THE MOUNTAIN-TOP
Edward, from long living at Heathmoor, had little to learn about
comfort, and the arrangements he had made for the two girls were of a
completeness that Mrs. Hancock could hardly have rivalled, even if she
had been concerned with plans for herself. He had gone up to town by
the 9.6 a.m. that morning, and had shown himself but briefly at his
office, devoting the rest of his time to orders and inspection. He
had been to see the rooms prepared for their reception at the Savoy,
bedrooms for the two girls, with a sitting-room between, had shown in
a practical way that he recollected Elizabeth's ardour for sweet peas
and Edith's respect for roses, had ordered tea to be ready for their
arrival, a table to be reserved in the restaurant for their dinner
between the acts, and an entrancing little supper to be served in the
sitting-room when the opera was over. Finally, he was waiting at the
station with his motor for their arrival.
It was not only the desire for their comfort that prompted this
meticulous supervision, for the evening in prospect was symbolical
to him of a parting, a farewell, and, with the spirit in which all
farewells should be said, he wished to join hands with Elizabeth once
more festally and superbly, not with lingering glances and secret
signs, but to the sound of music and to the sight of a glorious drama.
He had spent this last week among waves and billows of emotions,
and, though his ship had not foundered, his lack of experience as a
sailor in such seas had completely upset him in every other sense.
But to-night, he had told himself, he would reach port; already he
had rounded the pier-head, and within a few hours now he would put
Elizabeth ashore. The pier was decorated for her reception, flags waved
and bands played. He would part with her splendidly, and go back to his
boat, where Edith would await him for their lifelong cruise in calm and
pleasant waters.
He had made, so he honestly believed, the honest decision, and though
honesty is a virtue which is so much taken for granted that it is
ranked rather among the postulates of life than among its acquirements,
honest decisions are not always made without struggle and difficulty.
He felt for Elizabeth, the actual flesh and blood and spirit of
her, what he had only hitherto imagined in the dreams which, a few
months before, he had settled to have done with. Bitterly, and with
more poignancy of feeling than he had thought himself capable of, he
regretted his precipitancy in their abandonment; in a few months more
he would have seen them realized, he would have had his human chance,
of an attractive boy with a girl, to have made them true. But he had
not waited; he had shaken himself awake, and, with full sense of what
he was doing, had made love to and been accepted by the girl he knew
and liked and admired. To-day he acknowledged his responsibility and
had no intention of shirking it. A week of what was not less than
spiritual anguish had resulted in this decision. In one direction
he was pulled by honour, in the other by love. He had a "previous
engagement," which, he had settled, took rank before anything else
whatever. He believed, without the smallest touch of complacency, that
Edith loved him, but he believed also (and again not a grain of that
odious emotion entered into his belief) that had he been free Elizabeth
would have accepted him. Since his deplorable lapse a week ago, she had
treated him with a friendlier intimacy than ever; this, for they had
had no further word on the subject, he interpreted to mean that out
of the generosity of her nature she had completely forgiven him and
obliterated the occurrence, and that her friendliness was meant to show
how entirely she trusted him for the future. In this he was absolutely
right; he was right also in the corollary he instinctively added, that
she would not have adopted this attitude unless she was fond of him.
She could quite correctly have kept him at arm's length, she could have
continued to manifest that slight hostility to him which had previously
characterized her behaviour. But she had not; she had given him a
greater warmth and friendliness than ever before.
So far he could let his thoughts bear him without shame or secrecy. But
there went on beneath them a tow, an undercurrent, which, though he
suppressed and refused to regard it, was what had caused, in the main,
the soul-storm in which he had been buffeted all this week. He believed
there was more than friendliness in her regard for him, and with the
terrible sharpsightedness of blind love (as if one of his eyes saw
nothing, while the other was gifted with portentous vision) he had not
missed the signs, little signs, a look, a word, a movement, which are
the feelers of love, waving tentacles of infinite sensitiveness, that
threadlike and invisible to the ordinary beholder, shrivel and spring
and touch instinctively without volition on their owner's part. No one,
fairly and impartially judging, could say that Elizabeth had behaved to
him except with friendly unreserve. But to him she seemed to reserve
much, to reserve all.
In spite of all this, Edward, as he waited on the platform for the
arrival of their train, had no doubt that he was doing right in
following the demands of honour. He had killed his dreams, so to speak,
when he engaged himself to Edith; to-night, to the sound of flutes and
violins, he was going to conduct their funeral, and did not see that
in reality he was intending to bury them alive, and that dreams are
not smothered by burial; rather, like the roots of plants, they grow
and flourish beneath the earth, sending up the sap that feeds their
blossoms. He did not contemplate the future with dismay; he believed
that both he and Edith would have a very pleasant, comfortable life
together, according to the Heathmoor pattern. And with a touch of
cynicism, which was unusual with him, he added, as the train steamed
in, that this was more than could be said for many marriages. Then,
before the train stopped, he saw Elizabeth get out and look round
for him with shining, excited eyes, and his heart beat quick at her
recognition of him.
The three met with jubilance, and drove straight to the Savoy, for
there was not more than time to have tea and dress. The day, like the
last dozen of its predecessors, had been dry and dusty, and the roadway
in front of the hotel had been liberally watered. Stepping out of the
motor, Edith slipped and fell heavily, her foot doubled under her.
Bravely she tried to smile, bravely also she tried to get up. But the
smile faded in the agony of her twisted ankle, and she was helped into
the hotel.
It seemed at first that it might be a wrench of little consequence,
the pain of which would be assuaged by ten minutes' rest. But all that
ten minutes did for her was to give her a badly swollen ankle, and
show the utter impossibility of her setting foot to the ground. Then,
swathed in wet bandages, and lying on the sofa in the sitting-room, she
took a peremptory line with the others.
"You two must go," she said; "and if you wait here any longer you will
be late. If you aren't both of you ready to start in a quarter of an
hour, I shall go myself, bandage and all, if I have to hop there."
"But you can't spend the evening alone," said Elizabeth. "And we----"
"I shan't spend the evening alone, because we shall all have supper
together. Dinner, too, if you will be awfully kind, Edward, and have it
up here with me instead of in the restaurant."
Edward had already yielded in his heart--yielded with a secret exulting
rapture. The Fates, though at Edith's expense, were giving him a
splendid farewell to Elizabeth. They would be alone together for it; he
did not let his thoughts progress further than that.
"If you insist----" he began.
"Am I not insisting? My dear, it is a dreadful bore, but we must make
the best of it. Be kind, and order dinner here instead, and go to
dress."
Elizabeth was left alone with her cousin.
"But Aunt Julia!" she said. "What will she say?"
"I have thought of that. Mother mustn't know. You must coach me up
when you come back, and--and I shall have sprained my ankle when we
came back to the hotel at the end. Don't forget! Oh, do go and get
ready, Elizabeth; it's all settled! I can't bear that Edward should be
disappointed in not seeing 'Siegfried,' nor, indeed, that you should.
It would be perfectly senseless that you should stop at home because I
can't go!"
It cost Elizabeth something to argue against this. She wanted
passionately to see the opera, and if a dream-wish, a fairy-wish,
for a thing that was impossible could have been presented to her that
morning, she would have chosen to see the awakening of Brunnhilde
alone with Edward. His wild-blurted speech when he intruded upon her
practising a week ago she had buried, so complete since then had been
his discretion, and if she thought of it at all, she thought of it
only as a momentary lapse, an unguarded exaggeration. Since then she
had not defended herself against him by any coldness of manner, any
unspoken belittlement of him, and they had arrived at a franker and
more affectionate intimacy than ever before. She did not inquire or
conjecture what his secret emotional history was. She was safeguarded
enough from him by his engagement to Edith; while from herself her own
integrity of purpose seemed a sufficient shield. Yet she argued against
Edith's insistence on the fulfilment of the fairy-wish.
"But Aunt Julia wouldn't like it," she said.
"I can't help that!" said Edith. "I want it so much that I don't care
what mother would think. Besides, she won't think anything. She will
never know." Edith paused a moment and flushed.
"Besides, dear," she said, "if I asked you and Edward, or even wanted
you not to go, what reason could there be for it? It would appear
so--so odious--as if----I can't say it! Oh, go and dress!"
The unspoken word was clear enough, and it contained all that Elizabeth
was conscious of. It would have been odious that either of them should
harbour the thought that Edith could not put into words. It was
sufficient.
* * * * *
The two came back to dine at the end of the first act, full to the brim
of music, intoxicated with the beady ferment of sound and drama, and
both a little beside themselves with excitement. At present the music,
and that alone, held them; in the flame of their common passion each as
yet paid little heed to the other, except as a sharer in it. Elizabeth
hardly touched any food; she was silent and bright-eyed, exploring her
new kingdom. But with Edward, the return to the hotel, to the common
needs of food and drink, above all, to Edith, took him poignantly back
into the actual world again. Once again, more vividly than ever before,
his choice which he told himself was already decided, was set before
him as he sat with Elizabeth silent and strung-up on the one side,
with Edith intelligently questioning him, with a view to subsequent
catechism of herself on the other. Her questions seemed idiotic
interruptions; he could barely make courteous narrative--"And then Mime
told him about his youth. And then he began to forge the sword. Yes, it
was Palstecher who played Siegfried--he was in excellent voice...."
He did not revoke his choice, but he ceased to think of it. He wanted
only, for the present, to hasten the tardy progress of the hands of
the clock to the moment when it would be time for him to go away again
alone with Elizabeth. But the aspect of this evening, as his farewell
to her, was ousted in his mind by the prospect of the next hour or
two. He thought less of what it symbolized; more and growingly more of
what it was. But even as no thunderstorm bursts without the menace of
gathering clouds, so the thickening intensity of his emotions warned
him with utterly disregarded caution, that forces of savage import were
collecting. Had a friend laid the facts, the possibilities, the danger
before him, and asked his opinion as to what a man should do under such
circumstances, unhesitatingly would he have advised, without regard to
any other issue, that he should not go back alone with Elizabeth. Let
him take a waiter from the hotel, a stranger out of the street, rather
than trust himself alone to keep a steady head and a firm foot in those
precipiced and slippery places. Had he believed that Elizabeth had no
touch of more than pleasant friendly feelings towards him, he might
have been justified in believing in himself. But--and this was the very
spring and foundation of his excitement, his expectancy--he did not so
believe. He fancied, rightly or wrongly, that she had shown signs of
a warmer regard for him than that. But still, as unconvincingly as a
parrot-cry, he kept saying to himself, "Edith trusts me, and therefore
I trust myself." He did not even feel he was doing a dangerous thing;
he felt only that he had an irresistible need to be with Elizabeth in
the isolation of the darkened house when Brunnhilde awoke.
The performance, viewed artistically, was magnificent. From height to
height mounted the second act, till the sounds of the noonday, the
murmurs of the forest, grew from the scarcely audible notes to the
full triumphant symphony of sunlight and living things, pervading,
all-embracing, bringing the voice of all nature to endorse heroic
deeds, and at the same time to bring to the hero the knowledge of his
human needs. To him, even as to Siegfried, it woke in his heart the
irresistible need of love, of the ideal mate, of the woman of his
dreams, who sat beside him. Once only, as the clear call of the bird
rang through the hushed house, did Elizabeth take her eyes off the
stage, and turned them, dewy with tears and bright with wonder, on him.
She said no word, but unconsciously moved her chair a little nearer his
and laid her ungloved hand on his knee.
He had one moment's hesitation--one moment in which it was in his
power to check himself. There was just one branch of a tree, so to
speak, hanging above the rapids down which he was hurrying, and it was
just possible, with an effort, to grasp it. He made no such effort.
Deliberately, if anything in this fervour of growing madness could be
called deliberate, he let that moment go by; deliberately he rejected
the image of Edith awaiting their return, and, all aflame, acquiesced
with his will in anything that should happen. Deliberately he cast the
reins on the backs of his flying steeds, and not again did the sense
that he had any choice in the matter come to him. The last atom of his
manliness was absorbed in his manhood. Elizabeth's hand lay on his
knee, the fingers bending over it inwards. Gently he pressed them with
his other knee, and he felt her response. She had but sought that touch
to assure herself she was in tune with him, one with him over this
miracle that she was looking at; but on the moment she felt there was
more than that both in that pressure of her hand and her own response
to it. But she was too absorbed, too rapt to care; nothing mattered
except Siegfried, and the fact that she and Edward were together and
beating with one heart's-blood about it.
And presently afterwards Brunnhilde lay beneath the pines in her
shining armour, and through the flames, the vain obstacle that barred
his approach to her, came Siegfried. Of no avail to her was the armour
of her maidenhood, for while she slept he loosened it, and of no avail
to stay his approach was the fierceness of the flames that girt her
resting-place. At his kiss--the kiss that sealed her his--the strong
throb of her blood beat again in her body; the eyes that had so long
been shut in her unmolested sleep were unclosed, and she sat up and
saluted the sun, and she saluted the day and the earth and all the
myriad sounds and sights and odours that told her she was born into
life again. Siegfried had stood back in awe at the wonder and holiness
of her awakening, and she turned and saw him. And once more Elizabeth
turned to Edward, and their eyes met in a long glance.
To each, at that moment, to her no less than to him, it was the drama
of their own souls that was unfolding in melody and love-song before
them. She needed to look at him but for that one glance of recognition,
for there on the stage she learned, as she saw the immortal lovers
together, the immortality of love. The whole air rang with this supreme
expression of it, the violins and the flutes and that glorious voice
of Brunnhilde spoke for her, and it was her companion, here in the
box with her, who bore the rapture higher, who completed it, made it
perfect. Indeed, there was greeting in the farewell; if he said "vale"
to her he sang "ave" also. But his "vale" was less now than a mutter
below his breath.
She sat with her arms resting on the front of the box till the last
triumphant notes rang out, and through the applause that followed she
still sat there, unmoving. There was no before or after for her then;
her consciousness moved upon a limitless, an infinite plane. He had
left his place, and when she turned he was standing close behind her.
Again their eyes met in that long look, and the question that was in
his saw itself answered by the smile, shy and solemn, that shone in
hers. Then, still in silence, they went out into the crowd that filled
the passages.
The entrance porch was crowded with the efflux of the house, waiting
for their carriages to arrive, and Elizabeth saw the surging,
glittering scene with a strange, hard distinctness; but it all seemed
remote from her, as if it was enclosed in walls of crystal. The crowd
was no more to her than a beehive of busy, moving little lives,
altogether sundered in intelligence and interests from herself and
Edward. The whole world had receded on to the insect-plane; it crawled
and skipped and jostled about her, but he and she were infinitely
removed from it, and it aroused in her just the vague wonder of a
man idly gazing at a disturbed ant-hill, hardly wondering what all
the bustle was about. Here and there stood members of this throng,
waiting quietly in corners, taking no part in the movement, and it just
occurred to her that in a room in the Savoy Hotel there was another
such member of this queer, busy little race waiting their return. But
even the thought of Edith barely found footing in her mind; she was but
another specimen under glass.
The night was quite fine, and in a moment or two they had made their
way out of the doors and were walking down the queue of carriages to
find their motor. He had suggested that she should wait while he hunted
it and brought it up, but she preferred to go out of this crowded
insect-house to look for it with him. The street was full also of
the vague throng, that also seemed utterly unreal, utterly without
significance; she would scarcely have been surprised if the lights and
the people and the houses and the high-swung moon had all collapsed and
melted away, leaving only a mountain-top girt with flames that rose and
fell with gusts of sparkling melody. She would not be alone there; her
whole self, her completed self, at least would be there--the self which
she had seen so often, had criticized and belittled, which, till this
evening, she had never known to be herself. Now she knew nothing else.
All the rest was a mimic world, full of busy little insects.
The motor was soon found, and she stepped in, followed by Edward. She
had heard him give some directions to the chauffeur about driving
down to the Embankment, and going to that entrance of the hotel, and
they slid out of the queue and turned. So intensely did she feel his
presence that it seemed to bring him no nearer to her when he took her
hand in his, when she heard him whisper--
"Brunnhilde--you awoke!"
"Yes, Siegfried," she answered.
And his arms were round her, and for one second she clung close to him
as he kissed her.
Then, even while his fire burned close to her, so that it mingled with
her own blaze, and while the ringing of the music that was mystically
one with it drowned all other sound, the real world, the actual world,
which had quite vanished from her consciousness, stood round her
again, menacing, reminding, appalling. Her real self, her integrity,
her honour pointed at her in amazement, in horror, so that through
their eyes, and not through the eyes of her passion, she saw herself
and what she was doing, and what she was permitting, and what she was
rapturously welcoming. Memory, loyalty, honesty cried aloud at her, and
though it seemed that she was tearing part of herself away she wrenched
herself free.
"Oh, what are we doing?" she cried. "We are both mad! And you----Oh,
why did you let me? Why did you make it possible for me? Let me go,
Edward!"
He had seized her again.
"I can't!" he said. "You are mine, and you know it! It's you that
I have dreamed of all my life! We both dreamed, and we have awoke
to-night to find it is true!"
Again, and this time easily, she shook herself free of him, for that
in him which had struggled before, which had planned this evening as
a farewell to her, came to her aid. For the moment, Elizabeth, far
stronger than he in will, was wholly against him, and against him he
had honourable traitors in his own house.
"We dreamed to-night of impossible things," she said; "and I have awoke
again."
She began to tremble violently as the struggle to maintain that first
flush of true vision seized her. It had come to her with the flashing
stroke of impulse; now--and here was the difficulty--she had to keep
hold of it.
"Edward, you see it as I do really!" she said. "You know we've been
mad, mad! Ah, thank God, here we are!"
The motor had stopped by the hotel door, and already a porter was
coming across the pavement to it.
"No, we can't leave it like this," he said. "Let's drive on for a
little. Just for ten minutes, Elizabeth." He was on the near side of
the carriage and tried to prevent her getting up.
"Come to your senses!" she said.
"But it is impossible to meet Edith like this!" he said. "She will
see----"
He considered that for a moment. What if she did see? Was not that
exactly what he desired? But Elizabeth interrupted him.
"She won't, because she mustn't," she said. "I can do my share, you
must do yours. Get out, please!"
Next moment he followed her into the hotel. At the door of the
sitting-room she paused a moment, feeling suddenly tired and incapable,
and she looked appealingly at him as he joined her.
"Edward, do help me!" she said. "I rely on you!"
The tremendous pressure at which she had been living all day helped
Elizabeth now, for reaction had not come yet, and whatever at that
moment she had been set to do she would have done it with ten thousand
horse-power. She made a rush of it across the room to where Edith lay,
dropping fan, gloves, handkerchief on her way, and it seemed that
Edward's help would chiefly consist in listening.
"Oh, my dear," she cried, "we've gone quite mad, both Edward and I!
There is nothing in the world but Brunnhilde and Siegfried!"
She kissed Edith, and went on breathlessly, turning the deep tumult of
her soul into the merest froth.
"Siegfried and Brunnhilde, Brunnhilde and Siegfried! I felt I was
Brunnhilde, darling, and I was rather surprised that Edward did not
kiss me!"
"I will now, if you like!" remarked Edward, taking his cue unerringly.
"Yes, do; you're such a dear for having taken me! Perhaps you had
better not, though. It's a little late; you should have done it
earlier, and besides, Edith might not like it. We must consider Edith
now, after thinking about our own enjoyment all the evening. How is the
ankle? I ask out of politeness, dear; I don't really care in the least
how your ankle is! I only care for Siegfried! Oh, do let's have supper
at once. I had no dinner to mention, and I am brutally hungry. That is
the effect of emotion. After daddy was charged out pig-sticking, and
was nearly killed, I ate the largest lunch I ever remember. Ah, they
are bringing it! I shall never go on hunger-strike whatever happens to
me! Siegfried! That wasn't quite in tune. Oh, Edith! Now help me to
pull her sofa up to the table, Edward. Then she needn't move at all.
And how is your ankle? I do care, really!"
This remarkable series of statements and questions could hardly be
called conversation, but it served its purpose in starting social
intercourse again.
Edith turned to Edward.
"Is she mad?" she asked. "And are you mad, too?"
"Yes, he has got dumb madness," said Elizabeth. "He hasn't said a word
all the evening. Occasional sighs. Oh, I wish you had been there,
Edith! Yes, certainly soup! For the third time I inquire about your
ankle!"
Looking up, she caught Edward's eye for a moment. He was eagerly gazing
at her, as Siegfried gazed at Brunnhilde--that was in some opera she
had once seen in remote ages ago, in some dim land of dreams, in----And
as she looked at him the stream of her babbling talk froze on her lips
and her heart beat quick, and she was back again in the darkness of the
motor, and she was saying to him, "Yes, Siegfried!" without thought of
anything but the present moment, and of her love. Then, with a sense of
coming from some infinite distance, she was back in this sitting-room
again, conscious that Edith had said something, and that she had not
the remotest notion what it was.
But Edward answered.
"That is capital!" he said. "I am glad it is better. Of course, you and
Elizabeth will drive down in the motor to-morrow morning, so that you
needn't walk at all. When will you go? I must tell Joynes at what time
he is to come round."
So he, Edward, also belonged to his world, not to the world of the
mountain-top and the ring of flame. Of course he did; he was going
to marry Edith on October 8th, and it was not yet certain if she
herself would be there or not. She would be leaving about then for
India--it depended on whether she could get a passage by the boat
that left Marseilles on the 15th. She felt like a child saying
over to itself some absurd nonsense rhyme. July, August, September,
then October--"Thirty days hath October." It did not sound right.
Quail--yes, why not quail? So little while ago she lay on her
mountain-top, and Siegfried loosed her armour and kissed her.
Supper was over, and Edith was saying something to her about her
looking very tired. She was suggesting that she should go to bed. For
herself, she was going to sit up a little longer and have a chat with
Edward, for he had to coach her thoroughly in the opera, since Mrs.
Hancock was never to know--at least, not at present--the true history
of the evening.
Elizabeth found herself laughing at that; it seemed so unnecessary
to say that Mrs. Hancock must never know the true history of the
evening. Nor must Edith herself ever know the true history of the
evening--never, never. There was no question of "not for the present"
about that. But that Mrs. Hancock should not know the mere fact that
she and Edward went to the opera alone seemed a ludicrous stratagem,
laughable.
"What a tangled web we are going to weave all about nothing," she said.
"I warn you, Edith, I shall be sure to forget, and let it out!"
"Oh, mother would be horrified!" said Edith. "You must take care!"
Elizabeth sat down and took one of Edward's cigarettes. Somehow, her
revulsion of feeling against him had altogether vanished, and her
yearning for him was stealing back again like pain that has been
temporarily numbed and begins to reassert itself. The dream, the
impossibility was that on October 8th he was going to marry Edith. It
was quite incredible, a mere piece of nonsense that she had heard down
at some dream-place called Heathmoor, where everybody was fast asleep.
It was just part of the dreams of one of them, of Aunt Julia, perhaps,
who certainly had no pains or joys, only comforts. She herself had to
humour the dream-people, saying things to those drowsy people (of whom
Edith was one) which really had a meaning, but not for them.
"But have we really done anything so awful?" she asked. "Is it highly
improper that Edward and I should go to the opera together? There were
about two thousand people there to chaperone us, and a lot of them were
so respectable--bald men and stringy women!" She laughed again. "Did
you see the one just behind us, Edward?" she said. "I'm sure you did!
She had been out and got caught in a sudden shower of diamonds. She was
peppered with them. There were several on her forehead, and I think one
on her nose. Oh, dear!"
"And why that?" asked Edith.
"Because I feel quite mad, and because I am afraid I shall recover. I
suppose I shall go to Heathmoor again to-morrow. There will be Lind
there, and Mr. Martin, and, and----Any other place would be as bad. It
isn't that Heathmoor is more impossible than London or India, or any
other place would be. Yes, I'll remember that you sprained your ankle
after the opera--about now, in fact; and then I helped you to bed,
and then I went to bed myself, exactly as I'm going to do! Oh, I'm so
tired! Good-night, Siegfried and Brunnhilde! Edward, you are a darling
for taking me!"
Next minute she was alone in her bedroom, and there shot through her
like fire a pain, agonizing and contemptible, which she had never known
before; the intolerable torture of jealousy seized her, and she writhed
in its grip. As clearly as if the scene was before her eyes, she knew
what was happening next door. She could almost hear Edith saying in
that quiet, sincere voice of hers, "Now we shall have a little time
alone, Edward. I thought dear Elizabeth was never going. Is she not
queer and excited to-night?" And she would hold out her hand to him,
and he would sit on the edge of her sofa holding it in his, and he
would bend to kiss her, not once, not once only. They would whisper
together the words that were natural and proper between pledged lovers,
the words that but an hour ago he was burning to say to her. Now, she
made no doubt, he was glib with them to Edith. And yet an hour ago she
had wrenched herself away from his arm and his kiss with horror and
upheaval of her nature. Of that horror there was nothing left now in
the hour of the first onslaught of jealousy. Now it was inconceivable
to her that when he had offered her what she longed for, the thought
of which, given to another, made her writhe with jealousy, she could
have rejected it. She had repulsed him for wanting to give her what her
whole heart cried out for, and what was hers, though he had already
sworn it away to another. He had not met her, then; he did not know
that she was ordained for him, even as he for her. And now, just
because he had promised like a child, not knowing what he promised, he
was giving all that by right was hers to a girl whom he did not love.
For a moment that thought, namely, that Edith was nothing to him,
assuaged her; she might as well be jealous of a dog that he caressed
and mumbled nonsense-love to, and her rage turned against herself for
having been so insane as to give him scruples instead of welcome. What
if she went back now into the room she had so lately left, and said
to Edith, "Let him go; you will have to let him go. It is not you he
cares for!" What if she challenged him to say which of them he chose?
She knew well what his answer would be.
Inconceivable as was her folly in rejecting him, equally inconceivable
was her mood on that morning--was it only the morning of to-day?--when
she walked about the dewy garden in an ecstasy of happiness at the
knowledge of her love. She had thought it was sufficient to love; it
had made her happy to do that. But she had understood nothing of its
nature then. It was only when she saw Brunnhilde awake to Siegfried's
kiss that she had begun to understand. And the full understanding
had come when Edward clasped and kissed her, and she for that moment
had clung to him, only to push him away, to thrust from her just
that which she wanted, which her whole soul needed. It was but a
foolish fairy-tale she had told herself among the roses and sweet
peas--a tale of sexless, bodiless love, fit for a Sunday School or a
Bible-reading--a tale of white blossoms and white robes--a thing for
children and old maids.
The Inquisition had another pair of pincers heating for her; they
were ready now, and glowing. What if his moment's heat and flash of
desire for her was but the fruit of excitement, but the froth which
the music had stirred up in him? Certainly it had been easy to quell
it. She had but to tell him to let go of her and he obeyed; to get
out of the motor, and then he stood on the pavement. She despised his
weakness, for surely a man who was in earnest, who was stirred even
as she was stirred, not by some mere breeze of attraction, or by the
excitement of a stimulated scene, but felt the heart's need, would
not have relinquished her as easily as that. Yet it looked to her in
unreasoning agony that it was so, for now he was with Edith, indulging
in more madrigals, no doubt. Yet, when she thought as collectedly as
might be for a second she had the cold water ready for those pincers.
She knew really that what she now called his weakness was in reality of
the same stuff as her own strength; that which made her strong--that
grotesque angular old image called "Honour"--was one with the reason
of his yielding to her. She was left alone with that now; next door a
precisely similar idol presided over the two whom she raged to think
upon.
Yet, if he had not so easily succumbed to her strength, or if, to put
it more truthfully, if they had not both been held in by the force that
restrained the hot impulse, that governed, that laid cool hands on the
reins he had flung away, would she, so she asked herself now, have
continued to persist, have ranged her will and purpose against his,
till there was no more courage left in her? She did not know; swift and
decisive though the struggle had been, it seemed to have taken all the
force of which she was capable to make it at all.
For the moment there was remission for her at the hands of her
jealousy, and she walked across to the window and stood behind the
curtain looking out on to the moon-emblazoned river. The flood-tide
was at its height, and the reflection of the lights from the farther
bank lay on the lake-like surface in unwavering lines. Stars and moon
burning in the blaze of an everlasting day, and something in the calm
of the night, in the eternal progress of those shining worlds, gave
her a momentary tranquillity, so that she was able to ask herself this
question, on the answer to which all depended, with a mind aloof from
herself. How long her will could have held out against her love she did
not know, but she knew she would not have chosen to yield.
And at that moment she had won, had she but known it, the first real
battle of her life. For that moment she stood with her banner waving
round her. The next she was back in the thick of the _mêlée_ again,
without tactics, without any sense of there being any one in command
of the army she fought with, or even of herself being but a unit in an
immense warfare. She felt utterly alone, struggling, yet hardly knowing
why, knowing only that the odds against her seemed desperate.