Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce called on Beth continually. He was announced
one day when she was sitting at lunch with the Kilroys.
"Really I do not think I ought to let you be bored by that man," Mr.
Kilroy exclaimed. "I once had ten minutes of the academic platitudes
of Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce, and that was enough to last me my life.
You are too good-natured to see him so often. It is a weakness of
yours, I believe, to suffer yourself rather than hurt other people's
feelings, however much they may deserve it. But really you must snub
him. There is nothing else for it. Send out and say you are engaged."
"If I do, he will wait until I am disengaged, or call again, or write
in an offended tone to ask _when_ I can be so good as to make it
convenient to see him!" Beth answered in comical despair.
"I don't believe he bores her a bit at _present_," Angelica observed.
"He is merely an intellectual exercise for Beth. She watches the
workings of his mind quite dispassionately, draws him out with little
airs and graces, and then adjusts him under the microscope. It
interests her to dissect the creature. When she has studied him
thoroughly, she will cast him out, as a worthless specimen."
"Oh, I hope that isn't true," said Beth, with a twinge of conscience.
"I own it has interested me to see what he has developed into; but
surely that isn't unfair?" She looked at Mr. Kilroy deprecatingly.
"It is vivisection," said Angelica.
"But under such agreeable anaesthetics that I should think he enjoys
it," said Mr. Kilroy. "I should have no objection myself."
"Daddy, be careful!" Angelica cried. "A rare specimen like you is
never safe when unscrupulous naturalists are about."
"But no microscope is needed to demonstrate Mr. Kilroy's position in
the scale of being," Beth put in. "It is writ large all over him."
"Good and true, Beth!" said Angelica, smiling. "You can go and gloat
over your worthless specimen as a reward, if you like. But the
scientific mind is a mystery to me, and I shall never understand how
you have the patience to do it."
Beth found Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce pacing about her sitting-room,
biting his nails in an irritable manner.
"You were at lunch, I think," he said. "I wonder why I was not asked
in?"
Beth said nothing.
"I consider it a slight on Mr. and Mrs. Kilroy's part," he pursued
huffily. "Why should _I_ be singled out for this kind of thing?"
"Aren't you just a little touchy?" Beth suggested.
"I confess I am sensitive, if that is what you mean," he replied.
"Well, yes, if you like," she said, "hyper-sensitive. But I thought
you asked for me."
"It is true I came to see you; but that is no reason why I should be
slighted by your friends--especially when I came because I think I
have something to show you that will interest you." He took a little
packet from the breast-pocket of his coat as he spoke, and began to
undo it. "I took the trouble to go all the way home to get them to
show you. My mother was the only person who had them. They are
photographs of myself when I was a boy."
"I wonder your mother parted with them," Beth said.
"I persuaded her with difficulty," he rejoined complacently. "I have
often tried before, but nothing would induce her to part with them,
until this time, when a bright idea occurred to me. I told her they
were to be published among portraits of celebrated people when my new
book comes out, and naturally she liked the idea. Her only son, you
know!"
"And are they to be published?" Beth asked.
"Oh--well--of course I hope so--some day," he answered, smiling and
hesitating. "But the truth is I got them for you."
Beth did not thank him, but he was too engrossed with his own
portraits to notice the omission. She was interested in them, too,
when at last he let her look at them.
"What do you think of that?" he asked, showing her a good likeness of
himself as she remembered him. "I was a pretty boy then, I think, with
my curls! Burning the midnight oil had not bared my forehead in those
days, and my beard had not grown. Life was all poetry then!" he sighed
affectedly. What had once been spontaneous feeling in him had become a
mere recollection, only to be called up by an effort.
"Later it became all excesses, I suppose," said Beth.
"Ah!" he ejaculated in a tone of pleased regret. "I had to live like
other men of my standing, you know, and I had to pay for it. The boy
was lost, but the man developed. You may think the change a falling
off----"
He waited for Beth to express an opinion; but as it was impossible for
her to say what she thought of the difference between the conceited,
dissipated-looking, hysterical man of many meannesses, and the
diffident unspoilt promising boy, she held her peace.
When she had seen the photographs, and he had looked at them himself
to his heart's content, he did them up again, and then formally
presented her with the packet. "Will you keep them?" he said solemnly.
"Oh no!" she answered with decision. "I am not the proper person to
keep them. If they did not belong to your mother, they would be for
your wife and children."
"Ah, my wife!" he ejaculated bitterly. "I haven't a word to say
against my wife, remember that! Only--you are the one to whom I would
confide them."
"I decline the responsibility," Beth said, keeping her countenance
with difficulty.
He returned the packet to the breast-pocket of his coat. "I shall
carry them here, then," he said, tapping his chest with the points of
his fingers, "until you ask for them."
As usual, he stayed a preposterous time that day, and when at last he
went, even Beth's kindly forbearance was exhausted, and she determined
to see no more of him. He was not the man to take a hint, however, and
it was no easy matter to get rid of him. He sent her flowers, for
which she did not thank him, books which she did not read; wrote her
long letters of the clever kind, discussing topics of the day or
remarks she herself had made, which she left unanswered; called, but
never found her at home, yet still persisted, until she was fain to
exclaim: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"
"It is your own fault," said Angelica. "I warned you that good-nature
is wasted on that sort of man."
"But surely he must see that I wish to avoid him," Beth exclaimed.
"Of course he sees it," Angelica rejoined, "but you may be sure that
he interprets your reluctance in some way very flattering to himself."
"I shall really be rude to him," Beth said desperately. "He is a most
exasperating person, the kind of man to drive a woman mad, and then
blame her for it. I pity his wife!"
* * * * *
Beth stayed with the Kilroys until the end of June, when the season
was all but over and everybody was leaving town; and it was the
busiest and happiest time she had ever known. She had enjoyed the
work, the play, the society, the solitude, and had blossomed forth in
that congenial atmosphere both mentally and physically, and become a
braver and a better woman.
The Kilroys were to go abroad the day that Beth returned to Slane. The
evening before, she went with Angelica to a theatre. But Angelica,
being much occupied at the moment with arrangements that had to be
made for the carrying on of her special work during her absence, was
not able to stay for the whole performance, so she left Beth alone at
the theatre, and sent the carriage back to take her home.
Beth, sitting in the corner of a box, had eyes for nothing the whole
time but the play, which, being one of those that stimulate the mind,
had appealed to her so powerfully that even after it was over she
remained where she was a little, deep in thought. On leaving the
theatre, she found the footman on the steps looking out for her, and
he remained, standing a little behind her, till the carriage came up.
While she waited, she was annoyed to see Mr. Alfred Cayley Pounce
making his way towards her officiously. "You are alone!" he exclaimed,
with a note of critical disapproval in his voice, as if the
circumstance reflected on somebody.
"Hardly!" Beth said, glancing up at her escort. "But even if I were,
Mr. Pounce, I am in London, not in the dark ages, and as sure of
respect here, at the doors of a theatre, as I am in my own
drawing-room. I believe, by the way," she added lightly, not liking to
hurt him by too blunt a snub, "I believe this is the only big city in
Europe of which so much can be said; and English women may thank
themselves for it. We demand not protection, but respect. Here is the
carriage. Good night!" She stepped in as she spoke, and took her
seat.
"Oh pray, you really must allow me to see you safe home," he
exclaimed, following her into the carriage and taking the seat beside
her before she could remonstrate. The servant shut the door, and they
drove away. Beth boiled with indignation, but she thought it more
dignified not to show it, and she dreaded to have a scene before the
servants. Her demeanour was somewhat frigid, and she left him to open
the conversation; but when he spoke she answered him in her usual
tone. He, on the contrary, was extremely formal. He stroked his
pointed beard, looked out of the window, and made remarks about the
weather and the people in the streets, not avoiding the obvious, which
was a relief.
The hall-door was opened as soon as the carriage stopped, and they got
out.
"Thank you for your escort, and good night," Beth said, holding out
her hand to him, but he ignored it.
"I feel faint," he said, and he looked it. "Will you let me come in
and sit down a minute, and give me a glass of water?"
"Why, of course," Beth said. "But have something stronger than water.
Come this way, into the library. Roberts, bring Mr. Pounce something
to revive him."
"What will you have, sir?" the butler asked.
"A glass of water, nothing but a glass of water," Mr. Pounce said,
most preciously, sinking into an easy-chair as he spoke.
The butler brought the water, and told Beth that Mr. and Mrs. Kilroy
had not come in. She ordered some tea for herself.
Mr. Pounce sipped the water and appeared to revive.
"I have suffered terribly during the last three weeks," he said at
last.
"Have you really?" Beth rejoined with concern. "What was the matter?"
"Need you ask!" he ejaculated. "Why, why have you treated me so?"
"Really, Mr. Pounce, I do not see that you have any claim on my
special consideration," Beth answered coldly.
"I have the claim of one who is entirely devoted to you," he said.
"I have never accepted your devotion, and I will not have it forced
upon me," Beth answered decidedly. "I should like you better, to tell
the truth, if you were a little more devoted to your duty."
"You allude to my wife," he said. "Oh, how can I make you understand!
But you have said it yourself--duty! What is duty? The conscientious
performance of uncongenial tasks. But if a man does his duty, then he
deserves his reward. I do my duty with what heart I have for it. No
fault can be found with me either as a husband or a citizen.
Therefore, as a man, I consider myself entitled to claim my reward."
"I am afraid you are not well," Beth said. "Don't you think you had
better go home and rest?"
"Not until we come to an understanding," he answered tragically.
Beth shrugged her shoulders resignedly, folded her hands, and waited,
more interested in him as a human specimen in spite of herself than
disturbed by anything his attitude foreboded.
There was a bright wood fire burning on the hearth. Mrs. Kilroy liked
to have one to welcome her when they had been out late, not for warmth
so much as for cheerfulness. The summer midnight was chilly enough,
however, for the gentle heat to be grateful; and Beth turned to the
blaze and gazed into it tranquilly. The clock on the mantelpiece
struck one. Roberts brought in a tray with refreshments on it, and set
it down on a small table beside Beth. Before she helped herself she
asked Mr. Pounce what he would have, but he curtly declined to take
anything. She shrugged her shoulders, and fell-to herself with a
healthy appetite.
"How can you--how can you?" he ejaculated several times.
"I'm hungry," she said, laughing, "and I really don't see why I
shouldn't eat."
"You have no feeling for me," he complained.
"I have a sort of feeling that you are posing," she answered bluntly;
"and I wish you wouldn't. You'd better have some sandwiches."
"How terribly complex life is!" he muttered.
"Life is pretty much what we make of it by the way we live it," she
rejoined, taking another sandwich. "We are what we allow ourselves to
be. The complexities come of wrong thinking and wrong doing. Right and
wrong are quite distinct; there is no mistaking one for the other. In
any dilemma we have only to think what is right to be done, and to do
it, and there is an end of all perplexities and complexities.
Principle simplifies everything."
"I see you have never loved," he declared, "or you would not think the
application of principle such a simple thing."
"It is principle that makes love last," Beth answered, "and introduces
something permanent into this weary world of change. There is nothing
in life so well worth living for as principle; the most exquisite form
of pleasure is to be found in the pain of sacrificing one's
inclinations in order to live up to one's principles--so much so that
in time, when principle and inclination become identical, and we cease
to feel tempted, something of joy is lost, some gladness that was wont
to mingle with the trouble."
"But principles themselves are mutable," he maintained. "They get out
of date. And there are, besides, exceptional characters that do not
come under the common law of humanity; exceptional temperaments, and
exceptional circumstances to which common principles are inapplicable,
or for which they are inadequate."
"That is the hypocrisy of the vicious," Beth said, with her eyes fixed
meditatively on the fire, "the people who lay down excellent
principles, and publicly profess them for the sake of standing well
with society, but privately make exceptions for themselves in any
arrangement that may suit their own convenience. Your people of
'exceptional temperament' settle moral difficulties by not allowing
any moral consideration to clash with their inclinations, and misery
comes of it. The plea of exceptional character, exceptional
circumstances, exceptional temperament, and what not, is merely
another way of expressing exceptional selfishness and excusing
exceptional self-indulgence."
"Surely _you_ are not content to be a mere slave to social
convention!" he exclaimed.
"I am talking of fundamental principles, not of social conventions,"
she replied; "please to discriminate. Self-control is not slavery, but
emancipation; to control our passions makes us lords of ourselves and
free of our most galling bonds--the bonds of the flesh."
"What a drawback the want of--er--a proper philosophic training is,"
he observed. "Culture does a great deal. It makes us more modest, for
one thing. I don't suppose you know, for instance, that you are
setting up an opinion of your own in opposition to such men as
Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer maintained that as the man of genius gave
his whole life for the profit of humanity, he had a license of conduct
which was not accorded to the rest of mankind."
"If culture leaves us liable to be taken in by a false postulate of
any man's, however well turned the postulate or able the man, then I
have no respect for culture. The fact that Schopenhauer said such a
thing does not prove it true. An assertion like that is a mere matter
of opinion. Half the worry in the world is caused by differences of
opinion. Let us have the facts and form our own opinions. Have the men
of genius who allowed themselves license of conduct been any the
better for it? the happier? the greater? Schopenhauer himself, for
instance!" She smiled at him with honest eyes when she had spoken, and
took another sandwich. "But don't let us talk sophistry and
silliness," she proceeded, "nor the kind of abstract that serves as a
cover for unrighteousness. Those tricks don't carry conviction to my
uncultivated mind. I know how they're done."
"You are lowering yourself in my estimation," he said severely.
"And what comes after that?" she asked.
He shook his head and gazed at her reproachfully. "How can you be so
trivial," he said, "in a moment like this?--you who are situated even
as I am. If we were to die now, in six months it would be as though we
had never been. No one would remember us."
"But what have we done for any one," Beth asked, in her equable way,
"that we should be specially remembered?"
He made no reply, and Beth went on with the sandwiches.
"I thought," he began at last, "I did think that you at least would
understand and feel for me."
Beth stopped eating and considered a moment.
"Are you in any real trouble?" she asked at last.
He rose and began to pace up and down. "I will tell you," he said,
"and leave you to judge for yourself."
Beth looked somewhat ruefully at the tray, and wished that the
conversation had been more suited to the satisfaction of an honest
appetite.
"I have made it plain to you what my marriage is without blaming
anybody," he proceeded. "It is the rock upon which all my hopes were
wrecked. I found my ideal. I won her like a man. I haven't a word to
say against her. She is a woman who might have made any ordinary man
happy; but she has been no help to me. It is not her fault. She has
done her best. And it is not my fault."
"Then whose fault is it?" said Beth; "it must be somebody's. I think
of marriage as I think of life; it is pretty much what people choose
to make it. It does not fail when husband and wife have good
principles, and live up to them; and good manners in private as well
as in public--not to mention high ideals. When we are not happy in the
intimate relations of life, it is generally for some trivial
reason--as often as not because we don't take the trouble to make
ourselves agreeable, as because we fail in other duties. I consider it
a duty to be agreeable. In married life happiness depends on loyalty,
to begin with, the loyalty that will not even let its thoughts stray.
All that we want in everyday intercourse is truth and affection,
kindness, consideration, and unvarying politeness. If people practised
these as a duty from the first, sympathy would eventually come of the
effort. Marriage is the state that develops the noblest qualities, and
that is why happily married people are the best worth knowing, the
most delightful to live amongst. You have no fault to find with your
wife, therefore the fault must be in yourself if you are not happy. Do
your duty like a man, and cure yourself of it."
"It surprises me to hear you talk in that way," he exclaimed, "you who
have suffered so much yourself!"
"I make no pretence of having suffered," she answered. "I have no
patience with people who do. We have our destiny in our own hands to
make or mar, most of us. If we fail in one thing we shall succeed in
another. Life is a fertile garden, full of plants that bud and blossom
and bear fruit not once but every season while it lasts. If the crop
of happiness fails one year, we should set to work bravely, and
cultivate it all the more diligently for the next."
"All this is beside the mark," he responded peevishly. "You are
offering me the generalisations that only apply to ordinary people.
Allowance _must_ be made for exceptional natures. Look at me! I tell
you if I had met the right woman, I should have been at the top of the
tree by this time. I have the greatest respect for woman. I believe
that her part in life is to fertilise the mind of man; and if the able
man does not find the right woman for this purpose, he must remain
sterile, and the world will be the loser. I never knew such a woman
till I met you; but in you I have discovered one rich in all womanly
attributes, mental, moral, and physical; and, beyond these, dowered
also with genius, the divine gift--the very woman to help a man to do
his best."
"And what is the man going to do for me?" Beth inquired with a twinkle
in her eyes.
"He would surround you with every comfort, every luxury--jewels----"
"Like a ballet-girl!" she interjected. "I am really afraid you are
old-fashioned. You begin by offering me gewgaws--the paltry price
women set on themselves in the days of their intellectual infancy. We
know our value better now."
"You should have all that an ideal woman ought to have," he put in.
"What more can a woman require?"
"She would like to know what all she ought to have consists of," Beth
replied. "As a rule, a man's ideal woman is some one who will make him
comfortable; and he thinks he has done all that is necessary for her
when he allows her to contribute to his happiness."
"Ah, be serious!" he ejaculated. "You should be above playing in that
cruel way with a man who is in earnest. Hear what I have to say.
Remember _we_ are the people who make history. You talk about knowing
your own value! You do not know it. Without me you never will know it.
You do not know what is being said already about your unpublished
work. Those who have read it tell me you promise to be to England what
Georges Sand was to France when she appeared, a new light on the
literary horizon. But where would Georges Sand have been without De
Musset? They owe half their prestige to each other. While they were
alive every one talked of them, and now that they are dead reams are
written about them. Let us also go down to posterity together. All I
want is you; what you want is me. Will you--will you let me be to
you--De Musset?"
"What you really do want," said Beth, "is a sense of humour."
"For God's sake, do not be trivial!" he exclaimed. "You cannot think
what this means to me--how I have set my heart on it--how I already
seem to hear the men at the clubs mention my name and yours when I
pass. Night after night I have paced up and down outside this house,
looking up at your window, thinking it all out."
Beth flushed angrily. "I consider that a most improper proceeding,"
she said, "and I do not know how you can excuse it to yourself."
"I--much may be excused when a man feels as strongly as I do," he
protested.
"And how about your wife?" said Beth, "where do you place her in your
plans? Has she no feelings to be considered?"
"I shall not hurt her feelings, I assure you, I never do," he
answered. "I keep her in a quiet country place so that she may hear no
gossip, and I excuse my long absences from home on the plea of work.
She understands that my interests would suffer if I were not on the
spot."
"In other words, you lie to your wife," said Beth, aghast at the
shabby deceit.
"That is scarcely polite language," he rejoined in an offended tone.
"It is correct language," she retorted. "We shall understand what we
are talking about much better if we call things by their right names.
But are you never afraid of what your wife may be driven to in the
dulness of the country, while you are here in town, dancing attendance
on other men's wives?"
"Never in the least," he answered complacently. "She is entirely
devoted to me and to her duty. Her faith in me is absolute."
"And so you deceive her."
"I am not bound to tell her all my doings," he protested.
"You are in honour bound not to deceive her," Beth said; "and if you
deceive her it is none the less low because she does not suspect you.
On the contrary. It seems to me that one of the worst things that can
happen to a man is to have docile women to deal with."
"I am grieved to hear you talk like that," he said. "I am really
grieved. It shows a want of refinement that surprises and shocks me. I
maintain that I do her no injury. These things can always be arranged
so that no one is injured; that is all that is necessary."
"These things can never be arranged so that no one is injured," Beth
replied. "We injure ourselves, if no one else. We are bound to
deteriorate when we live deceitfully. How can you be honest and manly
and lead a double life? The false husband in whom his wife believes
must be a sneak; and for the man who rewards a good faithful wife by
deceiving her, I have no term of contempt sufficiently strong."
"I am disappointed in you," he said. "I should never have suspected
that you were so narrow and conventional."
"Are you prepared to defy public opinion?" Beth asked.
"No, that would be gross," he said. "Outwardly we must conform. Only
the _elite_ understand these things, and only the _elite_ need know of
them. You are of the _elite_ yourself; you must know, you must feel
the power, the privilege conferred by a great passion."
"Pray do not class me with the _elite_ if passion is what they
respect," Beth said. "Passion at the best--honourable passion--is but
the efflorescence of a mere animal function. The passion that has no
honourable object is a gaudy, unwholesome weed, rapid of growth, swift
and sure to decay."
"Passion is more than that, the passion of which I speak. It is a
great mental stimulant," he declared.
"Yes," said Beth, "passion is a great mental stimulant--passion
resisted."
"Georges Sand, whom I would have you follow, always declared that she
only wrote her best under the influence of a strong passion," he
assured her.
"But how do we know that she might not have written better than that
best under some holier influence?" Beth rejoined. "George Eliot's
serener spirit appeals to me more. I believe it is only those who
renounce the ruinous riot of the senses, and find their strength and
inspiration in contemplation, who reach the full fruition of their
powers. Ages have not talked for nothing of the pains of passion and
the pleasures of love. Love is a great ethical force; but passion,
which is compact of every element of doubt and deceit, is cosmic and
brutal, a tyrant if we yield to it, but if we master it, an obedient
servant willing to work. I would rather die of passion myself, as I
might of any other disease, than live to be bound by it."
Pounce, who had been pacing about the room restlessly until now, sat
down by the fire, and gazed into it for a little, discomfited. He had
come primed with the old platitudes, the old sophistries, the old
flatteries, come to treat amicably, and found himself met with armed
resistance, his flatteries and platitudes ridiculed, his sophistries
exposed, and his position attacked with the confidence and courage of
those who are sure of themselves.
"Have you no feeling for me?" he said at last, after a long pause,
speaking somewhat hoarsely.
"I feel sorry for you," was the unexpected answer.
"Pity is akin to love," he said.
"Pity is also akin to contempt," she rejoined. "And how can a woman
feel anything else for a man who is false to the most sacred
obligations? who makes vows and breaks them according to his
inclination? If we make a law of our own inclinations, what assurance
can we give to any one that we shall ever be true?"
"I have found at last what I have yearned for all my life long," he
protested. "I know I shall never waver in my devotion to you."
"That may be," she answered. "But what guarantee could you give me
that _I_ should not waver? What comfort would your fidelity be if I
tired of you in a month?"
Again he was discomfited, and there was another pause.
"If you did change," he said at last, "I should be the only sufferer."
Beth sat silent for a little, then she said slowly, "What you have
ventured to propose to me to-night, Mr. Cayley Pounce, is no more
credit to your intelligence than it is to your principles. You come
here and find me living openly, in an assured position, with powerful
friends, whose affection and respect for me rest on their confidence
in me, and with brilliant prospects besides, as you say, which,
however, depend to a great extent upon my answering to the
expectations I have raised. You allow that I have some ability, some
sense, and yet you offer me in exchange for all these----"
"I offer you _love_!" he exclaimed fervently.
"Love!" she ejaculated with contempt, "you offer me yourself for a
lover, and you seek to inspire confidence in me by deceiving your
wife. You would have me sacrifice a position of safety for a position
of danger--one that might be changed into an invidious position by the
least indiscretion--and all for what?"
"For love of you," he pleaded, "that I may help you to develop the
best that is in you."
"All for the prestige of having your name associated with mine by men
about town in the event of mine becoming distinguished," she
interrupted.
He winced.
"I only ask you to do what George Eliot did greatly to her advantage,"
he answered reproachfully.
"You asked me to do what Georges Sand did greatly to her detriment,"
Beth said. "George Eliot is an after-thought. And you certainly have
no intention of asking me to do what she did, for she acted openly,
she deceived no one, and injured no one."
"And you do not blame her?" he exclaimed with a flash of hope.
Beth answered indirectly: "When I think about that, I ask myself have
Church and State arranged the relations of the sexes successfully
enough to convince us that they cannot be better arranged? Are
marriages holier now than they were in the days when there were no
churches to bless them? or happier here than in other countries where
they are simple private contracts? And it seems to me that we have no
historical proof that the legal bond is necessarily the holiest
between man and woman, or that there is never justification for a more
irregular compact. I know that 'holy matrimony' is often a state of
absolute degradation, especially for the woman; and I believe that two
honourable people can live together honourably without the
conventional bond, so long as no one else is injured, no previous
compact broken. But all the same I think the legal bond is best. It is
a safeguard to the family and a restraint on the unprincipled. And, at
any rate, all my experience, all my thought, all my hope argue for the
dignity of permanence in human relations. Anything else is bad for the
individual, for the family, for the state. As civilisation, as
evolution advances from lower to higher, we find it makes more and
more for monogamy. Our highest types of men and women are monogamous.
Those whose contracts are lightly made and lightly broken are trivial
people. That useful Oneida Creek experiment proved that the instinct,
if not the ideal, of modern humanity is monogamous."
"What was that?" he asked.
"A number of people formed a community at Oneida Creek to live
together in a kind of ordered promiscuity, but the experiment failed
because it was found eventually that the members were living together
secretly in pairs. No. The more I know of life the less I like the
idea of allowing any laxity in the marriage relation. In certain cases
of course there is good and sufficient reason for two people to
separate. But I believe that right-minded people can generally, and
almost always do, make their marriages answer. Marriage is compact of
every little incident in life, it is not merely made up of one strong
feeling, otherwise men and women would be as the animals who pair and
part casually; therefore, if two people are disappointed in each other
in some things, they must have other things in common to fall back
upon. My ideal of life is love in marriage and loyal friends."
"It is interesting to hear you express these views," he said bitterly,
"considering what your experience has been."
"I don't see that my petty personal experience has anything to do with
the truth of the matter," said Beth, bridling somewhat. "You really
have a poor opinion of me if you think I shall allow my judgment to be
warped by anything that may happen to myself. Because my own
experience is not a happy one, you would have me declare that family
life is a mistake! Doubtless many an outcry is raised for no better
reason. But do you not see yourself that the tranquil home-life is the
most beautiful, the most conducive to the development of all that is
best in us--that there is nothing like the delight of being a member
of a large and united family. Can you come into a house like this and
not see it?"
"This house was not always a model of domestic felicity," he sneered.
"That proves my point," she rejoined. "The difficulties can be lived
down if people are right-minded."
"Your argument does not alter the fact that I am a miserable man," he
said dejectedly.
"You were not born to be a miserable man," she answered gently, "and
'we always may be what we might have been.' But you have lost much
ground, Alfred Cayley Pounce, since the days when you roamed about the
cliffs and sandy reaches of Rainharbour with Beth Caldwell, making
plans. You had your ideals then, and lived up to them. You cultivated
your flowers for delight in their beauty, and went to your modelling
for love of the work. You gave your flowers to your friends with an
honest intention to please; you modelled with honest ambition to do
good work. In those days you were above caring to cultivate the
acquaintance of the best people. You had touched the higher life at
that time; you had felt such rapture in it as has never come to you
since--even among the best people--I am sure; yet you fell away; you
deserted Beth--not basely, perhaps, but weakly; and you have been
deteriorating ever since."
He had started straight in his chair when she mentioned Beth Caldwell,
and was staring at her now with puzzled intentness.
"What do you know about Beth?" he said quickly. "Have you ever met
her?"
She smiled. "I can honestly say I never have," she answered. But she
looked away from him into the fire as she spoke, and he recognised the
set of her head on her shoulders as she turned it; he had noted it
often.
"God!" he exclaimed, "what a blind idiot I have been--Beth! Beth!" He
threw himself down on his knees beside her chair, caught her hand, and
covered it with kisses.
Beth snatched her hand away, and he returned embarrassed to his seat
and sat gazing at her for a little, then took out his handkerchief and
suddenly burst into tears.
"What a mess I have made of my life!" he exclaimed. "Everything that
would have been best for me has been within reach at some time or
other, but I invariably took the wrong thing and let the right one go.
But, Beth, I was only a boy then, and I suffered when they separated
us."
This reflection seemed to ease his mind on the subject. That she might
also have suffered did not occur to him; as usual his whole concern
was for himself.
"Yes, you are right, Beth," he proceeded. "I _have_ deteriorated; but
'we always may be what we might have been'--and you have been sent to
me again as a sign that it is not too late for me. You were my first
love, my earliest ideal, and I have not changed, you see, I have been
true to you; for, although I never suspected you were Beth, I
recognised my rightful mate in you the moment we met. Yes, I was on
the right road when we were boy and girl together, but the promise of
that time has not been fulfilled. All the poetry in me has lain
dormant since the days when you drew it forth. I gave up modelling
when I went to the 'Varsity because they didn't care for that kind of
thing in my set, you know. They were all men of position, who wouldn't
associate with artists unless they were at the top of the tree; clever
fellows, and good themselves at squibs and epigrams. If you'd ever
been to the 'Varsity you'd know that a man must adapt himself to his
environment if he means to get on. My dream had been to make my
visions of beauty visible, as you used to suggest; but I had to give
that up, there was nothing else for it. Still, I was not content to do
nothing, to be nobody; therefore, when I abandoned the clay, I took to
the pen; I gave up the marble for the manuscript. Many men of position
have written, you know, and so long as you didn't mug, fellows didn't
mind. In fact, they thought you smart if they fancied you could dash
things off without an effort. You understand now why I am a literary
man instead of a sculptor."
"Perfectly," Beth said drily. "It was in those days, I suppose, that
you were bitten by French literature, and began to idealise mean
intrigues, and to delight in foul matter if the manner of its
presentation were an admirable specimen of style."
"Ah," he said solemnly, "style is everything."
"It is all work of word-turning and little play of fancy with those
who make style everything," said Beth, glad to get away from love,
"and that makes your Jack-of-style a dull boy and morbid in spite of
his polish. Less style and more humour would be the saving of some of
you, the making of others."
"Flaubert wrote 'Madame Bovary' six times," he assured her
impressively.
"I wonder how much it lost each time," said Beth. "But you know what
Flaubert himself said about style before he had done--just what I am
saying!"
"I cannot understand your being insensible to the charms of style," he
said, evading the thrust.
"I am not. I only say it is not of the most vital importance.
Thackeray was a Titan--well, look at his slipshod style in places, his
careless grammar, his constant tautology. He knew better, and he could
have done better, and it would have been well if he had, I don't deny
it; but his work would not have been a scrap more vital, nor he
himself the greater. I have seen numbers of people here in town
studying art. They go to the schools to learn to draw, not because
they have ideas to express, apparently, but in the hope that ideas
will come when they know how to express them. And I think it is the
same in literature. One school talks of style as if it were the end
and not the means. They form a style, but have nothing to express that
is worth expressing. It would be better to pray the gods to send them
the matter; if the matter is there in the mind it will out, and the
manner will form itself in the effort to produce it--so said the
great."
There was a pause, during which Alfred Cayley Pounce sighed heavily
and Beth looked at the clock.
"You were stimulating as a child, Beth," he said at last, "and you are
stimulating still. Think what it would be to me to have you always by
my side! I cannot--I cannot let you go again now that I have found
you! We were boy and girl together."
"That does not alter anything in our present position," Beth answered;
"nor does it affect my principles in any way. But even if I had been
inclined--if I had had no principles, I should have been just clever
enough to know better than to run any risk of the kind you suggest.
You do not know perhaps that you have injured your own standing
already--that there are houses in which you are not welcome because
you are suspected of intrigue."
"_Me_--suspected of intrigue!" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible!"
Beth laughed. "If it is so disagreeable to be suspected," she said,
"what would it be to be found out! And what have you gained by it?
What says the Dhammapada? '_There is bad reputation, and the evil way
(to hell); there is the short pleasure of the frightened in the arms
of the frightened, and the king imposes heavy punishment; therefore
let no man think of his neighbour's wife._'"
"It is evident that you don't trust me," he said in an injured tone.
"Ah, Beth! does the fact that we were boy and girl together not weigh
with you?"
"Well, it would," Beth said soberly, "even if worldly wisdom were my
only guide in life. I should think of the time that we got into that
scrape, and you wriggled out of it, leaving me to shift for myself as
best I could; and I should remember the boy is father to the man. But
I have been trying to show you that worldly wisdom is not my only
guide in life. I have professed the most positive puritan principles
of conduct, and given you the reasons upon which they are based, yet
you persist; you ignore what I say as if you had not heard me or did
not believe me, and pursue the subject as if you were trying to weary
me into agreement. And you have wearied me, but not into agreement;
so, if you please, we will not discuss it any longer."
"You will be sorry, I think, some day for the way you have treated
me," he exclaimed, showing temper; "and what you expect to gain by it
I cannot imagine."
"Oh, please," Beth protested, "I am not imbued with the commercial
spirit of the churches. I do not expect a percentage in the way of
reward on every simple duty I do."
"Virtue is its own reward," he sneered.
"It has been said that 'the pleasure of virtue is one which can only
be obtained on the express condition of its not being the object
sought,'" she rejoined good-naturedly. "Try it, Alfred, and see if you
do not become a happier man insensibly. Order your thoughts to other
and nobler ends, for thoughts are things, and we are branded or
beautified by them. An American scientist has been making experiments
to test the effect of thought on the body, and has found that a
continuous train of evil thought injures the health and spoils the
personal appearance, but high and holy thoughts have a beautifying
effect. Be a man and embrace a manly creed. _Live for others, live
openly._ Deceit is treachery, and treachery is cowardice of the most
despicable kind. Life has to be lived. It might as well be lived
earnestly. Life is better lived when it is held earnestly. Personally
I detest all flippancy and cynicism, all cheapening of serious
subjects by lack of reverence. Irreverence portends defects of
character and poverty of intellect. All serious subjects are sacred
subjects, and to treat them with levity or insincerity is to prove
yourself a person to be avoided."
Alfred Cayley Pounce was stooping forward with his elbows on his knees
and his face between his hands, gazing blankly into the fire. The
light shone on his bald forehead and accentuated the lines which
wounded vanity, petty purposes thwarted, and an ignoble life had
written prematurely on his face, and his attitude emphasised the
attenuation of his body. He looked a poor, peevish, neurotic specimen;
and although he had only himself to thank for it, Beth, remembering
the promise of his youth, felt a qualm of pity.
"What a mistake my marriage has been!" he ejaculated at last. "But I
doubt if I should ever have found a woman who would have understood me
enough to be all in all to me. For a man of my temperament there is
nothing but celibacy."
"I don't believe in celibacy at all," Beth said cheerfully. "Celibacy
is an attempt to curb a healthy instinct with a morbid idea. He is the
best man and the truest gentleman who honourably fulfils every
function of life. And I don't believe your marriage was of necessity a
mistake either. But if you must be miserable, be loyal as well. You
will find that the best in the end. If, being miserable, we are also
disloyal, then we are insensibly degraded--so insensibly, perhaps,
that we are not conscious of any part of the process, and only become
aware of what has been going on when we have to face a crisis, and
find ourselves prepared to act ignobly, and to justify the act with
specious excuses." She glanced up at the mantelpiece. "Come," she
said, "it is four o'clock, and I am sleepy. I must go to bed."
He started to his feet. "Good heavens!" he exclaimed, "you can talk of
being sleepy when I----"
"Never mind about that now," said Beth, yawning frankly. "Everybody
has gone to bed and forgotten us, I suppose. I shall have to let you
out."
She gathered the evening cloak she had come back in from the theatre
about her as she spoke, and led the way. He let her open the hall-door
for him. It was grey daylight in the street. At the foot of the steps
a policeman was standing on the pavement making a note in a little
book.
"Is it any use whistling for a hansom at this hour?" Beth asked.
The policeman looked up at her. "I'll try, miss, if you like," he
said.
He whistled several times, but there was no response, and Alfred
Cayley Pounce at last crammed his hat down on his head with a peevish
show of impatience, and walked off down the street, without a word of
leave-taking. The fact that Beth was sleepy had wounded his vanity
more than any word she had said. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders
as she watched him depart, then went down on to the pavement and
strolled about, enjoying the freshness. The policeman kept watch and
ward, meanwhile, at the open door, and, before she went in, Beth stood
and talked to him a little in her pretty kindly way. She found his
tone and manner in their simple directness strengthening and
refreshing to the mind after the tortuous posings of Mr. Alfred Cayley
Pounce.