"I don't know whether I'd better tell you. But I know it would be the
very thing. Do you want me to tell you?"
"Oh, it makes no difference," said Cornelia, hopelessly.
Charmian went on tentatively, "Why, it's this. I've often heard of such
things: Me to pretend that _I_ wrote this horrid Dickerson letter, and
there isn't any such person; but I did it just for a joke, or wanted to
break off the engagement because I couldn't bear to give you up. Don't
you see? It's like lots of things on the stage, and I've read of them,
I'd be perfectly willing to sacrifice myself in such a cause, and I
should have to, for after I said I had done such a thing as that, he
would never let you speak to me again, or look at me, even. But I
should die happy----" She stopped, frozen to silence, by the scornful
rejection in Cornelia's look. "Oh, no, no! It wouldn't do! I see it
wouldn't! Don't speak! But there's nothing else left, that I know of."
She added, by another inspiration, "Or, yes! Now--_now_--we can live
for each other, Cornelia. You will outlive this. You will be terribly
changed, of course; and perhaps your health may be affected; but I
shall always be with you from this on. I have loved you more truly than
he ever did, if he can throw you over for a little thing like that. If
I were a man I should exult to ignore such a thing. Oh, if men could
only be what girls would be if they were men! But now you must begin to
forget him from this instant--to put him out of your mind--your life."
To further this end Charmian talked of Ludlow for a long time, and
entered upon a close examination of his good and bad qualities; his
probable motives for now behaving as he was doing, and the influence of
the present tragedy upon his future as a painter. It would either
destroy him or it would be the fire out of which he would rise a
master; he would degenerate into a heartless worldling, which he might
very well do, for he was fond of society, or he might become a gloomy
recluse, and produce pictures which the multitude would never know were
painted with tears and blood. "Of course, I don't mean literally; the
idea is rather disgusting; but you know what I mean, Cornelia. He may
commit suicide, like that French painter, Robert; but he doesn't seem
one of that kind, exactly; he's much more likely to abandon art and
become an art-critic. Yes, it may make an art-critic of him."
Cornelia sat in a heavy muse, hearing and not hearing what she said.
Charmian bustled about, and made a fire of lightwood, and then kindled
her spirit lamp, and made tea, which she brought to Cornelia. "We may
as well take it," she said. "We shall not sleep to-night anyway. What a
strange ending to our happy evening. It's perfectly Hawthornesque.
Don't you think it's like the _Marble Faun_, somehow? I believe you
will rise to a higher life through this trouble, Cornelia, just as
Donatello did through his crime. I can arrange it with mamma to be with
you; and if I can't I shall just simply abandon her, and we will take a
little flat like two newspaper girls that I heard of, and live
together. We will get one down-town, on the East Side."
Cornelia look the tea and drank it, but she could not speak. It would
have been easier to bear if she had only had herself alone to blame,
but mixed with her shame, and with her pity for him, was a sense of his
want of wisdom in refusing to let her speak at once, when she wanted to
tell him all about Dickerson. That was her instinct; she had been
right, and he wrong; she might be to blame for everything since, but he
was to blame then and for that. Now it was all wrong, and past undoing.
She tried, in the reveries running along with what she was hearing of
Charmian's talk, every way of undoing it that she could imagine: she
wrote to Ludlow; she sent for him; she went to him; but it was all
impossible. She did not wish to undo the wrong that she might have back
her dream of happiness again; she had been willing to be less than
true, and she could wish him to know that she hated herself for that.
It went on and on, in her brain; there was no end to it; no way to undo
the snarl that life had tangled itself up into. She looked at the clock
on the mantel, and saw that it was three o'clock. "Why don't you go to
bed?" she asked Charmian.
"I shall not go to bed, I shall never go to bed," said Charmian darkly.
She added, "If you'll come with me, I will."
"I can't," said Cornelia, with a sort of dry anguish. She rose from
where she had been sitting motionless so long. "Let me lie down on that
couch of yours, there. I'm tired to death."
She went toward the alcove curtained off from the studio, and Charmian
put her arm round her to stay her and help.
"Don't. I can get along perfectly well."
"I will lie down here with you," said Charmian. "You won't mind?"
"No, I shall like to have you."
Cornelia shivered as she sat down on the edge of this divan, and
Charmian ran back to put another stick of lightwood on the fire, and
turn the gas down to a blue flame. She pulled down rugs and draperies,
and dragged them toward the alcove for covering. "Oh, how different it
is from the way I always supposed it would be when I expected to sleep
here!" She sank her voice to a ghostly whisper, and yawned. "Now you go
to sleep, Cornelia; but if you want anything I shall be watching here
beside you, and you must ask me. Would you like anything now? An olive,
or a--cracker?"
"Nothing," said Cornelia, tumbling wearily upon the couch.
Charmian surveyed her white, drawn face with profound appreciation.
Then she stretched herself at her side, and in a little while Cornelia
knew by her long, regular breathing that she had found relief from the
stress of sympathy in sleep.