“LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!”
Claudia did not belong to the tribe of unpunctual women who stretch the
minutes at their will and snap derisive fingers at Greenwich. The person
who was unpunctual in their house was its master. That, however, was not
due to carelessness, but to his uncertain calls. Often it was Claudia
who, when the motor was at the door, sat down in her cloak and waited for
her spouse.
So this evening she was ready in good time. It wanted still a few minutes
to the half-hour when she cast a last critical look at herself in the
mirror.
She was one of those women whom a _décolleté_ dress shows at their best,
and Claudia knew, as she surveyed herself, that the result was good. She
was as little conceited as any of her sex—she had too much brain and
good looks for that; but she could not fail to see that the gown she was
wearing for the first time made her look strikingly handsome in the best
and most individual way. It was as though the creator of the gown had
loved his task, for the deep orange of the rich yet light-weight fabric,
softened with some exquisite pearl-embroidered lace and bordered on
the skirt with dark-hued skunk, threw up into relief the darkly-bronze
lights in her hair and made the big brown eyes seem softer and deeper
than ever. A strange Oriental-looking headpiece studded with topazes and
pearls accentuated the foreign note in her appearance, which so impressed
strangers that they refused to believe that she was entirely English
as she averred and believed. They said the way she moved and wore her
dresses was not English, that she could not belong to the nation of women
who know how to choose a frock but not how to wear it. As she stood in
front of the mirror she was a flat contradiction to the American who said
that English men were dressed, but the women only wore frocks.
Her looks had improved since her marriage. For some unknown reason she
scrutinized herself dispassionately that night, and she realized that
she was infinitely more attractive to men than when Gilbert had married
her. Her figure now was almost as good as her mother’s had been at her
age. Indeed, the tops of her arms and her wrists were even prettier.
She remembered what an old friend of her mother’s had once said to her
just before her marriage. “You will be much admired, my dear, and you
will remain naturally good-looking longer than your mother has done. But
you will never enslave all sorts and conditions of men as she did—not
that you come so far below her in looks, but because hers is the _beauté
du diable_, that irresistible magnet to unregenerate man. You look too
intelligent, too independent, too critical. That will pique some here and
there, but the woman who shows obviously that she likes men and that they
are necessary to her always finds a return for that compliment. Besides,
she holds out hopes of reward which your type does not. The majority of
men are childish and lazy: they pick the fruit on the lowest branches.
You would be too _exigeante_, you would demand more than they could give.
Your nature is not that of a Circe, and men will know it instinctively.”
Then she had kissed her affectionately and added, “I am glad you have no
_beauté du diable_. The world is better without it. Take your place in
the heart of one man, not in the passions of many.”
Claudia thought over these words as she thoughtfully pulled on her
gloves. And simultaneously she recalled a scene soon after Gilbert’s
proposal when she had, as to-night, stood in front of the mirror and
slowly divesting herself of her garments, half shyly, half exultingly,
because of her love of beauty, had watched the charms of her body emerge.
She had rejoiced in her own comeliness because it was a gift she was
bringing to her husband, a wedding gift such as few women could present.
She shrugged her shoulders at the recollection, and her face hardened a
little. She had learned how evanescent a thing is passion with a man of
Gilbert’s self-centred, violent nature. And the knowledge rankled, so
that as she looked at herself something which was not the individual,
Claudia Currey, the wife of the new K.C., but Women Unsatisfied and
Disappointed, crept into her eyes and mouth, and which, for the first
time, gave her some fleeting resemblance to her mother. Was her mother’s
old friend quite right? Was there no touch of the devil’s beauty in her
looks now? Perhaps she would have changed her mind if she could have
seen the woman looking broodingly at her own reflection, a smouldering
defiance in her eyes, an unformed challenge on her lips. That it was
not the real Claudia that looked so, the passionate-hearted, idealistic
woman who walked away with her head held high, the elder woman would have
known; but she would have had to acknowledge regretfully that Claudia was
evolving.
Then had she been present she would have seen the little hardness
disappear as morning mist before the sun, as a familiar padding sound
became evident along the carpet.
Only Billie, only a dog, but so unchangeably devoted, so unceasingly
responsive. In a sudden burst of thwarted affection she caught him up,
heedless of her costly embroideries, and hugged his fat bundle of soft
brown fur. At least this creature loved her, she was his whole world and——
“Mr. Hamilton, madam.”
Billie found himself gently deposited on the floor, where he stood
wagging his tail with pleasure at the caress, yet eyeing her
beseechingly, as he always did when she was going out, as if to say, “Are
you really going to leave me again?”
“Tell Mr. Hamilton that I am quite ready. Is the fur rug in the motor? It
will be cold coming home to-night.”
She refastened a corsage spray that had been loosened, and picked up an
Eastern-looking garment of dull golds and browns, with a chiffon and
skunk muff that matched. Outside it was freezing, and the trees in the
Park were lightly powdered with snow. Billie stood on his short stumpy
hind legs—a great effort by reason of his plumpness—and besought her to
stay with him. Claudia laughed gently, and stooping down, took the little
useless, dangling paws in her hand.
“Billie, you fool, don’t you know how ridiculous it is; to love anyone
so much? Better far to cut your heart up into lots of little pieces and
distribute them than give it away in a lump. Don’t you know that?”
No, Billie didn’t know that at all.
“Well, it is. Listen to my words of wisdom and ponder them in your
doggy understanding. It hurts, Billie boy, to love very much, it hurts
dreadfully, though you pretend, except to a little dog who keeps your
counsel, that it doesn’t. Well, I shall never do it again, and it’s all
over, Billie; it’s all over, both the dream and the awakening.... Go to
your basket and sleep the sleep of the faithful.”
They drove some way in silence. Inside the motor it was cosy and warm,
in pleasant contrast to the streets, for the snow that lingered still on
the trees had turned into slush on the pavements. The pedestrians looked
uncomfortable and nipped by the east wind which was blowing, and the mud
on the roads gleamed evilly in the light of the street lamps. Here and
there they passed dirty heaps of snow in sheltered corners. Like the lace
petticoats of a fine lady once pure and spotless, it was revolting now
in its soiled, bedraggled state. People waiting in the wind at street
corners for buses looked enviously at the motor as they passed. The
padded luxury in which the two were enveloped, the dim frosted light,
the narcissi in the silver holder diffusing a faint perfume, were very
_intime_ and aloof from the discomfort abroad.
They had left Baker Street behind them before Claudia came out of her
reverie and realized that she was not being sociable. She looked sideways
at her companion, to find him steadily regarding her.
“Are you wondering when I would be polite and talk?” she said, with a
smile.
“No.... I was making a mental picture of you. I think—I think I can
paint you now. I want to paint you in that velvet cloak—what colour do
you call it?—it is like copper in the firelight—with the sable just
touching your throat at one side just as it is now and falling off the
other shoulder. Will you let me? Oh! I want my brushes in my hand now.”
His eyes suddenly blazed with the inspiration of the moment as they
devoured her. Quickly she drew the folds of the cloak closer around her
neck. She felt as though a scorching wind had swept over her, a sirocco
of passion came from him to her. She shrank back a little, yet even
as she instinctively did so she wondered why. Her husband flagrantly
neglected her, most of her friends had consoled themselves for their
husbands’ shortcomings, and had not she _almost_ determined to seek the
love which she craved outside her home? She met his eyes, and she was
half attracted, half repelled by their light. She liked him, she felt
his magnetism drawing her, and yet something which she could not quite
understand bobbed quickly up to the surface of her mind and surveyed them
both with a certain contempt. So she was a little cruel in her reply to
his enthusiasm.
“You were not very successful last time. I hope you destroyed that
picture.”
“Yes, I slashed it to pieces in the middle of the night,” he said
sombrely.
Claudia laughed lightly.
“Why in the middle of the night? Why were you moved to be so
melodramatic?” She often teased him and made him angry by saying that he
ought to have been an actor. For Frank Hamilton had a torch of the woman
in him which clothed in drama many things that he did and said. Whether
he was conscious of these effects or whether they came naturally to his
character Claudia could never determine.
“I had been dreaming of you,” he said simply. “I had seen you standing at
the foot of my bed, looking down on me, and I knew exactly how I should
have painted you. So I sprang out of bed and hacked the beastly canvas
to pieces. Afterwards I made a rough charcoal sketch of you from memory.
To-night you look as you did when you stood at the foot of my bed.” The
eyes of the man were audacious, but the words were spoken very quietly.
“I beg to remark that my frock is brand new,” rejoined Claudia
flippantly. “I have never worn it even in dream-land. It is hard to be
deprived of a positively first appearance when frocks are so ruinously
expensive.”
“You looked wonderful that night,” he went on dreamily. “I have always
seen you since—as you might look.”
“As I _might_ look,” she repeated, her curiosity getting the better of
her discretion. “What do you mean by that?”
He was looking out at the glistening streets, at the flakes of snow
beginning to fall again, and he made no reply. This piqued her the more,
and she repeated her question.
“I suppose you will be angry with me,” he said slowly. “Women always
resent these things. I don’t know why.... As you _might_ look if you were
not so proud and if your brain did not rule your heart, if you would let
yourself be the woman—you were meant to be.”
Claudia wanted to say “How ridiculous!” but she couldn’t. The motor was
passing a large burial ground, the tombstones showing by the railings
like dreary grey ghosts in the darkness, shut in with the wet, dripping
trees, and looking hungrily at life passing a few yards away. Underneath
those tombstones were hearts and brains in silent decay that had once
been men and women. Claudia watched them flit by and she was silent now.
She wondered if those tombstones had a message for her. Were not the dead
saying “Live! live! live! Death started out to meet as soon as you were
born.”
The man beside her commenced to quote softly, almost in a whisper:
“Always I know how little severs me
From mine heart’s country, that is yet so far;
And I must lean and long across a bar
That half a word would shatter utterly.
“Ah! might it be, that just by touch of hand
Or speaking silence, shall the barrier fall;
And she shall pass, with no vain words at all,
But droop into mine arms and understand.”
The motor came to a standstill, and Claudia shook herself free from
the spell of his words. There are few men who can quote poetry without
divesting it of all lyrical charm and naturalness, but Frank Hamilton
knew or had acquired the art. Then, as though the quotation were some
nursery jingle, his voice altered, and he said, “Heigh ho! is this the
house? What is my hostess like? Hints, please. I meant to have asked you
before.”
“Much younger than her husband, but not as young as she would like to
be,” whispered Claudia hurriedly. “If you flatter her judiciously you may
get a portrait out of her. She is dying to have it painted.”
The boy was opening the door, but he caught her arm with every appearance
of sudden anger, and made her stop and look at him.
“Do you think I only like to come out with you because I may get
commissions for portraits from your friends?” he said heatedly. “Answer
me, please.”
Claudia looked at the boy and motioned him to silence. “Don’t be foolish,
I was only jesting. You mustn’t be so sensitive....” Then, as they walked
up the steps together she said smilingly, “If you say silly things like
that, you shan’t come out with me again. But, seriously, Mrs. Rivington
has been wanting to meet you for a long time. I think she fancies that if
she gets to know you the portrait will come cheaper. But she is well able
to pay, so don’t take any notice when she hints at her poverty of purse.
She is a woman who would try and get a discount off her seat in heaven.”
“You _will_ make time to come to the studio one day quite soon, won’t
you?” he pleaded.
“I’ll see,” she said, as the door opened before them.
The maid came forward and slipped off her cloak. As she waited and pulled
up her gloves, Claudia propounded a question to herself.
“He seems to care so much—I wonder if he is really sincere.”
When a woman stands and asks that question, the man has scored his first
point. But Claudia thought the tricks were still all in her hand.