“Why did you do that?” he asked quickly, with a frowning regard. Linda
replied easily and directly. “It seemed as if it were carrying me with
it,” she specified; “on and on and on, without ever stopping. I felt as
if I were up among the stars.” She paused, leaning forward, and gazed
at the statue. Even now she was certain that she saw a slight flutter of
its draperies. “It is beautiful, isn't it? I think it's the first thing
I ever noticed like that. You know what I mean--the first thing that
hadn't a real use.”
“But it has,” he returned. “Do you think it is nothing to be swept into
heaven? I suppose by 'real' you mean oatmeal and scented soap. Women
usually do. But no one, it appears, has any conception of the practical
side of great art. You might try to remember that it is simply
permanence given to beauty. It's like an amber in which beautiful and
fragile things are kept forever in a lovely glow. That is all, and it is
enough.
“When I said that you were Art I didn't mean that you were skilfully
painted and dressed, but that there was a quality in you which recalled
all the charming women who had ever lived to draw men out of the
mud--something, probably, of which you are entirely unconscious, and
certainly beyond your control. You have it in a remarkable degree. It
doesn't belong to husbands but to those who create 'Homer's children.'
“That's a dark saying of Plato's, and it means that the _Alcestis_ is
greater than any momentary offspring of the flesh.”
Linda admitted seriously, “Of course, I don't understand, yet it seems
quite familiar--”
“Don't, for Heaven's sake, repeat the old cant about reincarnation;” he
interrupted, “and sitting together, smeared with antimony, on a roof of
Babylon.”
She hadn't intended to, she assured him. “Tell me about yourself,” he
directed. It was as natural to talk with him as it was, with others,
to keep still. Her frank speech flowed on and on, supported by the
realization of his attention.
“There really isn't much, besides hotels, all different; but you'd be
surprised how alike they were, too. I mean the things to eat, and the
people. I never realized how tired I was of them until mother married
Mr. Moses Feldt. The children were simply dreadful, the children and
the women; the men weren't much better.” She said this in a tone of
surprise, and he nodded. “I can see now--I am supposed to be too old for
my age, and it was the hotels. You learn a great deal.”
“Do you like Mr. Moses Feldt?”
“Enormously; he is terribly sweet. I intend to marry a man just like
him. Or, at least, he was the second kind I decided on: the first only
had money, then I chose one with money who was kind, but now I don't
know. It's very funny: kindness makes me impatient. I'm perfectly sure
I'll never care for babies, they are so mussy. I don't read, and I can't
stand being--well, loved.
“Mother went to a great many parties; every one liked her and she liked
every one back; so it was easy for her. I used to long for the time when
I'd wear a lovely cloak and go out in a little shut motor with a man
with pearls; but now that's gone. They want to kiss you so much. I wish
that satisfied me. Why doesn't it? Is there anything the matter with me,
do you think? I've been told that I haven't any heart.”
As he laughed at her she noticed how absurdly small a cigarette seemed
in his broad powerful hand. “What has happened to you is this,” he
explained: “a combination of special circumstances has helped you in
every way to be what, individually, you were. As a rule, children are
brought up in a house of lies, like taking a fine naked body and binding
it into hideous rigid clothes. You escaped the damnation of cheap
ready-cut morals and education. Your mother ought to have a superb
monument--the perfect parent. Of course you haven't a 'heart.' From the
standpoint of nature and society you're as depraved as possible. You are
worse than any one else here--than all of them rolled together.”
Curiously, she thought, this didn't disturb her, which proved at once
that he was right. Linda regarded herself with interest as a supremely
reprehensible person, perhaps a vampire. The latter, though, was a
rather stout woman who, dressed in frightful lingerie, occupied couches
with her arms caught about the neck of a man bending over her. Every
detail of this was distasteful.
What was she?
Her attention wandered to the squat Chinese god in the glass case. It
was clear that he hadn't stirred for ages. A difficult thought partly
formed in her mind--the Chinese was the god of this room, of Markue's
party, of the women seated in the dim light on the floor and the divans;
the low gurgle of their laughter, the dusky whiteness of their shoulders
in the upcoiling incense, the smothered gleams of their hair, with the
whispering men, were the world of the grayish-green image.
She explained this haltingly to Pleydon, who listened with a flattering
interest. “I expect you're laughing at me inside,” she ended impotently.
“And the other, the Greek Victory,” he added, “is the goddess of the
other world, of the spirit. It's quaint a heathen woman should be that.”
Linda discovered that she liked Pleydon enormously. She continued
daringly that he might be the sort of man she wanted to marry. But he
wouldn't be easy to manage; probably he could not be managed at all. Her
mother had always insisted upon the presence of that possibility in any
candidate for matrimony. And, until now, Linda's philosophy had been in
accord with her. But suddenly she entertained the idea of losing herself
completely in--in love.
A struggle was set up within her: on one hand was everything that she
had been, all her experience, all advice, and her innate detachment;
on the other an obscure delicious thrill. Perhaps this was what she now
wanted. Linda wondered if she could try it--just a little, let herself
go experimentally. She glanced swiftly at Pleydon, and his bulk, his
heavy features, the sullen mouth, appalled her.
Men usually filled her with an unaccountable shrinking into her remotest
self. Pleydon was different; her liking for him had destroyed a large
part of her reserve; but a surety of instinct told her that she couldn't
experiment there. It was characteristic that a lesser challenge left her
cold. She had better marry as she had planned.
Susanna Noda came up petulantly and sank in a brilliant graceful swirl
at his feet. Her golden eyes, half shut, studied Linda intently.