The moment had come for which Robert, on that day at least, had
scarcely dared to hope. He was alone with Philippa! He changed his seat
for one nearer to her, and looked at her ardently. Philippa returned
his gaze with a smile of wistful tenderness. Renunciation, a burning
sense of duty, tempered by potential passion, was expressed partly by
the smile, partly by the direct gaze of her melancholy eyes.
Robert acknowledged the former emotion with respectful admiration, and
derived unacknowledged hope from the latter. Three months ago he had
met Philippa Burton in the reading-room of the British Museum, and had
made her acquaintance with a degree of unconventionality hereafter so
frequently alluded to by Philippa as “our beautiful meeting,” that he
had come to attribute to it something of mystic import--an indication
of soul affinity.
Regarded prosaically, the acquaintance had come about, much as
very delightful and profitable acquaintances are made in a class
of a considerably lower social grade than that to which either
of them belonged. Robert had noticed and admired the dark-eyed,
mysterious-looking girl who read at the table opposite to his own,
had seized the chance of helping her with some heavy books which she
was lifting from the reference shelves, and the further opportunity
of leaving the reading-room with her at the moment she had chosen for
lunch. With that deliberate ignoring of foolish convention, of which
sandals and freely exposed necks are the outward and visible sign,
she had expressed her thanks with an impressiveness impossible to the
silence of the reading-room, and a quarter of an hour later, Robert
found himself lunching with her at a vegetarian restaurant, suffering
French beans gladly. He had met her at a critical moment, the moment
when the last sparks of passion for his wife had died a natural death,
and he had begun to crave for “a new interest in life.” It was, so
he expressed to himself, the prompting of a very ordinary instinct.
Philippa had accepted the paraphrase with melancholy fervor, and had
set about ministering to the requirements it indicated, after the
manner of a priestess.
She had promptly admitted Robert to her temple,--an austerely furnished
studio in Fulham,--had given him tea out of cups with no handles,
and made the ceremony seem like a sacrificial rite. She had listened
to the reading of his manuscripts, and called them blessed; she had
discussed his wife, and called her a nice little thing; she had dealt
in abstractions such as honor, ennobling influences, the transmutation
of passion into a religious flame to illumine and make life holy; and
she had hitherto resisted with grieved patience all Robert’s man-like
relapses into a somewhat less rarefied atmosphere. Robert was naturally
very much in love.
“I thought to-day would never come!” he murmured. “Are you better?
You’ve been working far too hard. Ah, you shouldn’t. Another cushion?”
Philippa accepted the cushion, but motioned Robert back to his place
with gentle persistence.
“Not work?” she said. “But I must. How else should I live? Though
certainly sometimes I wonder why. It’s then that I hear the river
flowing. How quiet it would be, wouldn’t it? What a sweet washing
away of life’s troubles and wearinesses--and mistakes!” She fixed her
swimming eyes upon a leafy branch opposite, and spoke in an infinitely
sad, deep voice.
“Don’t, Philippa!” urged Robert, in distress. “I can’t bear it. You
know how I want to shield you. You are not strong enough to battle with
life. You know how I long to----”
“Ah, my dear friend, don’t!” she cried, smiling at him with trembling
lips. “We’ve discussed that--and you know I can’t allow it. Don’t make
me regret having taken this beautiful holiday at your hands. I never
thought you could persuade me even to that, but you are wonderful when
you plead, Fergus.”
He took her hand and kissed it. She gently withdrew it.
“It sounds so strange to hear you called ‘Robert,’” she said. “You are
always ‘Fergus’ to me. It’s a beautiful name, associated with beautiful
work.” Her eyes dilated, and Robert wondered whether she was thinking
of the scene between the lovers in _The Magician_, or of the
moonlit terrace scene upon which he prided himself in _The Starry
Host_, his last poetical drama,--or perhaps of one of his little
prose poems? Her expression called up agreeable reminiscences of nearly
all his writing.
“I’ve been watching for you all the morning,” he told her.
“But that was very bad for your work.” She shook her head at him
playfully.
“My work is always at a standstill without you.”
She looked at him affectionately. “Do you know, I can’t help being glad
of that! It does show, I think, that your work is a bond between us in
the highest and best sense.”
He assented absently. “Cecily read me your letter,” he added after a
moment’s pause.
She waited for him to comment upon it. “Was it right?” she asked at
length, when he was silent. “I kept strictly to the truth. I hate
anything that’s not absolutely sincere.”
“Yes,” he replied, dubiously. “It was the truth, of course, but it gave
her a wrong impression. She thinks we only met at Lady Wilmot’s.”
“Isn’t that what you intended?” There was a momentary ring of sharpness
in her voice.
“Yes,” he returned, uncertainly again. “Yes, I suppose so.” His face
clouded for an instant. When he again sought her eyes, she was smiling
indulgently.
“Fergus,” she said, “don’t you understand? If women were all fine and
noble enough there would be no occasion to withhold anything. We could
be quite frank about our friendships, knowing that they would not be
misconstrued. But as it is----” She paused.
“Well?”
“As it is, while so many women are still mentally undeveloped, morally
childish, truth must come as--well, as a progressive revelation.”
Robert laughed a little. “I’m afraid it will always be a revelation,”
he said, a latent sense of humor for a moment asserting itself,
“progressive or otherwise.”
Philippa did not encourage humor. “I have greater faith,” she returned,
with serious eyes. “There are _some_ great souls among women,
Fergus, after all.”
He was scarcely listening. Surely no woman ever had such wonderful hair
as Philippa’s. His hands ached to touch it, to feel it running through
his fingers. He got up abruptly, and began to pace the grass plot as he
had paced it that morning when he had been thinking of her. Now she
was before him with her big, velvety eyes, her marvellous hair, her
long slender limbs. He realized presently that she was still speaking.
“I suppose it is fatally easy,” she was saying meditatively, “for a
married woman who has led a sheltered life to grow a little petty and
narrow. After all, it is the worker, the struggler, who purifies her
nature. Don’t you think so? But in time, I think, even the married
woman may learn.”
“Learn what?” he murmured, absently, throwing himself once more into
the cane chair beside her.
“To love less selfishly,” she returned, looking down at him; “to admit
the value of every ennobling friendship--a friendship such as ours,
Fergus! What can it mean but good? Good for both of us. Good for
_her_, too, if only she would take it so,” she added, softly.
Robert made a restless movement. The spell of her presence was somehow
broken. He felt worried, exasperated, angry with himself--almost angry
with Philippa. She expected too much of human nature. Certainly too
much of _his_.
“But, as a matter of fact, you can’t get a woman to take it like
that!” he exclaimed, in spite of himself. “Consider our case if you
like,” he added, in an injured tone. “What woman would believe in mere
friendship, if she knew we had met--how often? Nearly every day, as a
matter of fact, for the last three months. It isn’t in human nature!”
He spoke almost irritably, prompted by an undefined notion that, having
put such a strain upon any woman’s credulity, it was ridiculous not to
have justified her disbelief. For a moment he wished Philippa had been
a less noble woman.
She sighed. “Then I suppose you were quite right not to tell her,” she
said, descending abruptly upon the personal pronoun. “Your idea is to
let her grow used to our friendship, here in the country, under her
eyes, so that she may gradually come to believe in its purity?”
Robert felt a little nonplussed. He had thought this particular idea
emanated from Philippa herself, but as she spoke of it decidedly as
his, she must have no doubt that he had suggested it. In any case, it
was scarcely chivalrous to undeceive her.
“Perhaps you are right,” she murmured, after a moment. Presently, as
Robert watched her, she smiled, slowly, indulgently, as a mother
smiles at the waywardness of a little child. “How charming Cecily is!”
she said. “She always appealed to me, even as a schoolgirl. I always
wanted to _protect_ her in some way. She was so fragile--so sweet.
She had very little character,--as a child, I mean,--but then she was
so graceful, so lovable, one scarcely missed it.”
Robert was silent. He felt vaguely uncomfortable.
“Oh, what a pity! What a pity!” she exclaimed, softly, after a pause.
There was the tenderest commiseration and regret in her emotional
voice. Robert felt his heart stirred painfully. He wanted to kiss her
dress, but refrained.
“What is a pity?” he asked, in a low tone.
“That she doesn’t understand you, Fergus!”
“She thinks she does.”
“Ah, yes!--that is the tragedy.”
“Oh, we all have them!” said Robert, lightly.
She leaned a little towards him. “At least I do that, Fergus?
Understand you?” Her voice, still low, was tremulous.
He seized her hands. “As no one has ever understood me!” he cried.
“Philippa! No! Don’t move. Don’t! I must tell you--I can’t----”
She struggled to loose her hands, and he released them. When she was
free she moved a little away from him, to the other end of the bench,
and sat motionless, her eyes fixed on the ground.
Robert was abashed. He had angered her--he did not know how deeply! He
hesitated.
“Philippa,” he whispered at last, “you are angry?”
“Not angry,” she returned almost at once, “but disappointed, Fergus.
More than once you have promised not to let that kind of thing happen
again.”
“I know,” he began, humbly, “but----”
“What were we talking about?” she asked, in a studiously quiet tone.
“I don’t know,” admitted Robert, with truth. His head was in a whirl.
“About you, I expect,” she returned, with no trace of sarcasm. “Yours
is a very finely strung temperament. It requires the sympathy that
comes of insight. Now if Cecily would only----” She paused, as though
hesitating to criticise.
“Cecily surprised me a good deal the other day,” he said, suddenly. “I
meant to tell you.”
“Oh?” Her voice grew slightly cold. “How? I shouldn’t have thought her
a woman of many surprises.”
Robert broke off a twig from an overhanging hazel, snapped it, and
threw it away before he spoke.
“She accused me of being tired of her. Said she had no wish to stand in
my way. No,” in answer to her sudden inquiring look, “she brought no
accusation; she has heard nothing of our--our friendship. It was just a
whim, I suppose. But--I’ve taken her at her word.”
Her eyes held his. “You mean?”
“She wished that we should be friends,” he returned, with a shrug of
the shoulders. “We shall be--friends, henceforth.”
Before he could analyze the expression which leaped to her eyes, she
had averted her head.
“I am sorry,” she whispered, softly.
There was a long pause.
“Is Mr. Mayne an old friend of hers?”
Robert started. “Yes,” he returned, reluctantly. “She has known him
since she was a girl of seventeen or eighteen. I asked him here,” he
added, with an effort.
Philippa turned an illumined face towards him. “As a lesson in
generosity? I see.” She regarded him as the angel who holds the
palm-branch might regard the soldier-saint who had earned it. “That was
splendid of you, Fergus!”
Involuntarily he put out a hand as though to avert her words.
“I thought it was only fair she should have some one to talk to,” he
said, trying to speak carelessly, and annoyed that the words sounded
like a self-justification.
“Oh, I hope she’ll see it as you meant it, and be worthy of it!” cried
Philippa, almost as though it were a prayer. “But, Fergus, you mustn’t
be surprised if she doesn’t,” she added, with regret. “Cecily, you
know, is vain. I remember that of her as a striking characteristic
from our schooldays. She’s so charming, so lovable, but she’s weak,
Fergus.... Poor Fergus!” she murmured, “I wish I had the right to
comfort you!” The breeze fluttered her mysterious hair. In the soft
green gloom flung by the trees, her eyes looked like forest pools for
depth. She sighed, and the roses on her breast rose and sank, wafting
an intoxicating perfume. Robert’s heart beat so quickly that he could
scarcely speak. He flung himself onto the grass, and leaned against her
knees.
“You have! You must! I don’t want comfort--I want _you_!” he
whispered, incoherently. “Philippa, it’s ended between me and Cecily!
She doesn’t love me now. I don’t love her. I can only think of you.
Listen! Listen, darling, I can’t go on talking about friendship any
more. I love you!” He put both arms round her, and held her--held her
while at first she resisted. But only for a moment. She grew suddenly,
rigidly, still.
He threw back his head, still holding her, to look into her face. She
was pale, but she gazed at him mysteriously, with a sort of religious
ardor.
“Speak to me, Philippa!” he begged.
“Is it really, really so, Fergus?” she whispered. “The great love? the
perfect union?”
“You know I love you,” he said, beginning to realize that this was
surrender, but that Philippa must do it in her own way.
“I think it would be right for us, Fergus. I _feel_ it would be
right!” she added, with the conviction of a mystic who has received a
sign from Heaven. “Conventions, laws--they are for little people. Great
love is its own justification.”
The phrase struck Robert as familiar. But what did phrases matter? She
was yielding.
“You love me, then?” he urged, trembling.
“Yes, Fergus,” she said in her low, vibrating voice. “Yes, it _is_
love--and I didn’t know it. You have revealed me to myself.”
He kissed her passionately. “Call me by my own name,” he said, rising,
still with his arm about her, and drawing her to her feet.
“_Dear_ Robert!” she murmured as he rained kisses on her hair. He
was standing with his back to the narrow archway cut in the hedge, and
her face was hidden against his shoulder.
It was at that moment that Cecily and Mayne reached the entrance to the
yew garden. For one second Cecily stood motionless, then without a word
she moved on past the narrow archway, and continued walking parallel to
the hedge on the outward side. Mayne followed her, embarrassment for
the moment so strong within him that there was no room for any other
emotion.
Cecily did not speak. She and Robert had loved the yew enclosure
better than any other part of the garden. All the times they had sat
there together came before her now. She saw them as a drowning person
is said to review the scenes in his past life. She saw the sunshine
on the grass on hot summer afternoons. She smelled the roses. She
thought of moonlit nights. She remembered one night,--soon after their
marriage,--moonless, but full of stars, when she had sat with Robert on
the bench under the hazels.... All at once she turned to Mayne.
“I shall find my armor useful,” she said, in a clear, steady voice.
“Thank you so much for recommending it. We can get into the house at
the other door.”