A VERY SHORT CHAPTER, IN ONE SENSE
The next day it rained. Harry shut himself up in his room and wrote
violently all the morning, less in the hope of accomplishing valuable
work than in the desire to keep his mind off the one absorbing topic. It
proved to be of little use. At lunch time he threw all that he had
written into the fireplace and resolved to tell the immediate members of
his family.
It worked out very well. After lunch he arranged with James to take a
walk in the rain. Beatrice, it appeared, would be occupied at a bridge
party all the afternoon. There remained Aunt Selina--the easiest, by all
odds. Just before starting out with James he walked into the living
room, rustling in his raincoat, and found her alone by the fire.
"It's all right, Aunt Selina." He felt himself grinning like a monkey,
but couldn't seem to stop himself.
But Aunt Selina herself could do nothing but laugh. Presently she rose
from her seat and embraced her nephew.
"That top button has come off," she said. "I'm afraid you'll get your
neck wet." Then they looked at each other and laughed again. There was
really nothing more to be said.
James' feet sounded on the stairs above.
"I shan't be home for dinner," said Harry, starting toward the door.
"And you might tell Beatrice," he added.
He walked with James for three hours or more. It may have been the
calming influence of exercise or it may have been the comforting effect
that James' society generally had on him; at any rate, when the time
came he found himself able to say what he had to without any of the
embarrassment he had expected.
He chose the moment when they had all but reached the crossroad that
would take him off to the Gilsons'.
"James," he said, breaking a long silence, "I've got something rather
important to tell you. I'm engaged."
"To whom?"
"Madge Elliston."
"When?"
"Last night. That was it." They now stood facing each other, at the
crossroads. James did not speak for a moment, and Harry scanned his face
through the dusk. Its expression was one of bewilderment, Harry thought.
Strange, that James should be more embarrassed than he! But that was the
way it went.
"Harry! See here, Harry--"
"Yes, James!"
"I ..." He stopped and then slowly raised his hand. "I congratulate
you."
"Thanks, awfully. It does sort of take one's breath away, doesn't it?...
I'm going there now. Why don't you come too? No? Well, I may be rather
late, so leave the door on the latch. I'll walk home." And he walked off
down the crossroad.
* * * * *
James knew, perfectly well, the moment Harry said he had something to
tell him. His subsequent questions were prompted more by a desire to
make the situation between them legally clear, as it were, than by real
need of information. His first dominant impulse was to explain the
situation to Harry and show him, frankly and convincingly, the utter
impossibility of his engagement. The very words formed themselves in his
mind:--"See here, Harry, you can't possibly marry Madge Elliston,
because I'm in love with her myself--have been for years, before you
ever thought of her!" He drew a long breath and actually started in on
his speech. But the words would not come. As he looked at his brother
standing happy and ignorant before him he realized in an instant that,
come what might, he would never be able to utter those words.
There was nothing left to do but mumble his congratulations. As he
lifted his hand to that of his brother the thought occurred to him that
he might easily raise it higher and put Harry out of his way, once and
for all. He knew that he could, with his bare hands, do him to death on
the spot; knee on chest, fingers on throat--he knew the place. That was
perhaps preferable to the other; kinder, certainly, but equally
impossible. It was not even a temptation.
As he walked off he reflected that he had just come through one of the
great crises of his whole life, and yet how commonplace, how utterly
flat had been its outward guise! He had always vaguely wondered how
people acted at such times; now the chance had come to him and he had
shown less feeling than he would have at missing a trolley car. In him,
at this present moment, were surging some of the most terrific passions
that ever swayed human beings--love, jealousy, disappointment, hate of
the order of things--and he could not find a physical vent for one of
them! Not only that, but he never would be able to; he saw that clearly
enough; people of his time and class and type never could. This was what
civilization had brought men to! What was the use? What was the meaning
of all civilization, all progress, all human development? Here he was,
as perfect a physical specimen as his age produced, unable to do more
than grit his teeth in the face of the most intolerable emotions known
to mankind, under pain of suffering a debasement even more intolerable.
Some people did give way to their passions, but that was only because
they were less able to think clearly than he. They always regretted it
in the end; they always suffered more that way; his knowledge of the
world had taught him nothing if it had not taught him that.
Just in order to prove to himself how ineffectual physical expression of
his mental state was he tore a rail off the top of a nearby fence--he
had wandered far out into the country again--and, raising it above his
shoulders, brought it down with all his strength upon a rock. The rail
happened to be a strong one and did not break, and the force of the blow
made his hands smart. He took a certain fierce joy in the pain and
repeated the blow two or three times, but long before his body tired
with the exertion his soul sickened of the business. He threw the rail
lightly over the fence and wandered hopelessly on into the hills.
After the first shock of surprise and disappointment had passed his
feelings boiled down to a slow scorching hate of destiny. The thought of
God occurred to him, among other things, and he laughed. Why did people
ever take it into their heads to deny the existence of God? Of course
there was a God; nothing but a divine will could possibly have arranged
that he should be thwarted in an honest love--not merely once, mind you,
but twice--by the one person in the world whom he could not oppose. Such
things were beyond the realm of chance or reason. During one part of his
wanderings he laughed aloud, several separate times, at the monumental
humor of it all. A man such as he was, in the full pride of his youth
and strength, strong in body, strong in mind, strong in will and
character, twitched hither and yon by the lightest whimsical breath of
an all-powerful divinity--it was supremely funny, in its coarse,
horrible way.
"Oh, yes, it's a good joke, God," he said aloud once or twice; "it's a
damned good joke."
It is significant that he thought very little of Madge now. He
experienced none of the sudden sharp twinges of memory that he had known
on a former occasion. At that time, as he now realized, only one side of
his nature had been stirred, and that a rather silly, unimportant side.
Now his whole being, or at least all that was best and strongest in his
being, was affected. He had loved Beatrice only with his eyes and his
imagination. He loved Madge with the full strength of his heart and soul
and mind. And heart, soul and mind being cheated of their right, united
in an alliance of hate and revenge against the fate that had cheated
them.
* * * * *
He did not return to the house for dinner, and Aunt Selina supposed he
had gone with Harry to the Gilsons'. He walked most of the night and
when at last he reached home he found the door locked. Harry, of course,
not finding him downstairs, had thought he had gone to bed and had
locked everything. So he lay down in a cot hammock to await the coming
of a hopeless day.
He got some sleep; he did not see that dawn, after all. Awakened shortly
after seven by a housemaid opening doors and windows, he slipped
unobserved up to his room, undressed and took a cold bath. He supposed
nothing would ever keep him from taking a cold bath before breakfast;
nothing, that is, except lack of cold water. Strange, that cold water
could effect what love, jealousy and company could not. He glanced out
of the window. The weather had changed during the night and the day was
clear and windy and snapping, a true forerunner of autumn. The sun and
wind between them were whipping the sea into all sorts of shades of blue
and purple, rimming it with a line of white along the blue coast of
Maine over to the left. There was cold water enough for any one, enough
to drown all the wretched souls ever born into a world of pain. How
strange it was to think of how many unwilling souls that sea drowned
every year, and yet had not taken him, who was so eminently willing! He
could not deliberately seek death for himself, but he would be delighted
to die by accident. No such luck, though; the fate, God, destiny,
whatever you chose to call it, that had brought him twice into the same
corner of terrestrial hell would see to that....
As he was rubbing himself dry his eye fell on his reflection in a
full-length mirror and almost involuntarily stopped there. He still had
the pure Greek build of his college days, he noticed; the legs, the
loins, the chest, the arms, the shoulders all showed the perfect
combination of strength and freedom. He had not even the faults of
over-development; his neck was not thick like a prize-fighter's nor did
his calves bulge like those of many great athletes. And his head matched
the rest of him, within and without. And all this perfection was brought
to naught by the vagrant whim of a cynical power! A new wave of hate and
rebellion, stronger than any he had yet felt, swept over him. Moved by a
sudden impulse he threw aside his towel and advanced a step or two
toward the mirror, raising his hands after the manner of a
libation-pourer of old.
"I swear to you," he muttered between clenched teeth to the reflection
that faced him; "I swear to you that nothing in me shall ever rest until
I have got even with the Thing, god, devil or blind chance, that has
brought me to this pass. It may come early or it may come late, but
somehow, some day! I swear it."
There was something eminently satisfying in the juxtaposition of his
nakedness of body to the stark intensity of his passion and the
elemental fervor of his agnosticism. For James was now a thorough
agnostic; turned into one overnight from a "good" Episcopalian--he had
been confirmed way back in his school days--he realized his position
and fairly reveled in the hopelessness and magnificence and bravery of
it all. For it takes considerable bravery to become an agnostic,
especially when you have a simple religious nature. James was in a state
where the thought of being eternally damned gave him nothing but a
savage joy. It was all very wicked, of course, but strong natures have a
way of turning wicked when it becomes impossible for them to be good.
There are some things that not even a _schoene Seele_ can put up with.
* * * * *
Having thus taken pact with himself he experienced a sense of relief and
became almost cheerful. He had breakfast alone with Harry--both ladies
customarily preferring to take that intimate meal in their own
rooms--and talked with him quite normally about various matters, chiefly
golf. He became almost garrulous in explaining his theories concerning
the proper use of the niblick. Harry was going to play golf that morning
with Madge. He looked extremely fresh and attractive in his suit of
tweed knickers; James did not blame Madge in the least for falling in
love with his brother rather than him. Nor was he in the least inclined
to find fault with Harry for falling in love with Madge. Only ... but
what was the use in going over all that again?
He walked briskly down to the town after breakfast and engaged a berth
on the New York express for that night. Living in immediate propinquity
to the happy lovers would of course be intolerable. Then he walked back
to the house. It was rather a long walk; the house stood on a height at
some distance back of the town. A feeling of lassitude overcame him
before he reached home; the exertions of last night were beginning to
tell on him. Oh, the horror of last night! The memory of it was almost
more oppressive than the dreadful thing itself.
He supposed he ought to go up and begin to pack, but he did not feel
like it. Instead he wandered out on the verandah to lie in the sun and
watch the sea for a while. He came at last to a hexagonal tower-like
extension of the verandah built over an abutment of rock falling sharply
away on all sides except that toward the house. There was a drop of
perhaps twenty-five feet from the broad railing of this extension to the
ground below. Harry, who knew the house from his early days, had dubbed
its peak-roofed excrescence the chamber up a tower to the east that
Elaine guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot in; it was sometimes more
briefly referred to as Elaine. It was a pleasant place to sit, but very
windy on a day like this, and James was rather surprised to discover
Beatrice sitting in one angle of the railing gazing silently out over
the sea.
"Hullo," he said, listlessly sinking into a chair. "You've heard, I
suppose?"
"Yes, I've heard."
"Fine, isn't it?"
"Oh, splendid."
"I'm going to New York to-night," said James after a moment.
"I'm going home next month," said Beatrice.
Neither spoke for a while and then it began to dawn on them both that
those two carelessly spoken sentences had much more to them than their
face-value. They both had the uneasy sensation of being forced into a
"situation."
"What for?" asked James at last.
"For good."
"But why?" he persisted, knowing perfectly well why, at bottom.
"You ought not to have to ask that," she replied. "You, of all
people.--Why are you going away to-night?" she added, turning toward him
with sudden passion.
James' first impulse was to make a sharp reply, his second was to get up
and walk away, and then his glance fell upon her face.... Oh, was there
no end to mortal misery?
"I'm sorry, Beatrice," he said wretchedly; "I'm sorry--I didn't mean to
hurt you."
"Oh, it's all right," she answered in his own tone of voice. Then for a
long time neither of them moved nor spoke.
The situation was on them now in full force, and it was a sufficiently
terrific one, for actual life; one which under other circumstances they
would both have made every effort to break up. Yet neither of them
thought of struggling against it now--there was so much else to struggle
against. Great misfortunes inoculate people to small embarrassments; no
one in the throes of angina pectoris has much time to bother about a
cold in the head. Then, as their silence wore on, they began to be
conscious of a certain sense of companionship.
"I suppose it's pretty bad?" ventured James at last, on a note of
tentative understanding.
"I suppose it is...."
An idea occurred to James. "At least you're better off than I am,
though. You can try to do something about it. You see how my hands are
tied. You can fight against it, if you want. That's something."
Beatrice gazed immovably out over the sea. "You can't fight against
destiny," she said at last.
James pricked up his ears; his whole being became suddenly alert.
Couldn't one? Had he not dedicated his whole future to that very thing?
"I'm not so sure of that," he answered slowly. "Have you ever tried?"
"I've tried for seven years."
Well, that was something. He became curious; seven years' experience in
the art of destiny-fighting would surely contain knowledge that would be
valuable to a novice like himself. And in the manner of getting this he
became almost diabolically clever. Guessing that all direct inquiries in
the matter would merely flatten themselves against the stone wall of her
reticence he determined to approach her through the avenue of her pride.
"I find it hard to believe that," he remarked; "I haven't seen the
slightest indication of such a thing."
"No, of course not. How should you? I haven't advertised it, like a
prize fight!"
"I don't mean that; I mean that I haven't ever discovered anything in
your character to make me believe you were--that sort of person. That
sort of thing takes more than strength of character and intellect; it
takes passion, capacity for feeling. And I shouldn't have said there was
much of that in you. You have always seemed to me--well, rather aloof
from such things. Cold, almost--I don't mean in the sense of being
ill-natured, but...."
James was perfectly right; it is a curious trait of human character,
that sensitiveness on the point of capacity for feeling. People who will
sincerely disclaim any pretensions to strength of mind, body or
character will flare into indignant protest when their strength of heart
is assailed. It was so with Beatrice now.
"Cold?" she interrupted with a slight laugh. "Me--cold?... Yes, I
suppose I might seem so. I daresay I appear to be a perfect human
icicle...." She laughed again, and then turned directly toward James.
"See here, James, it's more than likely that we shall never see each
other again after to-day, isn't it?"
"I suppose not, if you intend to go--"
"The first moment I can. Consequently it doesn't matter particularly
what I say to you now or what you think of me afterward. I should just
like to give you an idea of what these years have been to me. It may
amuse you to know that the pursuit of your brother has been the one
guiding passion of my life since I was eighteen. I was in love with him
before he left England and I've wanted him from that time on--wanted him
with all the strength of my soul and body! Wanted him every living
moment of the day and night!... Can you conceive of what that means for
a woman? A woman, who can't speak, can't act, can't make the slightest
advance, can't give the least glimmering of her feeling?--not only
because the world doesn't approve but because her game's all up if the
man gets a suspicion that she's after him.... I suppose I knew it was
hopeless from the start, though I couldn't bring myself to admit it. At
any rate, as soon as the chance came I made up my mind to come over here
and just sit around in his way and wait--the only thing a woman can do
under the circumstances...."
"I never--I didn't realize quite all that," stammered James. "Though I
knew--I guessed about the other.... You mean you deliberately came to
America--"
"With that sole purpose."
"And you--you...." He fairly gasped.
"I wormed my way into a place in your family with that one end in view,
if that's what you mean. And I've remained here with that one end in
view ever since."
"And all your work--the League--"
"I had to do something, in the meanwhile--No, that's not true either;
that was another means to the same end. Intended to be." She smiled with
the same quiet intensity of bitterness that had struck James before.
"But what about you and Aunt Selina? I always thought--"
The smile faded. "Aunt Selina might lie dead at my feet, for all I
should care," she answered with another sudden burst of passion. "Oh,
no, not quite that. I suppose I like her as well as I can _like_ any
one. But that's the way it is, comparatively."
"Yes. I know that feeling," said James meditatively.
"So you see how it is with me. I'm glad, in a way, that it's all up now.
Any end--even the worst--is better than waiting--that hopeless,
desperate waiting. Yet I never could bring myself to give up till I
heard--what I heard yesterday. I've expected it, really, for some time;
I've watched, I've seen. Oh, that horrible watching--waiting--listening!
That's all over, at least...."
She had sunk into a chair near the edge of the verandah and sat with her
elbows on the broad rail, gazing with sightless eyes over the variegated
expanse of the sea. The midday sun fell full upon her unprotected face
and even James at that moment could not help thinking how few
complexions could bear that fierce light as hers did. She was, indeed,
perhaps more beautiful at that moment than he had ever seen her before.
Her expression of quiet hopeless grief was admirably suited to the
high-bred cast of her features; she would have made a beautiful model
for a Zenobia or a classisized type of _pieta_. Beauty is never more
willing to come to us than when we want it least.
It had its effect on James, though he did not realize it. He came over
and sat down on the rail, where he could look directly down at her.
"Beatrice," he said, "I don't mind saying I think it was rather
magnificent of you."
She looked up at him a moment and then out to sea again. "Well, I must
say I don't. I'm not proud of it. If I had been man enough to go my own
way and not let it interfere with my life in the very least, that might
have been magnificent. But this.... It was simply weak. I always knew
there was no hope, you know."
"No, that's not the way to look at it. You devoted your whole life to
that single purpose.... After all, you did as much as it was possible to
do, you know. You went about it in the very best way--you were right
when you said the worst thing you could do was to let him see."
"I'm not so sure. No, I don't know about that. Sometimes I think that if
I had been brave enough simply to go to him and say, 'I love you; here I
am, take me; I'll devote my life to making a good wife for you,' it
would have been much better. But I wasn't brave enough for that."
"No," insisted James; "that wasn't why you didn't do it. You knew Harry.
It might have worked with some men, but not with him. Can't you see him
screwing himself to be polite and saying, 'Thank you very much,
Beatrice, but I don't think I could make you a good enough husband, so
I'm afraid it won't do'?... No, you picked out the best way to get at
him and made that your one purpose in life, and I admire you for it. It
wasn't your fault it didn't succeed; it was just--just the damned,
relentless way of things...."
"What are you going to do now?" he asked after a pause. "After you get
home, I mean?"
"I don't know. Work, I suppose, at something."
"What--slums?"
"Oh, I suppose so.--No, I'd rather do something harder, like
stenography--something with a lot of dull, grinding routine. That's the
best way."
"A stenographer!"
"Or a matron in a home.--Why not? I must do something. I won't live with
Mama, that's flat."
"You think you must go home, do you?"
"You wouldn't expect me to stay here and--?"
"No, but couldn't you find something to do here as well as there?"
"Yes, but why? I suppose I want to go home, things being as they are. If
I've got to live somewhere, I'd rather live among my own people. I
didn't come here because I liked America best...."
"But are you sure you don't like America best now? You can't have lived
here all these years without letting the place have its effect on you,
however little you may have thought about it. Why, your very speech
shows it! And what about your friends--haven't you got as many on this
side as the other? You've practically admitted it.... And do you realize
what construction is sure to be put on your leaving just now...?"
"What are you driving at?" She looked quickly up at him, curious in
spite of herself to discover the trend of his arguments, in themselves
scarcely worth answering. He did not reply for a moment, but stared
gravely back at her, and when he spoke again it was from a different
angle.
"Beatrice, why have you been telling me all these things...?"
He knew what he was going to do now, what he was striving toward with
the whole strength of his newly-forged determination. And if at the back
of his brain there struggled a crowd of lost images--ghosts of ideals
which at this time yesterday had been the unquestioned rulers of his
life--stretching out their tenuous arms to him, giving their last faint
calls for help before taking their last backward plunge into oblivion,
he only went on the faster so as to drown their voices in his own.
"Beatrice, why did you think of confiding in me? Why did you pick out
this particular time? You never have before; you're not the sort of
person that makes confidences. It wasn't because you were going away;
that was no real reason at all.... Beatrice, don't you see? Don't you
see the bond that lies between us two? Don't you see what's going to
happen to us both?"
"No--I don't know what you're talking about. James, don't be absurd!"
She rose to her feet as if to break away, but she stood looking at his
face, fascinated and possibly a little frightened by the onward rush of
his words. James rose too and stood over her.
"Beatrice, we've both had a damned dirty trick played on us, the same
trick at the same time. Are you going to take it lying down--spread
yourself out to receive another blow, or are you going to stand up and
make a fight--assert your independence--prove the existence of your own
soul? I'm not, whatever happens! I'm going to make a fight, and I want
you to make it with me. Beatrice, marry me! Now--to-day--this instant!
Don't you see that's the only thing to do?..."
"No! James, stop! You don't know what you're saying!" She broke away
from him, asserting her strength for the moment against even his
impetuous onrush. "James, you're mad, stark mad! Haven't you lived long
enough to know that you always regret words spoken like that? Try to act
like a sensible human being, if you can't be one!"
That was all very well, but why did she weaken it by adding "I won't
listen to any more such talk," which admitted the possibility that
there might be more such talk very soon? And if she was determined not
to listen, why did she not simply walk away and into the house? James
did not put these questions to himself in this form, but the substance
of their meaning worked its way through his excitement and lent him
courage for an attack from a new quarter. He dropped his impetuosity and
became very quiet and keen.
"You ask me to act like a sensible person; very well, I will. Let's look
at things from a practical point of view. There's no love's young dream
stuff about this thing, at all. We've lost that; it's been cut out of
both our lives, forever. All there is left for us to do is to pick up
the pieces and try to make something of ourselves, as we are. How can we
possibly do that better than by marrying? Don't you see the value of a
comradeship founded on the sympathy there must be between us?"
He stopped for a moment and stood calmly watching her. No need now to
use violence against those despairing voices in the background of his
thoughts; they had been hushed by the strength of a determination no
longer hot with the joy of self-discovery but taking on already
something of the chill irrevocability of age. He watched Beatrice almost
with amusement; he knew so well what futile struggles were going on
within her. He had no more doubt of the outcome now than he had of his
own determination.
"It all sounds very well, James," she answered at last, "but it won't
do. I couldn't do it. Marriage...."
"Well?"
"Marriage is an ideal, you know, as well as--as a contract. I can't--I
won't have one without the other."
"You are very particular. People as unpopular with chance as we are
can't afford to be particular."
"It would be false to--to--oh, I don't know how to put it! To the best
in life."
"Has the best in life been true to you?"
"You are so bitter!"
"Hasn't one the right to be, sometimes? God--fate--what you call
ideals--have their responsibilities, even to us. What claim have all
those things got on us now?"
"I choose to follow them still!"
"Then you are weak--simply weak!--You act as if I were proposing
something actually wicked. It's not wicked at all; it's simply a
practical benefit. Marriage without love might be wicked if there were
any chance left of combining it with love; but now--! It's simply
picking up pieces, making the best of things--straight commonsense...."
She might still have had her way against him, as long as he continued to
base his appeal on commonsense. But he changed his tactics again, this
time as a matter of impulse. He had been slowly walking toward her in
the course of his argument and now stood close by her, talking straight
down into her eyes, till suddenly her mere physical nearness put an end
to speech and thought alike. Something of her old physical attraction
for him, which had been much stronger than in the case of Madge,
returned to him with a force for the moment irresistible. There was
something about her wide eyes, her parted lips, her bosom slightly
heaving with the effort of argument.... He put his hand on her shoulder
and slowly yet irresistibly drew her to him. He bent his head till their
lips touched.
So they stood for neither knew how long. Seconds flew by like years, or
was it years like seconds? Sense of time was as completely lost as in
sleep; indeed, their condition was very much like that of sleep. They
had both become suddenly, acutely tired of life and had found at least
temporary rest and refreshment. Neither of them was bothered by worries
over the inevitable awakening; neither of them even thought of it, yet.
As for Beatrice, she was for the moment bowled over by the discovery
that some one cared for her enough to clasp her to his bosom and kiss
her. What had she wanted all these years, except to be loved? A wave of
mingled self-pity and self-contempt swept over her. She felt suddenly
weak; her knees trembled; what did that matter, though, when James was
there to hold her up? She needed strength above all things, and James
was strong above all things. Tears smarted in her eyes and streamed
unheeded down her cheeks.
"I was so lonely," she whispered at last, raising her welling eyes to
him. "I have been alone so long ... so long...."
"James," she began again after a while, "life is so horrible, isn't
it?"
"It is. Ghastly."
"Oh, it _is_ good to find some one else who thinks so!"
"Yes, I know."
"Anything is good--_anything_--that makes it easier to forget, isn't
it?"
"Yes. And we're going to try to forget together."
Presently the moment came when they had to break apart, and they did it
a little awkwardly, not caring to look at each other very closely. They
sat down on the rail, side by side but not touching, and for some time
remained silently busy regaining old levels and making new adjustments.
There was considerable to adjust, certainly. At last James looked at his
watch and announced that it was nearly lunch time.
"When shall we get married?" he inquired, brusk and businesslike. It may
have been only his tone that Beatrice involuntarily shuddered at. She
told herself it was, and then reviled herself for shuddering. It was
better to be prosaic and practical.
"Oh, as soon as possible.... Now--any time you say."
"Yes, but when? When shall we tell people?"
"Oh, not just yet...." she objected, almost automatically.
"Why not? Why not right now--before the other?"
"You think...?"
"Yes--every moment counts." He meant that the sooner the thing came out
the better were their chances of concealment, and she understood him.
Yes, that was the way to look at things, she reflected; might as well do
it well, if it was to be done at all. She warmed up to his point of view
so quickly that when his next question came she was able to go him one
better.
"And the other--the wedding? In about a fortnight, should you say?"
"Oh, no, not for a month, at least. At the very least. It must be in
England, you see."
"In England?"
"Yes, that's the way it would be...." If we were really in love with
each other, of course she meant. He looked at her with new admiration.
They made a few more arrangements. Their talk was pervaded now with a
sense of efficiency and despatch. If they could not call reasons by
their real names they could call steamships and railroads by theirs,
and did. In a few minutes they had everything planned out.
A maid appeared and announced lunch. They nodded her away and sat silent
for a moment longer. It seemed as if something more ought to be said;
the interview was too momentous to be allowed to end with an
announcement of a meal. The sun beat down on them from the zenith with
the full unsubtle light of noonday, prosaically enough, but the wind,
blowing as hard as ever, whistled unceasingly around their exposed tower
and provided a sort of counter-dose of eerieness and suggestiveness; it
gave them the sense of being rather magnificently aloof from the rest of
the world. The sun showed them plainly enough that they were on a
summer-cottage verandah, but the wind somehow managed to suggest that
they were really in a much more romantic place. Probably this dual
atmosphere had its effect on them; it would need something of the sort,
at any rate, to make James stand up and say aloud, in broad daylight:
"Beatrice, don't you feel a sort of inspiration in fighting against
something you can't see?"
"Yes, James," she answered slowly; "I believe I do--now."
"Something we can neither see nor understand, but know is wrong and can
only protest against with the whole strength of our souls? Blindly,
unflinchingly?"
"Yes."
"Inevitably?"
"Yes."
"Even if uselessly?"
"Yes." Her eyes met his squarely enough; there was no sign of flinching
in them.
"I'm glad you understand. For that's going to be our life, you know."
"Yes, James; that shall be our life." They got up and took each other's
hands for a moment, as though to seal their compact, looking each other
steadfastly in the eyes meanwhile. They did not kiss again.