THAT’S WHY WOMEN DO NOT MAKE GOOD PHILOSOPHERS.
She had prayed to God that he might be kept away from her; but
immediately afterward, as has already been stated, when she began to
think over the situation of the hour, she came to the conclusion that
she had been a little too precipitate in her petition. She felt that
she would like to ask him how it had come about that he had played
that contemptible part. Such a contemptible part! Was it on record, she
wondered, that any man had ever played that contemptible part? To run
away! And she had designed and worn that wonderful toilet; such a toilet
as Helen might have worn (she thought); such a toilet as Cleopatra might
have worn (she fancied); such a toilet as--as Sarah Bernhardt (she was
certain) would wear when impersonating a woman who had lost her soul for
the love of a man. Oh, had ever woman been so humiliated! She thought of
the way Sarah Bernhardt would act the part of one of those women if her
lover had run away from her outstretched arms,--and such a toilet,--only
it was not on record that the lover of any one of them had ever run
away. The lovers had been only too faithful; they had remained to be
hacked to pieces with a mediaeval knife sparkling with jewels, or to
swallow some curious poison out of a Byzantine goblet. She would have
a word or two to say to Herbert Courtland when he returned. She would
create the part of the woman whose lover has humiliated her.
This was her thought until her husband told her that he had sent that
letter to Herbert Courtland, and he would most likely dine with them on
the evening of his return.
Then it was it occurred to her that Herbert Courtland might by some
curious mischance--mischances occurred in many of Sarah Bernhardt’s
plays--have come to hear that she had paid that rather singular visit to
Phyllis Ayrton, just at the hour that she had named in that letter which
she had written to him. What difference did that make in regard to his
unparalleled flight? He was actually aboard the yacht _Water Nymph_
before she had rung for her brougham to take her to Phyllis’. He had
been the first to fly.
Then she began to think, as she had thought once before, of her
husband’s sudden return,--the return of a husband at the exact hour
named in the letter to a lover was by no means an unknown incident in
a play of Sarah Bernhardt’s,--and before she had continued upon this
course of thought for many minutes, she had come to the conclusion that
she would not be too hard on Herbert Courtland.
She was not too hard on him.
He had an interview with Mr. Linton at the city offices of the great
Taragonda Creek Mine. (The mine had, as has already been stated,
been discovered by Herbert Courtland during his early explorations in
Australia, and he had acquired out of his somewhat slender resources--he
had been poor in those days--about a square mile of the wretched country
where it was situated, and had then communicated his discovery to
Stephen Linton, who understood the science and arts necessary for
utilizing such a discovery, the result being that in two years everyone
connected with the Taragonda Mine was rich. The sweepings of the
crushing rooms were worth twenty thousand pounds a year: and Herbert
Courtland had spent about ten thousand pounds--a fourth of his year’s
income--in the quest of the meteor-bird to make a feather fan for Ella
Linton.) And when the business for which he had been summoned to London
had been set _en train_, he had paid a visit to his publishers. (They
wondered could he give them a novel on New Guinea. If he introduced
plenty of dialect and it was sufficiently unintelligible it might thrust
the kail yard out of the market; but the novel must be in dialect, they
assured him.) After promising to give the matter his attention, he paid
his visit to Phyllis, and then went to his rooms to dress; for when
Stephen Linton had said:
“Of course you’ll dine with us to-night: I told Ella you would come.”
He had said, “Thanks; I shall be very pleased.”
“Come early; eight sharp,” Mr. Linton had added.
And thus it was that at five minutes to eight o’clock Herbert found
himself face to face alone with the woman whom he had so grossly
humiliated.
Perhaps she was hard on him after all: she addressed him as Mr.
Courtland. She felt that she, at any rate, had returned to the straight
path of duty when she had done that. (It was Herbert Courtland who had
talked to Phyllis of the modern philosopher--a political philosopher or
a philosophical politician--who, writing against compromise, became the
leading exponent of that science, and had hoped to solve the question of
a Deity by using a small g in spelling God. On the same principle Ella
had called Herbert “Mr. Courtland.”)
He felt uneasy. Was he ashamed of himself, she wondered?
“Stephen will be down in a moment, Mr. Courtland,” she said.
He was glad to hear it.
“How warm it has been all day!” she added. “I thought of you toiling
away over figures in the city, when you might have been breathing the
lovely air of the sea. It was too bad of Stephen to bring you back.”
“I assure you I was glad to get his letter at Leith,” said he. “I was
thinking for the two days previous how I could best concoct a telegram
to myself at Leith in order that I might have some excuse for running
away.”
“That is assuming that running away needs some excuse,” said she.
There was a considerable pause before he said, in a low tone:
“Ella, Ella, I know everything--that night. We were saved.”
At this moment Mr. Linton entered the room. He was, after all, not late,
he said: it wanted a minute still of being eight o’clock. He had just
been at the telephone to receive a reply regarding a box at Covent
Garden. In the earlier part of the day none had been vacant, he had been
told; but the people at the box office promised to telephone to him if
any became vacant in the course of the afternoon. He had just come from
the telephone, and had secured a good enough box on the first tier. He
hoped that Ella would not mind “Carmen”; there was to be a new _Carmen_.
Ella assured him that she could not fail to be interested in any
_Carmen_, new or old. It was so good of him to take all that trouble for
her, knowing how devoted she was to opera. She hoped that Herbert--she
called him Herbert in the presence of her husband--was in a _Carmen_
mood.
“I’m always in a mood to study anything that’s unreservedly savage,”
said he.
“There’s not much reservation about our little friend _Carmen_,” said
Mr. Linton. “She tells you her philosophy in her first moment before
you.”
He hummed the habanera.
“There you are: _Misteroso e l’amore_--that’s the philosophy of your
pretty savage, Herbert.”
“Yes,” said Herbert; “it’s that philosophy which consists in an absence
of philosophy--not the worst kind, either, it seems to me. It’s the
philosophy of impulse.”
“I thought that the aim of all philosophy was to check every impulse,”
said Ella.
“So it is; that’s why women do not make good philosophers,” said her
husband.
“Or, for that matter, good mothers of philosophers,” said Herbert.
“That’s rather a hard saying, isn’t it?” said the other man.
“No,” said his wife; “it’s as transparent as air.”
“London air in November?” suggested her husband.
“He means that there’s no such thing.”
“As air in London in November? I’m with him there.”
“He means that there’s no such thing as a good philosopher.”
“Then I hope he has an appetite for dinner. The man without philosophy
usually has.”
The butler had just announced dinner.
There was not much talk among them of philosophy so long as the footmen
were floating round them like mighty tropical birds. They talked of the
House of Commons instead. A new measure was to be introduced the next
night: something that threatened beer and satisfied no party; not even
the teetotalers--only the wives of the teetotalers. Then they had a few
words regarding George Holland’s article in the _Zeit Geist_. Mr. Linton
seemed to some extent interested in the contentions of the rector of St.
Chad’s; and Herbert agreed with him when he expressed the opinion that
the two greatest problems that the Church had to face were: How to get
people with intelligence to go to church, and what to do with them when
they were there.
In an hour they were in their box at Covent Garden listening to the
sensuous music of “Carmen,” and comparing the sauciness of the charming
little devil who sang the habanera, with the piquancy of the last
_Carmen_ but three, and with the refinement of the one who had made so
great a success at Munich. They agreed that the savagery of the newest
was very fascinating,--Stephen Linton called it womanly,--but they
thought they should like to hear her in the third act before pronouncing
a definite opinion regarding her capacity.
Then the husband left the box to talk to some people who were seated
opposite.
“You know everything?” she said.
“Everything,” said Herbert. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“For running away? Oh, Bertie, you cannot have heard all.”
“For forcing you to write me that letter--can you ever forgive me?”
“Oh, the letter? Oh, Bertie, we were both wrong--terribly wrong. But we
were saved.”
“Yes, we were saved. Thank God--thank God!”
“That was my first cry, Bertie, when I felt that I was safe--that we
both had been saved: Thank God! It seemed as if a miracle had been done
to save us.”
“So it was--a miracle.”
“I spent the night praying that you might be kept away from me,
Bertie--away for ever and ever. I felt that I was miserably weak; I felt
that I could not trust myself; but now that you are here beside me again
I feel strong. Oh, Bertie, we know ourselves better now than we did a
week ago--is it only a week ago? It seems months--years--a lifetime!”
“Yes, I think that we know each other better now, Ella. That night
aboard the yacht all the history of the past six months seemed to come
before me. I saw what a wretch I had been, and I was overwhelmed with
self-contempt.”
“It was all my fault, dear Bertie. I was foolish--vain--a mere woman!
Do not say that I did not take pride in what I called, in my secret
moments, my conquest. Oh, Bertie! I had sunk into the depths. And then
that letter! But we were saved, and I feel that we have been saved
forevermore. I feel strong by your side now. And you, I know, feel
strong, Bertie?”
“I have awakened from my dream, Ella. You called her your good angel
too. Surely it was my good angel that sent me to her that evening!”
Ella was staring at him. He said that he knew everything. It appeared
that she was the one who was not in the fortunate position of knowing
all.
She stared.
“Phyllis Ayrton--you were with her?”
“For half an hour. She was unconscious of the effect her words had upon
me,--the words of another woman,--leading me back to the side of those
who have gone forever. I listened to her, and then it was that I awoke.
She did not know. How could she tell that the light of heaven was
breaking in upon a soul that was on the brink of hell? She saved me.”
“She told me nothing of that.” There was a curious eagerness in her
voice. “She told me nothing. Oh, how could she tell me anything? She
knew nothing of it herself. She looked on you as an ordinary visitor.
She told you that I fled to her. Oh, Bertie, Bertie! those hours that I
passed--the terrible conflict. But when I felt her arms about me I knew
that I was safe. Then Stephen entered. I thought that we were lost--you
and I; that he had returned to find you waiting. I don’t know if he had
a suspicion. At any rate we were saved, and by her--dear Phyllis. Oh,
will she ever know, I wonder, what it is to be a woman? Bertie, she is
my dearest friend--I told you so. I thought of her and you--long ago.
Oh, why should you not think of her now that you have awakened and are
capable of thought--the thought of a sane man?”
He sat with an elbow resting on the front of the opera box, his head
upon his hand. He was not looking at her, but beyond her. He seemed to
be lost in thought.
Was he considering that curious doctrine which she had propounded, that
if a man really loves a woman he will marry her dearest friend? He made
no reply to her. The point required a good deal of thought, apparently.
“You hear me, Bertie--dear Bertie?” she said.
He only nodded.
She remembered that, upon a previous occasion, when she had made
the same suggestion to him, he had put it aside as unworthy of
comment--unworthy of a moment’s thought. How could it be possible
for him, loving her as he did, to admit the possibility of another’s
attractiveness in his eyes? The idea had seemed ludicrous to him.
But now he made no such protest. He seemed to consider her suggestion
and to think it--well, worthy of consideration; and this should have
been very pleasing to her; for did it not mean that she had gained her
point?
“You will think over it, Bertie?” she said. Her voice was now scarcely
so full of eagerness as it had been before. Was that because she did not
want to weary him by her persistence? Even the suggestion to a man that
he should love a certain woman should, she knew, be made with tact.
“I have been thinking over it,” he said at last; but only after a long
pause.
“Oh, I am so glad!”
And she actually believed that she was glad.
“I thought about her aboard the yacht.”
“Did you? I fancied that you would think of----But I am so glad!”
“I thought of her as my good angel. Those words which she said to me--”
“She has been your good angel, and I--”
“Ella, Ella, she has been our good angel--you said so.”
“And don’t you think that I meant it? Some women--she is one of
them--are born to lead men upward; others----Ah, there, it is on the
stage: _Carmen_, the enchantress, _Michaela_, the good angel. But I am
so glad! She is coming to stay with us up the river; you must be with us
too. You cannot possibly know her yet. But a week by her side--you will,
I know, come to perceive what she is--the sweetest--the most perfect!”
Still he made no reply. He was looking earnestly at the conductor, who
was pulling his musicians together for the second act.
“You will come to us, Bertie?” she whispered.
He shook his head.
“I dare not promise,” said he. “I feel just now like a man who is still
dazed, on being suddenly awakened. I have not yet begun to see things as
they are. I am not sure of myself. I will let you know later on.”
Then the conductor tapped his desk, and those of the audience who had
left their places returned. Stephen Linton slipped into his chair; his
wife took up her lorgnette as the first jingle of the tambourines was
heard, and the curtain rose upon the picturesque tawdriness of the
company assembled at the _Senor Lois Pastia’s_ place of entertainment.
Ella gave all her attention to the opera--to that tragedy of the
weakness of the flesh, albeit the spirit may be willing to listen to
good. Alas! that the flesh should be so full of color and charm and
seduction, while the spirit is pale, colorless, and set to music in a
minor key!
_Carmen_ flashed about the stage under the brilliant lights, looking
like a lovely purple butterfly--a lovely purple oriole endowed with the
double glory of plumage and song, and men whose hearts beat in unison
with the heart-beats of that sensuous music through which she expressed
herself, loved her; watched her with ravished eyes; heard her with
ravished ears--yes, as men love such women; until the senses recover
from the intoxication of her eyes and her limbs and her voice. And in
the third act the sweet _Michaela_ came on with her song of the delight
of purity, and peace, and home. She sang it charmingly, everyone
allowed, and hoped that _Carmen_ would sing as well in the last act as
she had sung in the others.
Ella Linton kept her eyes fixed upon the stage to the very end of all.