Gabriel’s “Market Night” was well hung, and kept a crowd about it
through the day. Prelates, plutocrats, and even the British baby
appeared on the whole to be less attractive. Setting aside landscapes,
which we paint with understanding, our Exhibition cannot often boast of
more than a couple of pictures which invite to a second examination
on disinterested grounds; this of the unknown painter addressed itself
successfully both to the vulgar and to the cultured. Its technical
qualities were held to be high. Some people made a sermon of it,--which
the painter never intended.
It being Saturday afternoon, Kingcote found himself waiting in a great
press at the hour that Isabel had mentioned. The face for which he
looked at length shone upon him, and he discerned the two young ladies
upon whose appearance he had speculated--Rhoda Meres, with her
tall, graceful figure and melancholy prettiness; Hilda, greatly
more interesting, of flower-like freshness and purity, her keen look
anticipating the pleasure that was before her. Kingcote was conscious
of missing some one; whilst he was joining the three, he sought for Ada
Warren, but she seemed not to be of the party. He could not understand
why her absence should occasion him anything like disappointment, yet it
assuredly did. He was wondering whether she had changed at all since he
saw her.
He was presented to the two girls, and did what he could in the way
of amiable interrogation and remark. Hilda, constraining her sisters
companionship, began to examine the pictures.
“I must keep them within view,” Mrs. Clarendon said to Kingcote, “but
I have no intention of wearying myself by walking round each room. You
have been here already; you can point out anything you would like me to
see. Where are your friend’s?”
“Much further on.”
“What do you think of these girls?”
“The younger one is delightful.”
“You don’t care for Rhoda; yet she has always been my favourite. Poor
things!” she added in a lower tone, “isn’t it hard that they should have
nothing in life to look forward to?”
Hilda turned to draw Mrs. Clarendon’s attention to a picture.
“Miss Warren has not come with you?” Kingcote asked, when there was
again opportunity.
“No; she kept at home. But the girls have just been surprising me. If
you buy to-day’s _Tattler_ you’ll find something that she has written--a
description--something about the river.”
“Verse?”
“No, prose. They are all in great excitement about it. I must get the
paper; I don’t suppose she’ll send it to me.”
Kingcote was much interested; he promised himself to read this
contribution as soon as possible.
When at length they reached the “Market Night,” it was very difficult to
get a view of the canvas. But for Isabel a few glances were enough.
“Oh, I don’t like that at all!” she exclaimed positively, moving away
from the throng. “Those faces are disgusting. I should not like to have
such a picture as that in my house.”
“In that I agree with you,” Kingcote said. Hilda had also come away and
was listening. “But it is a wonderful picture for all that.”
“What a pity he paints such things! Why don’t you make him choose
pleasant subjects?”
“I imagine Gabriel’s answer if I said such a thing to him,” said
Kingcote, smiling. “I suppose the artist must paint what he can and
will; our likes and dislikes will not much affect him. But don’t you
admire the skill and power, at all events?”
Hilda went to look again, guided by this remark; she snapped up anything
that seemed likely to instruct her taste with the eager voracity of a
robin.
But Isabel only shook her head and shuddered a little.
“Is the other picture as bad?” she asked.
“It’s just opposite; come and look.”
This was the child in front of the shop-window.
“No, not quite as bad,” was Isabel’s judgment. “But he has such a taste
for low subjects. Why doesn’t he paint decent people?”
“I’d rather keep clear of the gutter myself,” conceded her companion.
“Still----”
He did not conclude, and they crossed to the girls again. Shortly, Mrs.
Clarendon met with a party of friends, and Kingcote drew away. A tall,
heavy man of a military type bent insinuatingly as he talked to her;
King-cote fretted at the sight. To avoid and forget it he joined Hilda
Meres. The bright intelligence which made way through her shyness
charmed him; possibly the extreme respect with which she received
every word of his utterance did not diminish his interest in her. Rhoda
scarcely spoke, but her smile, too, was very sweet. How he wished that
his sister could have companions such as these! And, as Mary came into
his mind--she sitting alone in her widow’s weeds--he felt impatient with
the bright mob crushing about him. He did not need to be reminded, yet
it reminded him again, how heartless the world is....
Ada had made pretext of a headache to stay at home. Possibly she would
not have done so, but for the fact of her first piece of writing
having appeared to-day. She did not care to present herself before Mrs.
Clarendon as if anxious to be congratulated. Yet it concerned her not
a little to know that Mrs. Clarendon read what she had written; she
had joy in the thought that at length she could prove herself not
insignificant. Henceforth her position was far other than it had been,
in her own eyes at all events. Formerly she was scarcely a person,
rather a mere disagreeable fact, troubling and puzzling people; she had
no rights, and no satisfaction save the illiberal one of feeling the
brute power which circumstances had given her. Now she was a human
being, and her heart was full.
This that _The Tattler_ had printed was a little sketch called “River
Twilight”; it occupied a column of the weekly paper, and was of course
unsigned. Walking with Hilda along the Embankment a fortnight ago, when
there was a finely dusky heaven, it had first of all struck her that she
might find bits for her pencil about here; then came the suggestion to
picture in words that which had so impressed her. She went home, and
up to her own room, and by midnight had written her description. She
resolved not to show this to Mr. Meres, but to try her luck at once with
one of the papers which published similar things; it was despatched
the first thing in the morning. In a day or two there came to her an
envelope with which she hastened into privacy; she had seen the name of
_The Tattler_ stamped on the back. It contained a proof.
Perhaps it would be literally true to say that this was the first great
pleasure that life had brought her. She sat and sobbed for joy; a vast
gratitude possessed her whole being--gratitude to the Fates, as she
would have said. She could not believe that in very truth her writing
was going to be printed; nay, that it was printed, and lay before
her! With eyes constantly blinded by a foolish rush of tears, she read
through the composition--oh, how many times! One misprint there was,
and one only; she laughed at the nonsense it made. Mr. Meres was not at
home, or she could not have resisted showing him the proof; she could
not delay the posting of it (“by return of post” was requested), and
it was so much the better; she would astonish him with the paper on
Saturday. She went out, dropped her envelope into the nearest pillar,
and wandered along the Embankment, night-time though it was. The girls
she had avoided--it was better to be alone. The blackness of the river
was full of intense meaning; the stars above flashed and burned like
beacons; the rush of the night air she drank like wine. Over to the
south was a red glare; that was Lambeth--to her a mysterious region
of toil and trouble. The fierceness of human conflict had all at once
assumed for her the significance of kindred emotion. She, too--only a
girl, and without that which in girls is prized--might perhaps find some
work in the world. Would they _pay_ her for this contribution? She stood
still, as if her breath had been caught. The glare in the south became a
mighty illumination of the heavens; it was like the rising of a new sun.
She leaned upon the stone parapet, and strove to fix the idea which
had shot so into birth. Would they _pay_ her? Might she hope to earn by
writing enough to live upon? Mr. Meres had always spoken of that aspect
of literature very gloomily; he, indeed, had never ceased to find it
the hardest struggle to earn a living. But then he had his children to
support....
She turned to go home. On one of the seats which she passed, a wretched
woman was huddling herself in her rags, as if preparing to sleep. Ada
took out her purse and gave money.
“Who knows?” she said to herself, “my mother may be such an one....”
Thomas Meres was exultant when Ada showed him her achievement. He
reminded himself just in time, and only just in time, that excess of
laudation was not advisable, but he could not prevent his eyes from
twinkling with delight. Hilda was less cautious, nothing less than
enthusiasm could satisfy her. Rhoda gave approval, which surprised her
sister and her father by its cool moderateness.
Ada had meant to send a copy of the paper to Mrs. Clarendon, but at
the last she altered her mind; she could not bear the thought of being
misinterpreted. One copy she did dispatch, and that was to Lacour,
having pencilled her initials at the end of the article.
At dinner there was of course talk of Academy experiences. It was
mentioned that Mr. Kingcote had been met with and introduced.
“There were two pictures by a friend of his, a Mr. Gabriel,” Hilda said,
and described what they were. “Mrs. Clarendon couldn’t bear them, but
Mr. Kingcote said they were very powerful, and so they seemed to me. I
wish I could have looked at them longer and closer, but there was such a
crowd.”
“I have seen mention of the ‘Market Night,’” observed her father. “I
must manage to get a look at it. I am not surprised Mrs. Clarendon
didn’t like it.”
“Oh, but she didn’t look at it from an artistic point of view,” Hilda
went on to explain with much zeal. “Very likely it wasn’t a pretty
subject, but that has nothing to do with its merits as a picture.”
“You are an advanced young lady,” jested Mr. Meres. “Art for art’s sake,
eh? What’s your opinion Ada? Must a picture necessarily be pleasant to
look at?”
“It depends what we call pleasant,” hazarded Ada. “I fancy people think
very differently about that.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s the fact of the matter. What view did Mr.
Kingcote take?”
Ada turned her eyes to Hilda and listened.
“I fancy,” said the girl, with a roguish smile, “he didn’t like to
disagree with Mrs. Clarendon; but he thought the picture good for all
that. I like Mr. Kingcote, don’t you, Ada?”
The question was unexpected, and Ada was not ready with an answer. She
tried to say something natural and off-hand, and could not hit on the
right words. To her extreme annoyance, she saw that her embarrassment
was attracting attention. Mr. Meres glanced at her, and then showed
artificial interest in something at the other end of the room.
“I can’t say that I have thought much about him,” she uttered at length,
with exaggerated indifference. She was intensely angry with herself for
her utterly groundless difficulty. If she had not thought of Kingcote
before, she at all events did so now, and with not a little acrimony.
She and Mr. Meres passed each other by chance about an hour after
dinner.
“Will you come and give me some help?” the latter asked.
“Certainly.”
He wanted her to read aloud several pages from a German book, the while
he scanned an English translation which was under review. When this was
done, he sat musing, and stroked his nose.
“You couldn’t have done better,” he exclaimed at length with abruptness.
“That little thing is rounded and polished, complete in itself, an
artistic bit of work. Stick to quite short pieces for awhile, and
polish, polish! By-the-bye, you have been reading De Quincey of late?”
“How do you know?”
“A word or two, a turn in the style, that’s all,” he said, smiling.
“Will they pay me for it?” Ada brought herself to ask.
“Oh, yes; you’ll have your guinea for the column. _The Tattler_ pays at
the end of each month, I believe. You look as pleased,” he added, with a
laugh, “as if your bread and cheese depended on it.”
“The labourer is worthy of his--or her--hire,” Ada remarked.
“Don’t, for heaven’s sake, don’t begin to look on it in that way!
Happily you are under no such vile necessity. Rejoice in your freedom.
No man can bid you write your worst, that the public may be caught.”
“Yet not long ago you made light of my efforts just because I was not
dependent on literature.”
“I have seen since that you mean serious things. Beggary is an aid to no
one; if it impels to work, it embitters the result. With the flow of a
hungry man’s inspiration there cannot but mingle something of the salt
of tears. One’s daily bread at least must be provided--I don’t say one’s
daily banquet. If the absence of need checks your creative impulse, it
doesn’t greatly matter; in that case you would never have done anything
worth speaking of. No, no; rejoice in your freedom. Thank heaven that
you can live, as old Landor says, ‘Beyond the arrows, shouts, and views
of men.’”
There was silence; then he asked:
“Have you sent the paper to Mrs. Clarendon?”
Ada replied with a negative.
He kept his eyes from her, and stirred in his seat.
“You think she would not care to see it?”
“I don’t think she would.”
“Do you remember,” he began, with uncertain voice, “that not long ago I
was going to ask you to do something to please me.”
“I remember it.”
“Can you guess what that was?”
She did not answer at once. Her face showed inner movements of
conflicting kinds; she seemed to struggle to banish that hardness of
expression which fixed her features against an unwelcome thought.
“Had it,” she asked at length, “anything to do with Mrs. Clarendon?”
“Yes, Ada, it had. You do not like her. One’s likes and dislikes cannot
easily be altered to suit another’s wish, but if by any means I could
bring you to kind thoughts of her, I think I should be content to forget
every other hope that life still nourishes in me.”
She did not speak.
“Can you be open enough with me to say why it is you dislike her?” He
spoke very softly and kindly, and with a hint of things which could not
but touch a listener.
Ada began with trembling:
“It seems to have grown with me. I shrank from her when, as a child, I
was first brought into her presence. Her look was contemptuous, cruel;
for all that I was such a poor, helpless creature, and should have moved
her pity. Since I have known everything, she has seemed to me the more
to be blamed I cannot sympathise with her, though I know others do.
There is no motive in her life that seems to me noble or lovable. I
think her selfish; I think she has brought upon herself all her troubles
by her deliberate choice of lower things. I may miss the better points
in her character; I am intensely prejudiced.”
Meres listened with pain which at length compelled him to turn his head
away. Ada would not look at him. She knew what she was inflicting, but
could not stay her tongue sooner. One of the million forms of jealousy
fretted her, and jealousy is cruel.
“Did she ever tell you anything of my earlier life?” he asked, when he
could command his voice.
“Nothing, except that you had--had not been happy in your marriage.”
It was a little strange for her to be speaking thus with a man so much
her elder, but the subject of their emotions put them on equal ground.
“Do you know that I was once secretary to Mr. Clarendon?”
She gazed at him with agitated interest.
“I did not know that.”
“Yes, I was; all through the five years of his married life. I had many
opportunities of understanding his private affairs, and I could not help
seeing what the relations were between him and his wife. Mrs. Clarendon
is to be forgiven everything.”
Ada heard, with bowed head.
“What her moral claims and standing may be--with that we have no
concern. Such judgments have little to do with personal feeling, and I
want, if it be possible, to soften your heart to her, that is all. I owe
Mrs. Clarendon more than I owe any one, dead or living. At her
husband’s death I was plunged into sufferings which I cannot speak of in
detail--they would have been bad enough in any case, and were made all
but intolerable by the completest poverty. If it had not been for the
children, I should assuredly have killed myself. In my despair I wrote
to her. I had never been on such terms with her as warranted me in doing
this, but----” he waved his hand.
“It would have been natural enough if she had thrown aside my letter,
as awakening disagreeable memories, and left it unanswered. Instead of
that, she met me with such kindness as one human being seldom shows
to another. She invited me to come to Knightswell, and insisted on my
bringing the children--they had, happily, no mother. I was wretchedly
ill, unable to exert myself in any way, only the workhouse was before
me.”
His voice failed him for a moment.
“I remember your coming,” Ada said quietly.
“After that life was hard enough, but never what it had been. If I were
to tell you all she has been to the girls since then----” He broke off.
“Perhaps you would think there was shame in it; that I should have been
too proud to accept so much help. It may be so. A man submits for the
sake of his children to what would perhaps degrade him if he stood
alone. Well, these are the things that I wanted you to know. And more;
Mrs. Clarendon has never spoken to me of you in any but the justest
and most generous way. She has recognised your talents, and has always
accepted gladly any suggestion I made for your good. Think, Ada--that
cannot have been easy to her.”
There was a long silence. Then the girl asked:
“Did you ever see my mother?”
“Your parents were unknown to me.”
“I did not say my parents--my mother.”
She corrected him with cold emphasis, looking into his face. Meres
averted his eyes.
“No, I never saw her,” was his uneasy reply.
“Mr. Ledbury, one of the trustees, tells me that she was on the stage.”
He looked surprised.
“Mrs. Clarendon referred me to him,” Ada explained, “for information she
herself could not, or did not wish to give. He says she was in the habit
of applying to him for money up to about two years ago, and that he
knows nothing of her at present.”
“My child, why should you make those inquiries?”
“Because I have a very natural desire to know whether my mother is
suffering from want, and to help her if she is. It appears that nothing
was left to her.”
“Ada, there is only one thing I can say on this subject. I think it very
unlikely indeed that you will ever hear any more of your mother. Mr.
Ledbury will say no more than he has done, be sure of that.”
“Then he should not have said so much.”
“I myself think so. Try to put all that out of your thoughts. You are
impelled by a sense of duty, I know; but remember that in the case of
parent and child duties are reciprocal, or they do not exist at all. I
earnestly beg you to put your mother’s existence utterly from your mind;
it can never be anything but a source of misery to you. I had hoped the
subject would never give you trouble. Pray do not let it, Ada.”
He spoke with extreme earnestness, and his words seemed to produce
an effect. When, shortly afterwards, Ada shook hands and bade him
good-night, she added:
“I will think much of all you have said tonight.” Then, in a lower
voice, “I am not unprepared for what you would teach me.”
The listener attached no special meaning to the last words; they seemed
to him only dictated by good-will to himself.
*****
It was with a good deal of interest that Meres went to meet Kingcote
at dinner on the following day. He had got one or two fancies about the
young man, which made him anxious to gauge his character for himself. He
was the first of the party to arrive, and Isabel’s talk to him was about
the object of his thoughts.
“If you find him congenial,” she said, “it would be very good of you to
ask him to come and see you now and then. You and Ada can talk about the
things he cares for. Has Ada spoken of him?”
“She has told me about his singular rustication,” Mr. Meres replied,
trying to meet her eye. But he did not succeed.
“He lives with his sister, a widow. Her I don’t know. I think--well, it
seems she married somebody of an undesirable kind, and I don’t suppose
she sees people. Will you make a note of his address? Pray, pray don’t
let me put a burden upon you; it’s only that he has need of pleasant
acquaintances----”
“I quite understand,” replied the other, smiling. And, in truth, he
thought he did.
The lady who was the third guest was a genial and rather homely
creature; she and Isabel talked women’s talk whilst the gentlemen became
friendly after dinner. In the course of chat Mr. Meres did not fail to
say that he and his family were always at home after three o’clock on
Sunday, and would be pleased as often as Kingcote chose to look in. He
mentioned Ada’s appearance in _The Tattler_, and was gratified to hear
Kingcote’s praise. The two got on very well together. Mr. Meres felt
surer than ever that he understood....
Kingcote did not look well to-night; he had the appearance of one who
lacks sleep. The night before, Mary, after listening to his ceaseless
footsteps till three o’clock, had gone up and knocked at his door. After
a word or two he opened.
“Why are you up so late, Bernard?” she asked. “I heard you moving, and
feared you might be unwell.”
“I have been reading,” he replied. “I quite forgot that you were
underneath. It’s too bad to wake you.”
“I have not been asleep. I am anxious about you. Won’t you go to bed?”
“To be sure I will. It’s later than I thought. You shan’t hear another
sound.”
“But it’s not that I care about,” she urged. “I would rather sit with
you, if you can’t rest.”
“No, no; there’s nothing to be anxious about. We shall wake the children
if we talk so much. Be off and sleep, Mary.”
She went, with a heavy heart. She was much disturbed on her brother’s
account.
To-night it was misery to him to have to go away with the others,
without one word for himself. After walking to the end of the street,
he came back and stood looking at the lighted windows. Presently the
drawing-room became dark. He set out on his long journey to Highgate.
“Has it been a pleasant evening?” Mary asked. She liked to look at her
brother in his evening dress; it gave her all manner of thoughts. At
his entrance she had closed a folio volume of Jeremy Taylor’s sermons,
which, in impatience at some unwholesome little book she was bent over,
Kingcote had put into her hands a few days ago. “At least read good
English,” had been the accompanying remark.
In answer to her question he gave a weary, indifferent affirmative.
“How did you like Mr. Meres?”
“Oh, he’s a very decent fellow. He wants me to visit him next Sunday. I
believe I promised, but it is scarcely likely that I shall go.”
“Why not? Certainly you ought to. Society is just what you want.”
“I can’t talk!” he exclaimed impatiently. “I should be a bore. It was
only out of politeness that he asked me.”
“You wouldn’t find it too disagreeable to meet Miss Warren?”
“Why should I? Rather the contrary.” During the next days he was not
often at home. He tried to make distractions for himself in picture
galleries and museums, and for a little while half succeeded. But when
the fourth day brought no letter from Isabel, impatience overcame him.
In the afternoon he called to see her. He was conducted upstairs, and,
as soon as the door opened for the announcement of his name, he heard
the voices of people in conversation. It was too late to retreat, and,
indeed, he had half expected this; he could not ask below whether Mrs.
Clarendon was alone. He entered, and found half-a-dozen strangers;
Isabel interrupted her vivacious talk, and received him.
It might have been five minutes or half-an-hour that he stayed; he could
not have said which. He found himself introduced to some one, he said
something, he drank tea. He was only conscious of living when at length
in the street again. It was as if madness had got hold upon him; the
tension of preserving a calm demeanour whilst he sat in the room made
his blood rise to fever-heat. The voices of the polite triflers about
him grew to the intolerable screaming and chattering of monkeys.
Insensate jealousy frenzied him. He could not look at Isabel’s face, and
when she spoke to him he felt a passion almost of hatred, so fiercely
did he resent the friendly indifference of her tone....
He entered a stationer’s shop, and bought a sheet of note-paper and an
envelope, then walked into the park, and, on the first seat he reached,
sat down and began to write in pencil. He poured forth all the fury
of his love and the bitterness of his misery, overwhelmed her with
reproaches, bade her choose between him and this hateful world which was
his curse. Only lack of paper brought him to a close. This astonishing
effusion he deliberately--nay, he was incapable of deliberation--but
with a savage determinedness posted at the first pillar. Then he walked
on and on, heedless whitherwards--Oxford Street, Holborn, the City,
round to Pentonville, to Highbury. He was chased by demons; thought had
become a funeral pyre of reason and burned ceaselessly. The last three
days had been a preparation for this, only a trivial occasion was
needed to drive him out of brooding into delirium. Alas, it was only the
beginning! May--June. Could he live to the end of that second month?
Kingcote had often asked himself what was the purpose of his life--here
it had declared itself at length. This was the fulfilment of his
destiny--to suffer. He was born with the nerves of suffering developed
as they are in few men. “Resist not, complain not!” Fate seemed
whispering to him. “To this end was your frame cast. Your parents
bequeathed you this nature, developing antecedents which were the
preparation for it. Endure, endure, for the end is not yet.”
“I cannot endure! This anguish is more than humanity can bear.”
“Yes, you can and will endure it. Nature is cunning, and fits the fibre
to the strain. Be proud of your finer sensibilities. Coarse men do not
feel and suffer thus.”
“There is nothing high in my torment. It is of vanity and of the flesh.
In agonising, I revile myself.”
“Do so. That also is the result of your compounding. Coarse natures
never revile themselves.”
“And what will come of it, if I live?”
“That is of the future. Suffer!”....
He reached home when it was dark, he knew not at what time. Refusing the
tea which Mary offered, he went to the solitude of his room. And there,
in weariness, his frenzy passed. Wretchedness at what he had done took
its place. He tried to remember all he wrote; a few phrases clung in his
memory, and became his despair. How could he speak so to Isabel? And the
letter would be delivered to-night.
He wrote another, explaining, imploring her forbearance, throwing
himself at her feet. It was even now not nine o’clock, and she must not
sleep with the other letter alone to think of. He went forth, took a
hansom, and drove as far as Portman Square, then walked to the door of
the house and rang the servant’s bell as he dropped his letter into the
box.
He purposed to return on foot, but a very-short distance proved that
his strength would not bear him half-way. By means of omnibuses he found
himself at home again. This time he ate what his sister put for him,
but scarcely spoke. Mary asked no questions, only looked at him with
infinite sorrow and wonder. After eating he went to his bed and slept.
The postman brought him a letter in the morning.
“Bernard, Bernard, how can you be so foolish? Your first letter pained
me dreadfully; your second makes all right again. Come and see me at
eleven to-morrow morning; I promise you to be alone. I cannot write more
now, as I must send my maid out to post this, and it is late. For ever
yours, whether you believe it or not.”
It quieted him, but he said to himself that: it was cold, very cold;
not one word of endearment. It would have pleased him better if she had
resented his ill behaviour. She seemed to care little for those words of
fire, to have already forgotten them.
He was with her at the hour named. Isabel met him with scarcely a sign
of reproach, but he felt that her smile was not what he had once known.
She had, too, a slight air of fatigue, and seated herself before she
spoke to him.
“I shouldn’t have come,” he explained, referring to the previous
afternoon, “but that it was so long since I had heard from you. Why
didn’t you write?”
“I meant to, really; but all sorts of unexpected things have been taking
up my time.”
“And it is a week since I saw you.”
“No; last Sunday.”
“Oh, that is not seeing you! It is mere misery to be in your presence
with others. I avoid seeing your face, try not to hear you speaking.”
“But why? It is very hard to understand you, Bernard.”
“That is my fear. You don’t understand me. You can’t see what a
difference there is for me between love and friendship. I cannot treat
you as a friend. All the time that I am near you, I am shaken with
passion; to play indifference is a sort of treachery. I must never again
see you when others are by--I can’t bear it!”
She looked before her in a kind of perplexity, and did not move when he
took her hand.
“You said very cruel things in your letter. I felt them more than you
think.”
“Don’t speak of that, Isabel. I was mad when I wrote it. Try and bear
with me, dear one; I am so wretchedly weak, but I love you more than you
will ever know. Never tell me anything of what you do or whom you see;
let me come to you when you have a spare halfhour, and that shall be
enough. But write to me often. Give me constant assurance of your love.
Promise that, for I suffer terribly!”
She was about to say something, but he went on.
“It is so hard that all these people can come and talk with you freely,
and you can waste on them your smiles and your brightness, whilst I
stand apart and am hungry for one little word. What is it that pleases
you in their society? Are they better than I--those people who were
about you yesterday? With a little trouble one might make a wax-work
figure which would go through those forms every bit as well, even to the
talking. Cannot you see how unworthy they are of you--you who are more
beautiful than all women, whose heart can speak such true and tender
and noble things! It is sacrilege that they should dare to touch your
hands!”
Her lips trembled; as he came and knelt by her, she knew again an
impulse of pure devotion.
“Bernard, do you wish me to go back again? Shall I go to Knightswell?”
“How can I say yes? It is your happiness to be here. You feel and enjoy
your power.”
“Bid me leave London, and I will not remain another day.”
She feared his answer, yet longed to arouse in him the energy which
should make her subject. A woman cannot be swayed against her instincts
by mere entreaty, but she will bow beneath the hand that she loves. Had
he adored her less completely, had the brute impulse of domination
been stronger in him, his power and her constancy could have defied
circumstances. But he would not lay upon her the yoke for which her neck
was bowed in joyful trembling. He would not save her from herself by
the exertion of a stronger selfishness. Neither his reverence nor his
delicacy would allow him to constrain her. It is the difference between
practice and theory; the latter is pure, abstract, ideal; the former
must soil itself in the world’s conditions.
“I cannot make myself so selfish in your eyes,” he said. “If your love
will not bear this test, how can it face those yet harder ones?”
“What have I done that you should doubt my love? Do you--do you doubt
me?”
“Not when you look so into my eyes, bright angel!”