JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' MEETINGS
Next morning came another little note from Geoffrey. He would arrive in
London at noon that day. When and where could they meet? Would she come
to the studio as soon as her day's work was over? Might he come to see
her, or should they meet out-of-doors somewhere? Anything she
decided--though she was implored not to put him off until to-morrow.
Would she please telegraph?
Evarne looked across the breakfast table.
"Philia, in what costume do I look nicest of all?"
The answer was prompt.
"You looks nicest of all in yer own skin, and nothin' else."
The girl smiled.
"But that hardly does for this occasion, all the same. I'm going to
supper with--with Geoff."
"Beg yer parding. 'E's really 'ome, then? Wear anythin' yer choose. 'E
won't never notice!"
Evarne feared she was a most restless and impatient model that day. The
hours seemed interminable. But they were got through somehow, and at
seven o'clock in the evening she stepped from a hansom and proceeded to
mount the three flights of broad stairs that led up to the studio. Her
heart was throbbing so wildly that even before the first landing was
reached her breath came with difficulty, and a feeling almost of
faintness obliged her to stand still for a few moments, to reconquer
some degree of calmness.
The door of Geoff's flat was already wide open, and just within the hall
stood the young man himself, awaiting her coming. The instant he caught
the first glimpse of her approaching, he bounded downstairs and seized
both the hands she held out to him.
For a minute they stood motionless and speechless, more than content to
once again feast their eyes upon one another's faces. Then, still
without a word, they mounted the last flight of stairs, holding hands
like children, and the door of the flat closed behind them.
They were alone together for the first time.
Evarne went into the sitting-room. The curtains were drawn, and two
rose-pink shaded lamps cast a warm, softening glow upon the heavy oak
furniture. Calmly enough she took off her hat, carefully stuck in the
pins, and placed it on a chair. Then she turned round suddenly, and all
her wealth of hidden feeling quivered in her voice.
"Oh, Geoff, Geoff! How sweet beyond words it is to see you again!"
In a second his arms were around her, and she was strained to his breast
with a force that was almost painful. In silence he looked, eagerly and
intently, deep into the limpid brown eyes so near his own. Such
ineffable tenderness and devotion frankly answered his ardent, searching
gaze, that the force of his worship for this beautiful woman grew not
only unspeakable, but nigh too overwhelmingly great to be borne. His
brows contracted, and all unconsciously he uttered a deep-breathed "Oh!"
that bordered on a groan of pain; then suddenly sinking on his knees
before her with the abandon of his artistic temperament, he seized both
her hands, covering them with kisses. At last, pressing her soft palms
hard against his cheeks, he rested motionless, and scarcely could she
hear his murmured broken words--
"How I adore you! I can scarcely endure it. You are more perfect even
than I remembered. Evarne! Evarne!"
She was already bending slightly forward, for unconsciously he was
dragging her hands downwards. She leant lower, and lightly brushed his
fair hair with her lips. A divan was close by. She sank down, and, still
kneeling, Geoffrey rested his folded arms upon her knees and looked up
into her face.
The turmoil of strong emotion was still so far beyond all possible
expression, that to both speech could have been merely a mockery. For a
protracted period nothing was said in spoken words. When Evarne finally
broke the long silence it was with tones so soft, so appealing, that
they were in themselves a gentle caress, although the actual words were
commonplace enough.
"You won't leave me again? You won't go away any more?"
"Not without you, my dearest, my dearest! Never shall I go without
you--no, not even to the end of the street--if I can persuade you to
come with me."
"And I would follow you willingly, whatever might await us at the end of
the street."
"You really love me?"
"You want to hear my voice tell you what you know so well already?"
Geoff answered only with his eyes. Evarne put out both hands and drew
his head to her bosom, pressing it so tightly that he felt the throbbing
of her heart against his cheek. After a minute the gentle whisper
floated to his ears--
"I loved you yesterday. I love you to-day, and I shall love you
to-morrow." After a little pause she added, "I'll tell you something
more too."
"Nothing else seems to matter. Still, do tell me!"
"It's just a little nothing. Only this--that I cared for you before you
ever cared for me."
"No, 'twas just contrariwise! It's no use to shake your perverse darling
head. I can prove it."
"You mean you can try."
"Now, listen. Remember that I saw you before you ever saw me. You were
reading the paper, but I was reading your face. I had loved you for at
least three full minutes before you ever beheld me. How now?"
Evarne laughed happily.
"Yes, you have won after all. Do you know, I like so much to be told
that your gaze was never coldly critical, or even indifferent to me."
"I can't imagine love that does not come at first sight," declared Geoff
with enthusiasm. "Not in all its full force and power, naturally, but at
least as an immediate conviction that here at length is the one who is
to become dearest in the whole world. Yet one hears of people knowing
each other for years before they learn to love. Isn't that so? What sort
of feelings do you suppose fill the space of time between the first
seeing and the first loving, when the two are not almost simultaneous?
Just interest and liking?"
"It is no use looking questioningly at me," Evarne replied, shaking her
head gently. "Besides, I thought men had always had so much past
experience in that direction that they knew just everything."
Geoff smiled at her.
"Oh, you did, did you? I'm afraid that branch of my education has been
shamefully neglected. And you--you cannot teach me?"
"Can't I, then? I know every whit as much concerning love as did
Diotima, who instructed Socrates in the art."
"And who taught you, pray?"
"Don't be jealous. I never had to learn; it's a natural talent. Perhaps
it was a gift from my fairy godmother."
"Then it is all theory?"
"Oh yes."
For half a minute Geoff did not speak. Painfully conscious that she had
now told him her first deliberate falsehood, Evarne glanced into his
thoughtful eyes with sudden apprehension. Then she hastened to break in
upon this silence, in which another such terrible question, incapable of
truthful answer, was perhaps being formulated.
"You must have thought you cared for somebody before you saw me, Geoff.
Do tell me?"
"Very well. Now this is the solemn truth. Not only have I never loved
any other woman before you, but I've never even made the mistake of
thinking a passing fancy was the real thing. I've never burned incense
at the shrine of any false goddess. In my heart I've loved you all my
life--that is, the idea of you, Evarne. I've worshipped you and waited
for you, sweetheart, and now, thank God, I've found you."
She answered very gently and slowly, her heart glowing with triumph and
delight at his avowal.
"If it were possible, I should care for you even more after hearing you
say that. But how can I love you more than to the very uttermost of my
nature, and I believe I have done that from the first."
Geoffrey found this frank and unaffected confession more adorable than
any coquettish hesitation could have proved.
"But even if I had not been able to win your heart, I should still have
loved you always and ever, and held myself your knight, ready to obey
your slightest or your most difficult command, my queen," he avowed with
boyish enthusiasm. "I feel that it was preordained that I should love
you, and I should have readily fulfilled my fate, even if you had never
been able to care for me in return."
She sighed and shook her head.
"Ah, Geoffrey, do you love me indeed? Almost I doubt it."
"You doubt it? Evarne!"
"You can't imagine what I mean? Sit by my side and I'll explain."
Reclining delightfully in Geoff's arms, her slender arched feet curled
up on the couch, she expounded her startling statement.
"When you say that it would not make any--well, not much--difference in
your feelings towards me if I did not care for you in return, I wonder
if you are not indulging in a state of mind peculiar to poetic
temperaments such as yours, my dearest, and I feel jealous."
"Dear child--jealous of whom?"
"Cannot you guess? Why, of Love itself. I believe you are so happy in
having me to care for, simply because you delight in loving. You are a
worshipper of love in the abstract; you fairly glory in that frame of
mind people call 'being in love.' The possession of the emotion means
more to you than the possession of any particular woman. There are some
terrible people like that. They would rather their mistress died than
that she should destroy the love she had awakened in their hearts."
"Now, fair Diotima, just please name one single individual who ever felt
that way."
"Easily! What about Dante, the patron saint of such sinners? Do you
suppose he could have had any ordinary personal affection for his
precious Beatrice? Why, he only saw her twice, or something of that
sort, and she was respectably married to somebody else, yet she coloured
his whole life, and he seems to have been quite contented. And he is
never without disciples--a few. Oh, I know you--people who are in love
with Love itself."
"Yes? Go on telling me about them."
Interested though he was in her slightest word, Geoffrey, man-like, was
not giving all his mind to Evarne's ideas. He was enthralled by the
contemplation of her sinuous, supple form, her tenderly waving hair and
satin-smooth skin, and the live beams of her glancing eye; he was
glorying in the dulcet music of her voice.
"Well," she went on, feigning discontent, while her very heart seemed
pulsating in notes of perfect happiness--"well, you find some woman whom
you can idealise and adore, and if she be but passably gracious to you,
you proceed to make a world of happiness for yourselves merely from
loving her, dreaming of her, writing poems to her or painting pictures
that you think she has inspired--though really it is nothing but your
own capacity for loving that she has made active that is the true source
of your inspiration. Even if you rarely see her it seems to make very
little difference--you still dream, still find inspirations, still do
great work under the divine influence of Aphrodite. You live in the
enchanted Palace of Love, and once safely there, are horribly
independent of the woman who opened its magic portals to you. Oh, sorry
fate that led me to love an artist! So long as I condescend to exist and
remain tolerably young and beautiful, all is well. I cannot possibly
feel that your entire happiness depends upon my presence or my absence,
my smile or my frown. Now do you see my grievance?"
"I can't believe you know it, but you actually seem to imply that you
care for me more sincerely, more humanly, than I do for you, which is
obviously impossible."
"I don't see the 'obviousness.' I should rather like to."
"I'll soon tell you. You won't laugh at me?"
"Laugh! Oh, my darling!"
"Well, then, the fact that it is you, your own dear self, that I so
glory in, and not any mere abstract mental condition, is proved by this.
I confess I always hoped the time would come when I should be genuinely
in love. That's what you are not to laugh at, by the way! I knew somehow
that I had all the capacity for intense devotion, and naturally enough,
I suppose, longed to exercise it. So if practically any young and
attractive woman would have served as the sort of figure-head you
describe, should I have been forced to wait--unwillingly enough, I can
tell you--until you, my only possible beloved, appeared upon the scene?
Of course not."
"You had to wait for me--for me--for me!" sang Evarne, keeping the time
in her little song of triumph by clapping her hands.
"It is very wicked of you to be so pleased about it. Why did you not
come along earlier, my blessing? It is a perfect misery, nothing else,
to be empty-hearted. It is terrible to feel a thousand emotions seeking
desperately for an outlet. Why did your star linger so long in crossing
mine?"
But no sympathy was to be extracted from Evarne.
"It has all been just as is best. You have been most fortunate," she
declared. "Love is not the be-all and end-all of any life, you know, and
when you think of your chosen work--which is the real thing--I'm sure
you can't regret any emotional experiences, however distressing they may
have been in the learning. They are all needful training for the
production of soul-stirring pictures; as necessary, in their way, as is
the enchantment of loving and being loved that is now going to help you
still further. Mental turmoil of every type bears its own special fruit
that may be garnered by an artist to his own advantage. Stagnation,
ignorance and lack of variety in emotions brings ultimate failure in
imaginative work. Thus speaks Diotima the Second."
Far-away, curious echoes seemed ringing in Evarne's brain. When and
where and in what familiar voice had she heard such sentiments spoken
long, long ago?
"Well, it certainly is consoling to put all one's mental worries into
the same category as freehand drawing and perspective," declared Geoff;
and being both ardently happy and therefore easily amused, they laughed
merrily.
After a moment's pause he went on--
"But don't you think the secret tragedy of many a seemingly commonplace
and prosaic person is the lack of someone to be earnestly and devotedly
adored? Don't you think many and many a heart suffers from a craving to
exercise strong powers of loving forever ungratified? I'm speaking of a
spiritual demand--not of the universal desire to find a mate that is
just part of Nature's artful little scheme for ensuring the due arrival
of the next generation. Do you think that demand of the spirit proves a
man merely a willing follower of Dante?"
"Oh, no no!--I suppose not. But, despite your specious arguments, I
still maintain that you, individually, are one to rate love higher than
any object. Obstinate, am I not?"
"Absolutely wicked, you dearest. I love you, my Evarne--you yourself--in
every possible way under the sun, including the ordinary human love of
any man, artist or not, for the woman he seeks for his wife. There is
perhaps a tiny atom of truth in one of the charges you have hurled at
me, but----"
"I knew it, my dear commonplace lover. Confess, and I'll see if I can
forgive you."
"I think, perhaps--dearest, I don't like even to speak of it--but
perhaps even your--I mean, if the world lost you, my own beloved----"
"If I died?"
He flinched even at the words that expressed the possibility, but went
on--
"That it would cause a more--how can I express my meaning? Well, in one
way, possibly, even that would cause a less ever-present gap in my
mental life than would the destruction of my love for you.... It's no
use hitting me," he laughed; "I can't help it, sweetest!" Then he
clasped her closely with sudden eager passion. "But do not think that
your dreamer is at all content to worship only in spirit, Evarne."
Then, impulsively, he poured forth a flood of words, ardent,
impassioned, throbbing with that fiery sex-love that dominates the
entire world--selfish, unheeding, remorseless--words of that terrible
overwhelming passion that will not be long denied.
"That's how I want to be loved," she whispered, but flung herself away
from his grasp just in order to be drawn close once more.
He seized her convulsively, held her in a cruelly fast grip, covering
her cheeks, her brow, her mouth with kisses, violent and tender in
turns. At last, pressing his face against hers, he rested motionless.
She felt the influence of the contact spread itself slowly throughout
her entire frame, subtle and concentrated as electricity, and under its
power her breast heaved, and she breathed only in short troubled gasps.
The whole room, the whole world, seemed to be throbbing, to be
trembling--perhaps it was only the arms that enfolded her that
quivered--she neither knew nor cared to know.
A deep silence held sway. The only moment's speech was when Geoffrey
murmured a sudden question about their marriage, begging, imploring for
an early date. It should be quite soon, Evarne promised. It should be
within six weeks, five weeks, a month, less still, if he so desired.
She had hesitated perceptibly before she answered. This definite and
verbal plighting of her troth was opposed--actively, violently--for a
few moments, by the resurrection of those scruples she fancied had faded
away once and for all--false and misleading will-o'-the-wisps of
chivalrous truth and honour, leading the unwise into bogs of wild
despair and utter misery. When at last she did speak it was in a voice
fraught with tremulous emotion, low, yet inexpressibly thrilling--notes
softer than the cooing of wood-doves, and which reverberated upon the
young artist's highly-strung nerves with subtle emphasis.
More than once Evarne had thought that his nature now was not unlike
what her own had been originally, before three years of constant effort
to please a jaded, middle-aged man, added to unbroken association with
coarse, depraved minds, had sullied her soul, blunted her finer
susceptibilities, ruined her taste for the more delicate viands of
love's feast. Once upon a time she had sought with all her strength to
keep the affection that was offered her free from all savour of passion;
now, when devotion, as poetical, refined and idealistic as imagination
could devise had been laid at her feet, she had felt starved, chilled,
unsatisfied.
But as she looked into her dreamer's altered face and saw its new
expression, saw the grey eyes so strangely gleaming, the slight
occasional twitching of his lips, the distinct though almost
imperceptible veil of moisture that covered his brow, she felt for a
moment strangely degraded--curiously identical with the early Christian
Fathers' estimate of women. A moment's bitter regret of her own
personality cast its shadow. Geoff was too good for her. Ought he not to
love a young, innocent girl--one of those sweet maidens who are to be
found here and there even in this grimy world, with thoughts white as
snow-drifts, and surely invisible halos around their meek downcast
heads--pure spirits that were scarcely conscious of possessing bodies,
and would assuredly never miss them? Ought not one of these to have been
Geoff's bright particular star?
"Are you certain you love me; that you're not deceiving yourself?" she
asked again and again, and each time the only response was a long kiss
that penetrated to her heart's core; a speaking, all-answering gaze; a
closer, almost frantic tightening of the arms in which she reclined.
And her moods changed as a kaleidoscope. Suddenly she laughed aloud in
triumphant satisfaction at herself, all that she was, all that she could
be. Of course Geoff loved her, and he should love her yet more. Placid
snow-maidens--you must be content to shine in heaven; not yours is it to
make men thank God for life!
Now to the man who loved her Evarne appeared the very acme of all
perfection. And indeed, in that hour she verily was all that is most
appealing--most adorable--most exquisite. Her beauty was transcendent,
and her expression remained more noble, more respect-compelling than she
knew. And yet, all the while, her soft brown eyes, whether swimming in
happy, purposeless tears or shining with inward fire, told, with more
convincing eloquence than lies within the power of speech, of the utter
abandonment of the soul they mirrored to the domination of the most
ardent and enthralling affection. She was all tenderness, passion,
charm, fascination. Her powerful magnetism encircled her as an invisible
cloud. Who, amid mortals, coming within the radius of its influence,
could have saved himself from worshipping this fair woman to the very
uttermost limits of his capacity?
The stress of her own emotion was exhausting; a delicious languor, a
placid dreaminess, tinged with melancholy; crept upon her. She felt
incapable of further movement or speech, and allowed her long-fringed
lids to veil her eyes. When she lifted them again it was to behold her
lover's gaze fixed upon her in a fresh access of passionate adoration
that could not be left unanswered. She smiled up at him, a gentle little
smile; it seemed serene and calm, but behind it, like unto a powerful
naked figure veiled in gauze, gleamed love that was resolute,
indomitable, heroic.
Her inarticulate little murmurs, her half-sighs, all her tiny actions
had been enchanting, enthralling; but her smile--always sweet and
moving--was now provocative of ecstasy. Dazed, unconscious of his own
personality, again Geoff knelt before her, his arms clasped around her
waist, his face pressed against her soft body. Oblivious to all of life
save love alone, he bathed his spirit in this inexhaustible fund of the
gods' best gift.
What said Evarne's most-admired philosopher?
"I say then of all in general, both men and women, that the whole of our
race would be happy if we worked out love perfectly, and if each were to
meet with his beloved."
Was not Diotima, who taught Socrates, a wise woman indeed, capable of
imparting the truest, the most divine of all wisdom?
Thus the winged hours sped past.
A dainty little supper was ready, and finally they sat down side by side
and played at eating. Over the little meal the conversation became
really quite practical and business-like.
Geoffrey had said nothing of the prospect he had of succeeding sooner or
later to his childless cousin's earldom. That startling piece of
information seemed to him to be best reserved for discussion on some
other less idyllic occasion. But it was partly this that gave emphasis
to his inquiry.
"You will not continue posing now, will you, dearie?"
"I have not any choice," laughed Evarne. "There are some people who make
me. Let me see, there's the landlord and the tradesmen and----"
"Then come here, won't you? Really, I not only want you--I need you. I'm
going to start a big picture--any number of figures in it."
"What is the subject, and who am I to be?"
"I want you for Andromache. I'm going to paint the captured Trojan
women."
"I shall make a realistic captive, Geoff, being one in very sooth."
"And I verily believe I was inspired to paint such a subject by the
consciousness that I was free no longer, my captor. I shall make a great
thing of this picture, Evarne; at least, I ought to. Everything will be
in my favour. Poor old Jack! He is still lamenting his unprocurable
model--his 'Belle Dame.'"
"How different his work is from yours; poor old Jack!"
"I am going to try hard to persuade him to take up portrait-painting
definitely. He really is very clever, you know. He ought to do well. Or
sculpture; he's quite strong at that. But he will insist on trying to be
imaginative, and he doesn't shine there. Now, when is the earliest day
you can come?"
"It so happens that I finish to-morrow with the man I'm sitting for at
present. That's Thursday, the twentieth, isn't it? Then I have nothing
to do until Monday the twenty-fourth, when I ought--it's all
arranged--you see I didn't expect you home until September!"
"A lot of engagements, have you?"
"I've only a few spare days here and there for the next seven weeks."
"But we're going to be married long before that time. Look here, Evarne
love, give them all up! Don't sit for anyone else but me. Come, spoil me
a bit. Let me be selfish. My picture is all ready and waiting for the
model."
"It's terribly unfair to the others, but----"
"Never mind them. Seriously, I mean it."
"It's a shame, when they've been waiting, but there--it's delightful to
be unkind to other people, and treat them badly for your sake. It shall
be as you wish. It is wrong, though! Aren't you ashamed?"
A little later eleven o'clock struck. Evarne pinned on her hat.
"Oh, don't go yet! It's far too early," cried Geoffrey.
But Evarne only smiled.
"On the contrary, it is rather late. Say good-bye quickly," she
responded.
The timepiece ticked on placidly, neither faster nor slower than its
usual steady wont.
"Goodness gracious, Geoff, you must send that silly old clock to be
mended. It actually has jumped a whole quarter of an hour! It is no use
its pretending we have been twenty minutes saying good-bye. Do call a
taxi quickly."
"And to-morrow I'm coming to supper with you. Oh dear me! twenty-four
hours to wait!"
"Only about twenty now; and remember, if our stars in their courses had
not chanced to touch, we might have both lived twenty-four years
more--and more still--and been lonely to the end. See what we have
escaped."
By midnight Evarne was safely alone in her own little bedroom. She
studied her reflection in the mirror before removing her hat, and smiled
with pleasure to behold cheeks blooming as a blush rose; lips made up of
happy curves; and eyes shining for very joy as brightly as the most
brilliant stars in the summer heaven.