Expulsion from Eden.
You took my heart and made it beat,
Then trampled it beneath your feet
And watched its cracks and creases.
Unless I make a great mistake,
A heart thus hurt was bound to break;
So say no more, for pity's sake,
But sweep up all the pieces.
When the season was at its height it unfortunately happened that
Isabel's evil genius made the suggestion that Paul was growing too
headstrong and masterful, and prescribed a good dose of jealousy as a
cure for this complaint. Of course Isabel should have known better
than to listen to such dangerous promptings, and should forthwith
have silenced the lying spirit by her faith in her lover and in his
love for her. But no mortal is wise at all times--not even when the
mortal happens to be a woman; and this was a time of unwisdom on
Isabel's part.
"Paul is too sure of your love," whispered Isabel's evil genius, "now
that you are always nice to him he takes your niceness as a matter of
course."
"Paul is right to be sure of my love," replied Isabel's better self,
"it is a poor trick to try to enhance the value of anything by
pretending that its existence is precarious."
"There is no good in having power if you never use it," argued the
evil genius.
"There is no good in having love if you ever abuse it," answered the
better self.
"Paul is not nearly as fond of you as he was at first.
"Paul loves me as much as ever, and it is a shame to doubt him."
"If he is as fond of you as he was, why has he ceased to look black
when you speak to another man?"
"Because he knows that I love him and he trusts me."
Then the evil genius whispered: "Do you think it would be possible to
make him as jealous as he used to be?"
"I am sure it would, but nothing would induce me to try."
"Still it would be an interesting experiment--just to see for certain
if he does love you as much as ever," suggested the evil genius.
This argument in Isabel's inner consciousness continued for several
days; and the result of it was that--at a dance at the
Gordons'--Isabel flirted outrageously with Mr. Madderley. Paul took
it very well at first; he had perfect confidence in Isabel, and he
knew that it does not do to pull the reins too tight. Isabel noticed
that he took it very well, and put his endurance down to
indifference; consequently she flirted harder than ever.
By an almost superhuman effort, Paul refrained from saying a word to
Isabel on the subject, and succeeded in being quite kind and
courteous when he bade her good-night, though he was in a fury of
jealous misery underneath his calm exterior.
Isabel felt certain that such calmness showed that he did not care,
and cried herself to sleep that night.
Paul argued that he owed it to Isabel to conceal his anguish.
Isabel argued that he owed it to her to reveal it.
Paul knew that you do not talk about a thing if it really hurts you.
Isabel knew that if a thing really hurts you, you cannot talk about
anything else.
All through the following day this wretched state of things continued.
Paul was pale and quiet, and longed to throw himself into the
Serpentine.
Isabel was flushed and brilliant, and talked to Lord Wrexham and Mr.
Madderley in the Row.
Paul hoped that he might be kept from kicking Lord Wrexham and Mr.
Madderley.
Isabel prayed that she might be kept from crying until she reached
home.
Isabel thought that there was nothing in the world that mattered
except love, but felt she would die sooner than let Paul see how much
she cared for him.
Paul thought that there was nothing in the world that mattered except
Isabel, but couldn't for the life of him imagine what had come to her.
Isabel decided that the only dignified course was to let Paul think
she had ceased to love him.
Paul decided that the only honourable course was to give Isabel her
freedom.
That night Isabel again cried herself to sleep, and Paul never went
to sleep at all.
The next morning they both felt better, and repaired to Kensington
Gardens on the chance of a meeting. Each was in a more reasonable
and amiable frame of mind, and quite prepared to forgive the other if
that other made an adequate show of penitence.
It was unfortunate, however, that neither had studied the part of the
one to be forgiven.
Paul made up his mind that he would be patient with Isabel, and would
not lose his temper however provoking she might be; so he began quite
gently--after the customary greetings: "Look here, Isabel, I don't
want to say anything nasty, because nasty words always leave a scar
behind; but I wish you would not go on in the way you have done just
lately. It isn't fair to me, but that is of small consequence; what
really matters is that it isn't fair to yourself, for it makes people
say horrid things about you; and that is the one thing that I cannot
and will not bear."
Isabel looked surprised. This was a funny beginning for a
penitential confession. "I don't know what you mean."
"Oh! yes, you do, dear," said Paul patiently.
Isabel was annoyed; she did not like being called over the coals as
if she were a tiresome schoolgirl. "Oh! no, I don't. And anyhow I
don't flirt worse than half the women in London."
"That is nothing to do with me, Isabel; I don't care a hang how much
other women are talked about--I only care for what people say of you.
Believe me, I am not blaming you, dear."
"Blaming me?--I should think not!" exclaimed Isabel angrily. How
could any self-respecting woman forgive a man who talked about not
blaming her?
"I only want to save you from doing things in a moment of temper that
I know you will regret afterwards," added Paul.
Isabel's face flushed. "I can take care of myself, thank you; I knew
how to behave, even before I had the inestimable privilege of
learning manners from Mr. Paul Seaton."
Still Paul kept his temper. "You know, darling, you have been
awfully rough on me the last few days; but I'll forgive you like a
shot, and never say another word about it, if you will promise not to
go on like that again."
"Thank you," said Isabel pertly. "I notice that as long as a clever
woman is content to sit at a man's feet and say, 'This is the only
man in the whole world,' that man thinks he enjoys the society of
clever women; but if the clever woman happens to indulge in an
opinion not implanted by him, he calls her unwomanly, and he pines
for amiable stupidity."
"That is not fair, Isabel; I detest amiable stupidity."
"No, you don't; you really like it."
"Isabel, this is absurd, and you know it is."
Isabel felt absolutely sure now that Paul did not really care; an
ideal lover would have been in a frenzy of agony at her anger, she
thought, instead of taking it in this calm, superior way.
"I suppose you'd like me to be shut up like a Turkish woman, and
never speak to any man but you!"
"Certainly not; but, all the same, I am not going to have my promised
wife flirting with a lot of other men, and I tell you so. As I have
said before, there are some things which a man would sooner renounce
than share."
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "You really have got a most
detestable temper."
"Isabel, don't, for pity's sake, go on like this. There is nothing
in reason that I would not do or bear for you, but it is possible to
try a man too far."
"It strikes me there is precious little that you would do or bear for
me, in spite of all your talk."
Paul looked very stern. "Do you really mean that?"
By this time Isabel had lashed herself into a perfect fury. "Yes, I
do mean it; you are so proud and self-centred that you only care for
what enhances your own importance. You are pleased to be engaged to
a smart woman, because it reflects credit on yourself; but for the
feelings of the woman underneath her smartness, you don't care a rap."
"Isabel, be careful what you say."
"No, I shan't be careful. I am tired of being careful and of
considering your feelings, when you never show the slightest
consideration for mine. You are hard and cold and selfish--that is
what you are--and it is time you knew it! You never really loved me;
you admired me, because I was showy, and you thought that a showy
wife would help you in your career; but you never loved me as a
woman--only as one of the steps by which you could mount to success."
Paul's face was very white. "How dare you say such things to me?"
"Because I think them. You are precious careful, forsooth, for fear
people should talk about me, because you think such talk is in some
measure derogatory to you; but you are pretty careless as to what you
say to me, as you know that whatever you say, it will be none the
worse for yourself. You only care for me and my reputation as an
adjunct to your own importance."
"If you were a man, I should say you lied."
"Oh! no, you wouldn't. You dare not say half the nasty things to a
man that you say to me."
"If you had been a man I should have silenced you long ago."
By this time Isabel was very angry with herself, and consequently ten
times angrier with Paul; so she continued recklessly: "As long as you
only thought I liked the other men better than you, you didn't care;
it was only when you began to think I was bringing discredit on you,
that you thought it necessary to make such a fuss".
"Isabel, once for all listen to me." Paul's voice was so ominously
quiet that a wiser woman--or even a foolish woman who was not in a
temper--would have taken warning; but Isabel possessed the dangerous
gift of a vivid imagination; and what was once humorously said of
faith may be literally said of imagination, namely that "it makes
people believe what they know to be false".
"I won't listen to you and I won't be dictated to by you," she
retorted, goading herself to still further fury by her own words; "if
you had your own way, you would make a perfect slave of me, and
trample me under foot. But I won't stand it."
"Isabel, you are very cruel and very unjust; have you no
consideration for my feelings?"
"Not I. Why should I, when you have none for mine? You seem to
think that feelings are a sign of exquisite refinement peculiar to
yourself, and you are so busy seeing that everybody fulfils their
duty to you, that you have no time to think of your duty to other
people."
"We have had enough of this," said Paul, rising from his seat.
"More than enough, I should say."
"Still I have one question to ask. Did you mean it when you said
that I only cared for you as a stepping-stone to my own success?"
Isabel tossed her head. "Of course I meant it; you never care for
anything or anybody that does not minister to your own pride."
Paul's face was white, and his voice shook. "Then I have only one
thing to say before I go out of your life altogether. I will not
profane my love for you by talking about it to a woman who would grow
tired of any lover as soon as his novelty had worn off; but I wish
you to understand that I will neither see you nor speak to you, nor
hold any communication with you, till you ask my forgiveness for
having so insulted me, and till you retract that cruel untruth which
in your heart of hearts you know to be untrue as well as I do."
Isabel drew herself to her full height, and her eyes blazed. It
showed how little Paul really loved her, she thought, that he could
give her up so easily. "Then you will never see me nor speak to me
again," she said; "for I am not the woman to come grovelling to a man
for pardon, because I once dared to tell him the truth to his face."
Without another word Paul turned on his heel and left her, and never
once looked back. As he strode out of Kensington Gardens he felt
that to him in future the place would be a cemetery rather than a
garden, for there he had buried the one love of his life.
So Paul and Isabel passed out of each other's ken, simply because the
latter had been fool enough to think that a good man's love was a
thing to be played with, rather than a gift for which to "thank
heaven, fasting".
There is no doubt that the troubles sent by Providence are always
beneficial if taken in a proper spirit; but the troubles brought on
by our own or another's ill-doing are not necessarily salutary at
all. Therefore both Paul and Isabel were the worse for their
separation.
Paul threw himself heart and soul into his work, and turned his back
upon all the amenities of life. He had lost his faith in love and in
his old ideals, and the loss was not good for him; he became morose
and hard and cynical, and inclined to sneer at higher things. His
love for Isabel had been so bound up with all that was best in him,
that when Isabel failed, much of his best went with her--at any rate
for the time being, till the first bitterness of the disillusionment
was past.
As for Isabel, she put on a brave face before the world, and spent
her days in laughter and her nights in tears. While Paul hid his
misery under a mask of stern moroseness, she concealed hers under an
affectation of frivolity. She had never seemed so gay or so
heartless or so worldly; and, after a while, her imagination almost
persuaded her that she cared as little as she pretended to care. She
never allowed herself time to think, and she nearly succeeded in
believing that she was really forgetting Paul; nevertheless she grew
thinner and paler, and there was a wan look underneath her restless
brilliancy that Lady Farley did not care to see.
Isabel never had any news of Paul; he had completely passed out of
her life. But Paul managed to glean tidings of Isabel; and the news
that she was more amusing and more admired than ever did not in any
way lessen his misery.
Paul wrote a curt letter to his own people saying that Isabel had
broken off the engagement, but giving no reason; and he begged that
her name might never again be mentioned in his hearing. The minister
was sorry, but felt that it was according to the decree of
Providence; Mrs. Seaton was grieved, but feared that it was owing to
the pride of Paul; and Joanna was angry, and felt sure that it was
because of the vanity of Isabel. All of which suppositions were not
without a foundation of truth.
Lady Farley tried hard not to be glad that the engagement was broken
off; but she only succeeded in hiding her gladness from her niece.
And she comforted Isabel--according to her lights--by taking her into
society more untiringly than ever.
One night, towards the end of the season, there was a party at the
Marchioness of Wallingford's; and Isabel was, as usual, surrounded by
a small court of men. She was looking particularly well in a yellow
gown, which suited her dark hair to perfection. Mr. Madderley, on
learning from her in the Row that morning that yellow was to be her
"only wear" at this party, had sent her a spray of yellow roses. But
Isabel hated yellow roses; she had worn one in her belt the day that
Paul made her go for a walk with him, and therefore--like Ben
Jonson's "rosy wreath"--such flowers thenceforward smelt not of
themselves but Paul. So she threw away the artist's gift, and would
not touch it again.
"I suppose you will shortly be going down to Elton Manor, Miss
Carnaby, and thereby turning London into a desert," said Lord Wrexham.
"No," replied Isabel. "I am not going to Elton, but to Homburg
instead. I am getting too old for the country, do you know?"
"I cannot allow that," remonstrated his lordship.
"Yes, I am. I consider the country is only suited to people who are
young enough to go in for picnics and ideals and things of that kind.
Up to five-and-twenty, sunsets excite your highest emotions, and make
you yearn after the impossible; after five-and-twenty, they give you
rheumatism and show up your wrinkles."
"I like the country," remarked Lord Robert Thistletown, "though I am
at last in the proud position of being able to deny the soft
impeachment of being under five-and-twenty; it always makes me feel
good, and fills me with the desire to sing hymns and to write to my
mother."
"I also like the country," murmured Mr. Madderley; "it gives me a
peaceful, lotus-eating kind of feeling, which is most soothing."
Isabel shook her head. "I could stand a land where it was always
afternoon, but what I cannot endure is a land where it is always
Sunday evening."
"I thought you liked Sunday evenings and things of that kind,"
remarked Lord Robert.
"I used to, but I have outgrown them," replied Isabel.
"Dear lady, I understand," sighed Mr. Madderley. "I never cared for
Sunday evenings myself, but I used to adore Holman Hunt. It is the
same kind of sentiment, and indicates the state of mind which would
revel in Wordsworth's 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality'."
"Have you outgrown it too?"
"I have not outgrown my appreciation of the art and the poetry thus
embodied; but I have ceased to have any feeling excited thereby save
admiration."
"I suppose the real explanation is that as we grow older we lose in
imagination what we gain in experience," said Lord Wrexham.
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "I think it rather lies in the fact
that in drinking the draught of life we soon get through the white
froth on the top and come to the small beer underneath."
"Well, I like Sunday evenings and hymns and things in that line,"
persisted Lord Bobby. "I even go to the length of liking Christmas
Day."
"A man who can like Christmas Day will drink sweet champagne and
enjoy it," remarked Madderley.
Lord Bobby shook his head. "Oh! I won't go that far."
"Now I, on the contrary," said Isabel, "cannot bear Christmas Day; it
is neither one thing nor another."
"Yes, it is," argued Lord Bobby. "It is both; it is a delicious
compound of Sunday morning and Saturday afternoon."
"Just so," replied Isabel, "it wears a silk blouse with a serge
skirt, and so is neither Sunday nor week-day. Now, sweet champagne I
do like; and if people give their guests dry champagne, I think sugar
and cream ought to be handed round with it, as they are with tea.
But Christmas Day is another thing. To the young it brings
unqualified bliss, I admit; but to the mature it brings passive
depression followed by active indigestion."
"But you used to be awfully keen on goodness and all that sort of
thing," objected Lord Robert. "I never met such a girl for ideals as
you were at one time."
"My dear Bobby, I was once awfully keen on dolls and blind man's
buff. As I told you, I am growing old."
Lord Robert looked puzzled and disappointed. "But you still believe
in good people, don't you, Miss Carnaby?"
"Oh, yes; but they bore me. I believe in quinine as a drug, but I
think it is very nasty as a flavour."
Lord Wrexham smiled indulgently. "The fact is that you have such a
gay and sunny nature yourself that too much seriousness oppresses you
and overpowers you. Ethereal beings cannot exist in a heavy
atmosphere."
"I cannot endure the sort of good people who have their biographies
written," exclaimed Isabel.
"Nevertheless, biography is the style of fiction I most affect," said
Mr. Madderley, "especially the biographies of people I have met. It
is so interesting to learn that what one had despised as dulness was
in reality genius; and that what one had regretted as rudeness was in
reality the scorn of a great soul for conventions."
"While what one condemned as bad temper was actually a noble struggle
against evil," added Isabel.
"A saint in crape is twice a saint in print," murmured the artist.
"You shall write our biographies, Mr. Madderley, and show how I was
wise, Lord Bobby was profound, and Lord Wrexham was--I don't know
what Lord Wrexham had better be."
"Amusing, perhaps," suggested his lordship quietly.
"I should like to see you with a really serious-minded man, and hear
how you got on with him," said Mr. Madderley. "I mean one of the
sort of men who go in for duties and responsibilities and queer fads
of that sort, and always keep a tame conscience in full work on the
premises."
"Isn't it funny," remarked Isabel thoughtfully, "that if a woman
talks to a man about his soul, other women call her a saint; while if
she talks to him about his heart, they call her a flirt? They have
not the sense to know that the flirtiness consists in talking to the
man about himself at all."
All the men laughed.
"There is really nothing to talk about but ourselves," continued
Isabel, "just as there is really nothing for breakfast but bacon.
People try all sorts of fancy subjects and dishes, but they come back
to where they started from, like boomerangs."
"You are a very clever young lady," said Lord Wrexham appreciatively.
"You combine such keen powers of perception with such a great
facility of expression."
"Thank you. I have devoted a considerable time to 'the proper study
of mankind,' and I consider myself a proficient in the subject."
"It is a subject which repays careful study, my dear lady," remarked
Madderley. "I know only one that excels it in interest, and that
one--being composed entirely of brilliant exceptions ungoverned by
any guiding rules--I should describe as a dangerous recreation rather
than as a proper study."
"I don't believe you understand men as well as you think you do,"
exclaimed Lord Bobby bluntly.
Isabel raised her pretty eyebrows. "Don't I, though?"
"Pardon me, Thistletown," said Mr. Madderley; "you are surely
mistaken. Miss Carnaby's knowledge of this subject is experimental
as well as profound, and her treatment of it is beyond--sometimes
considerably beyond--all praise."
An angry spot burned on Isabel's cheek. "You are pleased to be very
witty this evening, Mr. Madderley."
"Once upon a time," added the artist, "there was a rose who imagined
she knew how to make beeswax, because there were always some bees
buzzing round her. It amused the bees."
"And what was the end of the story?" asked Isabel.
"The end, dear lady? There is but one end to all stories. The rose
faded."