Mr. Davis came into the room when I was sitting at Laura's feet, my
head leaning against her knees. His bloodless face and dim eyes
showed no feeling beyond indifferent sullenness. In his soft slippers
embroidered with Indian suns, he shuffled across the room, and
into the library. Laura looked magnificent, her eyes flashing with
unrestrained wrath. I rose and awaited what would happen. A thought
crossed my mind that Mr. Davis might come back, a revolver in his
hand. In such a case I should have pitched him through the window,
revolver, plaid, and Indian slippers. But he did not come back; I
waited a long time in vain. I do not know what he was doing there;
whether he was thinking over his misery, weeping, or perfectly
indifferent. We all three met again at lunch, and he was sitting there
as if nothing unusual had happened. Perhaps it was my fancy that
made me think that Laura looked menacingly at him, and also that his
apathetic expression was even more mournful than usual. I confess that
such a tame ending of the business is the most painful to me. I am not
one to provoke a quarrel, but ready to answer for my deeds; finally, I
would rather the man were not so defenceless, such a small, miserable
creature. I have a nasty feeling, as if I had knocked down a cripple,
and never yet felt so disgusted with myself.
We went out in the boat as usual. I did not want Laura to think I was
afraid of Davis; but there we had our first quarrel. I confessed to
her my scruples and she laughed at them. I said to her plainly,--
"The laughter does not become you; and remember, you may do most
things, but not what is not becoming."
There was a deep frown on the meeting eyebrows, and she replied
bitterly,--
"After what has passed between us, you may insult me even with more
impunity than you could Davis."
After such a reproach there remained nothing else but to ask her
forgiveness; and presently, harmony being restored, Laura began
to talk about herself. I had another instance of her cleverness.
Generally the women I have known intimately showed a desire to tell me
their life. I do not blame them for it; it shows that they feel the
need to justify themselves in their own eyes and ours. We men do
not. Yet I never met a woman either so clever as not to overstep the
artistic proportions in her confession, or so sincere as not to tell
lies in order to justify herself. I call to witness all men who when
the occasion occurs may verify how wonderfully similar all these cases
of going astray are, and consequently how tedious. Laura, too, began
to talk about herself with a certain eager satisfaction, but only in
this respect did she follow the beaten track of other fallen angels.
In what she told me there was a certain posing for originality, but
she was certainly not posing as a victim. Knowing she had to deal with
a sceptic, she did not want to call forth a smile of incredulity. Her
sincerity was skirting upon the bold, almost the cynical, one
might say, were it not that to her it is a system of life in which
aestheticism has taken the place of ethics. She prefers simply a life
in the shape of an Apollo to that of humpbacked Pulcinello; that is
her philosophy. She had married Davis not so much for his wealth
as for the purpose of making her life as beautiful as lay in human
power,--beautiful not in the common meaning of the word, but in the
highest artistic sense. Besides she did not consider she had any
duties toward her husband, as she had never even pretended to love
him; she had for him as much pity as repugnance, and as he was
indifferent to everything, he was of no more account than if he were
dead. She added that she did not take account of anything that was
contrary to her ideas of a purely beautiful and artistic life. Regard
for society she had very little, and who thought otherwise of her
would be utterly wrong. She had felt friendship for my father, not
because of his social position, but because she had looked upon him
as a masterwork of nature. As to myself, she had loved me for a long
time. She understood perfectly that I would have prized her more had
the victory been less easy, but she did not care to bargain when her
happiness was at stake.
This kind of principles, announced by that perfect mouth in a soft
voice full of metallic vibrations, gave me a strange sensation. While
speaking to me she drew her draperies close to her as if to make room
for me at her side. At times her eyes followed the motions of the
sea-gulls circling above our heads, then again they rested keenly upon
my face as if she wanted to read the impression her words had made
upon me. I listened to her words with a certain satisfaction, as they
proved to me that I had judged her pretty correctly. Yet there was
something in them quite new to me. I had always rendered her justice
as to her cleverness, but I thought her acts were the instinctive
outcome of her nature. I had never supposed her capable of inventing
a whole system in order to support and justify the impulses of her
nature. This showed her in a somewhat nobler light, as it proved that
where I had suspected her of more or less mean calculation, she only
acted according to her own principles,--maybe bad, even terrible, but
always principles. For instance, I had suspected her of wanting to
marry me after Davis's death,--she proved me utterly in the wrong. She
herself began to talk about it. She confessed that if I were to ask
her for her hand she might not be able to refuse me, as she loved me
more than I believed (here as I am a living man I saw a warm blush
mounting to her neck and brow), but she knew this would never happen;
sooner or later I would leave her with a light heart,--but what of
that? If she dipped her hand into the water and felt the refreshing
coolness, should she refuse herself this delight because the sun would
suck the cool moisture?
Saying this she bent over the gunwale, which showed her figure in
all its immaculate perfection, and after plunging her hands into the
water, she stretched them out to me moist and pink and gleaming in
the sunshine. I took hold of the hands, and she, as if echoing my
sensations, said in a caressing voice, "Come."