Leaning forward with clasped hands and speaking with melodious pathos
while the morning light rested on her tired but interesting face, her
confession had the effect of a monologue save for its final question.
And Constance, listening understood. In truth, this cry of the soul at
bay came as a quickener to her own surging emotions, and she realized
that the walls of the temple of beauty had fallen like those of Jericho
at the trumpets of Israel. Yet though she understood and saw starkly
revealed the limit of the gospel of the splendor of things, with all
the purging of perplexities which that meant for her, the claims of
gratitude and of unabated admiration no less than pity caused her to
shrink from immediate acquiescence in her patron's self-censure. And
as she hesitated for the proper antidote, Mrs. Wilson pursued her
confession relentlessly--pursued it, however, as one who recites the
weakness of a cause to which she is hopelessly committed.
"One is spurred to refine and refine and refine,--does not even
religion--my religion--so teach us?--the spirit ostensibly, and, in
order to reach the spirit, the body; and in this age of things and of
great possessions one reaches greedily after the quintessence of
comfort until--until one needs some shock like this to perceive that
one might become--perhaps is, an intellectual sybarite. Nay, more;
though we crave almost by instinct individual lustre and personal
safety, reaching out for luxury that we may grow superfine, must not
we--we American women with ideals--mistrust the social beauty of a
universe which still produces the masses and all the horrors of life?
Can it fundamentally avail that a few should be exquisite and have
radiant thoughts, if the rest are condemned to a coarse, unlovely
heritage?"
Not only did gratitude reassert itself as Constance listened to this
speculative plaint, but protesting common sense as well, which
recognized the morbidness of the thought without ignoring its cogency.
"Ah, you exaggerate; you are unjust to yourself," she exclaimed
fervidly. "You must not overlook what your influence and example have
been to me and many others. I owe you so much! more than I can ever
repay. It was you who opened the garden of life to me."
Mrs. Wilson started at the tense, spontaneous apostrophe, and the color
mounted to her cheeks. Never had so grateful a tribute been laid at
her feet as this in the hour of tribulation. And as she gazed she felt
that she had a right to be proud of the noble-looking, the
sophisticated woman who held out to her these refreshing laurels.
"And it is not that I do not comprehend--that I do not share your
qualms," Constance continued, ignoring the gracious look that she might
express herself completely in this crucial hour. The time had come to
utter her own secret, which she felt to be the most eloquent of revolts
against the mystic superfineness she had just heard deprecated.
"Within the last twelve hours the scales have fallen from my eyes also,
and what seemed to me truth is no longer truth. There is something I
wish to tell you, Mrs. Wilson. Yesterday afternoon I heard that the
legacy tax bill had been defeated; last night before I went to bed I
posted a letter to Gordon Perry informing him that I would be his wife.
I have asked him to come to see me at Lincoln Chambers this morning."
Mrs. Wilson's lip trembled. Genuine as was her probing of self, this
flank attack from one who just now had brought balm to her wounds and
cheer to her soul was a fresh and vivid shock. To feel that this other
ward, whom she had deemed so safe, was about to slip from her fingers
was more than she could bear. Then instinctively Constance went to her
and put her arm around her. "I am sorry to hurt you," she said
tenderly, "but this is a time to speak plainly. I love him, and I feel
that I have been trifling with love. I am sure at last of this: that
it is better for the world that two people like him and me should be
happy than live apart out of deference to a bond which is a mere husk.
I prefer to be natural and free rather than exquisite and artificial.
As Gordon said, the ban of the Church when the law gives one freedom is
nothing but a fetich. I cannot follow the Church in this. To do so
would be to starve my soul for the sake of a false ideal--a false
beauty cultivated for the few alone, as you have intimated, at the
expense of the great heart of humanity. I can no longer be a party to
such an injustice; I must not sacrifice to it the man I love."
There was a brief silence. Mrs. Wilson, as her question presently
showed, was trying to piece together cause and effect.
"You wrote to him last night, Constance? Then this--horror had nothing
to do with your decision?"
"Nothing; I had been on the verge of it for some time: I can see that
now. And when the news of his defeat came, I felt that I must go to
him if he would let me."
"He will let you, Constance."
"I think so," she answered with a happy thrill.
Mrs. Wilson looked up at her, and observing the serenity of her
countenance, knew that the issue was settled beyond peradventure. Yet
she was in the mood to be generous as well as humble; moreover, her
inquiring mind had not failed to notice the plea for humanity and to
feel its force. She sighed gently, then patted the hand that held
hers, and said:
"Perhaps, dear, you are right. At all events, go now and get some
sleep. You must look your own sweet self when he comes to you."
A few hours later Constance, refreshed by slumber, was on her way to
Lincoln Chambers. She walked as though on wings, for she knew in her
heart that her lover would not fail her. Arriving a little before the
appointed time, she dismissed the children to school, and, smiling at
fate, waited for what was to be. At the stroke of the trysting hour
she heard his knock. She bade him enter, and as their eyes met he
folded her in his arms.
"Gordon!"
"Constance!"
"I have surrendered." She looked up into his face, bewitching in her
happiness.
[Illustration: "I have surrendered."]
"Thank God for that!"
"But I come to you conscience free, Gordon," she said, drawing back her
radiant face so that he must hear her avowal before his title was
complete. "I would not have you think that I have compromised or
juggled with myself. If I believed that I should be a whit less pure
and spiritual a woman by becoming your wife, I would never have sent
for you, dearly as I love you."
"And I would not have had you, darling. The love which is conscious of
a stain is a menace to the world."