"Love's strength standeth in Love's sacrifice,
And he who suffers most has most to give."
--Hamilton King.
Dinner that evening was an oppressively silent affair. The man's white
Northern anger still smouldered beneath his surface immobility; while
Quita, who could not bring herself to believe in the spontaneity of
Richardson's engagement at mess, was instinctively measuring and
crossing swords with the husband, whose personality held her captive
even while it forced her every moment nearer to the danger-point of
open defiance.
Both were thankful when the solemn farce of eating and drinking came to
an end; and Quita rose with an audible sigh of relief.
"Are you coming into the drawing-room at all?" she asked, addressing
the question to his centre shirt-stud.
"Yes--at once. I have a good deal to say to you."
She raised her eyebrows with a small polite smile, and swept on before
him, her step quickened by the fact that his words had set the blood
rushing through her veins. The dead weight of his silence pulverised
her. Speech, however dangerous, would be pure relief.
Before following, he locked up spirit tantalus and cigar-box with his
wonted deliberation; and on reaching the drawing-room found her
absorbed in contemplation of Dick's portrait, hands clasped behind her,
the unbroken lines of her grey-green dress lending height and dignity
to her natural grace; the glitter of defiance gone out of her eyes.
Lenox set his lips, and confounded the advantages nature and art
conspire to bestow upon some women, more especially when they know
themselves beloved. The mere man in him had one impulse only,--to take
instant possession of her; to conquer her lurking antagonism by sheer
force of passion and of will. But he had sense enough to know that
such primitive methods would not shift, by one hair's-breadth, their
real point of division; would, in fact, be no less than inverted
defeat. The heart of her was secure:--that he knew. It was her
detached, elusive mind and spirit that were still to win; and a man's
arms had small concern with that form of capture.
Quita vouchsafed him a glance as he entered. Then her gaze returned to
the picture.
"One misses him," she said, presumably to the tall figure on the
hearth-rug. "I think I have never known a man so uniformly cheerful
and sweet-tempered. But it is selfish to grudge him a little change of
atmosphere. And no doubt he is having a livelier evening than we are."
She was facing her husband now; but something in his aspect made her
feel suddenly ashamed of using small weapons against a nature too
magnanimous to retaliate. And, without giving him time to answer, she
went on, a little hurriedly, "Eldred, if this intolerable state of
things means that you really imagine I am--how does one put anything so
detestable?--growing . . . too fond of Mr Richardson, you can set your
mind at rest. Morality apart, you are much too masterful, too
large--in every way--to leave room for any one else in a woman's heart,
once she has let you in."
"Thank you," Lenox answered, in a non-committal tone. But a shadow
passed from his face, and she saw it.
"Of course I know it has been rather marked this last week. But that
was simply because for the moment he and my picture were the same
thing. Being absorbed in one meant being absorbed in the other. To
produce a living portrait, one needs to get inside the subject of it as
far as possible. At least, I do. And on the whole, I think my method
is justified by the result!"
But Lenox, as he stood listening, experienced fresh proof of man's
innate spirit of perversity. For many days past he had been angered by
the suspicion that in this affair of portrait painting, the subject
counted for too much;--and now, when he ought to have been relieved, he
found his anger rekindled to white heat by Quita's frank confession
that his friend--whose heart had been wrenched from him by her
so-called 'method'--counted for nothing at all. For one ignoble
instant, he was tempted to break through every restraining
consideration and lash her with the truth.
The fact that he did not answer her at once puzzled Quita.
"Do you understand now, _mon ami_?" she asked, coming a step closer.
"I was absorbed in an interesting subject. It is over--_voila tout_."
"No, Quita; I do not understand," he answered, repressed heat hardening
his voice and face more than he knew. "To a mere soldier it all sounds
rather inhuman; and I can only say that if you find it so necessary to
'get inside' your subjects, as you express it, you had better make
women and children your speciality, and let us poor devils alone."
"Women and children? But, my dear--what a suggestion! One does not
choose one's subjects to order. Women and children don't interest me.
I have always preferred to paint men, and always shall."
"Then I'm afraid it may end in your having to drop portrait painting
altogether."
That touched the artist to the quick. With a small gasp--as if he had
struck her--she sank upon the arm of his big chair; her hands clasped,
so that the knuckles stood out sharp and white; two spots of fire
burning in her cheeks.
"Do you seriously mean--what you say?" she asked, pausing between the
words.
"Certainly. I am not given to speaking at random."
"You mean--you would insist?"
"I hope it would never come to that."
"_Mon Dieu_, no. It never would!" She flung up her head with a broken
sound between a laugh and a sob. "Because--if it ever did----"
She hung on the word a moment; and in a flash Lenox saw how near they
were to repeating the initial tragedy of more than six years ago.
"Quita," he broke in sharply, "listen to me before you say unconsidered
things that we may both of us regret. Are we going to make havoc of
everything again at the outset? Tell me that."
"How do I know? It depends on you. I think I told you then, that you
might as well expect me to give up seeing or hearing as to give up my
art. And that is truer--ten times truer--to-day, even though I
am . . . your wife."
He saw her vibrating like a smitten harp-string; saw the quick rise and
fall of the lace at her breast; and it was all a man could do to keep
his hands off her. He had to remind himself that she was no child to
be comforted with empty kisses; but very woman and very artist, torn
between the master-forces of life.
"See here, lass," he said quietly, laying aside his half-smoked cigar.
"As this is a big matter for us both, we may as well get at the root of
it straight away. You said this afternoon that you could not give up
your individuality because you had accepted marriage. Very well.
Neither can I. That still leaves us two alternatives. Either we must
give up the notion of living together; or we must be prepared to make
concessions--both of us. That is why I said that marriage means
compromise. If we go on much longer as we have been doing lately,
seeing next to nothing of one another because the house has been
converted into a surplus club for half the fellows in the station; and
if you are going to spend your time 'getting inside' other men with a
view to painting their portraits, we shall simply drift apart as the
Nortons did. Conditions of life out here make that sort of thing
fatally easy to fall into. But I tell you plainly that if there is to
be no attempt at amalgamation, if we are each to go our own way,
then--we must lead separate lives. I would not even have you in India.
It would be a case of going home."
The two spots of fire had died out of her face, and she turned wide,
startled eyes upon him.
"I don't--quite understand." Her voice was barely audible, "Are you
telling me--to go?"
"My dear--can you ask that? I am only pointing out the conditions that
might make such a catastrophe--inevitable. Looking things in the face
may prevent future friction and misunderstanding, which are the very
devil. What's more, I never realised till lately what a very big
factor your art is in your life. I believe it is the biggest thing of
all. Am I right?"
"I don't know. I can't tell--yet."
He straightened himself, and his face hardened.
"You can easily find out by putting the matter to practical proof. In
fact, I am going to make a proposal that will not leave you very long
in doubt. You have genius, Quita. I recognise that. And I want you
to think seriously over all you said this afternoon about not cramping
or distorting your individuality to suit my 'prejudices.' If you feel
that your art must come before everything, that marriage will only
hamper its full development, without making good what you lose,--in
fact, if you think that the purely artist life will be better and
happier for you in the long-run, I would sooner you said so frankly, I
would indeed."
"Eldred!" she gasped, between indignation and fear. But he motioned
her to silence.
"Hear me out first. I told you I had a good deal to say; and as I am
not often taken that way, you must bear with me, for once. You know
now something, at least, of what it means for a man and woman to live
together, as we do. I warned you that I should prove a sorry bargain;
and--take me or leave me--I cannot pretend that any amount of
compromise will make me other than I am. You think me hard, narrow,
conventional, in some respects, no doubt. But in a matter so vital
conventional moralities go for nothing. I want the truth. If you
believe, as I said, that art must stand first with you--always, I shall
respect your frankness and courage in telling me so; and I will give
you--such freedom as the circumstances admit."
"_Mon Dieu_!" she breathed, and for a second or two could say no more.
She had touched the bed-rock of granite in the man at last. Then the
fear that clutched at her found words, in her own despite.
"Have I killed--your love, so soon? Surely you could not make such a
suggestion--in cold blood, unless--I had."
"You are simply shifting the argument," he answered without unbending.
"You know whether--I love you. In fact, if it comes to that, it is
you, my dear, who have not yet grasped the full meaning of the word, or
you would not need to be told that the free choice I am offering you of
compromise with me, or independence--without me, is the utmost proof
one can give that you and your happiness stand absolutely first----"
At that she made an impulsive movement towards him, and her fingers
closed upon his arm. But with inexorable gentleness he unclasped her
hand, and put it from him.
"No, no," he said, and there was more pain than hardness in his tone.
"Better keep clear of that form of argument, for the present. Passion
settles nothing. Contact is not fusion. We have proved it,--you and
I. It is not a question of what we feel. That may be taken for
granted by now. It is a question of what we are, individually,
intrinsically; of how much each of us is ready to forego for the sake
of the one essential form of union that counts between a man and woman
who are not mere materialists; and we are neither of us that. I don't
want my answer to-night, nor even to-morrow. I have not spoken on
impulse; and I want you to think very thoroughly over all I have said
when your brain is cooler than it is just now."
"But suppose--I don't want to think it over?"
A half smile dispelled his gravity. "Knowing you intimately, I should
not suppose anything else! In the two big crises of our life,
remember, you were ruled purely by impulse and emotion, and you brought
us very near to shipwreck in consequence. But this time, you will do
what I ask, and give my slower methods a chance; because this time your
decision will be final. If we are to separate again, we separate for
life. That much _I_ have decided. The rest--I leave in your hands."
She stood very still, like one magnetised, her gaze riveted on the
carpet. His steadfast aloofness had chilled her first headlong impulse
of surrender; and she knew now that he was right:--that, dearly as she
loved him, independence in thought, word, and act were still the breath
of life for her and for her art. He had put the matter to practical
proof with a sledge-hammer directness all his own; had opened her eyes
to the humiliating truth that never in all her thirty years of living
had she given up anything that mattered for any one. And now----
She raised her head with a start, Zyarulla had brought in a telegram,
and Lenox stood reading it with a transfigured face, an eager light in
his eyes.
"What is it?" she wondered, not daring to ask. "He is going away
somewhere--he is delighted. And he says I come absolutely first."
Then Lenox raised his eyes, and a lightning instinct told her that for
the moment he had forgotten her existence.
"Well, Quita," he said, unconscious elation in his tone, "I think the
Foreign Office must have known we had got to a difficult corner, and
decided to give us a helping hand. They want me to undertake an
exploration north of Kashmir, and remonstrate with a small chief who
has been misbehaving up there. I am to report myself at Simla _ek
dum_,[1] to receive detailed instructions of the mission, and we shall
have time enough to think things out very thoroughly before I get back."
"Time? How long?"
Her colour had ebbed; but the change in him had steeled her to
unreasoning hardness of heart.
"Six months, certain. Possibly more."
"And you are as glad as you can be. One sees that quite plainly."
Her tone stung him to sharp retort.
"Yes, I am glad--since you insist, and since I am no hypocrite."
Pride would not suffer her to remind him of his assurance, "You stand
absolutely first." Instead she asked him in a repressed voice--
"Doesn't it occur to you, after your eloquence about what each of us
should give up, that this is precisely where your share of the
compromise comes in?"
"It occurred to me nearly a year ago," he said simply. "After our talk
at Kajiar, I faced the fact that there was an end of my exploring as a
hobby;--at least on the big scale that appeals to me most. It was just
the price one had to pay for getting you back again; and I paid
it--willingly. In fact, I should never have mentioned it, if you
hadn't dragged it out of me."
The quiet of his tone, and the kindliness in the blue eyes that
challenged her own, brought the blood into her face. He shamed her
every way, this big husband of hers. He had counted the cost and paid
it--willingly. He would not even have mentioned it. There you have
the essence of the man. Her lids fell, and her incurable instinct for
comedy set a faint dimple in her cheek. Here he was at his old trick
of dragging her on to higher ground; and the perverse spirit of her
loved and hated him for it in one breath.
"But you are going now?" she whispered, without looking up.
"Certainly. That is quite another matter. When Government needs my
services for work which I have made a speciality, it would be neither
right nor possible for me to refuse; and, frankly, I am glad, because I
love the work, fully as much as you love yours; and because the
opportunity could hardly have come at a better moment."
"And I--go back to Michael?"
"Yes. For six months you will be free to travel, paint--what you will;
and for six months I shall have my mountains to grapple with." Again
the light sprang to his eyes. "By the end of that time we shall know
once for all how much we are ready to forego for the sake of spending
our lives together. That is the ultimate test of a big thing,
Quita--what one will give up for it. Marriage is a big thing; and if
ours is built on the right foundations, it will stand the test. Now, I
shall have a good deal to see to this evening, and I think you had
better go to bed early. You look tired."
"I am tired." She realised suddenly that all the spring had gone out
of her. "When do you leave?"
"To-morrow, most likely. You had better write to Michael."
"Very well. I suppose--one will be able to write to _you_?"
"Yes. Now and then. But for a great part of the time I shall be
beyond the reach of posts."
Though his surface hardness had melted, his voice had an impersonal
note that crushed her, making her feel as if she were dealing with a
cosmic force, rather than a human being;--one of his own detestable
mountains, for instance. But for that, it is conceivable that there
might have been something approaching a 'scene'; that she might have
obeyed her unreasoning impulse to plead with him, and exhort him not to
push his test of her to such pitiless lengths. As it was, she sank
into a chair without answering; and he turned towards the study with a
new lift of his head, a new elasticity of step that struck at her heart.
For, in truth, until he read that summons from Simla he had scarcely
known how irresistibly the old free life drew him; how the white
silence of the mountains called to him as friend calls friend; and the
whole heart of him answered, 'I come.' 'As the dew is dried up by the
sun, so are the sins of mankind by the glory of Himachal.' The words
of the old Hindoo worshipper sprang to his brain, and for him they were
no fanciful imagery, but a radiant truth. Six months of the Himalayas,
six months of freedom from brain work, and headache, and strain,--for
though loyalty denied it, the past month had been a strain,--would
suffice to break the power of the hideous thing that was sapping his
manhood; to dispel the great black something that shadowed his mind and
spirit--to set him on his feet again, a free man.
But since he had kept the deeper source of his trouble secret from
Quita, she did not hold the key to the deeper source of his joy. And
now, lying back in his chair, her eyes closed, violet shadows showing
beneath the black line of her lashes, she saw herself, momentarily, as
a trivial thing--a mere tangle of nerves, perversity, and
egotism--flung aside without hesitation, perhaps even with relief, at
the first call of the larger life, the larger loyalty. Two tears stole
out on to her lashes, and slipped down her check. Mere concessions to
overwrought feeling, and she knew it; knew, in the depths of her, that
she was no triviality, but a woman into whose hands power had been
given; the power of things primeval that are the mainspring of life.
For Quita also had her secret--at once mysterious and disturbing; since
to your highly-strung woman motherhood rarely comes as a matter of
course--a secret that brought home to her, with a force as quiet and
compelling as her husband himself, the awful sense of the human bond.
He had told her she was free to choose; to take him or leave him as she
saw fit. But the dice were loaded. They were bound to one another now
by a far stronger power than mere law; by the power of action and
consequence, which transcends all laws.
She had guessed the truth, and rebelled against it, on that day when
Honor had unwittingly spoken the right word at the right moment, as
those who believe in Divine transmission through human agency are apt
to do. She had faced and accepted it during Eldred's absence; but had
not found courage since his return to put it into words; had, in fact,
with the revival of inspiration, thrust the knowledge aside, and
deliberately tried to forget.
Now it came back upon her, unrebuked; and while she lay thinking over
all that had passed between them, one insistent question repeated
itself in her brain, "Can I tell him? Shall I tell him before he
goes?" And after much debating, she decided on silence. In the first
place, he would be saved anxiety if he should not return in time; and
in the second place--though this consideration stood undeniably first
with her--she preferred that he, at least, should believe in the
fiction of their freedom; that nothing should weigh with him, or draw
him back to her but his unalterable need of herself. How far her
secret was her own to hide or reveal, how far she had any right to
withhold such knowledge from the man on the eve of a perilous
undertaking,--the man to whom insight told her it would mean
immeasurably much,--were questions that simply did not enter her mind.
The artist's egotism, and the woman's love of dominion, left no room
for fine-drawn scruples of the kind. Never till to-night had she
realised how the mountains claimed and held him; and in her sudden fear
of losing him, either through misadventure or through the reawakening
of the explorer in him, she lost sight of the original point at issue;
of the fact that it was her own work, not his, which had threatened to
stand between them.
An hour later she went into the study, where Lenox, his brow furrowed
into deep lines, bent over an outspread map. A glance showed her that
already in spirit he was miles away from her, planning the exploration
of passes and glaciers guessed at in former journeyings, engrossed,
mind and heard, in the possibilities ahead.
She came and stood beside him. "I am going now, Eldred," she said, a
touch of listlessness in her tone.
He looked up and nodded. "That's right. You do look rather fagged
this evening."
"Only a headache," she answered, flushing and avoiding his eyes. "I
shall be all right if I sleep well."
"Do you ever sleep badly?" he asked, with the quick sympathy of the
sufferer.
"Oh dear, no." She hesitated. "Are you coming?"
"Yes--later."
Still she stood irresolute. Caresses had become rare between them of
late; and now pride as well as shyness checked her natural impulse. In
turning away, she allowed her left hand to swing outward, ever so
little, merely by way of experiment. "He won't see it," she told
herself. And, as if in mute denial, his own hand met and grasped it,
close and hard.
On the threshold she paused and looked back. He was miles away again,
hopelessly out of reach. A sudden thought seized her, tempted her.
Half a dozen words would suffice to snap the chain that held him; to
bring her into his arms. Yet now it seemed impossible to speak them,
even if she would; and she went out, leaving him in undisturbed
possession of his maps and his mountains.
She lingered long over her undressing; and when it was over could not
bring herself to put out the lamp; but lay, waiting and listening for
his coming. Then, as the night slipped away and the silence became a
burden, a dead weight upon brain and heart, the old haunting dread of
those days in Dalhousie came back upon her, and she shivered. The
Pagan in her leaned too readily to superstitious fancy, and her dread
shaped itself finally in a definite thought. "If he comes to me now, I
know I shall conquer the mountains in the end. But if he doesn't come,
they will be too strong for me. They will take him from me for good."
And he did not come; till one of the morning, when he found her fast
asleep, the lamp still burning beside her.
[1] At once.