
as arrived. So far you have justified your self-confidence.”
“So far my vanity is not wounded. But there is more.”
“Yes. You are also the most fortunate of young men. You are miles ahead
of your contemporaries, because where they all lack something you lack
nothing. One man wants birth--it takes a very strong man to get over a
humble origin: another man wants manner: another has an unfortunate
face--a harsh voice--a nervous jerkiness: another is deficient in style:
another is ground down by poverty. You alone have not one single defect
to stand in your way.”
“Let me be grateful, then.”
“You have that very, very rare combination of qualities which make the
successful statesman. You are good-looking: you are even handsome: you
look important: you have a good voice and a good manner as well as a
good presence: you are a gentleman by birth and training: you have
enough to live upon now: and you are the heir to a good estate. Really,
Leonard, I do not know what else you could ask of fortune.”
“I have never asked anything of fortune.”
“And you get everything. You are too fortunate, Leonard. There must be
something behind--something to come. Nature makes no man perfectly
happy.”
“Indeed!” He smiled gravely. “I want nothing of that kind.”
“In addition to everything else, you are completely healthy, and I
believe you are a stranger to the dentist; your hair is not getting
prematurely thin. Really, Leonard, I do not think that there can be in
the whole country any other young man so fortunate.”
“Yet you refuse to join your future with mine.”
“Perhaps, if there were any misfortunes or drawbacks one might not
refuse. Family scandals, now---- Many noble houses have whole cupboards
filled with skeletons: your cupboards are only filled with blue china.
One or two scandals might make you more human.”
“Unfortunately, from your point of view, my people have no scandals.”
“Poor relations again! Many people are much pestered with poor
relations. They get into scrapes, and they have to be pulled out at
great cost. I have a cousin, for instance, who turns up occasionally. He
is very expensive and most disreputable. But you? Oh, fortunate young
man!”
“We have had early deaths; but there are no disreputable cousins.”
“That is what I complain of. You are too fortunate. You should throw a
ring into the sea--like the too fortunate king, the only person who
could be compared with you.”
“I dare say gout or something will come along in time.”
“It isn’t good for you,” she went on, half in earnest. “It makes life
too pleasant for you, Leonard. You expect the whole of life to be one
long triumphal march. Why, you are so fortunate that you are altogether
outside humanity. You are out of sympathy with men and women. They have
to fight for everything. You have everything tossed into your lap. You
have nothing in common with the working world--no humiliations--no
disgraces--no shames and no defeats.”
“I hardly understand----” he began, disconcerted at this unexpected
array of charges and crimes.
“I mean that you are placed above the actual world, in which men tumble
about and are knocked down and are picked up--mostly by the women. You
have never been knocked down. You say that I do not understand Love.
Perhaps not. Certainly you do not. Love means support on both sides. You
and I do not want any kind of support. You are clad in mail armour. You
do not--you cannot--even wish to know what Love means.”
He made no reply. This turning of the table was unexpected. She had been
confessing that she felt no need of Love, and now she accused him--the
wooer--of a like defect.
“Leonard, if fortune would only provide you with family scandals, some
poor relations who would make you feel ashamed, something to make you
like other people, vulnerable, you would learn that Love might
mean--and then, in that impossible case--I don’t know--perhaps----” She
left the sentence unfinished and ran out of the room.
Leonard looked after her, his face expressing some pain. “What does she
mean? Humiliation? Degraded relations? Ridiculous!”
Then, for the second time after many years, he heard the voices of his
mother and his grandmother. They spoke of misfortunes falling upon one
and another of their family, beginning with the old man of the country
house and the terrace. Oh! oh! It was absurd. He sprang to his feet. It
was absurd. Humiliations! Disgrace! Family misfortunes! Absurd! Well,
Constance had refused him. Perhaps she would come round. Meanwhile his
eyes fell upon the table and his papers. He sat down: he took up the
pen. Love, who had been looking on sorrowfully from a lofty perch on a
bookshelf, vanished with a sigh of despair. The lover heard neither the
sigh nor the fluttering of Love’s wings. He bent over his papers. A
moment, and he was again absorbed--entirely absorbed in the work before
him.
* * * * *
In her own room the girl sat before her table and took up her pen. But
she threw it down again. “No,” she said, “I could not. He is altogether
absorbed in himself. He knows nothing and understands nothing--and the
world is so full of miseries; and he is all happiness, and men and
women suffer--how they suffer!--for their sins and for other people’s
sins. And he knows nothing. He understands nothing. Oh, if he could be
made human by something--by humiliation, by defeat! If he could be made
human, like the rest, why, then--then----” She threw away her pen,
pushed back the chair, put on her hat and jacket, and went out into the
streets among the men and women.