I
He had a high nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak.
His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of
monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never
been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never
questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer,
but we do not know the reply to anything until a puzzled comrade
bothers us and initiates that divine curiosity which both humbles and
uplifts us.
He wanted all things for himself. What he owned he wished to own
completely. He would give anything away with the largest generosity,
but he would share with no one--
"Whatever is mine," said he, "must be entirely mine. If it is alive I
claim its duty to the last respiration of its breath, and if it is dead
I cannot permit a mortgage on it. Have you a claim on anything
belonging to me? then you may have it entirely, I must have all of it
or none."
He was a stockbroker, and, by the methods peculiar to that mysterious
profession, he had captured a sufficiency of money to enable him to
regard the future with calmness and his fellow-creatures with
condescension--perhaps the happiest state to which a certain humanity
can attain.
So far matters were in order. There remained nothing to round his life
into the complete, harmonious circle except a wife; but as a stated
income has the choice of a large supply, he shortly discovered a lady
whose qualifications were such as would ornament any, however exalted,
position--She was sound in wind and limb. She spoke grammar with the
utmost precision, and she could play the piano with such skill that it
was difficult to explain why she played it badly.
This also was satisfactory, and if the world had been made of machinery
he would have had the fee-simple of happiness. But to both happiness
and misery there follows the inevitable second act, and beyond that,
and to infinity, action and interaction, involution and evolution,
forging change for ever. Thus he failed to take into consideration
that the lady was alive, that she had a head on her shoulders which was
native to her body, and that she could not be aggregated as chattel
property for any longer period than she agreed to.
After their marriage he discovered that she had dislikes which did not
always coincide with his, and appreciations which set his teeth on
edge. A wife in the house is a critic on the hearth--this truth was
daily and unpleasantly impressed upon him: but, of course, every man
knows that every woman is a fool, and a tolerant smile is the only
recognition we allow to their whims. God made them as they are--we
grin, and bear it.
His wife found that the gospel of her husband was this--Love me to the
exclusion of all human creatures. Believe in me even when I am in the
wrong. Women should be seen and not heard. When you want excitement
make a fuss of your husband.--But while he entirely forgot that his
wife had been bought and paid for, she did not forget it: indeed, she
could not help remembering it. A wrong had been done her not to be
obscured even by economics, the great obscurer. She had been won and
not wooed. (The very beasts have their privileges!) She had been
defrauded of how many teasing and provoking prerogatives, aloofnesses,
and surrenders, and her body, if not her mind, resented and remembered
it.
There are times when calmness is not recognised as a virtue. Of
course, he had wooed her in a way. He took her to the opera, he gave
her jewels, he went to Church with her twice every Sunday, and once a
month he knelt beside her in more profound reverences: sometimes he
petted her, always he was polite--
But he had not told her that her eyes were the most wonderful and
inspiring orbs into which a tired man could look. He never said that
there would not be much to choose between good and evil if he lost her.
He never said that one touch of her lips would electrify a paralytic
into an acrobat. He never swore that he would commit suicide and dive
to deep perdition if she threw him over--none of these things. It is
possible that she did not wish him to say or do such extravagances, but
he had not played the game, and, knowing that something was badly
wrong, she nursed a grievance, that horrid fosterling.
He was fiercely jealous, not of his love, but of his property, and
while he was delighted to observe that other men approved of his taste,
he could not bear that his wife should admire these outsiders. This
was his attitude to her: Give me your admirations, all of them, every
note of exclamation of which you are mistress, every jot and tittle of
your thoughts must be mine, for, lacking these, I have nothing. I am
good to you. I have interposed between you and the buffets of
existence. I temper all winds to the bloom of your cheek. Do you your
part, and so we will be happy.
There was a clerk in his office, a black-haired, slim, frowning young
man, who could talk like a cascade for ten minutes and be silent for a
month: he was a very angry young man, with many hatreds and many
ambitions. His employer prized him as a reliable and capable worker,
liked his manners, and paid him thirty-five shillings per week--Outside
of these matters the young man abode no more in his remembrance than
did the flower on the heath or the bird on the tree.
It happened one day that the employer fell sick of influenza and was
confined to his bed. This clerk, by order, waited on him to see to his
correspondence; for, no matter who sneezes, work must be attended to.
The young man stayed in the house for a week, and during his sojourn
there he met the lady. She fair, young, brooding! he also young,
silent, and angry! After the first look had passed between them, there
was little more to be said. They came together as though they had been
magnetised. Love or passion, by whatever name it is called, was born
abruptly. There is a force in human relations drawing too imperatively
for denial; defying self-interest, and dragging at all anchors of duty
and religion. Is it in man only the satisfaction of self? Egotism
standing like a mountain, and demanding, "Give me yourself or I will
kill myself." And women! is their love the degradation of self, the
surrender and very abasement of lowliness? or is it also egotism set on
a pinnacle, so careless and self-assured as to be fearful of nothing?
In their eyes the third person, a shadow already, counted as less than
a shadow. He was a name with no significance, a something without a
locality. His certain and particular income per annum was a thing to
laugh at . . . there was a hot, a swift voice speaking--"I love you,"
it said, "I love you": he would batter his way into heaven, he would
tear delight from wherever delight might be--or else, and this was
harder, a trembling man pleading, "Aid me or I perish," and it is
woman's instinct not to let a man perish. "If I help you, I hurt
myself," she sighed; and, "Hurt yourself, then," sighed the man; "would
you have me perish. . .?"