THE development of the germ of goodness in woman may be measured by
her tendency towards self-sacrifice. Even the most selfish of her sex,
provided she has some rudimentary virtues, hugs close to her bosom some
pet little thorn which she loves to dig into her shrinking flesh. She
enjoys some odd little mortification, some fantastic humiliation, that
is known only to the inner chamber of her soul. Your great-hearted woman
practises Suttee daily, greatly to the consternation of an observant yet
unperceptive husband. Doubtless this characteristic has a sexual basis,
psychological perhaps rather than directly physiological, being an
instinctive assertion of the fundamental principle of passivity, which
in its turn is translated into the need to be held down and subdued.
Thus, if the man does not beat her, she will beat herself; if he is
a fool, she will often apply caustic to her wisdom, so that she may
reverence him; if he is a knave, she will choke her honesty. Side by
side with the assertion of this principle, and indeed often inextricably
confused with it, is the maternal impulse, which by manifold
divergences from its primary manifestation causes women to find a joy,
uncomprehended by men, in pangs of suffering. The higher the type the
stronger the impulse towards this sweet self-martyrdom.
Some such theory alone explains the softer tones in Norma's voice
when she spoke to Morland. She had passed through two periods of sharp
development--the half-hour in Scotland and the hours she had spent
since her talk with Jimmie that afternoon. She acted blindly, obeying an
imperative voice.
They sat down together on the raised divan. She was dressed in black,
with a bunch of yellow roses at her bosom, and her neck and arms gleamed
white in the shadow cast by the green shades over the billiard-table.
Her face had softened. She was infinitely desirable.
“I have been thinking over our relations, Morland,” she said. “Perhaps I
have been wrong.”
“What do you mean?” he asked in some alarm.
“I told you when you asked me to marry you that it would be wise to put
sentiment aside. You agreed, against your will, and have observed the
convention very loyally. But I have not treated you well. In putting
sentiment aside I was, perhaps, wrong. That is what I wanted to say to
you.”
“Let me see that I understand you, Norma,” said Morland. “You wish that
we should be more like--like ordinary lovers?”
“We might try,” she whispered.
She waited. Heaven knows what she waited for; but it did not come. The
Imp of Mischance again scored his point. The man's mind was filled with
the thoughts of another woman in her agony and of a crazy avenger coming
with murder in his heart. He took her hand mechanically and raised it
to his lips. Her yielding to the caress told him that he could throw
his arms around her and treat her loverwise; her words told him that he
ought to do so.
Yet he did not. For the moment he was passionless; and to men of
his type is not given the power, possessed by men of imaginative
temperament, of simulating passion. He forced a laugh.
“How do you think we might begin?”
She went on bravely with her self-imposed task of submission.
“I have heard that the man generally takes the initiative.”
He kissed her on the cheek. To do less would have been outrageous.
“I am glad you realise that I am in love with you, at last,” he said.
“Are you sure that you are in love with me?” she asked, the chill that
had fallen upon her after the lack of response to her first whisper
growing colder and colder.
“Of course I am.”
“That is all I wanted to hear. Good-night,” she said in an odd voice.
She rose and put out her hand. Morland opened the door for her to pass
and closed it behind her.
Norma went straight to her room, feeling as though she had been tied by
the heels to a cart-tail and dragged through the mud. Half undressed,
she dismissed her maid summarily. Every place on her body that the
girl's fingers touched seemed to be a bruise. She went to bed stupefied
with herself.
Meanwhile Morland rang for whisky and soda, and cursed all that
appertained to him, knowing that he had missed an amazing opportunity.
After the way of feeble men, he thought of a hundred things he might
have said and done that would have brought her to his feet. Had he not
been watching patiently, ever since his engagement, for her to put off
her grand airs, and become a woman like the rest of them? He should
have said the many things he had often said to others. Or, if words were
difficult, why in the world had he not kissed her properly after the
manner accepted by women as the infallible argument? He conjured up the
exceeding pleasantness of such an act. He could feel the melting of
her lips, the yielding of her bosom; gradually he worked himself into
a red-hot desire. A sudden resolve took him upstairs. There he learned
that Norma had retired for the night, and returning to his whisky in the
billiard-room, he cursed himself more loudly than before. A hand thrust
into the pocket of his dinner-jacket met the poor girl's crumpled
letter. Mechanically he took it to the empty grate, and then cursed the
fire for not being lit. When Mr. Hardacre came down for a final game of
billiards, he found his future son-in-law in an irritable temper, and
won an easy game. Rallied upon his lack of form, Morland explained that
the damned election was getting on his nerves.
“Did n't get on them when you were shooting to-day,” said Mr. Hardacre.
“I made believe that the birds were the beastly voters,” replied
Morland.
Norma had not yet come down the next morning when he started for Cosford
on electioneering business. Nor did he meet her, as he hoped, in the
town, carrying on the work of canvassing which she had begun with great
success. A dry barrister having been sent down to contest the division
in the Liberal interest, was not making much headway in a constituency
devoted to the duchess and other members of the tyrannical classes, and
thus the task of Norma and her fellow-canvassers was an easy one. Today,
however, she did not appear. Morland consoled himself with the assurance
that he would put things right in the evening. After all, it was easy
enough to kiss a woman who had once shown a desire to be made love to.
Every man has his own philosophy of woman. This was Morland's.
Jimmie also started upon his morning's pursuits without seeing Norma.
He was somewhat relieved; for he had spent a restless night, dozing off
only to dream grotesque dreams of the mad orator and waking to fight
with beasts that gnawed his vitals. He came down unstrung, a haggard
mockery of himself, and he was glad not to meet her clear eyes. The
three-mile walk to Chiltern Towers refreshed him, his work on the
portrait absorbed his faculties, and his neighbours at the ducal
luncheon-table, to which the duchess in person had invited him,
clear-witted women in the inner world of politics and diplomacy, kept
his attention at straining point. It was only when he walked back to
Heddon Court, although he made a manful attempt to whistle cheerily,
that he felt heavy upon his heart the burden of the night. It was a
languorous September afternoon, and the tired hush of dying summer
had fallen upon the world. The smell of harvest, the sense of golden
fulfilment of life hung on the air. Jimmie swung his stick impatiently,
and filled his lungs with a draught of the mellow warmth.
“The old earth is good. By God, it's good!” he cried aloud.
Brave words of a resolute optimism; but they did not lighten his burden.
He reached the house. Beneath an umbrella-tent on the front lawn sat
Norma, her hands listlessly holding a closed book on her lap. Jimmie
would have lifted his hat and passed her by, but with, a brightening
face she summoned him. They talked awhile of commonplace things.
Then, after a pause, she asked him, half mockingly, to account for his
behaviour the day before. Why had he rated her in that masterful way?
“I can't bear you to speak evilly of yourself,” he said.
“Why, since I deserve it?”
“The _you_ that you sometimes take a pleasure in assuming to be
may deserve it. The real you does n't. And it is the real you that I
know--that has given me friendship and is going to marry my dearest
friend. The other you is a phantom of a hollow world in which
circumstances have placed you.”
“I think the phantom is happier than the reality,” said Norma, with a
laugh. “'The dream is better than the drink.' The hollow world is the
safer place, after all.”
“Where imagination doth not corrupt and enthusiasms do not break in and
steal,” said Jimmie, with unusual bitterness. “I have seen very little
of it--but you have told me things,” he continued lamely, “and your
being in it and of it seems a profanation. When you wilfully identify
yourself with its ideals, you hurt me; and when I am hurt, I cry out.”
“But why should you care so much about what I am and what I am not?” she
asked in a tone half of genuine enquiry and half of expectancy, wholly
kind and soft..
He dug the point of his stick into the turf and did not raise his eyes.
He knew now what a fool's game of peril he was playing, and kept himself
in check. Yet his voice trembled as he replied:
“Morland is very dear to me. You, his future wife, have grown dear to
me also. I suppose I have lived rather a simple sort of life and take my
emotions seriously.”
“I hope you thank God for it,” said Norma.
The swift rattle of a carriage turning into the drive broke the talk,
which had grown too personal to be left voluntarily. Jimmie felt
infinitely grateful to the visitors, like a man suddenly saved from a
threatening precipice. Leaving Norma with a bow, he fled into the house
and selecting a book from the library, went onto the terrace. He needed
solitude. Something of which he was unaware was happening. Circumstances
were not the same as when he had first arrived. Then he had looked on
Norma with brave serenity. He was happy, loving her and receiving frank
friendship from her condescending hands. Now it was growing to be a
pain to watch her face, a dread to hear her voice. Sweet intercourse had
become a danger. And a few days had brought about the change. Why? Of
the riot in the woman's nature he knew nothing. In his blank ignorance,
seeking the cause within himself, he asked, Why?
He crossed the tennis lawn, went through the little opening at the end
of the hedge, and down to the seclusion of the croquet ground. Half-way
along the sloping bank beneath the upper terrace some one had left a
rug. He threw himself upon it, and tried like many another poor fool
to reason down his hunger. But all the sensitive nerves with which
the imaginative man, for his curse or his blessing, is endowed, were
vibrating from head to foot. Her words sang in his ears: “Why should you
care so much about what I am and what I am not?” The real answer burst
passionately from his heart.
He had lain there for about half an hour when a gay little laugh aroused
him.
“You idyllic creature!”
It was Connie Deering, bewitchingly apparelled, a dainty, smiling pale
yellow butterfly, holding as usual an absurd parasol over her head.
“I have been looking for you all over the place,” she remarked. “They
told me you were somewhere about the grounds. May I sit down?”
He made room for her on the rug, and taking the parasol from her hand,
closed it. She settled herself gracefully by his side.
“I repeat I have been looking for you,” she said.
“The overpowering sense of honour done me has deprived me of speech,”
replied Jimmie, with an attempted return to his light-hearted manner.
“Norma is entertaining those dreadful Spencer-Temples,” said Mrs.
Deering, irrelevantly.
“I must have had a premonition of their terrors, for I fled from before
their path,” he said. “After all, poor people, what have they done to be
called names?” he added.
“They are ugly.”
“So am I, yet people don't run away from me.”
“I saw you run away from them,” she said with a significant nod. “I
was at my bedroom window. They spoiled a most interesting little
conversation.”
Jimmie was startled. He looked at her keenly, but only met laughing
eyes.
“They interrupted me certainly. But I could n't have inflicted my
society on Miss Hardacre all the afternoon.”
“You would have liked to, wouldn't you? Jimmie dear,” she said with a
change of tone, “I want to have a talk with you. I'm the oldest woman
friend you have--”
“And by far the sweetest and kindest and prettiest and fascinatingest.”
She tapped his hand with her fingers. “Ssh! I'm serious, awfully
serious. I've never been so serious in my life before. I've got a duty.
I don't often have it, but when I do, it's a terrible matter.”
“You had better go and have it extracted at once, Connie,” he laughed,
determined to keep the talk in a frivolous channel. But the little lady
was determined also.
“Jimmie dear,” she said, holding up her forefinger, “I am afraid you
are running into danger. I want to warn you. An old friend can do that,
can't she?”
“You can say anything you like to me, Connie. But I don't know what you
mean.”
He suspected her meaning, however, only too shrewdly, and his heart beat
with apprehension. Had he been fool enough to betray his secret?
“Are n't you getting just a little too fond of Norma, Jimmie?”
“I could n't get too fond of her,” he said, “seeing that she is to be
Morland's wife.”
“That's just why you must n't. Come, Jimmie, have n't you fallen a bit
in love with her?”
“No,” he said with some heat. “Certainly not. How dare I?”
Kindness and teasing were in her eyes.
“My poor dear husband used to say I had the brain of a bird, but I may
have the sharp eyes of a bird as well. Come--not just one little bit in
love?”
She had sought him with the best intentions in the world. She had long
suspected; yesterday and to-day had given her certainty. She would put
him on his guard, talk to him like an elder sister, pour forth upon him
her vast wisdom in affairs of the heart, and finally persuade him-from
his folly to more sensible courses.
“He sha'n't come to grief over Norma if I can prevent it,” she had said
to herself.
And now, in spite of her altruistic resolve, she could not resist the
pleasure of teasing him. She had done so all her life. Her method
became less elder-sisterly than she had intended. But she was miles from
realising that she touched bare nerves, and that the man was less a man
than a living pain.
“I tell you I'm not in love with her, Connie,” he said. “How could I
dream of loving her? It would be damnable folly.”
“Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie,” she said, enjoying his confusion, “what a
miserably poor liar you make--and what a precious time you would have in
the witness-box if you were a co-respondent! You can't deceive for nuts.
You had better confess and have done with it.” Then seeing something of
the anguish on his face, she bethought her of the serious aspect of her
mission. “I could not bear you to break your heart over Norma, dear,”
she said quite softly.
“Don't madden me, Connie--you don't know what you are saying,” he
muttered below his breath.
Connie Deering had never heard a man speak in agony of spirit. Her lot
had fallen among pleasant places, where life was a smooth, shaven lawn
and emotions not more violent than the ripples on a piece of ornamental
water. His tone gave her a sudden fright.
“You do love her, then?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said Jimmie, drawing himself up in a tight, awkward heap on
the slope. “My God, yes, I do love her. I love her with every fibre of
brain and body.”
The words were out. More came. He could not restrain them. He gave up
the attempt, surrendered himself to the drunkenness of his passion,
poured out a torrent of riotous speech. What he said he knew not.
Such divine madness comes to a man but few times in a life. The
sweet-hearted, frivolous woman, sitting there in the trim little
paradise of green, with its velvet turf and trim slopes, and tall mask
of trees, all mellow in the shade of the soft September afternoon,
listened to him with wondering eyes and pale cheeks. It was no longer
Jimmie of the homely face that was talking; he was transfigured. His
very voice had changed its quality.... Did he love her? The word was
inept in its inadequacy. He worshipped her like a Madonna. He adored her
like a queen. He loved her as the man of hot blood loves a woman. Soul
and heart and body clamoured for her. Compared with hers, every other
woman's beauty was a glow-worm unto lightning. Her voice haunted him
like music heard in sleep. Her presence left a fragrance behind that
clouded his senses like incense. Her beauty twined itself into every
tendril of every woman's hair he painted, stole into the depths of every
woman's eyes. It was a divine obsession.
“You must fight against it,” Connie whispered tonelessly.
“Why should I? Who is harmed? Norma? Who will tell her? Not I. If I
choose to fill my life with her splendour, what is that to any one? The
desire of the moth for the star! Who heeds the moth?”
He went on reckless of speech until his passion had spent itself. Then
he could only repeat in a broken way:
“Love her? Heaven knows I love her. My soul is a footstool for her to
rest her feet upon.”
Connie Deering laid her hand on his.
“I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry, Jimmie. God bless you, dear.”
He raised the hand to his lips. Neither spoke. He plucked at the grass
by his side; at length he looked up.
“You won't give me away, will you?” he said with a smile, using her
dialect.
She went on her knees and clasped both his wrists. She said the first
thing that came, as something sacred, into her head.
“I could no more speak of this to any one than of some of my dead
husband's kisses.”
“I know you are a good true woman, Connie,” he said.
In the silence that followed, Norma, who had come to summon Connie to
tea (the Spencer-Temples having called on their drive past the gates
merely to deliver a message), and hearing the voice behind the hedge had
been compelled against her will to listen--Norma, deadly white, shaken
to the roots of her being, crept across the tennis lawn and fled in
swaying darkness to her room.