THE GREAT THRESHOLD
The small dining-room of Frank’s studio-flat had that cosy, friendly air
that only a small room can achieve. That there was little more space
than was occupied by the table laid for four only seemed to increase the
pleasantness of the apartment, which was lit by four red candles in old
pewter candlesticks on the table. Their red shades confined the circle
of light to the white tablecloth, and allowed the rest of the room to
appear pleasantly soft and vague. An enormous bowl of red roses filled
the centre of the table, and some of their broken petals were scattered
over the cloth, while an Eastern scarf of some filmy material shading
from orange to blood-red was loosely disposed with an air of artistic
negligence around the centre bowl.
Frank Hamilton looked down at his handiwork and found it good. But still
he fidgeted with the back of a chair as he surveyed it, and his eyes
were bright with some mental or physical excitement. He was not often
restless, but to-night his nerves were evidently on edge. His teeth
gnawed his lower lip and his eyes constantly sought the clock.
Then, after giving a last touch to the table, he pulled out a bunch
of keys from his pocket and unlocked a corner cupboard where he kept
liqueurs and wines. He never forgot to lock that cupboard, no matter how
late his company left or how high his visions had soared, for he had a
great mistrust of servants. His usual manner was half dreamy, rather
abstracted, as though the sordid details of everyday life passed him by,
but the impression that he gave was misleading. Often his mind was most
practical when his eyes seemed only to hold vague dreams and beautiful,
unworldly ideals, and if anyone thought to drive an easy bargain at
such a time he found himself mistaken. As a child at school Frank had
always managed to elude just punishment by that same manner of aloofness
from desks and copybooks, and from quite early manhood women had taught
him to realize how that air, combined with obvious good looks and the
reputation for “temperament,” could be made valuable. The way in which
his eyes would light up with sudden enthusiasm, the frank expressions of
admiration which came easily to his lips, the appeal which he made by
a seemingly exclusive devotion to the woman of the moment, had always
made him a favourite with the fair sex, who contrasted him with the more
phlegmatic males of their acquaintance to his great advantage, for “it’s
the high-falutin stuff the women bite on.”
Men did not like Frank Hamilton, and he was seldom seen in their company.
A few artists dropped in on him occasionally to talk “shop,” but they
were never heard to speak of him with any enthusiasm. Indeed, among them
he had the reputation for being “close,” and that happy-go-lucky, jovial
crowd that lends and borrows with equal ease found this unforgivable. He
was not willing to “part,” nor did he try to put commissions in their
way, and lately, as de Bleriot had been heard to say at the Chelsea Arts
Club, “Hamilton’s getting altogether too big for his boots.”
After Frank had put the liqueurs on the sideboard, he noticed that the
card which had been attached to the bunch of roses he had just arranged
had fallen to the ground. He picked it up and re-read it with a little
smile of amusement.
“To the greatest of artists and my dear friend. M.J.”
With a laugh, he tore it up into fragments and threw the pieces in
the fire. “Maria Jacobs! Maria Jacobs! Well, the roses have come in
handy”—mockingly—“thank you, Maria.”
As the last fragment was consumed, the door-bell rang, and he went out
into the hall to receive his visitor.
“I am afraid I am a little late,” apologized Claudia, letting him take
her cloak, “but—— Oh, well! the Bridgemans are later, it seems, so I
shan’t apologize any more.”
He drew her into the dining-room and kissed her.
“Don’t! You are crushing the poor primroses. Are they not sweet? Don’t
you love the frailty and delicate sweetness of wild flowers?”
She was very sweet herself as she said it, her eyes taking in approvingly
the decorations of the table. But she was also to him still a little
_grande dame_, with her dignified carriage and her head held high. For a
moment doubt knocked at his confident heart. It would all depend how she
took his news. The next few minutes would decide his fate.
“Claudia, I have a disappointment for you. I have just had a wire from
the Bridgemans. She is ill and they cannot come.” He was watching her
narrowly, although the words were spoken easily enough. “There was no
time to get another couple. The wire arrived a few minutes ago. You can
see the table is set for them. Do you mind, dearest?”
For a moment she hesitated. She had a curious sudden feeling of fright,
like someone who sees a gate closing behind her.
“Of course,” he said lightly, “it’s not quite _comme il faut_, but
neither you nor I care about that, do we? We will go to a restaurant if
you prefer. It’s a pity the Bridgemans didn’t let me know sooner.”
The room was very cozy and inviting. The situation was compromising; but
then, as Frank said, did she care about small conventionalities? No one
would know. It was only Mother Grundy who would drive them forth to a
noisy, rag-time restaurant where they would hardly be able to hear one
another speak. The country air had made her agreeably tired, so that the
mellow light of the candles and the room perched high above the traffic
appealed to her mood. Had he made the least attempt to persuade her she
would not have stayed, but he was wise enough to make it seem a matter of
indifference where they dined so long as they were together.
“I’m tired of the clatter of restaurants,” she said, sinking into a chair
by the hearth; “and I smell a smell of savoury baked meats. It’s very
peaceful here at night.”
“Marshall isn’t at all a bad cook,” returned Frank lightly, “and I told
her to think out a specially nice dinner.”
“For the Bridgemans or—for me?”
The momentary sensation of panic had passed. He was just as he always
was, devoted, deferential, entirely at her command.
“For the Bridgemans, of course. Need you ask?” He took the pretty arm
lying on the arm of the chair and let his lips gently slip along the skin
from the elbow to the wrist. “Claudia, I can’t think of anyone but you
these days.”
“Just an infatuation!” she laughed provocatively, a thrill running
through her.
“Are you sorry that I am so infatuated? Would you have me more cool
and reasonable? You told me once that you hated tepid people. Have you
changed your ideas?”
“No.”
“Then why—— Ah! here is the soup. _Madame est servie._ Will she
graciously adorn this chair?”
“How charming! It’s Jacobean, isn’t it? I shall enjoy sitting in it.”
Part of the face was in shadow, but the light fell full on the soft,
curving lips, very sweet and gracious to-night, the firm, well-moulded
chin, and the exquisite line of the bare neck and shoulders.
“Do you know any of the other tenants in the building, Frank?” she asked
over her soup.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Colin Paton knows an architect further down, Leonard Gost. I wonder if
you knew him too.”
Frank shook his head. “No, but I happened to hear this morning that he
had been suddenly taken ill. The doctor came here by mistake. Don’t let’s
talk about Paton.”
“Why? Don’t you like him?”
“I’m jealous of every man you even see. That day I came in and found him
holding your hand I could have slain him.”
She smiled, and then the smile suddenly vanished and was replaced by a
more thoughtful expression.
“Are you, then, jealous of my husband?” she asked suddenly.
The question was unexpected, and for a moment he had no answer ready.
“Why, yes; of course, I——”
“No, I see you are not. How curious! I think if I were in love with a
married woman I should be morbidly jealous of her husband. My imagination
would torture me, the grey matter in my brain would turn a bright orange
with jealous hate.” She had never spoken to him of her relations with
her husband. He had never asked any questions, and she had volunteered
no information. But sometimes she had wondered that Frank could take his
existence and rights so calmly.
“But you do not love him,” objected Frank; “if you loved him I should
hate him.”
“I did love him—once.”
“A man who has failed to keep his wife’s love deserves to lose it,” said
Frank glibly, who was opening the champagne.
“Frank, you say you love me. Suppose I said I was tired of the life I
lead, that there is something in me that shrinks from deception, that I
like all the cards on the table. Would you take me away?”
The cork popped loudly at the moment, and he had to quickly pour some of
the champagne into her glass.
“Darling, I should only be too proud. You ought to know that.”
Was it his preoccupation with the champagne, or was there something wrong
with his tone or his words? What had she expected him to say? Then she
pulled herself together with a laugh.
“To love is human, to marry—sometimes divine. Don’t be afraid, _mon ami_.
I’m not cut out for those heroics, or,” she added, “you either.”
He was inwardly relieved, for a man could never be sure what a
highly-strung, emotional woman like Claudia would expect of him. She
was adorable, she was well-born and clever, but—no, he was not cut out
for “heroics.” As much as he could be, he was desperately in love with
her; it was perfectly true that the thought of her obsessed his days and
nights. But love to him was a pleasant thing, a serious light-mindedness
in which a little pretence was necessary on either side. They might
sigh together over the impossibility of spending their lives together;
they might regret that they had not met before she entered into the
legal compact; they might even indulge in rosy dreams of a future if she
“ever became free,” but they would be very careful not to endanger her
reputation or cause her spouse to set her free. Bourgeois born, reared
among ideals of hypocritical respectability, Frank Hamilton had secretly
a horror of anything _outré_, such as the Divorce Court. It would
probably make very little difference to his career as an artist, but his
innate conventionality revolted at the thought.
“If you would trust yourself to me, I would try and prove worthy of your
bounty,” he said humbly. “My dearest, you wring my heart by these doubts
of me. Don’t you _yet_ believe in my love?”
She was playing with the wing of a chicken.
“How can one tell love from passion? Do you know?”
“I’ll ask you a question. Do you believe that love between a young normal
woman and man can exist without passion?”
His eyes challenged hers over the deep red roses. There was a little
flush on her creamy cheeks now, and the primroses were fading whitely at
her breast. There was a current of electricity in the little room going
from him to her. She fancied she could almost hear the beating of the
wings.
“No, passion must be part of love.”
“And you wouldn’t care for a man who was content merely to love you at
a respectful distance? No, you needn’t answer. I know you wouldn’t.
You’re much too alive for that. You are much too passionate. A placid,
hold-my-hand love would never make you happy.... Shall we have coffee
upstairs in the studio?”
She nodded. The atmosphere of the little room seemed to have become too
close. She was aware that her checks were burning.
She knew that she stood on the Great Threshold. It was only fair to Frank
that she should decide to-night. She knew by this time enough of men to
realize that self-repression, self-control are foreign to their nature
and upbringing. She was content, or she could have forced herself to be
content, with the indefinite relations between them. Something urged
her across the threshold, and yet something that she could not grasp or
define held her back. She remembered a phrase from a play she had seen
a few days previously, in which a man had spoken of “woman’s innate
purity.” Could she lay claim to such a possession? Clearly, no. She had
dallied with the idea, she had let Frank kiss her time and again without
any repugnance. A pure-minded woman would have repulsed him at the
outset. She would have said, “I am a married woman. Only my husband has a
right to my caresses.”
“I have forgotten the cigarettes. I’ll run down for them, if you’ll
excuse me a minute.”
She nodded as she made herself comfortable on the low divan covered with
cushions.
The Great Threshold! Her heart beat faster as she contemplated it. She
wondered in what fashion the married women she knew had stepped across
it—gaily, impulsively, with reckless abandonment, with inward shrinking,
with cool deliberation—how? La Rochefoucauld once said, “Some ladies may
be met with who never had any intrigue at all, but it will be exceedingly
hard to find any who have had one and no more,” but then, he was only a
maxim-monger, and the making of maxims, like the making of epigrams, is
only a trick. If she crossed it, there would only be Frank. They would
love one another secretly, and the stolen hours together would make
her barren life more tolerable. Jack had made out that _liaisons_ were
nothing more than licentious flirtations. If two people really loved——
Moved by a restless spirit, she rose and went over to the mantelpiece.
Her eyes fell with a start on a visiting-card inscribed COLIN PATON.
Her hands fell nervelessly to her sides. Somehow there seemed a third
person in the room. Frank came back and handed her the box of cigarettes.
She indicated the card.
“Mr. Paton—has been here?... Thank you.”
“Yes. I asked him to come some time, and he came to-day. He said he
wanted to see how your portrait was getting on.”
“What did he say about it?”
“I didn’t show it to him,” said Frank, with a touch of arrogance.
“Besides, it isn’t quite finished, and no artist likes to expose an
unfinished picture.”
“It’s practically finished. I needn’t come any more for it?”
“We won’t tell people it’s finished,” he whispered, close to her ear. “We
will pretend it is still only half-finished.”
The words jarred, and she drew away from him. Yet he was quite right.
If she crossed the threshold, she must in future take refuge in such
subterfuges. She must lie to everyone, to honest Pat, to Colin Paton——
Her brows met in a frown. Could love thrive in such an atmosphere? Frank
seemed to have thought the whole thing out, counted on her surrender—How
dared he?—and yet—She had certainly encouraged him, there was no
gainsaying that.
“Let us look at the picture again,” she said abruptly. “I’d like to see
it by nightlight.”
With a smile he complied, classing her with the other vain women who had
sat to him. She wanted to look on her own beauty. He pulled forward the
easel and took off the cloth.
It was one of the best bits of painting he had ever done. He had worked
hard on it, and it had but slightly the faults that usually marred his
work. He had put in careful, conscientious brush-work; and in combination
with the arresting individuality of the sitter, the result was one of
which he might justly be proud.
But as Claudia gazed on it, dissatisfaction stirred within her. The
yellowish lights—the electric globes were of some daffodil tint—made
her see it as she had never done before. The eyes were surely too
ardent, the curve of the lips too sensual, the whole face had a curious
voluptuousness that made her recoil from the picture. Did she give people
that impression?
“Is it—exactly like me?” she asked.
“It’s as I see you,” he said complacently. “My beautiful Claudia! It is
good, isn’t it? I think it will create a sensation when it is exhibited.”
Suddenly she knew that she hated it, that she did not want the world to
see it, to stare at it, to comment on it. Yes, she was glad Colin had not
seen it. He might have thought——
“I don’t like it.”
If she had suddenly held a pistol at his head he could not have been
more surprised. He turned from his very self-satisfied contemplation of
the picture and stared at the original. And it was not the woman of the
portrait he saw, nor the flushed, hesitating woman of the dinner-table,
but a woman whose eyes were wide open and startled, as though some new
aspect of life had struck her; a woman who was fighting for self-mastery,
calling to her aid that pride and moral fastidiousness that were innate
in her, and which lately she had been trying to keep out of sight.
She was not the woman, she told herself, she never would be the woman of
the picture. That was not a woman with true love and passion in her eyes,
it was mere animal sensuality. Yet she was aware that she might become
that woman if she crossed the threshold. Dare she take the risk? Did she
want to take the risk?
“I don’t understand.”
She had never heard him speak so angrily. Yes, he was really angry. His
artistic pride was wounded.
“It’s very clever, very clever,” she stammered, “but I—I don’t like the
way you have depicted me. It isn’t the nicest—me.”
His eyes were very light and very cold as he faced her, and suddenly they
seemed to be bright and shallow, like those of a bird. His lips made a
thin red line, and a hardness of the lines of the jaw became noticeable.
“Frank, don’t you understand?” she pleaded. “There, in the picture, you
have made me an _amoureuse_, _une grande amoureuse_, and I—I don’t think
I’m really that.” Then a little wildly—“It may be in me, I may have it
in my blood, but I don’t want it to come out.... I’m sorry, Frank, but I
don’t like it.”
She saw, as she looked in his face, that he did not understand, that she
could never make him understand. She had mortally wounded his pride. He
would never forgive the thrust.
Without a word he noisily pushed back the easel. Mechanically she sank
down on the divan again, and as she disturbed one of the cushions, a
piece of paper became uncovered. Before she realized that it might be
private, her eyes had taken in the wording. It was the Bridgemans’
telegram—“Sorry wife ill. Cannot come to-morrow. BRIDGEMAN.”
With a last kick the easel was lodged in its place against the wall. She
put the cushion over the telegram again, as he came back to the centre of
the room like a sulky child, a cigarette drooping at the corner of his
mouth.
“You’re extremely difficult to please,” he said sarcastically. “I’m glad
all my sitters are not so particular. You can’t say I haven’t done full
justice to your looks.”
That was all he could make out of her explanation, her confession! It was
a shock, but it had the effect of steadying her. Her voice was very quiet
and composed as she replied:
“If you don’t mind, Frank, I won’t have the picture exhibited. After
all, a portrait is a personal thing. Send it home to me as soon as it is
finished.” She wanted to add “and I will send you a cheque for it,” but
she was afraid of hurting his feelings. Nothing had ever been said about
payment. It had been tacitly assumed that it was a labour of love.
“I don’t think it’s fair to me,” he protested, still sulky, the man
submerged in the artist. “It’s the best picture I have ever done. No
woman can judge her own portrait. Besides, you never objected to it
before.”
“I always saw it quite close at hand and in the light of day. To-night,
at the end of the room, it looks different.”
“Well, commend me to women-sitters for changeability!” he exclaimed
bitterly.
She put her hand on the cushion that concealed the telegram. He had
evidently been sitting in her position when it arrived.
“Perhaps—if the Bridgemans had come—they might have liked it, and their
opinion is more valuable than mine. You only heard of her illness this
evening?”
“Yes,” he responded moodily, “just before you came in.”
Petty trickery! She had nearly lent herself to that. Afterwards—yes,
circumstances might have made it necessary, but before—— It was not,
and it never could have been, love on either side. Love was a bigger,
finer thing than that! Perhaps too large always to be confined within a
wedding-ring, but this did not of itself overleap the bounds. Only the
trickster passion again! And passion she had proved to be a cheat, a
miserable, mean cheat, that preyed on the emotions and ignorance of women.
She suddenly felt very tired, and her face had gone pathetically white as
she rose from the divan.
“Frank, I am sorry I have hurt your feelings. I can only say again that
I admire it as a piece of painting, immensely.... Now I must go home. It
is getting rather late, and I think a day in the country tires one, don’t
you?”
Suddenly the _man_ overcame the vanity of the artist. His eyes changed,
and before she could stop him he had crushed her in his arms.
“Never mind about the picture ... it’s you I want and _must have_.... I
love you to distraction.... Claudia, you can’t hesitate any longer....
It’s Kismet, stronger than both of us.”
She knew it would only be an unseemly scuffle if she struggled, a scuffle
that would abase her pride still further. She remained cold and lifeless
in his arms, until at last he released her and looked into her face with
alarm.
“Claudia, you’re not going—you shan’t go——”
“Frank,” she said clearly, but without an atom of fear in her eyes, “I
apologize to you. I know I’ve what you men call ‘encouraged you.’ You
have the right to be angry with me, only if you love me—don’t.... I—I
thought I could.... I am very unhappy.... I didn’t know myself until
to-night.... There’s something that won’t let me cross the threshold....
I’m not good, and I’m not afraid of convention, but I can’t do it.... I
should wake up to hate myself. It’s as well I found out in time—for you
and for me.”
“You say you’re not afraid. You _are_ afraid,” he said.
“I said I was not afraid of convention. It’s true I am afraid of
something—in myself. I thought it was an easy game to play. Now I wonder
how a woman can play it.... Let me go now, Frank. I’m very tired.”
“You don’t love me?”
“No ... not that way?”
Her quiet voice, her steady eyes, frightened him. He knew he was playing
a losing game, and he began to bluster.
“You would love me ... you practically promised me everything ... you’ve
just amused yourself with me, like other women in your set ... you run
up an account, and you don’t pay the bill ... if you were a man I should
call it damned dishonourable, but as you are a woman——”
She stooped and drew forth the telegram.
“And if I were a man, what should I call this?”
The paper dropped from her hand and fluttered to the ground, where it lay
between them.
“It was through love of you,” he said desperately. “You shilly-shallied
... women always have ridiculous scruples.... I swear it was through love
of you. You’ve driven me out of my wits.”
She shook her head. There was no anger on her lips, only a drooping
sadness.
“I wonder if that’s all a man’s love can ever mean.... I wonder!
Good-night, Frank. Let’s close this chapter—friends. There have been
faults on both sides.”
She held out her hand, but he turned away and flung himself on the divan
with his head in his cushions.
She waited a moment, and then she went out of the door and down the
stairs that led to the living-rooms below. Surely he would see her out?
Would not Mrs. Marshall think it curious that she should depart in such
an odd fashion? What a ludicrous finish to the evening!
The hall below was in darkness. She could see no light from the region
of the kitchen. Was that, too, part of his experienced manœuvring? She
shivered, and groped for the electric switch. After some time she found
it. Her cloak was lying on one of the hall chairs.
Was he going to let her depart alone? How would she get a taxi? It was
half past eleven. Oh! how tired she felt now. Her feet seemed leaden as
she slipped the cloak round her shoulders. She cast one more glance up
at the door of the studio. But it remained closed. His manners, with his
hopes of her favours, had forsaken him. There had been something in Rhoda
Carnegie’s remarks, after all.
She opened the hall-door, and found the stone stairs only very dimly
lit. She went heavily down them, forgetting that she might have summoned
the lift. Her soft pink dress trailed after her, for she was too tired
to hold it up. How unending the stairs were! Would she ever get to the
bottom? How many flights was it—six?
It seemed to her that she had been plodding down the stairs for ages,
when suddenly a hall-door opened just as she was rounding a turn of the
staircase. A voice said quietly, “I’ll come in to-morrow morning to see
how he is getting on.”
She had unconsciously shrunk back against the wall among the shadows, but
at the recognition of his voice she exclaimed, she thought in a whisper,
“Colin!”
He stopped in the act of running down the stairs, and came back. But now
she had no volition left to move backwards or forwards. He groped up the
stairs, and saw the gleam of a diamond spray on her corsage. He went
nearer and saw her.
“Claudia!... Claudia!” The first “Claudia” was pure astonishment, but
the second held something more, something that seemed to match the look
in his eyes when he had been watching her flirting with Frank at her
mother’s “at home.”
“Colin,” she said pitifully, “I’m so tired ... take me home ... please,
take me home....”
She stumbled a little, and he quietly put her hand through his arm.
“It’s not worth summoning the lift ... it’s only two flights; lean on my
arm.”
She leaned more heavily than she knew, for all her spirit had gone, her
springy step had deserted her, her head drooped sideways.
Luckily there was a taxi passing, and in a few minutes she found herself
beside him on the narrow seat. For a moment she sat motionless, hardly
realizing his presence. Then, with a childish impulse for comfort, she
put her head on his shoulder, and commenced to sob.
“Colin, don’t think things.... I want to explain....”
His hand closed firmly over her cold one, cold, though the night was
quite hot.
“Claudia, don’t ... there’s no need ... what are friends for?”