He had mounted the steps, head bent, hands thrust deeply into his
pockets, and had actually cast himself into a garden-chair before he saw
that he was not alone. Over there in the corner near the little table
where the reviews and newspapers were laid, and the fluttering vines
tempered the sunlight, sat monsieur de Maubert, a book upon his knee and
his eyeglasses on his nose. He was looking above them, across at Giles,
and the young man was terribly disconcerted in seeing him.
“I beg your pardon,” he muttered; “I didn’t know anybody was here.”
“I have only just returned,” said monsieur de Maubert in his Olympian
tones, “and there is no occasion for apology. You were coming fast and
you were thinking deep. You seem disturbed, Monsieur. Has anything
occurred to incommode you?”
Giles had pulled his chair around a little so that he faced monsieur de
Maubert and as he heard the suave question he suddenly determined to
answer it. Whatever monsieur de Maubert’s past relation to madame
Vervier, he felt assured from what he had observed that his present one
was based on a disinterested devotion. If he must try to persuade madame
Vervier to give Alix up to them, it would assuredly be as well to gain
monsieur de Maubert’s sympathy.
“To tell you the truth, I am incommoded,” he said. “I’ve had a very
nasty shock. Is that right? _Un mauvais coup?_—Well, you understand,
I’m sure. We’re so fond of Alix, all of us, my mother and brothers and
sisters; she almost seems to belong to us; and I’ve just been hearing
two women talking at the tennis about her, and her mother; and about her
future. Nice women. And they seemed to think there wasn’t any future for
her except the theatre.”
“Well?” monsieur de Maubert removed his glasses as if for a more
unimpeded observation of his companion. “And what is amiss with the
theatre? You did not, evidently, suppose that they narrowed the
opportunities of a young girl such as Alix to that career only; but it
will suffice for the argument. What is amiss with it? It may be a great
career for a woman of talent. Our friend mademoiselle Fontaine, for
example, has made for herself a distinguished name.”
Giles felt that his face was hot, but he went doggedly on: “I know. I’m
not belittling it. But, from the way they spoke, I infer it’s not what
it is with us.”
“A playground for pretty amateurs? A display of dressmakers’
_mannequins_? No; it is not. We are a more serious people than you when
it comes to art.”
Giles was not to be abashed. “With us it is one honourable alternative
among others. It’s a career any young girl can follow, except among
old-fashioned, prejudiced people. And I mean young girls of good
character; of good standing.”
“What you mean, I think,” said monsieur de Maubert, “is that with us it
is not seen as a suitable career for a _jeune fille du monde_. Alix is
not a _jeune fille du monde_.”
“No; I don’t mean only that,” said Giles.
“Or perhaps that it is not with us a career _pour une vierge_,” monsieur
de Maubert further defined. “There you are right. I do not easily
imagine a great actress who is not also a woman of experience. That is
all that it comes to, is it not?”
Giles wondered for a moment if this, indeed, was all that it came to for
him. He had not thought of it in those terms, and it gave him an added
chill to find that monsieur de Maubert did. “What it comes to for me,”
he said, “is that I don’t think it a suitable career for
Alix;—precisely because of what you say; and what’s more, I don’t
believe her mother does, either.”
At this monsieur de Maubert was silent for some moments, and in the
silence Giles felt anew that, ambiguous, even sinister as he might be,
his sympathy could be counted upon where any interest of madame
Vervier’s was in question. If he reflected thus carefully, it was, Giles
felt, because from Alix they had passed to madame Vervier.
“You are right. Her mother is with you,” he said at last, surprisingly.
“It is because she is with you that she sent the child last winter. She
sees the difficulties that you see. She would prefer, to any artistic
career in France, that Alix should marry in England. Marriage is what
she intends for her. She would, I am sure, be glad to talk of any
possibilities for Alix with you.”
“I hope she’ll let me have a talk with her; I’m glad of what you tell
me,” Giles muttered, though bewildered by monsieur de Maubert’s calm
assumptions.
And he was going on as calmly: “For myself, I do not know that I am in
agreement with her. Where her child is concerned, she shows, at times,
for a woman so gifted and so sagacious, a certain conventionality of
outlook. She who, for herself, has chosen the path of freedom, should
have more courage for her child.”
“Isn’t it something of a criticism of the path of freedom that she
doesn’t choose it for her child?” Giles felt himself impelled to
comment. “Aren’t all mothers conventional when it comes to their
daughters? Isn’t convention, in that sense, only another name for
safety?”
“Ah; you are a shrewd young man,” said monsieur de Maubert with a smile.
“Perhaps it is. Personally I feel that for our little friend the free
life of the artist would be a happier one than the life of the English
country lady. That life, for a vivid, vigorous nature such as hers,
would be, I should imagine, _bornée_; _fade_.”
“I don’t see why it should,” said Giles. “But I wasn’t thinking of
country ladies, or of marriage at all. We don’t think of marriage like
that. I thought of Alix making her living in England. I thought of a
life where she would have love and respect about her and be useful and
happy.”
“I do not think that such a prospect would at all attract her mother,”
monsieur de Maubert remarked. “I do not see what more advantage it
offers than a similar life in France. Do you consider, then, that madame
Vervier has not love and respect about her and is not useful and happy?”
Giles at this, struck to silence, sat staring at monsieur de Maubert.
“You have doubtless,” monsieur de Maubert continued—and Giles saw that
it was not through any inadvertence that he had thus placed the
situation of madame Vervier squarely between them; without any
embarrassment, without any hesitation, he calmly selected the
theme—“you have doubtless heard those women speaking of our hostess as
if they did not respect her.”
“Not quite that,” Giles muttered. “They spoke merely as if she didn’t
count with them at all.”
“And do you imagine,” monsieur de Maubert inquired, “that they count
with her?”
In spite of his confusion Giles could answer this question immediately.
“They count with her for Alix,” he said.
“For Alix?” monsieur de Maubert mildly, yet perhaps not quite
ingenuously, questioned.
“You’ve owned to it yourself,” said Giles. “It’s their life she’d want
for Alix. The safe life. The respected life. She’d rather that Alix
should marry one of their sons than be the most wonderful of actresses.”
“It may be so. Gifted and sagacious people have their weaknesses. You
speak again of respect,” said monsieur de Maubert. “All those who are
honoured with her friendship respect madame Vervier. You speak of
marriage. What wife can hope for adoration? Madame Vervier is adored as
well as respected.”
“I should have said that a wife could hope for adoration—and for
fidelity as well,” Giles returned.
“Very rarely,” monsieur de Maubert smiled. “And I do not imagine that
our hostess—of whom I speak thus openly because I see that between us
there is nothing to conceal—has ever had to fear infidelity. She is in
the fortunate position of a woman free to choose. She gives happiness
when and to whom she wishes.”
Giles sat battling with a confusion of thoughts. He had not meant to
discuss madame Vervier with anybody. It was horrible to him that he and
monsieur de Maubert should thus be discussing her. But without implying
her present it was impossible to discuss Alix’s future. “I don’t call it
fortunate,” he said. “I don’t call it happiness.”
“You do not call it happiness to love and to be loved?” monsieur de
Maubert inquired. “You have, perhaps, mystic consolations, monsieur
Giles; but to the majority of our poor humanity this will always remain
the one authentic happiness of life.”
“We have different ideas,” said Giles. “I don’t see love like that. When
you speak of her giving happiness, you mean, I suppose, that she has had
a great many lovers. That is what those women said. I think that a
tragic life, you see; and the more tragic, the more lovely the woman is
who leads it.”
“A great many?” monsieur de Maubert weighed it. “Hardly that. She is a
serious, not a frivolous woman; and beauty accompanies her always.”
“You see, we have different ideas,” Giles heavily repeated, looking down
and tugging at the wicker of his chair. “A love that can be repeated
over and over, I don’t call love.”
“_Bonté divine!_” monsieur de Maubert laughed suddenly among the vines.
“A fountain cannot throw itself into the air repeatedly and remain
itself? Spring cannot return to us again and again? It is with our
hearts as with nature; a renewal; a discovery of fresh beauty. And since
we are all different, with each new love there is the discovery of new
beauty.”
“Love to me means nothing—worse than nothing—unless it means
dedication; permanence; unity,” said Giles.
“Ah, but then it ceases to be love,” said monsieur de Maubert, “and
becomes duty, affection, the joys and cares of the _foyer_; what the
wives—if they are fortunate—may count on. A young man like you is
surely aware of the difference between love the passion, and love the
affection. We feel the latter for our wives and mothers; we feel
something very different for our mistresses.—You will agree to that, I
think.”
“I’ve never had a mistress,” said Giles.
“_Tiens!_” It was an exclamation of blended amusement, astonishment and
most courteous respect for a strange idiosyncrasy, and Giles saw
monsieur de Maubert in his dappled sunlight opening large eyes.
“What I’d like to ask you, if I may,” said Giles, “is what you feel for
mistress number one when mistress number two has deposed her; and what
you feel for number two when you are devoting yourself to number three.
You can’t feel passion for them all, at the same time, I suppose. The
present lady preoccupies you. What of the others, then? Have they ceased
to arouse any solicitude or interest?”
“From the fact that they are gone, far less,” monsieur de Maubert owned,
shifting himself now in his chair the better to contemplate his
companion. “One may think of them with gratitude or regret; with pain or
indifference. One may have been abandoned, or one may have found oneself
ceasing to desire. A man of honour will do all in his power for the
woman who has been dear to him; who may still be dear. Affection and
trust may still be there, though passion has burned itself away.”
“That must fill your time,” Giles muttered, “pretty considerably.”
“Ah, it might”—if monsieur de Maubert felt the dryness of the young
man’s tone he did not stoop to any retaliation; he was all
kindliness—“but charming women are rarely in need of consolation. Is
not the fact you will not face, my idealistic young friend, the fact,
simply, that passion, the flame, does burn out? That is a law of life.
You will not alter it with all your ascetic moralities. And shall we
turn from the flame, its ardour and beauty, because it cannot burn for
ever? That would be an anchorite’s error. Let us burn with it and
rejoice, until it sinks. Unfortunately, the time of renewal passes,”
monsieur de Maubert sighed. “Spring goes, and Summer goes, and even of
Autumn there is little left. Winter approaches and one grows old.”
Giles sat silent looking out to sea. The things he held to be of
infinite value were invisible to monsieur de Maubert. The things
monsieur de Maubert held to be of value were clearly visible to him. He
saw the beauty of flame and fountain and the old paganism in his human
heart echoed to the thought of love the passion. But he saw something
else, that underlay them all, not contradicting, as monsieur de Maubert
imagined, but completing them. What that something was it would be
useless to describe. If one had come to life asking only of each moment
what it gave and never what it meant, one became blinded to the meaning.
Sadness fell between them sitting there, and presently monsieur de
Maubert said, showing that he felt it, “Well, the sun is setting; I will
go in. You are sorry for me and I am sorry for you.—Do we terminate our
discussion in a mutual sympathy?”
He had risen from his chair with a rather porpoise-like roll of his
stout white body and stood, complete, assured, benevolent, looking down
at Giles; and Giles wondered, looking up at him, whether the price one
paid for such completeness was just that blindness.
“I suppose there is sympathy,” he vaguely murmured. “I’m afraid it’s
true, though. I think you quite as wrong as you think me.”
“Ah, when you are as old as I am,” said monsieur de Maubert,
unperturbed, “you will think differently. You will by then, assuredly,
intelligent as you are, have learned to make a better use of your time.
You will have learned to round out your life by a richer experience.”
Giles, too, had risen, and he could almost have laughed as he listened;
it struck him as so comic, with its sadness, that the traditional rôles
of youth and age should be thus reversed. “You will have learned,”
monsieur de Maubert was going on, “to accept the full gamut of our human
nature. There remains nothing, nothing, for the anchorite in his
desert—let me assure you of it—but the handful of sand his dying hand
clutches at. He has had, you will say, his mirage with which to console
himself. That is a sorry consolation at the end. Accept reality, my
young friend. Accept the full gamut. Neglect none of the strings of your
violin. It is broken all too soon. And what more sad than to have
stopped your ears against its sweetest melody?”
“What, indeed?” said Giles. There was hardly irony in his voice. It was
contemplative rather. And smiling at monsieur de Maubert as they stood
there in the sunset, he added: “We want different things.” That simile
of the unheard melody summed it up.