SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE

A NOVEL IN THREE EPISODES

BY ARNOLD BENNETT

1905

TO MY FRIEND EDEN PHILLPOTTS

THE NOVELIST FOR WHOM MAN AND NATURE ARE INSEPARABLE WITH PROFOUNDRESPECT FOR THE CLASSICAL DIGNITY OF HIS AIM AND EQUAL ADMIRATIONFOR THE AUSTERE SPLENDOUR OF HIS PERFORMANCE

CONTENTS

PART I

IN THE NIGHT

PART II

THREE HUMAN HEARTS

PART III

THE VICTORY

_'How I have wept, the long night through, over the poor women of thepast, so beautiful, so tender, so sweet, whose arms have opened for thekiss, and who are dead! The kiss--it is immortal! It passes from lip tolip, from century to century, from age to age. Men gather it, give itback, and die. '_--GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 

SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE

PART I

IN THE NIGHT

I

For years I had been preoccupied with thoughts of love--and by love Imean a noble and sensuous passion, absorbing the energies of thesoul, fulfilling destiny, and reducing all that has gone before it tothe level of a mere prelude. And that afternoon in autumn, the eve ofmy twenty-first birthday, I was more deeply than ever immersed inamorous dreams. 

I, in my modern costume, sat down between two pairs of candles to thepiano in the decaying drawing-room, which like a spinster strove toconceal its age. A generous fire flamed in the wide grate behind me:warmth has always been to me the first necessary of life. I turned roundon the revolving stool and faced the fire, and felt it on my cheeks, andI asked myself: 'Why am I affected like this? Why am I what I am?' Foreven before beginning to play the Fantasia of Chopin, I was moved, andthe tears had come into my eyes, and the shudder to my spine. I gazed atthe room inquiringly, and of course I found no answer. It was one ofthose rooms whose spacious and consistent ugliness grows old into a sortof beauty, formidable and repellent, but impressive; an early Victorianroom, large and stately and symmetrical, full--but not too full--oftwisted and tortured mahogany, green rep, lustres, valances, fringes, gilt tassels. The green and gold drapery of the two high windows, andhere and there a fine curve in a piece of furniture, recalled the Empireperiod and the deserted Napoleonic palaces of France. The expanse ofyellow and green carpet had been married to the floor by two generationsof decorous feet, and the meaning of its tints was long since explainedaway. Never have I seen a carpet with less individuality of its own thanthat carpet; it was so sweetly faded, amiable, and flat, that its solemission in the world seemed to be to make things smooth for the chairs. The wall-paper looked like pale green silk, and the candles werereflected in it as they were reflected in the crystals of the chandelier. The grand piano, a Collard and Collard, made a vast mass of walnut in thechamber, incongruous, perhaps, but still there was something in its mildand indecisive tone that responded to the furniture. It, too, spoke ofEvangelicalism, the Christian Year, and a dignified reserved confidencein Christ's blood. It, too, defied the assault of time and the invasionof ideas. It, too, protested against Chopin and romance, and demandedThalberg's variations on 'Home, Sweet Home. '

My great-grandfather, the famous potter--second in renown only toWedgwood--had built that Georgian house, and my grandfather had furnishedit; and my parents, long since dead, had placidly accepted it and theideal that it stood for; and it had devolved upon my Aunt Constance, andultimately it would devolve on me, the scarlet woman in a dress ofvirginal white, the inexplicable offspring of two changeless andblameless families, the secret revolutionary, the living lie! How had Icome there?

I went to the window, and, pulling the curtain aside, looked vaguely outinto the damp, black garden, from which the last light was fading. Thered, rectangular house stood in the midst of the garden, and the gardenwas surrounded by four brick walls, which preserved it from four streetswhere dwelt artisans of the upper class. The occasional rattling of acart was all we caught of the peaceable rumour of the town; but on clearnights the furnaces of Cauldon Bar Ironworks lit the valley for us, andwe were reminded that our refined and inviolate calm was hemmed in byrude activities. On the east border of the garden was a row of poplars, and from the window I could see the naked branches of the endmost. Agas-lamp suddenly blazed behind it in Acre Lane, and I descried a bird inthe tree. And as the tree waved its plume in the night-wind, and the birdswayed on the moving twig, and the gas-lamp burned meekly and patientlybeyond, I seemed to catch in these simple things a glimpse of the secretmeaning of human existence, such as one gets sometimes, startlingly, in amood of idle receptiveness. And it was so sad and so beautiful, so fullof an ecstatic melancholy, that I dropped the curtain. And my thoughtranged lovingly over our household--prim, regular, and perfect: my oldaunt embroidering in the breakfast-room, and Rebecca and Lucy ironing inthe impeachable kitchen, and not one of them with the least suspicionthat Adam had not really waked up one morning minus a rib. I wandered infancy all over the house--the attics, my aunt's bedroom so miraculouslyneat, and mine so unkempt, and the dark places in the corridors whereclocks ticked. 

I had the sense of the curious compact organism of which my aunt was thehead, and into which my soul had strayed by some caprice of fate. What Ifelt was that the organism was suspended in a sort of enchantment, lifelessly alive, unconsciously expectant of the magic touch which wouldbreak the spell, and I wondered how long I must wait before I began tolive. I know now that I was happy in those serene preliminary years, butnevertheless I had the illusion of spiritual woe. I sighed grievously asI went back to the piano, and opened the volume of Mikuli's Chopin. 

Just as I was beginning to play, Rebecca came into the room. She was amaid of forty years, and stout; absolutely certain of a few things, andquite satisfied in her ignorance of all else; an important person in ourhouse, and therefore an important person in the created universe, ofwhich our house was for her the centre. She wore the white cap withdistinction, and when an apron was suspended round her immense waist itceased to be an apron, and became a symbol, like the apron of aFreemason. 

'Well, Rebecca?' I said, without turning my head. 

I guessed urgency, otherwise Rebecca would have delegated Lucy. 

'If you please, Miss Carlotta, your aunt is not feeling well, and shewill not be able to go to the concert to-night. '

'Not be able to go to the concert!' I repeated mechanically. 

'No, miss. '

'I will come downstairs. '

'If I were you, I shouldn't, miss. She's dozing a bit just now. '

'Very well. '

I went on playing. But Chopin, who was the chief factor in my emotionallife; who had taught me nearly all I knew of grace, wit, and tenderness;who had discovered for me the beauty that lay in everything, in sensuousexaltation as well as in asceticism, in grief as well as in joy; who hadshown me that each moment of life, no matter what its import, should belived intensely and fully; who had carried me with him to the dizziestheights of which passion is capable; whose music I spirituallycomprehended to a degree which I felt to be extraordinary--Chopin hadalmost no significance for me as I played then the most glorious of hiscompositions. His message was only a blurred sound in my ears. Andgradually I perceived, as the soldier gradually perceives who has beenhit by a bullet, that I was wounded. 

The shock was of such severity that at first I had scarcely noticed it. What? My aunt not going to the concert? That meant that I could not go. But it was impossible that I should not go. I could not conceive myabsence from the concert--the concert which I had been anticipating andpreparing for during many weeks. We went out but little, Aunt Constanceand I. An oratorio, an amateur operatic performance, a ballad concert inthe Bursley Town Hall--no more than that; never the Hanbridge Theatre. And now Diaz was coming down to give a pianoforte recital in the JubileeHall at Hanbridge; Diaz, the darling of European capitals; Diaz, whosename in seven years had grown legendary; Diaz, the Liszt and theRubenstein of my generation, and the greatest interpreter of Chopin sinceChopin died--Diaz! Diaz! No such concert had ever been announced in theFive Towns, and I was to miss it! Our tickets had been taken, and theywere not to be used! Unthinkable! A photograph of Diaz stood in a silverframe on the piano; I gazed at it fervently. I said: 'I will hear youplay the Fantasia this night, if I am cut in pieces for it to-morrow!'Diaz represented for me, then, all that I desired of men. All my dreamsof love and freedom crystallized suddenly into Diaz. 

I ran downstairs to the breakfast-room. 

'You aren't going to the concert, auntie?' I almost sobbed. 

She sat in her rocking-chair, and the gray woollen shawl thrown round hershoulders mingled with her gray hair. Her long, handsome face was alittle pale, and her dark eyes darker than usual. 

'I don't feel well enough, ' she replied calmly. 

She had not observed the tremor in my voice. 

'But what's the matter?' I insisted. 

'Nothing in particular, my dear. I do not feel equal to the exertion. '

'But, auntie--then I can't go, either. '

'I'm very sorry, dear, ' she said. 'We will go to the next concert. '

'Diaz will never come again!' I exclaimed passionately. 'And the ticketswill be wasted. '

'My dear, ' my Aunt Constance repeated, 'I am not equal to it. And youcannot go alone. '

I was utterly selfish in that moment. I cared nothing whatever for myaunt's indisposition. Indeed, I secretly accused her of maliciouslychoosing that night of all nights for her mysterious fatigue. 

'But, auntie, ' I said, controlling myself, 'I must go, really. I shallsend Lucy over with a note to Ethel Ryley to ask her to go with me. '

'Do, ' said my aunt, after a considerable pause, 'if you are benton going. '

I have often thought since that during that pause, while we faced eachother, my aunt had for the first time fully realized how little she knewof me; she must surely have detected in my glance a strangeness, acontemptuous indifference, an implacable obstinacy, which she had neverseen in it before. And, indeed, these things were in my glance. Yet Iloved my aunt with a deep affection. I had only one grievance againsther. Although excessively proud, she would always, in conversation withmen, admit her mental and imaginative inferiority, and that of her sex. She would admit, without being asked, that being a woman she could notsee far, that her feminine brain could not carry an argument to the end, and that her feminine purpose was too infirm for any great enterprise. She seemed to find a morbid pleasure in such confessions. As regardsherself, they were accurate enough; the dear creature was a singularlygood judge of her own character. What I objected to was her assumption, so calm and gratuitous, that her individuality, with all its confessedlimitations, was, of course, superior--stronger, wiser, subtler thanmine. She never allowed me to argue with her; or if she did, she treatedmy remarks with a high, amused tolerance. 'Wait till you grow older, ' shewould observe, magnificently ignorant of the fact that my soul wasalready far older than hers. This attitude naturally made me secretive inall affairs of the mind, and most affairs of the heart. 

We took in the county paper, the _Staffordshire Recorder, _ and the _Rock_and the _Quiver_. With the help of these organs of thought, which Idetested and despised, I was supposed to be able to keep discreetly andsufficiently abreast of the times. But I had other aids. I went to theGirls' High School at Oldcastle till I was nearly eighteen. One of themistresses there used to read continually a red book covered with brownpaper. I knew it to be a red book because the paper was gone at thecorners. I admired the woman immensely, and her extraordinary interest inthe book--she would pick it up at every spare moment--excited in me anardent curiosity. One day I got a chance to open it, and I read on thetitle-page, _Introduction to the Study of Sociology_, by Herbert Spencer. Turning the pages, I encountered some remarks on Napoleon that astonishedand charmed me. I said: 'Why are not our school histories like this?' Theowner of the book caught me. I asked her to lend it to me, but she wouldnot, nor would she give me any reason for declining. Soon afterwards Ileft school. I persuaded my aunt to let me join the Free Library at theWedgwood Institution. But the book was not in the catalogue. (How often, in exchanging volumes, did I not gaze into the reading-room, where menread the daily papers and the magazines, without daring to enter!) Atlength I audaciously decided to buy the book. I ordered it, not at ourregular stationer's in Oldcastle Street, but at a little shop of thesame kind in Trafalgar Road. In three days it arrived. I called for it, and took it home secretly in a cardboard envelope-box. I went to bedearly, and I began to read. I read all night, thirteen hours. O book withthe misleading title--for you have nothing to do with sociology, and youought to have been called _How to Think Honestly_--my face flushed againand again as I perused your ugly yellowish pages! Again and again Iexclaimed: 'But this is marvellous!' I had not guessed that anything sohonest, and so courageous, and so simple, and so convincing had ever beenwritten. I am capable now of suspecting that Spencer was not a supremegenius; but he taught me intellectual courage; he taught me that nothingis sacred that will not bear inspection; and I adore his memory. The nextmorning after breakfast I fell asleep in a chair. 'My dear!' protestedAunt Constance. 'Ah, ' I thought, 'if you knew, Aunt Constance, if you hadthe least suspicion, of the ideas that are surging and shining in myhead, you would go mad--go simply mad!' I did not care much fordeception, but I positively hated clumsy concealment, and the red bookwas in the house; at any moment it might be seized. On a shelf of booksin my bedroom was a novel called _The Old Helmet_, probably the silliestnovel in the world. I tore the pages from the binding and burnt them; Itore the binding from Spencer and burnt it; and I put my treasure in thecovers of _The Old Helmet_. Once Rebecca, a person privileged, took thething away to read; but she soon brought it back. She told me she hadalways understood that _The Old Helmet_ was more, interesting than that. 

Later, I discovered _The Origin of Species_ in the Free Library. Itfinished the work of corruption. Spencer had shown me how to think;Darwin told me what to think. The whole of my upbringing went for naughtthenceforward. I lived a double life. I said nothing to my aunt of themiracle wrought within me, and she suspected nothing. Strange anduncanny, is it not, that such miracles can escape the observation of aloving heart? I loved her as much as ever, perhaps more than ever. ThankHeaven that love can laugh at reason!

So much for my intellectual inner life. My emotional inner life is lesseasy to indicate. I became a woman at fifteen--years, interminable years, before I left school. I guessed even then, vaguely, that my nature wasextremely emotional and passionate. And I had nothing literary on whichto feed my dreams, save a few novels which I despised, and the Bible andthe plays and poems of Shakespeare. It is wonderful, though, what good Imanaged to find in those two use-worn volumes. I knew most of the Song ofSolomon by heart, and many of the sonnets; and I will not mince the factthat my favourite play was _Measure for Measure_. I was an innocentvirgin, in the restricted sense in which most girls of my class and ageare innocent, but I obtained from these works many a lofty pang ofthrilling pleasure. They illustrated Chopin for me, giving precision andparticularity to his messages. And I was ashamed of myself. Yes; at thebottom of my heart I was ashamed of myself because my sensuous beingresponded to the call of these masterpieces. In my ignorance I thought Iwas lapsing from a sane and proper ideal. And then--the second miracle inmy career, which has been full of miracles--I came across a casualreference, in the _Staffordshire Recorder_, of all places, to the_Mademoiselle de Maupin_ of Théophile Gautier. Something in thereference, I no longer remember what, caused me to guess that the bookwas a revelation of matters hidden from me. I bought it. With theassistance of a dictionary, I read it, nightly, in about a week. Except_Picciola_, it was the first French novel I had ever read. It held methroughout; it revealed something on nearly every page. But the climaxdazzled and blinded me. It was exquisite, so high and pure, sostartling, so bold, that it made me ill. When I recovered I had fast inmy heart's keeping the new truth that in the body, and the instincts ofthe body, there should be no shame, but rather a frank, joyous pride. From that moment I ceased to be ashamed of anything that I honestlyliked. But I dared not keep the book. The knowledge of its contents wouldhave killed my aunt. I read it again; I read the last pages severaltimes, and then I burnt it and breathed freely. 

Such was I, as I forced my will on my aunt in the affair of the concert. And I say that she who had never suspected the existence of the real me, suspected it then, when we glanced at each other across thebreakfast-room. Upon these apparent trifles life swings, as upon a pivot, into new directions. 

I sat with my aunt while Lucy went with the note. She returned soon withthe reply, and the reply was:

'So sorry I can't accept your kind invitation. I should have liked to goawfully. But Fred has got the toothache, and I must not leave him. '

The toothache! And my very life, so it seemed to me, hung in the balance. 

I did not hesitate one second. 

'Hurrah!' I cried. 'She can go. I am to call for her in the cab. '

And I crushed the note cruelly, and threw it in the fire. 

'Tell him to call at Ryleys', ' I said to Rebecca as she was putting meand my dress into the cab. 

And she told the cabman with that sharp voice of hers, always arroganttowards inferiors, to call at Ryleys. '

I put my head out of the cab window as soon as we were inOldcastle Street. 

'Drive straight to Hanbridge, ' I ordered. 

The thing was done. 

II

He was like his photograph, but the photograph had given me only the mostinadequate idea of him. The photograph could not render his extraordinaryfairness, nor the rich gold of his hair, nor the blue of his dazzlingeyes. The first impression was that he was too beautiful for a man, thathe had a woman's beauty, that he had the waxen beauty of a doll; but thefirm, decisive lines of the mouth and chin, the overhanging brows, andthe luxuriance of his amber moustache, spoke more sternly. Gradually oneperceived that beneath the girlish mask, beneath the contours and thecomplexion incomparably delicate, there was an individuality intenselyand provocatively male. His body was rather less than tall, and it wasmuscular and springy. He walked on to the platform as an unspoilt manshould walk, and he bowed to the applause as if bowing chivalrously to awoman whom he respected but did not love. Diaz was twenty-six that year;he had recently returned from a tour round the world; he was filled fullof triumph, renown, and adoration. As I have said, he was alreadylegendary. He had become so great and so marvellous that those who hadnever seen him were in danger of forgetting that he was a living humanbeing, obliged to eat and drink, and practise scales, and visit histailor's. Thus it had happened to me. During the first moments I foundmyself thinking, 'This cannot be Diaz. It is not true that at last I seehim. There must be some mistake. ' Then he sat down leisurely to thepiano; his gaze ranged across the hall, and I fancied that, for a second, it met mine. My two seats were in the first row of the stalls, and Icould see every slightest change of his face. So that at length I feltthat Diaz was real, and that he was really there close in front of me, aseraph and yet very human. He was all alone on the great platform, andthe ebonized piano seemed enormous and formidable before him. And allaround was the careless public--ignorant, unsympathetic, exigent, impatient, even inimical--two thousand persons who would get value fortheir money or know the reason why. The electric light and the inclementgaze of society rained down cruelly upon that defenceless head. I wantedto protect it. The tears rose to my eyes, and I stretched out towardsDiaz the hands of my soul. My passionate sympathy must have reached himlike a beneficent influence, of which, despite the perfectself-possession and self-confidence of his demeanour, it seemed to methat he had need. 

I had risked much that night. I had committed an enormity. No one but agrown woman who still vividly remembers her girlhood can appreciate myfeelings as I drove from Bursley to Hanbridge in the cab, and as I gotout of the cab in the crowd, and gave up my ticket, and entered theglittering auditorium of the Jubilee Hall. I was alone, at night, in thepublic places, under the eye of the world. And I was guiltily alone. Every fibre of my body throbbed with the daring and the danger and theromance of the adventure. The horror of revealing the truth to AuntConstance, as I was bound to do--of telling her that I had lied, and thatI had left my maiden's modesty behind in my bedroom, gripped me atintervals like some appalling and exquisite instrument of torture. Andyet, ere Diaz had touched the piano with his broad white hand, I wascontent, I was rewarded, and I was justified. 

The programme began with Chopin's first Ballade. 

There was an imperative summons, briefly sustained, which developed intoan appeal and an invocation, ascending, falling, and still higherascending, till it faded and expired, and then, after a little pause, wasrevived; then silence, and two chords, defining and clarifying thevagueness of the appeal and the invocation. And then, almost before I wasaware of it, there stole forth from under the fingers of Diaz the song ofthe soul of man, timid, questioning, plaintive, neither sad nor joyous, but simply human, seeking what it might find on earth. The song changedsubtly from mood to mood, expressing that which nothing but itself couldexpress; and presently there was a low and gentle menace, thrice repeatedunder the melody of the song, and the reply of the song was a proud cry, a haughty contempt of these furtive warnings, and a sudden winged leapinto the empyrean towards the Eternal Spirit. And then the melody waslost in a depth, and the song became turgid and wild and wilder, hysteric, irresolute, frantically groping, until at last it found itspeace and its salvation. And the treasure was veiled in a mist ofarpeggios, but one by one these were torn away, and there was a hush, apause, and a preparation; and the soul of man broke into a new song ofwhat it had found on earth--the magic of the tenderness of love--an airso caressing and so sweet, so calmly happy and so mournfully sane, sobereft of illusions and so naïve, that it seemed to reveal in a fewmiraculous phrases the secret intentions of God. It was too beautiful; ittold me too much about myself; it vibrated my nerves to such anunbearable spasm of pleasure that I might have died had I not willed tolive. .. . It gave place momentarily to the song of the question and thesearch, but only to return, and to return again, with a more thrillingand glorious assurance. It was drowned in doubt, but it emergedtriumphantly, covered with noble and delicious ornaments, and swimmingstrongly on mysterious waves. And finally, with speed and with fire, itwas transformed and caught up into the last ecstasy, the ultimatepassion. The soul swept madly between earth and heaven, fell, rose; andthere was a dreadful halt. Then a loud blast, a distortion of the magic, an upward rush, another and a louder blast, and a thunderous fall, followed by two massive and terrifying chords. .. . 

Diaz was standing up and bowing to his public. What did they understand?Did they understand anything? I cannot tell. But I know that they felt. A shudder of feeling had gone through the hall. It was in vain thatpeople tried to emancipate themselves from the spell by the violence oftheir applause. They could not. We were all together under theenchantment. Some may have seen clearly, some darkly, but we were equalbefore the throne of that mighty enchanter. And the enchanter bowed andbowed with a grave, sympathetic smile, and then disappeared. I had notclapped my hands; I had not moved. Only my full eyes had followed him ashe left the platform; and when he returned--because the applause wouldnot cease--my eyes watched over him as he came back to the centre of theplatform. He stood directly in front of me, smiling more gaily now. Andsuddenly our glances met! Yes; I could not be mistaken. They met, andmine held his for several seconds. .. . Diaz had looked at me. Diaz hadsingled me out from the crowd. I blushed hotly, and I was conscious of asurpassing joy. My spirit was transfigured. I knew that such a man wasabove kings. I knew that the world and everything of loveliness that itcontained was his. I knew that he moved like a beautiful god through thegroves of delight, and that what he did was right, and whom he beckonedcame, and whom he touched was blessed. And my eyes had held his eyes fora little space. 

The enchantment deepened. I had read that the secret of playing Chopinhad died with Chopin; but I felt sure that evening, as I have felt suresince, that Chopin himself, aristocrat of the soul as he was, would havereceived Diaz as an equal, might even have acknowledged in him asuperior. For Diaz had a physique, and he had a mastery, a tyranny, ofthe keyboard that Chopin could not have possessed. Diaz had come to thefront in a generation of pianists who had lifted technique to a plane ofwhich neither Liszt nor Rubinstein dreamed. He had succeeded primarily byhis gigantic and incredible technique. And then, when his technique hadastounded the world, he had invited the world to forget it, as the glassis forgotten through which is seen beauty. And Diaz's gift was now suchthat there appeared to intervene nothing between his conception of themusic and the strings of the piano, so perfected was the mechanism. Difficulties had ceased to exist. 

The performance of some pianists is so wonderful that it seems as ifthey were crossing Niagara on a tight-rope, and you tremble lest theyshould fall off. It was not so with Diaz. When Diaz played youexperienced the pure emotions caused by the unblurred contemplation ofthat beauty which the great masters had created, and which Diaz hadtinted with the rare dyes of his personality. You forgot all but beauty. The piano was not a piano; it was an Arabian magic beyond physical laws, and it, too, had a soul. 

So Diaz laid upon us the enchantment of Chopin and of himself. Mazurkas, nocturnes, waltzes, scherzos, polonaises, preludes, he exhibited to us ingroups those manifestations of that supreme spirit--that spirit at oncestern and tender, not more sad than joyous, and always sane, alwaysperfectly balanced, always preoccupied with beauty. The singular myth ofa Chopin decadent, weary, erratic, mournful, hysterical, at odds withfate, was completely dissipated; and we perceived instead the graveartist nourished on Bach and studious in form, and the strong soul thathad dared to look on life as it is, and had found beauty everywhere. Ah!how the air trembled and glittered with visions! How melody and harmonyfilled every corner of the hall with the silver and gold of sound! Howthe world was changed out of recognition! How that which had seemedunreal became real, and that which had seemed real receded to a horizonremote and fantastic!. .. 

He was playing the fifteenth Prelude in D flat now, and the water wasdropping, dropping ceaselessly on the dead body, and the beautiful calmsong rose serenely in the dream, and then lost itself amid the presagingchords of some sinister fate, and came again, exquisite and fresh asever, and then was interrupted by a high note like a clarion; and whileDiaz held that imperious, compelling note, he turned his face slightlyfrom the piano and gazed at me. Several times since the first time oureyes had met, by accident as I thought. But this was a deliberate seekingon his part. Again I flushed hotly. Again I had the terrible shudder ofjoy. I feared for a moment lest all the Five Towns was staring at me, thus singled out by Diaz; but it was not so: I had the wit to perceivethat no one could remark me as the recipient of that hurried and burningglance. He had half a dozen bars to play, yet his eyes did not leavemine, and I would not let mine leave his. He remained moveless while thelast chord expired, and then it seemed to me that his gaze had gonefurther, had passed through me into some unknown. The applause startledhim to his feet. 

My thought was: 'What can he be thinking of me?. .. But hundreds of womenmust have loved him!'

In the interval an attendant came on to the platform and altered theposition of the piano. Everybody asked: 'What's that for?' For the newposition was quite an unusual one; it brought the tail of the pianonearer to the audience, and gave a better view of the keyboard to theoccupants of the seats in the orchestra behind the platform. 'It's aquestion of the acoustics, that's what it is, ' observed a man near me, and a woman replied: 'Oh, I see!'

When Diaz returned and seated himself to play the Berceuse, I saw that hecould look at me without turning his head. And now, instead of flushing, I went cold. My spine gave way suddenly. I began to be afraid; but ofwhat I was afraid I had not the least idea. I fixed my eyes on myprogramme as he launched into the Berceuse. Twice I glanced up, without, however, moving my head, and each time his burning blue eyes met mine. (But why did I choose moments when the playing of the piece demanded lessthan all his attention?) The Berceuse was a favourite. In sentiment itwas simpler than the great pieces that had preceded it. Its excessivedelicacy attracted; the finesse of its embroidery swayed and enrapturedthe audience; and the applause at the close was mad, deafening, andperemptory. But Diaz was notorious as a refuser of encores. It had beensaid that he would see a hall wrecked by an angry mob before he wouldenlarge his programme. Four times he came forward and acknowledged thetribute, and four times he went back. At the fifth response he halteddirectly in front of me, and in his bold, grave eyes I saw a question. Isaw it, and I would not answer. If he had spoken aloud to me I could nothave more clearly understood. But I would not answer. And then some powerwithin myself, hitherto unsuspected by me, some natural force, tookpossession of me, and I nodded my head. .. . Diaz went to the piano. 

He hesitated, brushing lightly the keys. 

'The Prelude in F sharp, ' my thought ran. 'If he would play that!'

And instantly he broke into that sweet air, with its fateful hushedaccompaniment--the trifle which Chopin threw off in a moment of hishighest inspiration. 

'It is the thirteenth Prelude, ' I reflected. I was disturbed, profoundly troubled. 

The next piece was the last, and it was the Fantasia, the masterpieceof Chopin. 

In the Fantasia there speaks the voice of a spirit which has attained allthat humanity may attain: of wisdom, of power, of pride and glory. Andnow it is like the roll of an army marching slowly through terrificdefiles; and now it is like the quiet song of royal wanderers meditatingin vast garden landscapes, with mossy masonry and long pools andcypresses, and a sapphire star shining in the purple sky on the shoulderof a cypress; and now it is like the cry of a lost traveller, who, plunging heavily through a virgin forest, comes suddenly upon a greencircular sward, smooth as a carpet, with an antique statue of a beautifulnude girl in the midst; and now it is like the oratory of richly-gownedphilosophers awaiting death in gorgeous and gloomy palaces; and now it islike the upward rush of winged things that are determined to achieve, knowing well the while that the ecstasy of longing is better than theassuaging of desire. And though the voice of this spirit speaking in themusic disguises itself so variously, it is always the same. For itcannot, and it would not, hide the strange and rare timbre whichdistinguishes it from all others--that quality which springs from a pureand calm vision, of life. The voice of this spirit says that it has lostevery illusion about life, and that life seems only the more beautiful. It says that activity is but another form of contemplation, pain butanother form of pleasure, power but another form of weakness, hate butanother form of love, and that it is well these things should be so. Itsays there is no end, only a means; and that the highest joy is tosuffer, and the supreme wisdom is to exist. If you will but live, itcries, that grave but yet passionate voice--if you will but live! Werethere a heaven, and you reached it, you could do no more than live. Thetrue heaven is here where you live, where you strive and lose, and weepand laugh. And the true hell is here, where you forget to live, and blindyour eyes to the omnipresent and terrible beauty of existence. .. . 

No, no; I cannot--I cannot describe further the experiences of my soulwhile Diaz played. When words cease, music has scarcely begun. I knownow--I did not know it then--that Diaz was playing as perhaps he hadnever played before. The very air was charged with exquisite emotion, which went in waves across the hall, changing and blanching faces, troubling hearts, and moistening eyes. .. . And then he finished. It wasover. In every trembling breast was a pang of regret that this spell, this miracle, this divine revolution, could not last into eternity. .. . He stood bowing, one hand touching the piano. And as the revolution hehad accomplished in us was divine, so was he divine. I felt, and manyanother woman in the audience felt, that no reward could be too great forthe beautiful and gifted creature who had entranced us and forced us tosee what alone in life was worth seeing: that the whole world should behis absolute dominion; that his happiness should be the first concern ofmankind; that if a thousand suffered in order to make him happy for amoment, it mattered not; that laws were not for him; that if he sinned, his sin must not be called a sin, and that he must be excused fromremorse and from any manner of woe. 

The applauding multitude stood up, and moved slightly towards the exits, and then stopped, as if ashamed of this readiness to desert the sacredtemple. Diaz came forward three times, and each time the applauseincreased to a tempest; but he only smiled--smiled gravely. I could notsee distinctly whether his eyes had sought mine, for mine were full oftears. No persuasions could induce him to show himself a fourth time, andat length a middle-aged man appeared and stated that Diaz was extremelygratified by his reception, but that he was also extremely exhausted andhad left the hall. 

We departed, we mortals; and I was among the last to leave theauditorium. As I left the lights were being extinguished over theplatform, and an attendant was closing the piano. The foyer was crowdedwith people waiting to get out. The word passed that it was rainingheavily. I wondered how I should find my cab. I felt very lonely andunknown; I was overcome with sadness--with a sense of the futility andfrustration of my life. Such is the logic of the soul, and such the forceof reaction. Gradually the foyer emptied. 

III

'You think I am happy, ' said Diaz, gazing at me with a smilesuddenly grave; 'but I am not. I seek something which I cannot find. And my playing is only a relief from the fruitless search; onlythat. I am forlorn. '

'You!' I exclaimed, and my eyes rested on his, long. 

Yes, we had met. Perhaps it had been inevitable since the beginning oftime that we should meet; but it was none the less amazing. Perhaps I hadinwardly known that we should meet; but, none the less, I was astoundedwhen a coated and muffled figure came up swiftly to me in the emptyingfoyer, and said: 'Ah! you are here! I cannot leave without thanking youfor your sympathy. I have never before felt such sympathy while playing. 'It was a golden voice, pitched low, and the words were uttered with avery slight foreign accent, which gave them piquancy. I could not reply;something rose in my throat, and the caressing voice continued: 'You arepale. Do you feel ill? What can I do? Come with me to the artists' room;my secretary is there. ' I put out a hand gropingly, for I could not seeclearly, and I thought I should reel and fall. It touched his shoulder. He took my arm, and we went; no one had noticed us, and I had not spokena word. In the room to which he guided me, through a long and sombrecorridor, there was no sign of a secretary. I drank some water. 'There, you are better!' he cried. 'Thank you, ' I said, but scarcely whispering. 'How fortunate I ventured to come to you just at that moment! You mighthave fallen'; and he smiled again. I shook my head. I said: 'It was yourcoming--that--that--made me dizzy!' 'I profoundly regret--' he began. 'No, no, ' I interrupted him; and in that instant I knew I was about tosay something which society would, justifiably, deem unpardonable in agirl situated as I was. 'I am so glad you came'; and I smiled, courageousand encouraging. For once in my life--for the first time in my adultlife--I determined to be my honest self to another. 'Your voice isexquisitely beautiful, ' he murmured. I thrilled. 

Of what use to chronicle the steps, now halting, now only too hasty, bywhich our intimacy progressed in that gaunt and echoing room? He asked meno questions as to my identity. He just said that he would like to playto me in private if that would give me pleasure, and that possibly Icould spare an hour and would go with him. .. . Afterwards his broughamwould be at my disposal. His tone was the perfection of deferentialcourtesy. Once the secretary came in--a young man rather likehimself--and they talked together in a foreign language that was notFrench nor German; then the secretary bowed and retired. .. . We werealone. .. . There can be no sort of doubt that unless I was prepared toflout the wisdom of the ages, I ought to have refused his suggestion. Butis not the wisdom of the ages a medicine for majorities? And, indeed, Iwas prepared to flout it, as in our highest and our lowest moments weoften are. Moreover, how many women in my place, confronted by thatdivine creature, wooed by that wondrous personality, intoxicated by thatsmile and that voice, allured by the appeal of those marvellous hands, would have found the strength to resist? I did not resist, I yielded; Iaccepted. I was already in disgrace with Aunt Constance--as well bedrowned in twelve feet of water as in six!

So we drove rapidly away in the brougham, through the miry, light-reflecting streets of Hanbridge in the direction of Knype. And theraindrops ran down the windows of the brougham, and in the cushionedinterior we could see each other darkly. He did his best to be at ease, and he almost succeeded. My feeling towards him, as regards the externalmanagement, the social guidance, of the affair, was as though we were atsea in a dangerous storm, and he was on the bridge and I was a merepassenger, and could take no responsibility. Who knew through whatdifficult channels we might not have to steer, and from what lee-shoreswe might not have to beat away? I saw that he perceived this. When Ioffered him some awkward compliment about his good English, he seized thechance of a narrative, and told me about his parentage: how his motherwas Scotch, and his father Danish, and how, after his father's death, hismother had married Emilio Diaz, a Spanish teacher of music in Edinburgh, and how he had taken, by force of early habit, the name of hisstepfather. The whole world was familiar with these facts, and I wasfamiliar with them; but their recital served our turn in the brougham, and, of course, Diaz could add touches which had escaped the_Staffordshire Recorder_, and perhaps all other papers. He was explainingto me that his secretary was his stepfather's son by another wife, whenwe arrived at the Five Towns Hotel, opposite Knype Railway Station. Imight have foreseen that that would be our destination. I hooded myselfas well as I could, and followed him quickly to the first-floor. I sankdown into a chair nearly breathless in his sitting-room, and he took mycloak, and then poked the bright fire that was burning. On a small tablewere some glasses and a decanter, and a few sandwiches. I surmised thatthe secretary had been before us and arranged things, and discreetlydeparted. My adventure appeared to me suddenly and over-poweringly in itsfull enormity. 'Oh, ' I sighed, 'if I were a man like you!' Then it wasthat, gazing up at me from the fire, Diaz had said that he was not happy, that he was forlorn. 

'Yes, ' he proceeded, sitting down and crossing his legs; 'I am profoundlydissatisfied. What is my life? Eight or nine months in the year it is ahomeless life of hotels and strange faces and strange pianos. You do notknow how I hate a strange piano. That one'--he pointed to a hugeinstrument which had evidently been placed in the room specially forhim--'is not very bad; but I made its acquaintance only yesterday, andafter to-morrow I shall never see it again. I wander across the world, and everybody I meet looks at me as if I ought to be in a museum, andbids me make acquaintance with a strange piano. '

'But have you no friends?' I ventured. 

'Who can tell?' he replied. 'If I have, I scarcely ever see them. '

'And no home?'

'I have a home on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, and Iloathe it. '

'Why do you loathe it?'

'Ah! For what it has witnessed--for what it has witnessed. ' He sighed. 'Suppose we discuss something else. '

You must remember my youth, my inexperience, my lack of adroitness insocial intercourse. I talked quietly and slowly, like my aunt, and I knowthat I had a tremendous air of sagacity and self-possession; but beneaththat my brain and heart were whirling, bewildered in a delicious, dazzling haze of novel sensations. It was not I who spoke, but a newbeing, excessively perturbed into a consciousness of new powers. I said:

'You say you are friendless, but I wonder how many women are dying forlove of you. '

He started. There was a pause. I felt myself blushing. 

'Let me guess at your history, ' he said. 'You have lived much alone withyour thoughts, and you have read a great deal of the finest romanticpoetry, and you have been silent, especially with men. You have seenlittle of men. '

'But I understand them, ' I answered boldly. 

'I believe you do, ' he admitted; and he laughed. 'So I needn't explain toyou that a thousand women dying of love for one man will not help thatman to happiness, unless he is dying of love for the thousand and first. '

'And have you never loved?'

The words came of themselves out of my mouth. 

'I have deceived myself--in my quest of sympathy, ' he said. 

'Can you be sure that, in your quest of sympathy, you are not deceivingyourself tonight?'

'Yes, ' he cried quickly, 'I can. ' And he sprang up and almost ran to thepiano. 'You remember the D flat Prelude?' he said, breaking into thelatter part of the air, and looking at me the while. 'When I came to thatnote and caught your gaze'--he struck the B flat and held it--'I knewthat I had found sympathy. I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! Do youremember?'

'Remember what?'

'The way we looked at each other. '

'Yes, ' I breathed, 'I remember. '

'How can I thank you? How can I thank you?'

He seemed to be meditating. His simplicity, his humility, his kindlinesswere more than I could bear. 

'Please do not speak like that, ' I entreated him, pained. 'You are thegreatest artist in the world, and I am nobody--nobody at all. I do notknow why I am here. I cannot imagine what you have seen in me. Everythingis a mystery. All I feel is that I am in your presence, and that I am notworthy to be. No matter how long I live, I shall never experience againthe joy that I have now. But if you talk about thanking me, I must runaway, because I cannot stand it--and--and--you haven't played for me, andyou said you would. '

He approached me, and bent his head towards mine, and I glanced upthrough a mist and saw his eyes and the short, curly auburn locks onhis forehead. 

'The most beautiful things, and the most vital things, and the mostlasting things, ' he said softly, 'are often mysterious and inexplicableand sudden. And let me tell you that you do not know how lovely you are. You do not know the magic of your voice, nor the grace of your gestures. But time and man will teach you. What shall I play?'

He was very close to me. 

'Bach, ' I ejaculated, pointing impatiently to the piano. 

I fancied that Bach would spread peace abroad in my soul. 

He resumed his place at the piano, and touched the keys. 

'Another thing that makes me more sure that I am not deceiving myselfto-night, ' he said, taking his fingers off the keys, but staring at thekeyboard, 'is that you have not regretted coming here. You have notcalled yourself a wicked woman. You have not even accused me of takingadvantage of your innocence. '

And ere I could say a word he had begun the Chromatic Fantasia, smiling faintly. 

And I had hoped for peace from Bach! I had often suspected that deeppassion was concealed almost everywhere within the restraint and theapparent calm of Bach's music, but the full force of it had not beenshown to me till this glorious night. Diaz' playing was tenfold moreimpressive, more effective, more revealing in the hotel parlour than inthe great hall. The Chromatic Fantasia seemed as full of the magnificenceof life as that other Fantasia which he had given an hour or so earlier. Instead of peace I had the whirlwind; instead of tranquillity a riot;instead of the poppy an alarming potion. The rendering was masterly tothe extreme of masterliness. 

When he had finished I rose and passed to the fireplace in silence; hedid not stir. 

'Do you always play like that?' I asked at length. 

'No, ' he said; 'only when you are there. I have never played the ChopinFantasia as I played it to-night. The Chopin was all right; but do notbe under any illusion: what you have just heard is Bach played by aChopin player. '

Then he left the piano and went to the small table where theglasses were. 

'You must be in need of refreshment, ' he whispered gaily. 'Nothing ismore exhausting than listening to the finest music. '

'It is you who ought to be tired, ' I replied; 'after that long concert, to be playing now. '

'I have the physique of a camel, ' he said. 'I am never tired so long as Iam sure of my listeners. I would play for you till breakfast to-morrow. '

The decanter contained a fluid of a pleasant green tint. He poured verycarefully this fluid to the depth of half an inch in one glass andthree-quarters of an inch in another glass. Then he filled both glassesto the brim with water, accomplishing the feat with infinite pains andenjoyment, as though it had been part of a ritual. 

'There!' he said, offering me in his steady hand the glass which hadreceived the smaller quantity of the green fluid. 'Taste. '

'But what is it?' I demanded. 

'Taste, ' he repeated, and he himself tasted. 

I obeyed. At the first mouthful I thought the liquid was somewhatsinister and disagreeable, but immediately afterwards I changed myopinion, and found it ingratiating, enticing, and stimulating, and yetnot strong. 

'Do you like it?' he asked. 

I nodded, and drank again. 

'It is wonderful, ' I answered. 'What do you call it?'

'Men call it absinthe, ' he said. 

'But--'

I put the glass on the mantelpiece and picked it up again. 

'Don't be frightened, ' he soothed me. 'I know what you were going tosay. You have always heard that absinthe is the deadliest of all poisons, that it is the curse of Paris, and that it makes the most terrible of alldrunkards. So it is; so it does. But not as we are drinking it; not as Iinvariably drink it. '

'Of course, ' I said, proudly confident in him. 'You would not haveoffered it to me otherwise. '

'Of course I should not, ' he agreed. 'I give you my word that a few dropsof absinthe in a tumbler of water make the most effective and the leastharmful stimulant in the world. '

'I am sure of it, ' I said. 

'But drink slowly, ' he advised me. 

I refused the sandwiches. I had no need of them. I felt sufficient untomyself. I no longer had any apprehension. My body, my brain, and my soulseemed to be at the highest pitch of efficiency. The fear of beingmaladroit departed from me. Ideas--delicate and subtle ideas--welled upin me one after another; I was bound to give utterance to them. I beganto talk about my idol Chopin, and I explained to Diaz my esotericinterpretation of the Fantasia. He was sitting down now, but I stillstood by the fire. 

'Yes, he said, 'that is very interesting. '

'What does the Fantasia mean to you?' I asked him. 

'Nothing, ' he said. 

'Nothing!'

'Nothing, in the sense you wish to convey. Everything, in another sense. You can attach any ideas you please to music, but music, if you willforgive me saying so, rejects them all equally. Art has to do withemotions, not with ideas, and the great defect of literature is that itcan only express emotions by means of ideas. What makes music thegreatest of all the arts is that it can express emotions without ideas. Literature can appeal to the soul only through the mind. Music goesdirect. Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, butwhich the soul can never translate. Therefore all I can say of theFantasia is that it moves me profoundly. I _know how_ it moves me, but Icannot tell you; I cannot even tell myself. '

Vistas of comprehension opened out before me. 

'Oh, do go on, ' I entreated him. 'Tell me more about music. Do you notthink Chopin the greatest composer that ever lived? You must do, sinceyou always play him. '

He smiled. 

'No, ' he said, 'I do not. For me there is no supremacy in art. Whenfifty artists have contrived to be supreme, supremacy becomesimpossible. Take a little song by Grieg. It is perfect, it is supreme. No one could be greater than Grieg was great when he wrote that song. The whole last act of _The Twilight of the Gods_ is not greater than alittle song of Grieg's. '

'I see, ' I murmured humbly. '_The Twilight of the Gods_--that is Wagner, isn't it?'

'Yes. Don't you know your Wagner?'

'No. I--'

'You don't know _Tristan_?'

He jumped up, excited. 

'How could I know it?' I expostulated. 'I have never seen any opera. Iknow the marches from _Tannhäuser_ and _Lohengrin_, and "O Star of Eve!"'

'But it is impossible that you don't know _Tristan_!' he exclaimed. 'Thesecond act of _Tristan_ is the greatest piece of love-music--No, itisn't. ' He laughed. 'I must not contradict myself. But it ismarvellous--marvellous! You know the story?'

'Yes, ' I said. 'Play me some of it. '

'I will play the Prelude, ' he answered. 

I gulped down the remaining drops in my glass and crossed the room to achair where I could see his face. And he played the Prelude to the mostpassionately voluptuous opera ever written. It was my first realintroduction to Wagner, my first glimpse of that enchanted field. I wasravished, rapt away. 

'Wagner was a great artist in spite of himself, ' said Diaz, when he hadfinished. 'He assigned definite and precise ideas to all those melodies. Nothing could be more futile. I shall not label them for you. But perhapsyou can guess the love-motive for yourself. '

'Yes, I can, ' I said positively. 'It is this. '

I tried to hum the theme, but my voice refused obedience. So I came tothe piano, and played the theme high up in the treble, while Diaz wasstill sitting on the piano-stool. I trembled even to touch the piano inhis presence; but I did it. 

'You have guessed right, ' he said; and then he asked me in a casual tone:'Do you ever play pianoforte duets?'

'Often, ' I replied unsuspectingly, 'with my aunt. We play the symphoniesof Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and overtures, and so on. '

'Awfully good fun, isn't it?' he smiled. 

'Splendid!' I said. 

'I've got _Tristan_ here arranged for pianoforte duet, ' he said. 'Tony, my secretary, enjoys playing it. You shall play part of thesecond act with me. '

'Me! With you!'

'Certainly. '

'Impossible! I should never dare! How do you know I can play at all?'

'You have just proved it to me, ' said he. 'Come; you will notrefuse me this!'

I wanted to leave the vicinity of the piano. I felt that, once out of theimmediate circle of his tremendous physical influence, I might manage toescape the ordeal which he had suggested. But I could not go away. Thesilken nets of his personality had been cast, and I was enmeshed. And ifI was happy, it was with a dreadful happiness. 

'But, really, I can't play with you, ' I said weakly. 

His response was merely to look up at me over his shoulder. His beautifulface was so close to mine, and it expressed such a naïve and strongyearning for my active and intimate sympathy, and such divine frankness, and such perfect kindliness, that I had no more will to resist. I knew Ishould suffer horribly in spoiling by my coarse amateurishness themiraculous finesse of his performance, but I resigned myself tosuffering. I felt towards him as I had felt during the concert: that hemust have his way at no matter what cost, that he had already earned theinfinite gratitude of the entire world--in short, I raised him in my soulto a god's throne; and I accepted humbly the great, the incredible honourhe did me. And I was right--a thousand times right. 

And in the same moment he was like a charming child to me: such is alwaysin some wise the relation between the creature born to enjoy and thecreature born to suffer. 

'I'll try, ' I said; 'but it will be appalling. '

I laughed and shook my head. 

'We shall see how appalling it will be, ' he murmured, as he got thevolume of music. 

He fetched a chair for me, and we sat down side by side, he on the stooland I on the chair. 

'I'm afraid my chair is too low, ' I said. 

'And I'm sure this stool is too high, ' he said. 'Suppose we exchange. '

So we both rose to change the positions of the chair and the stool, andour garments touched and almost our faces, and at that very moment therewas a loud rap at the door. 

I darted away from him. 

'What's that?' I cried, low in a fit of terror. 

'Who's there?' he called quietly; but he did not stir. 

We gazed at each other. 

The knock was repeated, sharply and firmly. 

'Who's there?' Diaz demanded again. 

'Go to the door, ' I whispered. 

He hesitated, and then we heard footsteps receding down the corridor. Diaz went slowly to the door, opened it wide, slipped out into thecorridor, and looked into the darkness. 

'Curious!' he commented tranquilly. 'I see no one. '

He came back into the room and shut the door softly, and seemed therebyto shut us in, to enclose us against the world in a sweet domesticity ofour own. The fire was burning brightly, the glasses and the decanter onthe small table spoke of cheer, the curtains were drawn, and through ahalf-open door behind the piano one had a hint of a mysterious otherroom; one could see nothing within it save a large brass knob or ball, which caught the light of the candle on the piano. 

'You were startled, ' he said. 'You must have a little more of ourcordial--just a spoonful. '

He poured out for me an infinitesimal quantity, and the same for himself. 

I sighed with relief as I drank. My terror left me. But the triflingincident had given me the clearest perception of what I was doing, andthat did not leave me. 

We sat down a second time to the piano. 

'You understand, ' he explained, staring absently at the double page ofmusic, 'this is the garden scene. When the curtain goes up it is dark inthe garden, and Isolda is there with her maid Brangaena. The king, herhusband, has just gone off hunting--you will hear the horns dying in thedistance--and Isolda is expecting her lover, Tristan. A torch is burningin the wall of the castle, and as soon as she gives him the signal byextinguishing it he comes to her. You will know the exact moment whenthey meet. Then there is the love-scene. Oh! when we arrive at that youwill be astounded. You will hear the very heart-beats of the lovers. Areyou ready?'

'Yes. '

We began to play. But it was ridiculous. I knew it would be ridiculous. I was too dazed, and artistically too intimidated, to read the notes. The notes danced and pranced before me. All I could see on my page wasthe big black letters at the top, 'Zweiter Aufzug. ' And furthermore, onthat first page both the theme and the accompaniment were in the bass ofthe piano. Diaz had scarcely anything to do. I threw up my hands andclosed my eyes. 

'I can't, ' I whispered, 'I can't. I would if I could. '

He gently took my hand. 

'My dear companion, ' he said, 'tell me your name. '

I was surprised. Memories of the Bible, for some inexplicable reason, flashed through my mind. 

'Magdalen, ' I replied, and my voice was so deceptively quiet and sincerethat he believed it. 

I could see that he was taken aback. 

'It is a holy name and a good name, ' he said, after a pause. 'Magda, youare perfectly capable of reading this music with me, and you will readit, won't you? Let us begin afresh. Leave the accompaniment with me, andplay the theme only. Further on it gets easier. '

And in another moment we were launched on that sea so strange to me. Theinfluence of Diaz over me was complete. Inspired by his will, I hadresolved intensely to read the music correctly and sympathetically, andlo! I was succeeding! He turned the page with the incredible rapidity anddexterity of which only great pianists seem to have the secret, and inconjunction with my air in the bass he was suddenly, magically, drawingout from the upper notes the sweetest and most intoxicating melody I hadever heard. The exceeding beauty of the thing laid hold on me, and Iabandoned myself to it. I felt sure now that, at any rate, I should notdisgrace myself. '

'Unless it was Chopin, ' whispered Diaz. 'No one could ever see two thingsat once as well as Wagner. '

We surged on through the second page. Again the lightning turn of thepage, and then the hunters' horns were heard departing from the garden oflove, receding, receding, until they subsided into a scarce-heard drone, out of which rose another air. And as the sound of the horns died away, so died away all my past and all my solicitudes for the future. Isurrendered utterly and passionately to the spell of the beauty which wewere opening like a long scroll. I had ceased to suffer. 

The absinthe and Diaz had conjured a spirit in me which was at oncefeverish and calm. I was reading at sight difficult music full ofmodulations and of colour, and I was reading it with calm assurance ofheart and brain. Deeper down the fever raged, but so separately that Imight have had two individualities. Enchanted as I was by the rich andcomplex concourse of melodies which ascended from the piano and swamabout our heads, this fluctuating tempest of sound was after all only abackground for the emotions to which it gave birth in me. Naturally theywere the emotions of love--the sense of the splendour of love, theheadlong passion of love, the transcendent carelessness of love, thefinality of love. I saw in love the sole and sacred purpose of theuniverse, and my heart whispered, with a new import: 'Where love is, there is God also. '

The fever of the music increased, and with it my fever. We seemed to beapproaching some mighty climax. I thought I might faint with ecstasy, but I held on, and the climax arrived--a climax which touched thelimits of expression in expressing all that two souls could feel incoming together. 

'Tristan has come into the garden, ' I muttered. 

And Diaz, turning his face towards me, nodded. 

We plunged forward into the love-scene itself--the scene in which themiracle of love is solemnized and celebrated. I thought that of allmiracles, the miracle which had occurred that night, and was even thenoccurring, might be counted among the most wondrous. What occult forces, what secret influences of soul on soul, what courage on his part, whatsublime immodesty and unworldliness on mine had brought it about! Inwhat dreadful disaster would it not end! . .. I cared not in thatmarvellous hectic hour how it would end. I knew I had been blessed beyondthe common lot of women. I knew that I was living more intensely and morefully than I could have hoped to live. I knew that my experience was asupreme experience, and that another such could not be contained in mylife. .. . And Diaz was so close, so at one with me. .. . A hush descended onthe music, and I found myself playing strange disturbing chords with theleft hand, irregularly repeated, opposing the normal accent of the bar, and becoming stranger and more disturbing. And Diaz was playing an airfragmentary and poignant. The lovers were waiting; the very atmosphere ofthe garden was drenched with an agonizing and exquisite anticipation. Thewhole world stood still, expectant, while the strange chords foughtgently and persistently against the rhythm. 

'Hear the beating of their hearts, ' Diaz' whisper floated over thechords. 

It was too much. The obsession of his presence, reinforced by thevibrating of his wistful, sensuous voice, overcame me suddenly. My handsfell from the keyboard. He looked at me--and with what a glance!

'I can bear no more, ' I cried wildly. 'It is too beautiful, toobeautiful!'

And I rushed from the piano, and sat down in an easy-chair, and hid myface in my hands. 

He came to me, and bent over me. 

'Magda, ' he whispered, 'show me your face. ' With his hands he delicatelypersuaded my hands away from my face, and forced me to look on him. 'Howdark and splendid you are, Magda!' he said, still holding my hands. 'Howhumid and flashing your eyes! And those eyelashes, and that hair--dark, dark! And that bosom, with its rise and fall! And that low, rich voice, that is like dark wine! And that dress--dark, and full of mysteriousshadows, like our souls! Magda, we must have known each other in aprevious life. There can be no other explanation. And this moment is thefulfilment of that other life, which was not aroused. You were to bemine. You are mine, Magda!'

There is a fatalism in love. I felt it then. I had been called by destinyto give happiness, perhaps for a lifetime, but perhaps only for a briefinstant, to this noble and glorious creature, on whom the gods hadshowered all gifts. Could I shrink back from my fate? And had he notalready given me far more than I could ever return? The conventions ofsociety seemed then like sand, foolishly raised to imprison theresistless tide of ocean. Nature, after all, is eternal and unchangeable, and everywhere the same. The great and solemn fact for me was that wewere together, and he held me while our burning pulses throbbed incontact. He held me; he clasped me, and, despite my innocence, I knew atonce that those hands were as expert to caress as to make music. I wasproud and glad that he was not clumsy, that he was a master. And at thatpoint I ceased to have volition. .. . 

IV

When I woke up, perplexed at first, but gradually remembering where Iwas, and what had occurred to me, the realistic and uncompromising lightof dawn had commenced its pitiless inquiry, and it fell on the brassknob, which I had noticed a few hours before, from the other room, andon another brass knob a few feet away. My eyes smarted; I haddisconcerting sensations at the back of my head; my hair was brittle, and as though charged with a dull electricity; I was conscious of actualpain, and an incubus, crushing but intangible, lay heavily, like aphysical weight, on my heart. After the crest of the wave the trough--itmust be so; but how profound the instinct which complains! I listened. Icould hear his faint, regular breathing. I raised myself carefully onone elbow and looked at him. He was as beautiful in sleep as inconsciousness; his lips were slightly parted, his cheek exquisitelyflushed, and nothing could disarrange that short, curly hair. He sleptwith the calmness of the natural innocent man, to whom the assuaging ofdesires brings only content. 

I felt that I must go, and hastily, frantically. I could not face himwhen he woke; I should not have known what to say; I should have beenabashed, timid, clumsy, unequal to myself. And, moreover, I had theegoist's deep need to be alone, to examine my soul, to understand itintimately and utterly. And, lastly, I wanted to pay the bill of pleasureat once. I could never tolerate credit; I was like my aunt in that. Therefore, I must go home and settle the account in some way. I knew nothow; I knew only that the thing must be done. Diaz had nothing to do withthat; it was not his affair, and I should have resented his interference. Ah! when I was in the bill-paying mood, how hard I could be, how stony, how blind! And that morning I was like a Malay running amok. 

Think not that when I was ready to depart I stopped and stooped to givehim a final tender kiss. I did not even scribble a word of adieu or ofexplanation. I stole away on tiptoe, without looking at him. This soundsbrutal, but it is a truth of my life, and I am writing my life--atleast, I am writing those brief hours of my existence during which Ilived. I had always a sort of fierce courage; and as I had proved thecourage of my passion in the night, so I proved the courage of my--notmy remorse, not my compunction, not my regret--but of my intellectualhonesty in the morning. Proud and vain words, perhaps. Who can tell? Nomatter what sympathies I alienate, I am bound to say plainly that, though I am passionate, I am not sentimental. I came to him out of thevoid, and I went from him into the void. He found me, and he lost me. Between the autumn sunset and the autumn sunrise he had learnt to knowme well, but he did not know my name nor my history; he had no clue, nocord to pull me back. 

I passed into the sitting-room, dimly lighted through the drawn curtains, and there was the score of _Tristan_ open on the piano. Yes; and if Iwere the ordinary woman I would add that there also were the ashes in thecold grate, and so symbolize the bitterness of memory and bring about apang. But I have never regretted what is past. The cinders of that firewere to me cinders of a fire and nothing more. 

In the doorway I halted. To go into the corridor was like braving theblast of the world, and I hesitated. Possibly I hesitated for a verylittle thing. Only the women among you will guess it. My dress was darkand severe. I had a simple, dark cloak. But I had no hat. I had no hat, and the most important fact in the universe for me then was that I had nohat. My whole life was changed; my heart and mind were in the throes of arevolution. I dared not imagine what would happen between my aunt and me;but this deficiency in my attire distressed me more than all else. At theother end of the obscure corridor was a chambermaid kneeling down andwashing the linoleum. Ah, maid! Would I not have exchanged fates withyou, then! I walked boldly up to her. She seemed to be surprised, but shecontinued to wring out a cloth in her pail as she looked at me. 

'What time is it, please?' I asked her. 

'Better than half-past six, ma'am, ' said she. 

She was young and emaciated. 

'Have you got a hat you can lend me? Or I'll buy it from you. '

'A hat, ma'am?'

'Yes, a hat, ' I repeated impatiently. And I flushed. 'I must go out atonce, and I've--I've no hat And I can't--'

It is extraordinary how in a crisis one's organism surprises one. I hadthought I was calm and full of self-control, but I had almost no commandover my voice. 

'I've got a boat-shaped straw, ma'am, if that's any use to you, ' said thegirl kindly. 

What she surmised or what she knew I could not say. But I have found outsince in my travels, that hotel chambermaids lose their illusions early. At any rate her tone was kindly. 

'Get it me, there's a good girl, ' I entreated her. 

And when she brought it, I drew out the imitation pearl pins and put thembetween my teeth, and jammed the hat on my head and skewered it savagelywith the pins. 

'Is that right?'

'It suits you better than it does me, ma'am, I do declare, ' she said. 'Oh, ma'am, this is too much--I really couldn't!'

I had given her five shillings. 

'Nonsense! I am very much obliged to you, ' I whispered hurriedly, and ran off. 

She was a good girl. I hope she has never suffered. And yet I wouldnot like to think she had died of consumption before she knew whatlife meant. 

I hastened from the hotel. A man in a blue waistcoat with shining blacksleeves was moving a large cocoa-nut mat in the hall, and the pattern ofthe mat was shown in dust on the tiles where the mat had been. He glancedat me absently as I flitted past; I encountered no other person. Thesquare between the hotel and the station was bathed in puresunshine--such sunshine as reaches the Five Towns only after a rain-stormhas washed the soot out of the air. I felt, for a moment, obscene in thatsunshine; but I had another and a stronger feeling. Although there wasnot a soul in the square, I felt as if I was regarding the world andmankind with different eyes from those of yesterday. Then I knew nothing;to-day I knew everything--so it seemed to me. It seemed to me that Iunderstood all sorts of vague, subtle things that I had not understoodbefore; that I had been blind and now saw; that I had become kinder, moresympathetic, more human. What these things were that I understood, orthought I understood, I could not have explained. All I felt was that aradical change of attitude had occurred in me. 'Poor world!

Poor humanity! My heart melts for you!' Thus spoke my soul, pouringitself out. The very stone facings of the station and the hotel seemedsomehow to be humanized and to need my compassion. 

I walked with eyes downcast into the station. I had determined to takethe train from Knype to Shawport, a distance of three miles, and then towalk up the hill from Shawport through Oldcastle Street to Bursley. Ihoped that by such a route at such an hour, I should be unlikely to meetacquaintances, of whom, in any case, I had few. My hopes appeared to bewell founded, for the large booking-hall at the station was thronged witha multitude entirely strange to me--workmen and workwomen and workgirlscrowded the place. The first-class and second-class booking-windows wereshut, and a long tail of muscular men, pale men, stout women, and thinwomen pushed to take tickets at the other window. I was obliged to jointhem, and to wait my turn amid the odour of corduroy and shawl, and thestrong odour of humanity; my nostrils were peculiarly sensitive thatmorning. Some of the men had herculean arms and necks, and it was thesewho wore pieces of string tied round their trousers below the knee, disclosing the lines of their formidable calves. The women were mostlypallid and quiet. All carried cans, or satchels, or baskets; here andthere a man swung lightly on his shoulder a huge bag of tools, which Icould scarcely have raised from the ground. Everybody was natural, direct, and eager; and no one attempted to be genteel or refined; no onepretended that he did not toil with his hands for dear life. Ianticipated that I should excite curiosity, but I did not. The people hada preoccupied, hurried air. Only at the window itself, when theticket-clerk, having made me repeat my demand, went to a distant part ofhis lair to get my ticket, did I detect behind me a wave of impatient andinimical interest in this drone who caused delay to busy people. 

It was the same on the up-platform, the same in the subway, and the sameon the down-platform. I was plunged in a sea of real, raw life; but Icould not mingle with it; I was a bit of manufactured lace on that fulltide of nature. The porters cried in a different tone from what theyemployed when the London and Manchester expresses, and the polite trainsgenerally, were alongside. They cried fraternally, rudely; they were atone with the passengers. I alone was a stranger. 

'These are the folk! These are the basis of society, and the fountain of_our_ wealth and luxury!' I thought; for I was just beginning, at thatperiod, to be interested in the disquieting aspects of the socialorganism, and my ideas were hot and crude. I was aware of these people onpaper, but now, for the first time, I realized the immense rush and sweepof their existence, their nearness to Nature, their formidabledirectness. They frightened me with their vivid humanity. 

I could find no first-class carriage on the train, and I got into acompartment where there were several girls and one young man. The girlswere evidently employed in the earthenware manufacture. Each had herdinner-basket. Most of them were extremely neat; one or two wore gloves. From the young man's soiled white jacket under his black coat, Igathered that he was an engineer. The train moved out of the station andleft the platform nearly empty. I pictured the train, a long processionof compartments like ours, full of rough, natural, ungenteel people. None of my companions spoke; none gave me more than a passing glance. Itwas uncanny. 

Still, the fundamental, cardinal quality of my adventure remainedprominent in my being, and it gave me countenance among these taciturn, musing workgirls, who were always at grips with the realities of life. 'Ah, ' I thought, 'you little know what I know! I may appear a butterfly, but I have learnt the secret meaning of existence. I am above you, beyondyou, by my experience, and by my terrible situation, and by the turmoilin my heart!' And then, quite suddenly, I reflected that they probablyknew all that I knew, that some of them might have forgotten more than Ihad ever learnt. I remembered an absorbing correspondence about themanners of the Five Towns in the columns of the _StaffordshireRecorder_--a correspondence which had driven Aunt Constance to concealthe paper after the second week. I guessed that they might smile at thesimplicity of my heart could they see it. Meaning of existence! Why, theywere reared in it! The naturalness of natural people and of natural actsstruck me like a blow, and I withdrew, whipped, into myself. My adventuregrew smaller. But I recalled its ecstasies. I dwelt on the romanticperfection of Diaz. It seemed to me amazing, incredible, that Diaz, theglorious and incomparable Diaz, had loved me--_me_! out of all theardent, worshipping women that the world contained. I wondered if he hadwakened up, and I felt sorry for him. So far, I had not decided how soon, if at all, I should communicate with him. My mind was incapable ofreaching past the next few hours--the next hour. 

We stopped at a station surrounded by the evidences of that tireless, unceasing, and tremendous manufacturing industry which distinguishes theFive Towns, and I was left alone in the compartment. The train rumbled onthrough a landscape of fiery furnaces, and burning slag-heaps, and foulcanals reflecting great smoking chimneys, all steeped in the mildsunshine. Could the toil-worn agents of this never-ending and giganticproductiveness find time for love? Perhaps they loved quickly and forgot, like animals. Thoughts such as these lurked sinister and carnal, strangebeasts in the jungle of my poor brain. Then the train arrived atShawport, and I was obliged to get out. I say 'obliged, ' because Iviolently wished not to get out. I wished to travel on in that train tosome impossible place, where things were arranged differently. 

The station clock showed only five minutes to seven. I was astounded. Itseemed to me that all the real world had been astir and busy for hours. And this extraordinary activity went on every morning while AuntConstance and I lay in our beds and thought well of ourselves. 

I shivered, and walked quickly up the street. I had positively notnoticed that I was cold. I had scarcely left the station before FredRyley appeared in front of me. I saw that his face was swollen. Myheart stopped. Of course, he would tell Ethel. .. . He passed mesheepishly without stopping, merely raising his hat, and murmuring thesingular words:

'We're both very, very sorry. '

What in the name of Heaven could they possibly know, he and Ethel? Andwhat right had he to . .. ? Did he smile furtively? Fred Ryley hadsometimes a strange smile. I reddened, angry and frightened. 

The distance between the station and our house proved horribly short. Andwhen I arrived in front of the green gates, and put my hand on the latch, I knew that I had formed no plan whatever. I opened the right-hand gateand entered the garden. The blinds were still down, and the house lookedso decorous and innocent in its age. My poor aunt! What a night she musthave been through! It was inconceivable that I should tell her what hadhappened to me. Indeed, under the windows of that house it seemedinconceivable that the thing had happened which had happened. Inconceivable! Grotesque! Monstrous!

But could I lie? Could I rise to the height of some sufficient andkindly lie?

A hand drew slightly aside the blind of the window over the porch. Isighed, and went wearily, in my boat-shaped straw, up the gravelled pathto the door. 

Rebecca met me at the door. It was so early that she had not yet put onan apron. She looked tired, as if she had not slept. 

'Come in, miss, ' she said weakly, holding open the door. 

It seemed to me that I did not need this invitation from a servant. 

'I suppose you've all been fearfully upset, wondering where I was, ' Ibegan, entering the hall. 

My adventure appeared fantastically unreal to me in the presence of thisbuxom creature, whom I knew to be incapable of imagining anything onehundredth part so dreadful. 

'No, miss; I wasn't upset on account of you. You're always so sensiblelike. You always know what to do. I knew as you must have stopped thenight with friends in Hanbridge on account of the heavy rain, and perhapsthat there silly cabman not turning up, and them tramcars all crowded;and, of course, you couldn't telegraph. '

This view that I was specially sagacious and equal to emergencies rathersurprised me. 

'But auntie?' I demanded, trembling. 

'Oh, miss!' cried Rebecca, glancing timidly over her shoulder, 'I wantyou to come with me into the dining-room before you go upstairs. '

She snuffled. 

In the dining-room I went at once to the window to draw up the blinds. 

'Not that, not that!' Rebecca appealed, weeping. 'For pity's sake!' Andshe caught my hand. 

I then noticed that Lucy was standing in the doorway, also weeping. Rebecca noticed this too. 

'Lucy, you go to your kitchen this minute, ' she said sharply, and thenturned to me and began to cry again. 'Miss Peel--how can I tell you?'

'Why do you call me Miss Peel?' I asked her. 

But I knew why. The thing flashed over me instantly. My dear aunt wasdead. 

'You've got no aunt, ' said Rebecca. 'My poor dear! And you at theconcert!'

I dropped my head and my bosom on the bare mahogany table and cried. Never before, and never since, have I spilt such tears--hot, painfuldrops, distilled plenteously from a heart too crushed and torn. 

'There, there!' muttered Rebecca. 'I wish I could have told youdifferent--less cruel; but it wasn't in me to do it. '

'And she's lying upstairs this very moment all cold and stiff, ' a wailingvoice broke in. 

It was Lucy, who could not keep herself away from us. 

'Will you go to your kitchen, my girl!'

Rebecca drove her off. 'And the poor thing's not stiff either. Her poorbody's as soft as if she was only asleep, and doctor says it will be fora day or two. It's like that when they're took off like that, he says. Oh, Miss Carlotta--'

'Tell me all about it before I go upstairs, ' I said. 

I had recovered. 

'Your poor aunt went to bed just as soon as you were gone, miss, ' saidRebecca. 'She would have it she was quite well, only tired. I took her upa cup of cocoa at ten o'clock, and she seemed all right, and then I sendsLucy to bed, and I sits up in the kitchen to wait for you. Not a soundfrom your poor aunt. I must have dropped asleep, miss, in my chair, and Iwoke up with a start like, and the kitchen clock was near on one. ThinksI, perhaps Miss Carlotta's been knocking and ringing all this time and menot heard, and I rushes to the front door. But of course you weren'tthere. The porch was nothing but a pool o' water. I says to myself she'sstopping somewhere, I says. And I felt it was my duty to go and tell youraunt, whether she was asleep or whether she wasn't asleep. .. . Well, andthere she was, miss, with her eyes closed, and as soft as a child. Ispoke to her, loud, more than once. "Miss Carlotta a'n't come, " I says. "Miss Carlotta a'n't come, ma'am, " I says. She never stirred. Thinks I, this is queer this is. And I goes up to her and touches her. Chilly! ThenI takes the liberty of pushing back your poor aunt's eyelids, and I couldbut see the whites of her eyes; the eyeballs was gone up, and a bitoutwards. Yes; and her poor dear chin was dropped. Thinks I, here'strouble, and Miss Carlotta at the concert. I runs to our bedroom, and Itells Lucy to put a cloak on and fetch Dr. Roycroft. "Who for?" she says. "Never you mind who for!" I says, says I. "You up and quick. But you cantell the doctor it's missis as is took. " And in ten minutes he was here, miss. But it's only across the garden, like. "Yes, " he said, "she's beendead an hour or more. Failure of the heart's action, " he said. "She diedin her sleep, " he said. "Thank God she died in her sleep if she was todie, the pure angel!" I says. I told the doctor as you were away for thenight, miss. And I laid her out, miss, and your poor auntie wasn't myfirst, either. I've seen trouble--I've--'

And Rebecca's tears overcame her voice. 

'I'll go upstairs with you, miss, ' she struggled out. 

One thought that flew across my mind was that Doctor Roycroft was veryintimate with the Ryleys, and had doubtless somehow informed them of myaunt's death. This explained Fred Ryley's strange words and attitude tome on the way from the station. The young man had been too timid to stopme. The matter was a trifle, but another idea that struck me was not atrifle, though I strove to make it so. My aunt had died about midnight, and it was at midnight that Diaz and I had heard the mysterious knock onhis sitting-room door. At the time I had remarked how it resembled myaunt's knock. Occasionally, when the servants overslept themselves, AuntConstance would go to their rooms in her pale-blue dressing-gown andknock on their door exactly like that. Could it be that this was one ofthose psychical manifestations of which I had read? Had my aunt, inpassing from this existence to the next, paused a moment to warn me ofmy terrible danger? My intellect replied that a disembodied soul couldnot knock, and that the phenomenon had been due simply to some guest orservant of the hotel who had mistaken the room, and discovered his errorin time. Nevertheless, the instinctive part of me--that part of us whichrefuses to fraternize with reason, and which we call the superstitiousbecause we cannot explain it--would not let go the spiritualistictheory, and during all my life has never quite surrendered it to theattacks of my brain. 

There was a long pause. 

'No, ' I said; 'I will go upstairs alone;' and I went, leaving my cloakand hat with Rebecca. 

Already, to my hypersensitive nostrils, there was a slight odour in thedarkened bedroom. What lay on the bed, straight and long and thin, resembled almost exactly my aunt as she lived. I forced myself to look onit. Except that the face was paler than usual, and had a curioustransparent, waxy appearance, and that the cheeks were a little hollowed, and the lines from the nose to the corners of the mouth somewhatdeepened, there had been no outward change. .. . And _this_ once was she! Ithought, Where is she, then? Where is the soul? Where is that which lovedme without understanding me? Where is that which I loved? The baffling, sad enigma of death confronted me in all its terrifying crudity. Theshaft of love and the desolation of death had struck me almost in thesame hour, and before these twin mysteries, supremely equal, I recoiledand quailed. I had neither faith nor friend. I was solitary, and my soulalso was solitary. The difficulties of Being seemed insoluble. I was nota moral coward, I was not prone to facile repentances; but as I gazed atthat calm and unsullied mask I realized, whatever I had gained, how muchI had lost. At twenty-one I knew more of the fountains of life than AuntConstance at over sixty. Poor aged thing that had walked among men forinterminable years, and never _known_! It seemed impossible, shockinglyagainst Nature, that my aunt's existence should have been so! I pitiedher profoundly. I felt that essentially she was girlish compared to me. And yet--and yet--that which she had kept and which I had given away wasprecious, too--indefinably and wonderfully precious! The price ofknowledge and of ecstasy seemed heavy to me then. The girl that had gonewith Diaz into that hotel apartment had come out no more. She had expiredthere, and her extinction was the price, Oh, innocence! Oh, divineignorance! Oh, refusal! None knows your value save her who has barteredyou! And herein is the woman's tragedy. 

There in that mausoleum I decided that I must never see Diaz again. Hewas fast in my heart, a flashing, glorious treasure, but I must never seehim again. I must devote myself to memory. 

On the dressing-table lay a brown-paper parcel which seemed out of placethere. I opened it, and it contained a magnificently-bound copy of _TheImitation of Christ_. Upon the flyleaf was written: 'To dearest Carlottaon attaining her majority. With fondest love. C. P. '

It was too much; it was overwhelming. I wept again. Soul so kind andpure! The sense of my loss, the sense of the simple, proud rectitude ofher life, laid me low. 

V

Train journeys have too often been sorrowful for me, so much so that theconception itself of a train, crawling over the country like a snake, orflying across it like a winged monster, fills me with melancholy. Trainsloaded with human parcels of sadness and illusion and brief joy, wandering about, crossing, and occasionally colliding in the murk ofexistence; trains warmed and lighted in winter; trains open to catch theair of your own passage in summer; night-trains that pierce the nightwith your yellow, glaring eyes, and waken mysterious villages, and leavethe night behind and run into the dawn as into a station; trains thatcarry bread and meats for the human parcels, and pillows and fountains offresh water; trains that sweep haughtily and wearily indifferent throughthe landscapes and the towns, sufficient unto yourselves, hasty, panting, formidable, and yet mournful entities: I have understood you in yourarrogance and your pathos. 

That little journey from Knype to Shawport had implanted itself painfullyin my memory, as though during it I had peered too close into the face oflife. And now I had undertaken another, and a longer one. Three monthshad elapsed--three months of growing misery and despair; three months oftedious familiarity with lawyers and distant relatives, and all theexasperating camp-followers of death; three months of secret and strangefear, waxing daily. And at last, amid the expostulations and the shrugsof wisdom and age, I had decided to go to London. I had little energy, and no interest, but I saw that I must go to London; I was driven thereby my secret fear; I dared not delay. And not a soul in the wide waste ofthe Five Towns comprehended me, or could have comprehended me had it beenso minded. I might have shut up the house for a time. But no; I wouldnot. Always I have been sudden, violent, and arbitrary; I have never beenable to tolerate half-measures, or to wait upon occasion. I sold thehouse; I sold the furniture. Yes; and I dismissed my faithful Rebeccaand the clinging Lucy, and they departed, God knows where; it was asthough I had sold them into slavery. Again and again, in the final week, I cut myself to the quick, recklessly, perhaps purposely; I moved in asort of terrible languor, deaf to every appeal, pretending to be stony, and yet tortured by my secret fear, and by a hemorrhage of the heart thatno philosophy could stanch. And I swear that nothing desolated me morethan the strapping and the labelling of my trunks that morning after Ihad slept, dreamfully, in the bed that I should never use again--the bedthat, indeed, was even then the property of a furniture dealer. Had Iwept at all, I should have wept as I wrote out the labels for my trunks:'Miss Peel, passenger to Golden Cross Hotel, London. Euston via Rugby, 'with two thick lines drawn under the 'Euston. ' That writing of labels wasthe climax. With a desperate effort I tore myself up by the roots, andall bleeding I left the Five Towns. I have never seen them since. Someday, when I shall have attained serenity and peace, when the battle hasbeen fought and lost, I will revisit my youth. I have always lovedpassionately the disfigured hills and valleys of the Five Towns. And as Ithink of Oldcastle Street, dropping away sleepily and respectably fromthe Town Hall of Bursley, with the gold angel holding a gold crown on itsspire, I vibrate with an inexplicable emotion. What is there in OldcastleStreet to disturb the dust of the soul?

I must tell you here that Diaz had gone to South America on a triumphaltour of concerts, lest I forget! I read it in the paper. 

So I arrived in London on a February day, about one o'clock. And thehall-porter at the Golden Cross Hotel, and the two pale girls in thebureau of the hotel, were sympathetic and sweet to me, because I wasyoung and alone, and in mourning, and because I had great rings round myeyes. It was a fine day, blue and mild. At half-past three I had nothingin the world to do. I had come to London without a plan, without apurpose, with scarcely an introduction; I wished simply to plunge myselfinto its solitude, and to be alone with my secret fear. I walked out intothe street, slowly, like one whom ennui has taught to lose no chance ofdissipating time. I neither liked nor disliked London. I had no feelingstowards it save one of perplexity. I thought it noisy, dirty, andhurried. Its great name roused no thrill in my bosom. On the morrow, Isaid, I would seek a lodging, and perhaps write to Ethel Ryley. Meanwhile I strolled up into Trafalgar Square, and so into Charing CrossRoad. And in Charing Cross Road--it was the curst accident of fate--I sawthe signboard of the celebrated old firm of publishers, Oakley andDalbiac. It is my intention to speak of my books as little as possible inthis history. I must, however, explain that six months before my aunt'sdeath I had already written my first novel, _The Jest_, and sent it toprecisely Oakley and Dalbiac. It was a wild welter of youthfulextravagances, and it aimed to depict London society, of which I knewnothing whatever, with a flippant and cynical pen. Oakley and Dalbiac hadkept silence for several months, and had then stated, in an extremelyformal epistle, that they thought the book might have some chance ofsuccess, and that they would be prepared to publish it on certain terms, but that I must not expect, etc. By that time I had lost my originalsublime faith in the exceeding excellence of my story, and I replied thatI preferred to withdraw the book. To this letter I had received noanswer. When I saw the famous sign over a doorway the impulse seized meto enter and get the manuscript, with the object of rewriting it. Soon, Ireflected, I might not be able to enter; the portals of mankind might bebarred to me for a space. .. . I saw in a flash of insight that mysalvation lay in work, and in nothing else. I entered, resolutely. Abrougham was waiting at the doors. 

After passing along counters furnished with ledgers and clerks, through along, lofty room lined with great pigeon-holes containing thousands ofbooks each wrapped separately in white paper, I was shown into what theclerk who acted as chamberlain called the office of the principal. Thisroom, too, was spacious, but so sombre that the electric light wasalready burning. The first thing I noticed was that the window gave on awall of white tiles. In the middle of the somewhat dingy apartment was avast, square table, and at this table sat a pale, tall man, whose youthastonished me--for the firm of Oakley and Dalbiac was historic. 

He did not look up exactly at the instant of my entering, but when he didlook up, when he saw me, he stared for an instant, and then sprang fromhis chair as though magically startled into activity. His age was aboutthirty, and he had large, dark eyes, and a slight, dark moustache, andhis face generally was interesting; he wore a dark gray suit. I wasnervous, but he was even more nervous; yet in the moment of looking up hehad not seemed nervous. He could not do enough, apparently, to make mefeel at ease, and to show his appreciation of me and my work. He spokeenthusiastically of _The Jest_, begging me neither to suppress it nor toalter it. And, without the least suggestion from me, he offered me aconsiderable sum of money in advance of royalties. At that time Iscarcely knew what royalties were. But although my ignorance of businesswas complete, I guessed that this man was behaving in a manner highlyunusual among publishers. He was also patently contradicting the tenor ofhis firm's letter to me. I thanked him, and said I should like, at anyrate, to glance through the manuscript. 

'Don't alter it, Miss Peel, I beg, ' he said. 'It is "young, " I know;but it ought to be. I remember my wife said--my wife reads many of ourmanuscripts--by the way--' He went to a door, opened it, and calledout, 'Mary!'

A tall and slim woman, extremely elegant, appeared in reply to thisappeal. Her hair was gray above the ears, and I judged that she was fouror five years older than the man. She had a kind, thin face, with shininggray eyes, and she was wearing a hat. 

'Mary, this is Miss Peel, the author of _The Jest_--you remember. MissPeel, my wife. '

The woman welcomed me with quick, sincere gestures. Her smile was verypleasant, and yet a sad smile. The husband also had an air of quiet, restrained, cheerful sadness. 

'My wife is frequently here in the afternoon like this, ' said theprincipal. 

'Yes, ' she laughed; 'it's quite a family affair, and I'm almost on thestaff. I distinctly remember your manuscript, Miss Peel, and how veryclever and amusing it was. '

Her praise was spontaneous and cordial, but it was a different thing fromthe praise of her husband. He obviously noticed the difference. 

'I was just saying to Miss Peel--' he began, with increased nervousness. 

'Pardon me, ' I interrupted. 'But am I speaking to Mr. Oakley orMr. Dalbiac?'

'To neither, ' said he. 'My name is Ispenlove, and I am the nephew of thelate Mr. Dalbiac. Mr. Oakley died thirty years ago. I have no partner. '

'You expected to see a very old gentleman, no doubt, ' Mrs. Ispenlove remarked. 

'Yes, ' I smiled. 

'People often do. And Frank is so very young. You live in London?'

'No, ' I said; 'I have just come up. '

'To stay?'

'To stay. '

'Alone?'

'Yes. My aunt died a few months ago. I am all that is left of myfamily. '

Mrs. Ispenlove's eyes filled with tears, and she fingered a gold chainthat hung from her neck. 

'But have you got rooms--a house?'

'I am at a hotel for the moment. '

'But you have friends?'

I shook my head. Mr. Ispenlove was glancing rapidly from one to theother of us. 

'My dear young lady!' exclaimed his wife. Then she hesitated, and said:'Excuse my abruptness, but do let me beg you to come and have tea with usthis afternoon. We live quite near--in Bloomsbury Square. The carriage iswaiting. Frank, you can come?'

'I can come for an hour, ' said Mr. Ispenlove. 

I wanted very much to decline, but I could not. I could not disappointthat honest and generous kindliness, with its touch of melancholy. Icould not refuse those shining gray eyes. I saw that my situation and myyouth had lacerated Mrs. Ispenlove's sensitive heart, and that she wishedto give it balm by being humane to me. 

We seemed, so rapid was our passage, to be whisked on an Arabian carpetto a spacious drawing-room, richly furnished, with thick rugs and amplecushions and countless knicknacks and photographs and delicately-tintedlampshades. There was a grand piano by Steinway, and on it Mendelssohn's'Songs without Words. ' The fire slumbered in a curious grate thatprojected several feet into the room--such a contrivance I had never seenbefore. Near it sat Mrs. Ispenlove, entrenched behind a vast copper discon a low wicker stand, pouring out tea. Mr. Ispenlove hovered about. Heand his wife called each other 'dearest. ' 'Ring the bell for me, dearest. ' 'Yes, dearest. ' I felt sure that they had no children. Theywere very intimate, very kind, and always gently sad. The atmosphere wascharmingly domestic, even cosy, despite the size of the room--a mostpleasing contrast to the offices which we had just left. Mrs. Ispenlovetold her husband to look after me well, and he devoted himself to me. 

'Do you know, ' said Mrs. Ispenlove, 'I am gradually recalling the detailsof your book, and you are not at all the sort of person that I shouldhave expected to see. '

'But that poor little book isn't _me_, ' I answered. 'I shall never writeanother like it. I only--'

'Shall you not?' Mr. Ispenlove interjected. 'I hope you will, though. '

I smiled. 

'I only did it to see what I could do. I am going to begin somethingquite different. '

'It appears to me, ' said Mrs. Ispenlove--'and I must again ask you toexcuse my freedom, but I feel as if I had known you a long time--itappears to me that what you want immediately is a complete rest. '

'Why do you say that?' I demanded. 

'You do not look well. You look exhausted and worn out. '

I blushed as she gazed at me. Could she--? No. Those simple gray eyescould not imagine evil. Nevertheless, I saw too plainly how foolish I hadbeen. I, with my secret fear, that was becoming less a fear than adreadful certainty, to permit myself to venture into that house! I mighthave to fly ignominiously before long, to practise elaborate falsehood, to disappear. 

'Perhaps you are right, ' I agreed. 

The conversation grew fragmentary, and less and less formal. Mrs. Ispenlove was the chief talker. I remember she said that she was alwaysbeing thrown among clever people, people who could do things, and thather own inability to do anything at all was getting to be an obsessionwith her; and that people like me could have no idea of the tortures ofself-depreciation which she suffered. Her voice was strangely wistfulduring this confession. She also spoke--once only, and quite shortly, but with what naïve enthusiasm!--of the high mission and influence of thenovelist who wrote purely and conscientiously. After this, though myliking for her was undiminished, I had summed her up. Mr. Ispenloveoffered no commentary on his wife's sentiments. He struck me as being areserved man, whose inner life was intense and sufficient to him. 

'Ah!' I reflected, as Mrs. Ispenlove, with an almost motherly accent, urged me to have another cup of tea, 'if you knew me, if you knew me, what would you say to me? Would your charity be strong enough to overcomeyour instincts?' And as I had felt older than my aunt, so I felt olderthan Mrs. Ispenlove. 

I left, but I had to promise to come again on the morrow, after I hadseen Mr. Ispenlove on business. The publisher took me down to my hotel inthe brougham (and I thought of the drive with Diaz, but the water was notstreaming down the windows), and then he returned to his office. 

Without troubling to turn on the light in my bedroom, I sank sighing onto the bed. The events of the afternoon had roused me from my terriblelethargy, but now it overcame me again. I tried to think clearly aboutthe Ispenloves and what the new acquaintance meant for me; but I couldnot think clearly. I had not been able to think clearly for two months. Iwished only to die. For a moment I meditated vaguely on suicide, butsuicide seemed to involve an amount of complicated enterprise far beyondmy capacity. It amazed me how I had managed to reach London. I must havecome mechanically, in a heavy dream; for I had no hope, no energy, novivacity, no interest. For many weeks my mind had revolved round an awfulpossibility, as if hypnotized by it, and that monotonous revolutionseemed alone to constitute my real life. Moreover, I was subject torecurring nausea, and to disconcerting bodily pains and another symptom. 

'This must end!' I said, struggling to my feet. 

I summoned the courage of an absolute disgust. I felt that the powerwhich had triumphed over my dejection and my irresolution and brought meto London might carry me a little further. 

Leaving the hotel, I crossed the Strand. Innumerable omnibuses werecrawling past. I jumped into one at hazard, and the conductor put his armbehind my back to support me. He was shouting, 'Putney, Putney, Putney!'in an absent-minded manner: he had assisted me to mount without evenlooking at me. I climbed to the top of the omnibus and sat down, and theomnibus moved off. I knew not where I was going; Putney was nothing but aname to me. 

'Where to, lady?' snapped the conductor, coming upstairs. 

'Oh, Putney, ' I answered. 

A little bell rang and he gave me a ticket. The omnibus was soon full. Awoman with a young child shared my seat. But the population of the roofwas always changing. I alone remained--so it appeared to me. And we movedinterminably forward through the gas-lit and crowded streets, under themild night. Occasionally, when we came within the circle of an arc-lamp, I could see all my fellow-passengers very clearly; then they were nothingbut dark, featureless masses. The horses of the omnibus were changed. Ascore of times the conductor came briskly upstairs, but he never lookedat me again. 'I've done with you, ' his back seemed to say. 

The houses stood up straight and sinister, thousands of houses unendinglysucceeding each other. Some were brilliantly illuminated; some were dark;and some had one or two windows lighted. The phenomenon of a solitarywindow lighted, high up in a house, filled me with the sense of thetragic romance of London. Why, I cannot tell. But it did. London grew tobe almost unbearably mournful. There were too many people in London. Suffering was packed too close. One can contemplate a single afflictionwith some equanimity, but a million griefs, calamities, frustrations, elbowing each other--No, no! And in all that multitude of sadnesses Ifelt that mine was the worst. My loneliness, my fear, my foolish youth, my inability to cope with circumstance, my appalling ignorance of thevery things which I ought to know! It was awful. And yet even then, inthat despairing certainty of disaster, I was conscious of the beauty oflife, the beauty of life's exceeding sorrow, and I hugged it to me, likea red-hot iron. 

We crossed a great river by a great bridge--a mysterious and mightystream; and then the streets closed in on us again. And at last, afterhours and hours, the omnibus swerved into a dark road andstopped--stopped finally. 

'Putney!' cried the conductor, like fate. 

I descended. Far off, at the end of the vista of the dark road, I saw ared lamp. I knew that in large cities a red lamp indicated a doctor: itwas the one useful thing that I did know. 

I approached the red lamp, cautiously, on the other side of the street. Then some power forced me to cross the street and open a wicket. And inthe red glow of the lamp I saw an ivory button which I pushed. I couldplainly hear the result; it made me tremble. I had a narrow escape ofrunning away. The door was flung wide, and a middle-aged woman appearedin the bright light of the interior of the house. She had a kind face. Itis astounding, the number of kind faces one meets. 

'Is the doctor in?' I asked. 

I would have given a year of my life to hear her say 'No. '

'Yes, miss, ' she said. 'Will you step in?'

Events seemed to be moving all too rapidly. 

I passed into a narrow hall, with an empty hat-rack, and so into thesurgery. From the back of the house came the sound of a piano--scales, played very slowly. The surgery was empty. I noticed a card with lettersof the alphabet printed on it in different sizes; and then the pianoceased, and there was the humming of an air in the passage, and a tallman in a frock-coat, slippered and spectacled, came into the surgery. 

'Good-evening, madam, ' he said gruffly. 'Won't you sit down?'

'I--I--I want to ask you--'

He put a chair for me, and I dropped into it. 

'There!' he said, after a moment. 'You felt as if you might faint, didn't you?'

I nodded. The tears came into my eyes. 

'I thought so, ' he said. 'I'll just give you a draught, if youdon't mind. '

He busied himself behind me, and presently I was drinking something outof a conical-shaped glass. 

My heart beat furiously, but I felt strong. 

'I want you to tell me, doctor, ' I spoke firmly, 'whether I am about tobecome a mother. '

'Ah?' he answered interrogatively, and then he hummed a fragmentof an air. 

'I have lost my husband, ' I was about to add; but suddenly I scorned sucha weakness and shut my lips. 

'Since when--' the doctor began. 

 * * * * *

'No, ' I heard him saying. 'You have been quite mistaken. But I am notsurprised. Such mistakes are frequently made--a kind of auto-suggestion. '

'Mistaken!' I murmured. 

I could not prevent the room running round me as I reclined on the sofa;and I fainted. 

But in the night, safely in my room again at the hotel, I wonderedwhether that secret fear, now exorcised, had not also been a hope. Iwondered. .. . 

PART II

THREE HUMAN HEARTS

I

And now I was twenty-six. 

Everyone who knows Jove knows the poignant and delicious day when thelovers, undeclared, but sure of mutual passion, await the magic moment ofavowal, with all its changeful consequences. I resume my fragmentarynarrative at such a day in my life. As for me, I waited for the avowal asfor an earthquake. I felt as though I were the captain of a ship on fire, and the only person aware that the flames were creeping towards a powdermagazine. And my love shone fiercely in my heart, like a southern star;it held me, hypnotized, in a thrilling and exquisite entrancement, sothat if my secret, silent lover was away from me, as on that fatal nightin my drawing-room, my friends were but phantom presences in a shadowyworld. This is not an exaggerated figure, but the truth, for when I haveloved I have loved much. .. . 

My drawing-room in Bedford Court, that night on which the violent dramaof my life recommenced, indicated fairly the sorts of success which Ihad achieved, and the direction of my tastes. The victim of Diaz hadgradually passed away, and a new creature had replaced her--a creaturerapidly developed, and somewhat brazened in the process under the sun ofan extraordinary double prosperity in London. I had soon learnt that myface had a magic to win for me what wealth cannot buy. My books had givenme fame and money. And I could not prevent the world from worshipping thewoman whom it deemed the gods had greatly favoured. I could not haveprevented it, even had I wished, and I did not wish, I knew well that nomerit and no virtue, but merely the accident of facial curves, and theaccident of a convolution of the brain, had brought me this ascendancy, and at first I reminded myself of the duty of humility. But when homageis reiterated, when the pleasure of obeying a command and satisfying acaprice is begged for, when roses are strewn, and even necks put down inthe path, one forgets to be humble; one forgets that in meekness alonelies the sole good; one confuses deserts with the hazards of heredity. 

However, in the end fate has no favourites. A woman who has beauty wantsto frame it in beauty. The eye is a sensualist, and its appetites, oncearoused, grow. A beautiful woman takes the same pleasure in the sight ofanother beautiful woman as a man does; only jealousy or fear prevents herfrom admitting the pleasure. I collected beautiful women. .. . Elegance isa form of beauty. It not only enhances beauty, but it is the one thingwhich will console the eye for the absence of beauty. The first rulewhich I made for my home was that in it my eye should not be offended. Ilost much, doubtless, by adhering to it, but not more than I gained. Andsince elegance is impossible without good manners, and good manners are aconvention, though a supremely good one, the society by which Isurrounded myself was conventional; superficially, of course, for it isthe business of a convention to be not more than superficial. Somepersons after knowing my drawing-room were astounded by my books, othersafter reading my books were astounded by my drawing-room; but thesepersons lacked perception. Given elegance, with or without beauty itself, I had naturally sought, in my friends, intellectual courage, honestthinking, kindness of heart, creative talent, distinction, wit. My searchhad not been unfortunate. .. . You see Heaven had been so kind to me!

That night in my drawing-room (far too full of bric-a-brac of all climesand ages), beneath the blaze of the two Empire chandeliers, whichVicary, the musical composer, had found for me in Chartres, there wereperhaps a dozen guests assembled. 

Vicary had just given, in his driest manner, a description of his recentvisit to receive the accolade from the Queen. It was replete with theusual quaint Vicary details--such as the solemn warning whisper of anequerry in Vicary's ear as he walked backwards, '_Mind the edge of thecarpet';_ and we all laughed, I absently, and yet a littlehysterically--all save Vicary, whose foible was never to laugh. Butimmediately afterwards there was a pause, one of those disconcerting, involuntary pauses which at a social gathering are like a chill hint ofautumn in late summer, and which accuse the hostess. It was over in aninstant; the broken current was resumed; everybody pretended thateverything was as usual at my receptions. But that pause was thebeginning of the downfall. 

With a fierce effort I tried to escape from my entrancement, to beinterested in these unreal shadows whose voices seemed to come to me froma distance, and to make my glance forget the door, where the one realityin the world for me, my unspoken lover, should have appeared long since. I joined unskilfully in a conversation which Vicary and Mrs. Sardis andher daughter Jocelyn were conducting quite well without my assistance. The rest were chattering now, in one or two groups, except Lord FrancisAlcar, who, I suddenly noticed, sat alone on a settee behind the piano. Here was another unfortunate result of my preoccupation. By whatnegligence had I allowed him to be thus forsaken? I rose and went acrossto him, penitent, and glad to leave the others. 

There are only two fundamental differences in the world--the differencebetween sex and sex, and the difference between youth and age. LordFrancis Alcar was sixty years older than me. His life was over beforemine had commenced. It seemed incredible; but I had acquired the whole ofmy mundane experience, while he was merely waiting for death. At seventy, men begin to be separated from their fellow-creatures. At eighty, theyare like islets sticking out of a sea. At eighty-five, with theirtrembling and deliberate speech, they are the abstract voice of humanwisdom. They gather wisdom with amazing rapidity in the latter years, andeven their folly is wise then. Lord Francis was eighty-six; his facultiesenfeebled but intact after a career devoted to the three most costly ofall luxuries--pretty women, fine pictures, and rare books; a tall, spareman, quietly proud of his age, his ability to go out in the eveningunattended, his amorous past, and his contributions to the history ofEnglish printing. 

As I approached him, he leaned forward into his favourite attitude, elbows on knees and fingertips lightly touching, and he looked up at me. And his eyes, sunken and fatigued and yet audacious, seemed to flash out. He opened his thin lips to speak. When old men speak, they have the airof rousing themselves from an eternal contemplation in order to do so, and what they say becomes accordingly oracular. 

'Pallor suits you, ' he piped gallantly, and then added: 'But do not carryit to extremes. '

'Am I so pale, then?' I faltered, trying to smile naturally. 

I sat down beside him, and smoothed out my black lace dress; he examinedit like a connoisseur. 

'Yes, ' he said at length. 'What is the matter?'

Lord Francis charged this apparently simple and naïve question with astrange intimate meaning. The men who surround a woman such as I, livingas I lived, are always demanding, with a secret thirst, 'Does she reallylive without love? What does she conceal?' I have read this interrogationin the eyes of scores of men; but no one, save Lord Francis, would havehad the right to put it into the tones of his voice. We were so mutuallyforeign and disinterested, so at the opposite ends of life, that he hadnothing to gain and I nothing to lose, and I could have permitted to thissage ruin of a male almost a confessor's freedom. Moreover, we had anaffectionate regard for each other. 

I said nothing, and he repeated in his treble:

'What is the matter?'

'Love is the matter!' I might have passionately cried out to him, had webeen alone. But I merely responded to his tone with my eyes. I thankedhim with my eyes for his bold and flattering curiosity, senile, butthoroughly masculine to the last. And I said:

'I am only a little exhausted. I finished my novel yesterday. '

It was my sixth novel in five years. 

'With you, ' he said, 'work is simply a drug. '

'Lord Francis, ' I expostulated, 'how do you know that?'

'And it has got such a hold of you that you cannot do without it, ' heproceeded, with slow, faint shrillness. 'Some women take to morphia, others take to work. '

'On the contrary, ' I said, 'I have quite determined to do no more workfor twelve months. '

'Seriously?'

'Seriously. '

He faced me, vivacious, and leaned against the back of the settee. 

'Then you mean to give yourself time to love?' he murmured, as it werewith a kind malice, and every crease in his veined and yellow featureswas intensified by an enigmatic smile. 

'Why not?' I laughed encouragingly. 'Why not? What do you advise?'

'I advise it, ' he said positively. 'I advise it. You have already wastedthe best years. '

'The best?'

'One can never afterwards love as one loves at twenty. But there! Youhave nothing to learn about love!'

He gave me one of those disrobing glances of which men who have dedicatedtheir existence to women alone have the secret. I shrank under theordeal; I tried to clutch my clothes about me. 

The chatter from the other end of the room grew louder. Vicary was gazingcritically at his chandeliers. 

'Does love bring happiness?' I asked Lord Francis, carefully ignoringhis remark. 

'For forty years, ' he quavered, 'I made love to every pretty woman Imet, in the search for happiness. I may have got five per cent. Return onmy outlay, which is perhaps not bad in these hard times; but I certainlydid not get even that in happiness. I got it in--other ways. '

'And if you had to begin afresh?'

He stood up, turned his back on the room, and looked down at me from hisbent height. His knotted hands were shaking, as they always shook. 

'I would do the same again, ' he whispered. 

'Would you?' I said, looking up at him. 'Truly?'

'Yes. Only the fool and the very young expect happiness. The wise merelyhope to be interested, at least not to be bored, in their passage throughthis world. Nothing is so interesting as love and grief, and the oneinvolves the other. Ah! would I not do the same again!'

He spoke gravely, wistfully, and vehemently, as if employing the lastspark of divine fire that was left in his decrepit frame. This undauntedconfession of a faith which had survived twenty years of inactivemeditation, this banner waved by an expiring arm in the face of theeternity that mocks at the transience of human things, filled me withadmiration. My eyes moistened, but I continued to look up at him. 

'What is the title of the new book?' he demanded casually, sinkinginto a chair. 

'_Burning Sappho_, ' I answered. 'But the title is very misleading. '

'Bright star!' he exclaimed, taking my hand. 'With such a title you willsurely beat the record of the Good Dame. '

'Hsh!' I enjoined him. 

Jocelyn Sardis was coming towards us. 

The Good Dame was the sobriquet which Lord Francis had invented toconceal--or to display--his courteous disdain of the ideals representedby Mrs. Sardis, that pillar long established, that stately dowager, thatimpeccable _doyenne_ of serious English fiction. Mrs. Sardis hadcaptured two continents. Her novels, dealing with all the profoundproblems of the age, were read by philosophers and politicians, and oneof them had reached a circulation of a quarter of a million copies. Herdignified and indefatigable pen furnished her with an income of fifteenthousand pounds a year. 

Jocelyn Sardis was just entering her mother's world, and she hadapparently not yet recovered from the surprise of the discovery that shewas a woman; a simple and lovable young creature with brains amplysufficient for the making of apple-pies. As she greeted Lord Francis inher clear, innocent voice, I wondered sadly why her mother should be soanxious to embroider the work of Nature. I thought if Jocelyn could justbe left alone to fall in love with some average, kindly stockbroker, howmuch more nearly the eternal purpose might be fulfilled. .. . 

'Yes, I remember, ' Lord Francis was saying. 'It was at St. Malo. And whatdid you think of the Breton peasant?'

'Oh, ' said Jocelyn, 'mamma has not yet allowed us to study the conditionof the lower classes in France. We are all so busy with the newSettlement. '

'It must be very exhausting, my dear child, ' said Lord Francis. 

I rose. 

'I came to ask you to play something, ' the child appealed to me. 'I havenever heard you play, and everyone says--'

'Jocelyn, my pet, ' the precise, prim utterance of Mrs. Sardis floatedacross the room. 

'What, mamma?'

'You are not to trouble Miss Peel. Perhaps she does not feel equalto playing. '

My blood rose in an instant. I cannot tell why, unless it was that Iresented from Mrs. Sardis even the slightest allusion to the fact that Iwas not entirely myself. The latent antagonism between us becameviolently active in my heart. I believe I blushed. I know that I feltmurderous towards Mrs. Sardis. I gave her my most adorable smile, and Isaid, with sugar in my voice:

'But I shall be delighted to play for Jocelyn. '

It was an act of bravado on my part to attempt to play the piano in themood in which I found myself; and that I should have begun the openingphrase of Chopin's first Ballade, that composition so laden withformidable memories--begun it without thinking and withoutapprehension--showed how far I had lost my self-control. Not that thesilver sounds which shimmered from the Broadwood under my feverish handsfilled me with sentimental regrets for an irrecoverable past. No! But Isaw the victim of Diaz as though I had never been she. She was for me oneof those ladies that have loved and are dead. The simplicity of her mindand her situation, compared with my mind and my situation, seemedunbearably piteous to me. Why, I knew not. The pathos of that brief andvanished idyll overcame me like some sad story of an antique princess. And then, magically, I saw the pathos of my present position in it as ina truth-revealing mirror. My fame, and my knowledge and my experience, my trained imagination, my skill, my social splendour, my wealth, werestripped away from me as inessential, and I was merely a woman in love, to whom love could not fail to bring calamity and grief; a womanexpecting her lover, and yet to whom his coming could only be disastrous;a woman with a heart divided between tremulous joy and dull sorrow; whowas at once in heaven and in hell; the victim of love. How often have Icalled my dead Carlotta the victim of Diaz! Let me be less unjust, andsay that he, too, was the victim of love. What was Diaz but theinstrument of the god?

Jocelyn stood near me by the piano. I glanced at her as I played, andsmiled. She answered my smile; her eyes glistened with tears; I bent mygaze suddenly to the keyboard. 'You too!' I thought sadly, 'You too!. .. One day! One day even you will know what life is, and the look in thoseinnocent eyes will never be innocent again!'

Then there was a sharp crack at the other end of the room; the handle ofthe door turned, and the door began to open. My heart bounded andstopped. It must be he, at last! I perceived the fearful intensity of mylonging for his presence. But it was only a servant with a tray. Myfingers stammered and stumbled. For a few instants I forced them to obeyme; my pride was equal to the strain, though I felt sick and fainting. And then I became aware that my guests were staring at me with alarmedand anxious faces. Mrs. Sardis had started from her chair. I dropped myhands. It was useless to fight further; the battle was lost. 

'I will not play any more, ' I said quickly. 'I ought not to have tried toplay from memory. Excuse me. '

And I left the piano as calmly as I could. I knew that by an effort Icould walk steadily and in a straight line across the room to Vicary andthe others, and I succeeded. They should not learn my secret. 

'Poor thing!' murmured Mrs. Sardis sympathetically. 'Do sit down, dear. '

'Won't you have something to drink?' said Vicary. 

'I am perfectly all right, ' I said. 'I'm only sorry that my memory is notwhat it used to be. ' And I persisted in standing for a few moments by themantelpiece. In the glass I caught one glimpse of a face as white asmilk, Jocelyn remained at her post by the piano, frightened by she knewnot what, like a young child. 

'Our friend finished a new work only yesterday, ' said Lord Francisshakily. He had followed me. 'She has wisely decided to take a longholiday. Good-bye, my dear. '

These were the last words he ever spoke to me, though I saw him again. Weshook hands in silence, and he left. Nor would the others stay. I hadruined the night. We were all self-conscious, diffident, suspicious. EvenVicary was affected. How thankful I was that my silent lover had notcome! My secret was my own--and his. And no one should surprise it unlesswe chose. I cared nothing what they thought, or what they guessed, asthey filed out of the door, a brilliant procession of which I had theright to be proud; they could not guess my secret. I was sufficientlywoman of the world to baffle them as long as I wished to baffle them. 

Then I noticed that Mrs. Sardis had stayed behind; she was examining somelustre ware in the further drawing-room. 

'I'm afraid Jocelyn has gone without her mother, ' I said, approaching her. 

'I have told Jocelyn to go home alone, ' replied Mrs. Sardis. 'Thecarriage will return for me. Dear friend, I want to have a little talkwith you. Do you permit?'

'I shall be delighted, ' I said. 

'You are sure you are well enough?'

'There is nothing whatever the matter with me, ' I answered slowly anddistinctly. 'Come to the fire, and let us be comfortable. And I toldEmmeline Palmer, my companion and secretary, who just then appeared, thatshe might retire to bed. 

Mrs. Sardis was nervous, and this condition, so singular in Mrs. Sardis, naturally made me curious as to the cause of it. But my eyes stillfurtively wandered to the door. 

'My dear co-worker, ' she began, and hesitated. 

'Yes, ' I encouraged her. 

She put her matron's lips together:

'You know how proud I am of your calling, and how jealous I am of itshonour and its good name, and what a great mission I think we novelistshave in the work of regenerating the world. '

I nodded. That kind of eloquence always makes me mute. It leaves nothingto be said. 

'I wonder, ' Mrs. Sardis continued, 'if you have ever realized what apower _you_ are in England and America to-day. '

'Power!' I echoed. 'I have done nothing but try to write as honestly andas well as I could what I felt I wanted to write. '

'No one can doubt your sincerity, my dear friend, ' Mrs. Sardis said. 'AndI needn't tell you that I am a warm admirer of your talent, and that Irejoice in your success. But the tendency of your work--'

'Surely, ' I interrupted her coldly, 'you are not taking the trouble totell me that my books are doing harm to the great and righteousAnglo-Saxon public!'

'Do not let us poke fun at our public, my dear, ' she protested. 'Ipersonally do not believe that your books are harmful, though theiroriginality is certainly daring, and their realism startling; but thereexists a considerable body of opinion, as you know, that strongly objectsto your books. It may be reactionary opinion, bigoted opinion, ignorantopinion, what you like, but it exists, and it is not afraid to employ theword "immoral. "'

'What, then?'

'I speak as one old enough to be your mother, and I speak after all to amotherless young girl who happens to have genius with, perhaps, some ofthe disadvantages of genius, when I urge you so to arrange your personallife that this body of quite respectable adverse opinion shall not findin it a handle to use against the fair fame of our calling. '

'Mrs. Sardis!' I cried. 'What do you mean?'

I felt my nostrils dilate in anger as I gazed, astounded, at thisincarnation of mediocrity who had dared to affront me on my own hearth;and by virtue of my youth and my beauty, and all the homage I hadreceived, and the clear sincerity of my vision of life, I despised anddetested the mother of a family who had never taken one step beyond theconventions in which she was born. Had she not even the wit to perceivethat I was accustomed to be addressed as queens are addressed?. .. Then, as suddenly as it had flamed, my anger cooled, for I could see thepainful earnestness in her face. And Mrs. Sardis and I--what were we buttwo groups of vital instincts, groping our respective ways out of onemystery into another? Had we made ourselves? Had we chosen ourcharacters? Mrs. Sardis was fulfilling herself, as I was. She was anatural force, as I was. As well be angry with a hurricane, or the heatof the sun. 

'What do you mean?' I repeated quietly. 'Tell me exactly what you mean. '

I thought she was aiming at the company which I sometimes kept, or thefreedom of my diversions on the English Sabbath. I thought what trifleswere these compared to the dilemma in which, possibly within a few hours, I should find myself. 

'To put it in as few words as possible, ' said she, 'I mean your relationswith a married man. Forgive my bluntness, dear girl. '

'My--'

Then my secret was not my secret! We were chattered about, he and I. Wehad not hidden our feeling, our passions. And I had been imagining myselfa woman of the world equal to sustaining a difficult part in the masqueof existence. With an abandoned gesture I hid my face in my hands for amoment, and then I dropped my hands, and leaned forward and lookedsteadily at Mrs. Sardis. Her eyes were kind enough. 

'You won't affect not to understand?' she said. 

I assented with a motion of the head. 

'Many persons say there is a--a liaison between you, ' she said. 

'And do you think that?' I asked quickly. 

'If I had thought so, my daughter would not have been here to-night, ' shesaid solemnly. 'No, no; I do not believe it for an instant, and I broughtJocelyn specially to prove to the world that I do not. I only heard thegossip a few days ago; and to-night, as I sat here, it was borne in uponme that I must speak to you to-night. And I have done so. Not everyonewould have done so, dear girl. Most of your friends are content to talkamong themselves. '

'About me? Oh!' It was the expression of an almost physical pain. 

'What can you expect them to do?' asked Mrs. Sardis mildly. 

'True, ' I agreed. 

'You see, the circumstances are so extremely peculiar. Your friendshipwith her--'

'Let me tell you'--I stopped her--'that not a single word has ever passedbetween me and--and the man you mean, that everybody might not hear. Nota single word!'

'Dearest girl, ' she exclaimed; 'how glad I am! How glad I am! Now I cantake measures to--. 

'But--' I resumed. 

'But what?'

In a flash I saw the futility of attempting to explain to a woman likeMrs. Sardis, who had no doubts about the utter righteousness of herown code, whose rules had no exceptions, whose principles could applyto every conceivable case, and who was the very embodiment of the vaststolid London that hemmed me in--of attempting to explain to such anexcellent, blind creature why, and in obedience to what ideal, I wouldnot answer for the future. I knew that I might as well talk to achurch steeple. 

'Nothing, ' I said, rising, 'except that I thank you. Be sure that Iam grateful. You have had a task which must have been veryunpleasant to you. '

She smiled, virtuously happy. 

'You made it easy, ' she murmured. 

I perceived that she wanted to kiss me; but I avoided the caress. How Ihated kissing women!

'No more need be said, ' she almost whispered, as I put my hand on theknob of the front-door. I had escorted her myself to the hall. 

'Only remember your great mission, the influence you wield, and the fairfame of our calling. '

My impulse was to shriek. But I merely smiled as decently as I could; andI opened the door. 

And there, on the landing, just emerging from the lift, was Ispenlove, haggard, pale, his necktie astray. He and Mrs. Sardis exchanged a briefstare; she gave me a look of profound pain and passed in dignifiedsilence down the stairs; Ispenlove came into the flat. 

'Nothing will convince her now that I am not a liar, ' I reflected. 

It was my last thought as I sank, exquisitely drowning, in the sea ofsensations caused by Ispenlove's presence. 

II

Without a word, we passed together into the drawing-room, and I closedthe door. Ispenlove stood leaning against the piano, as though intenselyfatigued; he crushed his gibus with an almost savage movement, and thenbent his large, lustrous black eyes absently on the flat top of it. Histhin face was whiter even than usual, and his black hair, beard, andmoustache all dishevelled; the collar of his overcoat was twisted, andhis dinner-jacket rose an inch above it at the back of the neck. 

I wanted to greet him, but I could not trust my lips. And I saw that he, too, was trying in vain to speak. 

At length I said, with that banality which too often surprises us insupreme moments:

'What is it? Do you know that your tie is under your ear?'

And as I uttered these words, my voice, breaking of itself and indefiance of me, descended into a tone which sounded harsh and inimical. 

'Ah!' he murmured, lifting his eyes to mine, 'if you turn against meto-night, I shall--'

'Turn against you!' I cried, shocked. 'Let me help you with yourovercoat!'

And I went near him, meaning to take his overcoat. 

'It's finished between Mary and me, ' he said, holding me with his gaze. 'It's finished. I've no one but you now; and I've come--I've come--'

He stopped. We read one another's eyes at arm's length, and all thesorrow and pity and love that were in each of us rose to our eyes andshone there. I shivered with pleasure when I saw his arms move, and thenhe clutched and dragged me to him, and I hid my glowing face on hisshoulder, in the dear folds of his overcoat, and I felt his lips on myneck. And then, since neither of us was a coward, we lifted our heads, and our mouths met honestly and fairly, and, so united, we shut our eyesfor an eternal moment, and the world was not. 

Such was the avowal. 

I gave up my soul to him in that long kiss; all that was me, all that wasmost secret and precious in me, ascended and poured itself out through mytense lips, and was received by him. I kissed him with myself, with theentire passionate energy of my being--not merely with my mouth. And if Isighed, it was because I tried to give him more--more than I had--andfailed. Ah! The sensation of his nearness, the warmth of his face, thetitillation of his hair, the slow, luxurious intake of our breaths, thesweet cruelty of his desperate clutch on my shoulders, the glimpses ofhis skin through my eyelashes when I raised ever so little my eyelids!Pain and joy of life, you were mingled then!

I remembered that I was a woman, and disengaged myself and withdrew fromhim. I hated to do it; but I did it. We became self-conscious. Thebrilliant and empty drawing-room scanned us unfavourably with all itsglobes and mirrors. How difficult it is to be natural in a great crisis!Our spirits clamoured for expression, beating vainly against a thousandbarred doors of speech. There was so much to say, to explain, to define, and everything was so confused and dizzily revolving, that we knew notwhich door to open first. And then I think we both felt, but I more thanhe, that explanations and statements were futile, that even if all thedoors were thrown open together, they would be inadequate. Thedeliciousness of silence, of wonder, of timidity, of things guessed atand hidden. .. . 

'It makes me afraid, ' he murmured at length. 

'What?'

'To be loved like that. .. . Your kiss . .. You don't know. '

I smiled almost sadly. As if I did not know what my kiss had done! As ifI did not know that my kiss had created between us the happiness whichbrings ruin!

'You _do_ love me?' he demanded. 

I nodded, and sat down. 

'Say it, say it!' he pleaded. 

'More than I can ever show you, ' I said proudly. 

'Honestly, ' he said, 'I can't imagine what you have been able to see inme. I'm nothing--I'm nobody--'

'Foolish boy!' I exclaimed. 'You are you. '

The profound significance of that age-worn phrase struck me for thefirst time. 

He rushed to me at the word 'boy, ' and, standing over me, took my hand inhis hot hand. I let it lie, inert. 

'But you haven't always loved me. I have always loved _you_, from themoment when I drove with you, that first day, from the office to yourhotel. But you haven't always loved me. '

'No, ' I admitted. 

'Then when did you--? Tell me. '

'I was dull at first--I could not see. But when you told me that the endof _Fate and Friendship_ was not as good as I could make it--do youremember, that afternoon in the office?--and how reluctant you were totell me, how afraid you were to tell me?--your throat went dry, and youstroked your forehead as you always do when you are nervous--There!you are doing it now, foolish boy!'

I seized his left arm, and gently pulled it down from his face. Oh, exquisite moment!

'It was brave of you to tell me--very brave! I loved you for telling me. You were quite wrong about the end of that book. You didn't see the finepoint of it, and you never would have seen it--and I liked you, somehow, for not seeing it, because it was so feminine--but I altered the book toplease you, and when I had altered it, against my conscience, I lovedyou more. '

'It's incredible! incredible!' he muttered, half to himself. 'I neverhoped till lately that you would care for me. I never dared to think ofsuch a thing. I knew you oughtn't to! It passes comprehension. '

'That is just what love does, ' I said. 

'No, no, ' he went on quickly; 'you don't understand; you can't understandmy feelings when I began to suspect, about two months ago, that, afterall, the incredible had happened. I'm nothing but your publisher. I can'ttalk. I can't write. I can't play. I can't do anything. And look at themen you have here! I've sometimes wondered how often you've beenbesieged--'

'None of them was like you, ' I said. 'Perhaps that is why I have alwayskept them off. '

I raised my eyes and lips, and he stooped and kissed me. He wanted totake me in his arms again, but I would not yield myself. 

'Be reasonable, ' I urged him. 'Ought we not to think of our situation?'

He loosed me, stammering apologies, abasing himself. 

'I ought to leave you, I ought never to see you again. ' He spoke roughly. 'What am I doing to you? You who are so innocent and pure!'

'I entreat you not to talk like that, ' I gasped, reddening. 

'But I must talk like that, ' he insisted. 'I must talk like that. You hadeverything that a woman can desire, and I come into your life and offeryou--what?'

'I _have_ everything a woman can desire, ' I corrected him softly. 

'Angel!' he breathed. 'If I bring you disaster, you will forgive me, won't you?'

'My happiness will only cease with your love, ' I said. 

'Happiness!' he repeated. 'I have never been so happy as I am now; butsuch happiness is terrible. It seems to me impossible that such happinesscan last. '

'Faint heart!' I chided him. 

'It is for you I tremble, ' he said. 'If--if--' He stopped. 'My darling, forgive me!'

How I pitied him! How I enveloped him in an effluent sympathy that rushedwarm from my heart! He accused himself of having disturbed my existence. Whereas, was it not I who had disturbed his? He had fought against me, Iknew well, but fate had ordained his defeat. He had been swept away; hehad been captured; he had been caught in a snare of the high gods. And hewas begging forgiveness, he who alone had made my life worth living! Iwanted to kneel before him, to worship him, to dry his tears with myhair. I swear that my feelings were as much those of a mother as of alover. He was ten years older than me, and yet he seemed boyish, and I anaged woman full of experience, as he sat there opposite to me with hiswide, melancholy eyes and restless mouth. 

'Wonderful, is it not, ' he said, 'that we should be talking like thisto-night, and only yesterday we were Mr. And Miss to each other?'

'Wonderful!' I responded. 'But yesterday we talked with our eyes, and oureyes did not say Mr. Or Miss. Our eyes said--Ah, what they said cannever be translated into words!'

My gaze brooded on him like a caress, explored him with the unappeasablecuriosity of love, and blinded him like the sun. Could it be true thatHeaven had made that fine creature--noble and modest, nervous and full ofcourage, impetuous and self-controlled, but, above all things, fine anddelicate--could it be true that Heaven had made him and then given him tome, with his enchanting imperfections that themselves constitutedperfection? Oh, wonder, wonder! Oh, miraculous bounty which I had notdeserved! This thing had happened to me, of all women! How it showed, bycomparison, the sterility of my success and my fame and my worldlysplendour! I had hungered and thirsted for years; I had travelledinterminably through the hot desert of my brilliant career, until I hadalmost ceased to hope that I should reach, one evening, the pool of waterand the palm. And now I might eat and drink and rest in the shade. Wonderful!

'Why were you so late to-night?' I asked abruptly. 

'Late?' he replied absently. 'Is it late?'

We both looked at the clock. It was yet half an hour from midnight. 

'Of course it isn't--not _very_, ' I said. I was forgetting that. Everybody left so early. '

'Why was that?'

I told him, in a confusion that was sweet to me, how I had suffered byreason of his failure to appear. He glanced at me with tender amaze. 

'But I am fortunate to-day, ' I exclaimed. 'Was it not lucky they leftwhen they did? Suppose you had arrived, in that state, dearest man, andburst into a room full of people? What would they have thought? Whereshould I have looked?'

'Angel!' he cried. 'I'm so sorry. I forgot it was your evening. I musthave forgotten. I forgot everything, except that I was bound to see youat once, instantly, with all speed. '

Poor boy! He was like a bird fluttering in my hand. Millions of womenmust have so pictured to themselves the men who loved them, and whomthey loved. 

'But still, you _were_ rather late, you know, ' I smiled. 

'Do not ask me why, ' he begged, with an expression of deep pain on hisface. 'I have had a scene with Mary. It would humiliate me to tellyou--to tell even you--what passed between us. But it is over. Ourrelations in the future can never, in any case, be more than formal. '

A spasm of fierce jealousy shot through me--jealousy of Mary, my friendMary, who knew him with such profound intimacy that they could gothrough a scene together which was 'humiliating. ' I saw that my ownintimacy with him was still crude with the crudity of newness, and thatonly years could mellow it. Mary, the good, sentimental Mary, had wastedthe years of their marriage--had never understood the value of thetreasure in her keeping. Why had they always been sad in their house?What was the origin of that resigned and even cheerful gloom which hadpervaded their domestic life, and which I had remarked on my first visitto Bloomsbury Square? Were these, too, mysteries that I must not ask mylover to reveal? Resentment filled me. I came near to hating Mary, notbecause she had made him unhappy--oh no!--but because she had had thepriority in his regard, and because there was nothing about him, howeversecret and recondite, that I could be absolutely sure of the soleknowledge of. She had been in the depths with him. I desired ferventlythat I also might descend with him, and even deeper. Oh, that I mighthave the joy and privilege of humiliation with him!

'I shall ask you nothing, dearest, ' I murmured. 

I had risen from my seat and gone to him, and was lightly touching hishair with my fingers. He did not move, but sat staring into the fire. Somehow, I adored him because he made no response to the fondling ofmy hand. His strange acceptance of the caress as a matter of coursegave me the illusion that I was his wife, and that the years hadmellowed our intimacy. 

'Carlotta!'

He spoke my name slowly and distinctly, savouring it. 

'Yes, ' I answered softly and obediently. 

'Carlotta! Listen! Our two lives are in our hands at this moment--thismoment while we talk here. '

His rapt eyes had not stirred from the fire. 

'I feel it, ' I said. 

'What are we to do? What shall we decide to do?'

He slowly turned towards me. I lowered my glance. 

'I don't know, ' I said. 

'Yes, you do, Carlotta, ' he insisted. 'You do know. '

His voice trembled. 

'Mary and I are such good friends, ' I said. 'That is what makes itso--'

'No, no, no!' he objected loudly. His nervousness had suddenly increased. 'Don't, for God's sake, begin to argue in that way! You are abovefeminine logic. Mary is your friend. Good. You respect her; she respectsyou. Good. Is that any reason why our lives should be ruined? Will thatbenefit Mary? Do I not tell you that everything has ceased between us?'

'The idea of being false to Mary--'

'There's no question of being false. And if there was, would you be falseto love rather than to friendship? Between you and me there is love;between Mary and me there is not love. It isn't her fault, nor mine, least of all yours. It is the fault of the secret essence of existence. Have you not yourself written that the only sacred thing is instinct? Arewe, or are we not, to be true to ourselves?'

'You see, ' I said, 'your wife is so sentimental. She would be incapableof looking at the affair as--as we do; as I should in her place. '

I knew that my protests were insincere, and that all my heart and brainwere with him, but I could not admit this frankly. Ah! And I knew alsothat the sole avenue to peace and serenity, not to happiness, was thepath of renunciation and of obedience to the conventions of society, andthat this was precisely the path which we should never take. And on thehorizon of our joy I saw a dark cloud. It had always been there, but Ihad refused to see it. I looked at it now steadily. 

'Of course, ' he groaned, 'if we are to be governed by Mary'ssentimentality--'

'Dear love, ' I whispered, 'what do you want me to do?'

'The only possible, honest, just thing. I want you to go away with me, sothat Mary can get a divorce. '

He spoke sternly, as it were relentlessly. 

'Does she guess--about me?' I asked, biting my lip, and lookingaway from him. 

'Not yet. Hasn't the slightest notion, I'm sure. But I'll tell her, straight and fair. '

'Dearest friend, ' I said, after a silence. 'Perhaps I know more of theworld than you think. Perhaps I'm a girl only in years and situation. Forgive me if I speak plainly. Mary may prove unfaithfulness, but shecannot get a decree unless she can prove other things as well. '

He stroked his forehead. As for me, I shuddered with agitation. He walkedacross the room and back. 

'Angel!' he said, putting his white face close to mine like an actor. 'Iwill prove whether your love for me is great enough. I have struck her. Istruck her to-night in the presence of a servant. And I did it purposely, in cold blood, so that she might be able to prove cruelty. Ah! Have Inot thought it all out? Have I not?'

A sob, painfully escaping, shook my whole frame. 

'And this was before you had--had spoken to me!' I said bitterly. 

Not myself, but some strange and frigid force within me utteredthose words. 

'That is what love will do. That is the sort of thing love drives oneto, ' he cried despairingly. 'Oh! I was not sure of you--I was not sure ofyou. I struck her, on the off chance. '

And he sank on the sofa and wept passionately, unashamed, like a child. 

I could not bear it. My heart would have broken if I had watched, withoutassuaging, my boy's grief an instant longer than I did. I sprang to him. I took him to my breast. I kissed his eyes until the tears ceased toflow. Whatever it was or might be, I must share his dishonour. 

'My poor girl!' he said at length. 'If you had refused me, if you hadeven judged me, I intended to warn you plainly that it meant my death;and if that failed, I should have gone to the office and shot myself. '

'Do not say such things, ' I entreated him. 

'But it is true. The revolver is in my pocket. Ah! I have made you cry!You're frightened! But I'm not a brute; I'm only a little beside myself. Pardon me, angel!'

He kissed me, smiling sadly with a trace of humour. He did not understandme. He did not suspect the risk he had run. If I had hesitated tosurrender, and he had sought to move me by threatening suicide, I shouldnever have surrendered. I knew myself well enough to know that. I had aconscience that was incapable of yielding to panic. A threat would haveparted us, perhaps for ever. Oh, the blindness of man! But I forgave him. Nay, I cherished him the more for his childlike, savage simplicity. 

'Carlotta, ' he said, 'we shall leave everything. You graspit?--everything. '

'Yes, ' I replied. 'Of all the things we have now, we shall have nothingbut ourselves. '

'If I thought it was a sacrifice for you, I would go out and never seeyou again. '

Noble fellow, proud now in the certainty that he sufficed for me! Hemeant what he said. 

'It is no sacrifice for me, ' I murmured. 'The sacrifice would be not togive up all in exchange for you. '

'We shall be exiles, ' he went on, 'until the divorce business is over. And then perhaps we shall creep back--shall we?--and try to find out howmany of our friends are our equals in moral courage. '

'Yes, ' I said. 'We shall come back. They all do. '

'What do you mean?' he demanded. 

'Thousands have done what we are going to do, ' I said. 'And all of themhave thought that their own case was different from the other cases. '

'Ah!'

'And a few have been happy. A few have not regretted the price. A fewhave retained the illusion. '

'Illusion? Dearest girl, why do you talk like this?'

I could see that my heart's treasure was ruffled. He clasped my handtenaciously. 

'I must not hide from you the kind of woman you have chosen, ' I answeredquietly, and as I spoke a hush fell upon my amorous passion. 'In me thereare two beings--myself and the observer of myself. It is the novelist'sdisease, this duplication of personality. When I said illusion, I meantthe supreme illusion of love. Is it not an illusion? I have seen it inothers, and in exactly the same way I see it in myself and I see it inyou. Will it last?--who knows? None can tell. '

'Angel!' he expostulated. 

'No one can foresee the end of love, ' I said, with an exquisite gentlesorrow. 'But when the illusion is as intense as mine, as yours, even ifits hour is brief, that hour is worth all the terrible years ofdisillusion which it will cost. Darling, this precious night alone wouldnot be too dear if I paid for it with the rest of my life. '

He thanked me with a marvellous smile of confident adoration, andhis disengaged hand played with the gold chain which hung looselyround my neck. 

'Call it illusion if you like, ' he said. 'Words are nothing. I only knowthat for me it will be eternal. I only know that my one desire is to bewith you always, never to leave you, not to miss a moment of you; to haveyou for mine, openly, securely. Carlotta, where shall we go?'

'We must travel, mustn't we?'

'Travel?' he repeated, with an air of discontent. 'Yes. But where to?'

'Travel, ' I said. 'See things. See the world. '

'I had thought we might find some quiet little place, ' he said wistfully, and as if apologetically, where we could be alone, undisturbed, some spotwhere we could have ourselves wholly to ourselves, and go walks intomountains and return for dinner; and then the long, calm evenings!Dearest, our honeymoon!'

Our honeymoon! I had not, in the pursuit of my calling, studied humannature and collected documents for nothing. With how many brides had Inot talked! How many loves did I not know to have been paralyzed andkilled by a surfeit in the frail early stages of their existence!Inexperienced as I was, my learning in humanity was wiser than theexperience of my impulsive, generous, magnanimous lover, to whom the verythought of calculation would have been abhorrent. But I saw, I felt, Ilived through in a few seconds the interminable and monotonous length ofthose calm days, and especially those calm evenings succeeding each otherwith a formidable sameness. I had watched great loves faint and die. AndI knew that our love--miraculously sweet as it was--probably was notgreater than many great ones that had not stood the test. You perceivethe cold observer in me. I knew that when love lasted, the credit of thesurvival was due far more often to the woman than to the man. The womanmust husband herself, dole herself out, economize herself so that shemight be splendidly wasteful when need was. The woman must plan, scheme, devise, invent, reconnoitre, take precautions; and do all this sincerelyand lovingly in the name and honour of love. A passion, for her, is acampaign; and her deadliest enemy is satiety. Looking into my own heart, and into his, I saw nothing but hope for the future of our love. But thebeautiful plant must not be exposed to hazard. Suppose it sickened, sucha love as ours--what then? The misery of hell, the torture of the damned!Only its rich and ample continuance could justify us. 

'My dear, ' I said submissively, 'I shall leave everything to you. Theidea of travelling occurred to me; that was all. I have never travelledfurther than Cannes. Still, we have all our lives before us. '

'We will travel, ' he said unselfishly. 'We'll go round the world--slowly. I'll get the tickets at Cook's to-morrow. '

'But, dearest, if you would rather--'

'No, no! In any case we shall always have our evenings. '

'Of course we shall. Dearest, how good you are!'

'I wish I was, ' he murmured. 

I was glad, then, that I had never allowed my portrait to appear in aperiodical. We could not prevent the appearance in American newspapers ofheralding paragraphs, but the likelihood of our being recognised wassensibly lessened. 

'Can you start soon?' he asked. 'Can you be ready?'

'Any time. The sooner the better, now that it is decided. '

'You do not regret? We have decided so quickly. Ah! you are the merestgirl, and I have taken advantage--'

I put my hand over his mouth. He seized it, and kept it there and kissedit, and his ardent breath ran through my fingers. 

'What about your business?' I said. 

'I shall confide it to old Tate--tell him some story--he knows quiteas much about it as I do. To-morrow I will see to all that. The dayafter, shall we start? No; to-morrow night. To-morrow night, eh? I'llrun in to-morrow and tell you what I've arranged. I must see youto-morrow, early. '

'No, ' I said. 'Do not come before lunch. '

'Not before lunch! Why?'

He was surprised. But I had been my own mistress for five years, with myown habits, rules, privacies. I had never seen anyone before lunch. Andto-morrow, of all days, I should have so much to do and to arrange. Wasthis man to come like an invader and disturb my morning? So felt thecelibate in me, instinctively, thoughtlessly. That deep-seated objectionto the intrusion of even the most loved male at certain times is common, I think, to all women. Women are capable of putting love aside, like arich dress, and donning the _peignoir_ of matter-of-fact dailiness, in away which is an eternal enigma to men. .. . Then I saw, in a sudden flash, that I had renounced my individual existence, that I had forfeited myhabits and rules, and privacies, that I was a man's woman. And thepassionate lover in me gloried in this. 

'Come as soon as you like, dearest friend, ' I said. 

'Nobody except Mary will know anything till we are actually gone, ' heremarked. 'And I shall not tell her till the last thing. Afterwards, won't they chatter! God! Let 'em. '

'They are already chattering, ' I said. And I told him about Mrs. Sardis. 'When she met you on the landing, ' I added, 'she drew her ownconclusions, my poor, poor boy!'

He was furious. I could see he wanted to take me in his arms and protectme masculinely from the rising storm. 

'All that is nothing, ' I soothed him. 'Nothing. Against it, we haveour self-respect. We can scorn all that. ' And I gave a short, contemptuous laugh. 

'Darling!' he murmured. 'You are more than a woman. '

'I hope not. ' And I laughed again, but unnaturally. 

He had risen; I leaned back in a large cushioned chair; we looked ateach other in silence--a silence that throbbed with the heavy pulse of anunutterable and complex emotion--pleasure, pain, apprehension, eventerror. What had I done? Why had I, with a word--nay, without a word, with merely a gesture and a glance--thrown my whole life into thecrucible of passion? Why did I exult in the tremendous and impetuous act, like a martyr, and also like a girl? Was I playing with my existence asan infant plays with a precious bibelot that a careless touch mayshatter? Why was I so fiercely, madly, drunkenly happy when I gazed intothose eyes?

'I suppose I must go, ' he said disconsolately. 

I nodded, and the next instant the clock struck. 

'Yes, ' he urged himself, 'I must go. '

He bent down, put his hands on the arms of the chair, and kissed meviolently, twice. The fire that consumes the world ran scorchinglythrough me. Every muscle was suddenly strained into tension, and thenfell slack. My face flushed; I let my head slip sideways, so that my leftcheek was against the back of the chair. Through my drooping eyelashes Icould see the snake-like glitter of his eyes as he stood over me. Ishuddered and sighed. I was like someone fighting in vain against thesweet seduction of an overwhelming and fatal drug. I wanted to entreathim to go away, to rid me of the exquisite and sinister enchantment. ButI could not speak. I shut my eyes. This was love. 

The next moment I heard the soft sound of his feet on the carpet. Iopened my eyes. He had stepped back. When our glances met he averted hisface, and went briskly for his overcoat, which lay on the floor by thepiano. I rose freed, re-established in my self-control. I arranged hiscollar, straightened his necktie with a few touches, picked up his hat, pushed back the crown, which flew up with a noise like a small explosion, and gave it into his hands. 

'Thank you, ' he said. 'To-morrow morning, eh? I shall get to knoweverything necessary before I come. And then we will fix things up. '

'Yes, ' I said. 

'I can let myself out, ' he said. 

I made a vague gesture, intended to signify that I could not think ofpermitting him to let himself out. We left the drawing-room, and passed, with precautions of silence, to the front-door, which I gently opened. 

'Good-night, then, ' he whispered formally, almost coldly. 

I nodded. We neither of us even smiled. 

We were grave, stern, and stiff in our immense self-consciousness. 

'Too late for the lift, ' I murmured out there with him in the vast, glittering silence of the many-angled staircase, which disappeared aboveus and below us into the mysterious unseen. 

He nodded as I had nodded, and began to descend the broad, carpetedsteps, firmly, carefully, and neither quick nor slow. I leaned over thebaluster. When the turns of the staircase brought him opposite and belowme, he stopped and raised his hat, and we exchanged a smile. Then heresolutely dropped his eyes and resumed the descent. From time to time Ihad glimpses of parts of his figure as he passed story after story. ThenI heard his tread on the tessellated pavement of the main hall, thedistant clatter of double doors, and a shrill cab-whistle. 

This was love, at last--the reality of love! He would have killed himselfhad he failed to win me--killed himself! With the novelist's habit, I ranoff into a series of imagined scenes--the dead body, with the hole in thetemples and the awkward attitude of death; the discovery, the rush forthe police, the search for a motive, the inquest, the rapid-speakingcoroner, who spent his whole life at inquests; myself, cold andimpassive, giving evidence, and Mary listening to what I said. .. . But helived, with his delicate physical charm, his frail distinction, hisspiritual grace; and he had won me. The sense of mutual possession wasinexpressibly sweet to me. And it was all I had in the world now. When mymind moved from that rock, all else seemed shifting, uncertain, perilous, bodeful, and steeped in woe. The air was thick with disasters, andinjustice, and strange griefs immediately I loosed my hold on the immensefact that he was mine. 

'How calm I am!' I thought. 

It was not till I had been in bed some three hours that I fully realizedthe seismic upheaval which my soul had experienced. 

III

I woke up from one of those dozes which, after a sleepless night, givethe brief illusion of complete rest, all my senses sharpened, and my mindfactitiously active. And I began at once to anticipate Frank's coming, and to arrange rapidly my plans for closing the flat. I had determinedthat it should be closed. Then someone knocked at the door, and itoccurred to me that there must have been a previous knock, which had, infact, wakened me. Save on special occasions, I was never wakened, andEmmeline and my maid had injunctions not to come to me until I rang. Mythoughts ran instantly to Frank. He had arrived thus early, merelybecause he could not keep away. 

'How extremely indiscreet of him!' I thought. 'What detestableprevarications with Emmeline this will lead to! I cannot possibly beready in time if he is to be in and out all day. '

Nevertheless, the prospect of seeing him quickly, and the idea of hissplendid impatience, drenched me with joy. 

'What is it?' I called out. 

Emmeline entered in that terrible mauve dressing-gown which I had beenpowerless to persuade her to discard. 

'So sorry to disturb you, ' said Emmeline, feeling her loose golden hairwith one hand, 'but Mrs. Ispenlove has called, and wants to see you atonce. I'm afraid something has happened. '

'_Mrs_. Ispenlove?'

My voice shook. 

'Yes. Yvonne came to my room and told me that Mrs. Ispenlove was here, and was either mad or very unwell, and would I go to her? So I got up atonce. What shall I do? Perhaps it's something very serious. Nothalf-past eight, and calling like this!'

'Let her come in here immediately, ' I said, turning my head on thepillow, so that Emmeline should not see the blush which had spread overmy face and my neck. 

It was inevitable that a terrible and desolating scene must pass betweenMary Ispenlove and myself. I could not foresee how I should emerge fromit, but I desperately resolved that I would suffer the worst without amoment's delay, and that no conceivable appeal should induce me toabandon Frank. I was, as I waited for Mrs. Ispenlove to appear, nothingbut an embodied and fierce instinct to guard what I had won. Noconsideration of mercy could have touched me. 

She entered with a strange, hysterical cry:

'Carlotta!'

I had asked her long ago to use my Christian name--long before I everimagined what would come to pass between her husband and me; but Ialways called her Mrs. Ispenlove. The difference in our ages justifiedme. And that morning the difference seemed to be increased. I realized, with a cruel justice of perception quite new in my estimate of her, that she was old--an old woman. She had never been beautiful, but shewas tall and graceful, and her face had been attractive by thesweetness of the mouth and the gray beneficence of the eyes; and nowthat sweetness and that beneficence appeared suddenly to have beenswallowed up in the fatal despair of a woman who discovers that she haslived too long. Gray hair, wrinkles, crow's-feet, tired eyes, drawnmouth, and the terrible tell-tale hollow under the chin--these werewhat I saw in Mary Ispenlove. She had learnt that the only thing worthhaving in life is youth. I possessed everything that she lacked. Surelythe struggle was unequal. Fate might have chosen a less piteous victim. I felt profoundly sorry for Mary Ispenlove, and this sorrow wasstronger in me even than the uneasiness, the false shame (for it wasnot a real shame) which I experienced in her presence. I put out myhands towards her, as it were, involuntarily. She sprang to me, tookthem, and kissed me as I lay in bed. 

'How beautiful you look--like that!' she exclaimed wildly, and with ahopeless and acute envy in her tone. 

'But why--' I began to protest, astounded. 

'What will you think of me, disturbing you like this? What will youthink?' she moaned. And then her voice rose: 'I could not help it; Icouldn't, really. Oh, Carlotta! you are my friend, aren't you?'

One thing grew swiftly clear to me: that she was as yet perfectlyunaware of the relations between Frank and myself. My brain searchedhurriedly for an explanation of the visit. I was conscious of anextraordinary relief. 

'You are my friend, aren't you?' she repeated insistently. 

Her tears were dropping on my bosom. But could I answer that I was herfriend? I did not wish to be her enemy; she and Frank and I were dolls inthe great hands of fate, irresponsible, guiltless, meet for anunderstanding sympathy. Why was I not still her friend? Did not my heartbleed for her? Yet such is the power of convention over honourablenessthat I could not bring myself to reply directly, 'Yes, I am your friend. '

'We have known each other a long time, ' I ventured. 

'There was no one else I could come to, ' she said. 

Her whole frame was shaking. I sat up, and asked her to pass mydressing-gown, which I put round my shoulders. Then I rang the bell. 

'What are you going to do?' she demanded fearfully. 

'I am going to have the gas-stove lighted and some tea brought in, andthen we will talk. 

Take your hat off, dear, and sit down in that chair. You'll be moreyourself after a cup of tea. '

How young I was then! I remember my naïve satisfaction in this exhibitionof tact. I was young and hard, as youth is apt to be--hard in spite ofthe compassion, too intellectual and arrogant, which I conceived for her. And even while I forbade her to talk until she had drunk some tea, Iregretted the delay, and I suffered by it. Surely, I thought, she willread in my demeanour something which she ought not to read there. But shedid not. She was one of the simplest of women. In ten thousand women oneis born without either claws or second-sight. She was that one, defenceless as a rabbit. 

'You are very kind to me, ' she said, putting her cup on the mantelpiecewith a nervous rattle; 'and I need it. '

'Tell me, ' I murmured. 'Tell me--what I can do. '

I had remained in bed; she was by the fireplace. A distance between usseemed necessary. 

'You can't do anything, my dear, ' she said. 'Only I was obliged to talkto someone, after all the night. It's about Frank. '

'Mr. Ispenlove!' I ejaculated, acting as well as I could, but notvery well. 

'Yes. He has left me. '

'But why? What is the matter?'

Even to recall my share in this interview with Mary Ispenlove humiliatesme. But perhaps I have learned the value of humiliation. Still, could Ihave behaved differently?

'You won't understand unless I begin a long time ago, ' said MaryIspenlove. 'Carlotta, my married life has been awful--awful--a tragedy. It has been a tragedy both for him and for me. But no one has suspectedit; we have hidden it. '

I nodded. I, however, had suspected it. 

'It's just twenty years--yes, twenty--since I fell in love, ' sheproceeded, gazing at me with her soft, moist eyes. 

'With--Frank, ' I assumed. I lay back in bed. 

'No, ' she said. 'With another man. That was in Brixton, when I was agirl living with my father; my mother was dead. He was a barrister--Imean the man I was in love with. He had only just been called to the Bar. I think everybody knew that I had fallen in love with him. Certainly hedid; he could not help seeing it. I could not conceal it. Of course I canunderstand now that it flattered him. Naturally it did. Any man isflattered when a woman falls in love with him. And my father was rich, and so on, and so on. We saw each other a lot. I hoped, and I kept onhoping. Some people even said it was a match, and that I was throwingmyself away. Fancy--throwing myself away--me!--who have never been goodfor anything! My father did not care much for the man; said he wasselfish and grasping. Possibly he was; but I was in love with him all thesame. Then I met Frank, and Frank fell in love with me. You know howobstinate Frank is when he has once set his mind on a thing. Frankdetermined to have me; and my father was on his side. I would not listen. I didn't give him so much as a chance to propose to me. And this state ofthings lasted for quite a long time. It wasn't my fault; it wasn'tanybody's fault. '

'Just so, ' I agreed, raising my head on one elbow, and listeningintently. It was the first sincere word I had spoken, and I was gladto utter it. 

'The man I had fallen in love with came nearer. He was decidedly tempted. I began to feel sure of him. All I wanted was to marry him, whether heloved me a great deal or only a little tiny bit. I was in that state. Then he drew away. He scarcely ever came to the house, and I seemed neverto be able to meet him. And then one day my father showed me somethingin the _Morning Post_. It was a paragraph saying that the man I was inlove with was going to marry a woman of title, a widow and the daughterof a peer. I soon found out she was nearly twice his age. He had done itto get on. He was getting on very well by himself, but I suppose thatwasn't fast enough for him. Carlotta, it nearly killed me. And I felt sosorry for him. You can't guess how sorry I felt for him. I felt that hedidn't know what he had missed. Oh, how happy I should have made him! Ishould have lived for him. I should have done everything for him. Ishould have . .. You don't mind me telling you all this?'

I made an imploring gesture. 

'What a shame!' I burst out. 

'Ah, my dear!' she said, 'he didn't love me. One can't blame him. '

'And then?' I questioned, with an eagerness that I tried to overcome. 

'Frank was so persevering. And--and--I _did_ admire his character. Awoman couldn't help admiring his character, could she? And, besides, Ihonestly thought I had got over the other affair, and that I was in lovewith him. I refused him once, and then I married him. He was as mad forme as I had been for the other one. Yes, I married him, and we bothimagined we were going to be happy. '

'And why haven't you been?' I asked. 

'This is my shame, ' she said. 'I could not forget the other one. We soonfound that out. '

'Did you _talk_ about it, you--and Frank?' I put in, amazed. 

'Oh _no_!' she said. 'It was never mentioned--never once during fifteenyears. But he knew; and I knew that he knew. The other one was alwaysbetween us--always, always, always! The other one was always in my heart. We did our best, both of us; but it was useless. The passion of my lifewas--it was invincible. I _tried_ to love Frank. I could only like him. Fancy his position! And we were helpless. Because, you know, Frank and Iare not the sort of people that go and make a scandal--at least, that waswhat I thought, ' she sighed. 'I know different now. Well, he died the daybefore yesterday. '

'Who?'

'Crettell. He had just been made a judge. He was the youngest judge onthe bench--only forty-six. '

'Was _that_ the man?' I exclaimed; for Crettell's character was wellknown in London. 

'That was the man. Frank came in yesterday afternoon, and after he hadglanced at the paper, he said: "By the way, Crettell's dead. " I did notgrasp it at first. He repeated: "Crettell--he's dead. " I burst intotears. I couldn't help it. And, besides, I forgot. Frank asked me veryroughly what I was crying for. You know, Frank has much changed theselast few months. He is not as nice as he used to be. Excuse me talkinglike this, my dear. Something must be worrying him. Well, I said as wellas I could while I was crying that the news was a shock to me. I tried tostop crying, but I couldn't. I sobbed. Frank threw down the paper andstamped on it, and he swore. He said: "I know you've always been in lovewith the brute, but you needn't make such a damn fuss about it. " Oh, mydear, how can I tell you these things? That angered me. This was thefirst time in our married life that Crettell had been even referred to, and it seemed to me that Frank put all the hatred of fifteen years intothat single sentence. Why was I angry? I didn't know. We had a scene. Frank lost his temper, for the first time that I remember, and then herecovered it. He said quietly he couldn't stand living with me any more;and that he had long since wanted to leave me. He said he would never seeme again. And then one of the servants came in, and--'

'What?'

'Nothing. I sent her out. And--and--Fran didn't come home last night. '

There was a silence. I could find nothing to say, and Mary had hidden herface. I utterly forgot myself and my own state in this extraordinaryhazard of matrimony. I could only think of Mary's grief--a grief which, nevertheless, I did not too well comprehend. 

'Then you love him now?' I ventured at length. 

She made no reply. 

'You love him--is that so?' I pursued. 'Tell me honestly. '

I spoke as gently as it was in me to speak. 

'Honestly!' she cried, looking up. 'Honestly! No! If I loved him, could Ihave been so upset about Crettell? But we have been together so long. Weare husband and wife, Carlotta. We are so used to each other. Andgenerally he is so good. We've got on very well, considering. And nowhe's left me. Think of the scandal! It will be terrible! terrible! Aseparation at my age! Carlotta, it's unthinkable! He's mad--that's theonly explanation. Haven't I tried to be a good wife to him? He's neverfound fault with me--never! And I'm sure, as regards him, I've hadnothing to complain of. '

'He will come back, ' I said. 'He'll think things over and see reason. '

And it was just as though I heard some other person saying these words. 

'But he didn't come _home_ last night, ' Mary insisted. 'What the servantsare thinking I shouldn't like to guess. '

'What does it matter what the servants think?' I said brusquely. 

'But it _does_ matter. He didn't come _home_. He must have slept at ahotel. Fancy, sleeping at a hotel, and his home waiting for him! Oh, Carlotta, you're too young to understand what I feel! You're very clever, and you're very sympathetic; but you can't see things as I see them. Waittill you've been married fifteen years. The scandal! The shame! And meonly too anxious to be a good wife, and to keep our home as it should be, and to help him as much as I can with my stupid brains in his business!'

'I can understand perfectly, ' I asserted. 'I can understand perfectly. '

And I could. The futility of arguing with Mary, of attempting to free herever so little from the coils of convention which had always bound her, was only too plainly apparent. She was--and naturally, sincerely, instinctively--the very incarnation and mouthpiece of theconventionality of society, as she cowered there in her grief and herquiet resentment. But this did not impair the authenticity of her griefand her resentment. Her grief appealed to me powerfully, and herresentment, almost angelic in its quality, seemed sufficiently justified. I knew that my own position was in practice untenable, that logic mustalways be inferior to emotion. I am intensely proud of my ability to see, then, that no sentiment can be false which is sincere, and that MaryIspenlove's attitude towards marriage was exactly as natural, exactly asfree from artificiality, as my own. Can you go outside Nature? Is not thepolity of Londoners in London as much a part of Nature as the polity ofbees in a hive?

'Not a word for fifteen years, and then an explosion like that!' shemurmured, incessantly recurring to the core of her grievance. 'I didwrong to marry him, I know. But I _did_ marry him--I _did_ marry him! Weare husband and wife. And he goes off and sleeps at a hotel! Carlotta, Iwish I had never been born! What will people say? I shall never be ableto look anyone in the face again. '

'He will come back, ' I said again. 

'Do you think so?'

This time she caught at the straw. 

'Yes, ' I said. 'And you will settle down gradually; and everything willbe forgotten. '

I said that because it was the one thing I could say. I repeat that I hadceased to think of myself. I had become a spectator. 

'It can never be the same between us again, ' Mary breathed sadly. 

At that moment Emmeline Palmer plunged, rather than came, into mybedroom. 

'Oh, Miss Peel--' she began, and then stopped, seeing Mrs. Ispenlove bythe fireplace, though she knew that Mrs. Ispenlove was with me. 

'Anything wrong?' I asked, affecting a complete calm. 

It was evident that the good creature had lost her head, as she sometimesdid, when I gave her too much to copy, or when the unusual occurred in nomatter what form. The excellent Emmeline was one of my mistakes. 

'Mr. Ispenlove is here, ' she whispered. 

None of us spoke for a few seconds. Mary Ispenlove stared at me, butwhether in terror or astonishment, I could not guess. This was one of themost dramatic moments of my life. 

'Tell Mr. Ispenlove that I can see nobody, ' I said, glancing at the wall. 

She turned to go. 

'And, Emmeline, ' I stopped her. 'Do not tell him anything else. '

Surely the fact that Frank had called to see me before nine o'clock inthe morning, surely my uneasy demeanour, must at length arouse suspicioneven in the simple, trusting mind of his wife!

'How does he know that I am here?' Mary asked, lowering her voice, whenEmmeline had shut the door; 'I said nothing to the servants. '

I was saved. Her own swift explanation of his coming was, of course, themost natural in the world. I seized on it. 

'Never mind how, ' I answered. 'Perhaps he was watching outside yourhouse, and followed you. The important thing is that he has come. Itproves, ' I went on, inventing rapidly, 'that he has changed his mind andrecognises his mistake. Had you not better go back home as quickly asyou can? It would have been rather awkward for you to see him here, wouldn't it?'

'Yes, yes, ' she said, her eyes softening and gleaming with joy. 'I willgo. Oh, Carlotta! how can I thank you? You are my best friend. '

'I have done nothing, ' I protested. But I had. 

'You are a dear!' she exclaimed, coming impulsively to the bed. 

I sat up. She kissed me fervently. I rang the bell. 

'Has Mr. Ispenlove gone?' I asked Emmeline. 

'Yes, ' said Emmeline. 

In another minute his wife, too, had departed, timorously optimistic, already denying in her heart that it could never be the same between themagain. She assuredly would not find Frank at home. But that was nothing. I had escaped! I had escaped!

'Will you mind getting dressed at once?' I said to Emmeline. 'I shouldlike you to go out with a letter and a manuscript as soon as possible. '

I got a notebook and began to write to Frank. I told him all that hadhappened, in full detail, writing hurriedly, in gusts, and abandoningthat regard for literary form which the professional author is apt topreserve even in his least formal correspondence. 

'After this, ' I said, 'we must give up what we decided last night. I haveno good reason to offer you. The situation itself has not been changed bywhat I have learnt from your wife. I have not even discovered that sheloves you, though in spite of what she says, which I have faithfully toldyou, I fancy she does--at any rate, I think she is beginning to. My ideasabout the rights of love are not changed. My feelings towards you are notchanged. Nothing is changed. But she and I have been through thatinterview, and so, after all, everything is changed; we must give it allup. You will say I am illogical. I am--perhaps. It was a mere chancethat your wife came to me. I don't know why she did. If she had not come, I should have given myself to you. Supposing she had written--I shouldstill have given myself to you. But I have been in her presence. I havebeen with her. And then the thought that you struck her, for my sake! Shesaid nothing about that. That was the one thing she concealed. I couldhave cried when she passed it over. After all, I don't know whether it issympathy for your wife that makes me change, or my self-respect--say myself-pride; I'm a proud woman. I lied to her through all that interview. 

'Oh, if I had only had the courage to begin by telling her outright andbluntly that you and I had settled that I should take her place! Thatwould have stopped her. But I hadn't. And, besides, how could I foreseewhat she would say to me and how she would affect me? No; I lied to herat every point. My whole attitude was a lie. Supposing you and I hadgone off together before I had seen her, and then I had met herafterwards, I could have looked her in the face--sorrowfully, with aheart bleeding--but I could have looked her in the face. But after thisinterview--no; it would be impossible for me to face her with you atmy side! Don't I put things crudely, horribly! I know everything thatyou will say. You could not bring a single argument that I have notthought of. 

'However, arguments are nothing. It is how I feel. Fate is against us. Possibly I have ruined your life and mine without having done anything toimprove hers; and possibly I have saved us all three from terriblemisery. Possibly fate is with us. No one can say. I don't know what willhappen in the immediate future; I won't think about it. If you do as Iwish, if you have any desire to show me that I have any influence overyou, you will go back to live with your wife. Where did you sleep lastnight? Or did you walk the streets? You must not answer this letter atpresent. Write to me later. Do not try to see me. I won't see you. We_mustn't_ meet. I am going away at once. I don't think I could standanother scene with your wife, and she would be sure to come again to me. 

'Try to resume your old existence. You can do it if you try. Rememberthat your wife is no more to blame than you are, or than I am. Rememberthat you loved her once. And remember that I act as I am acting becausethere is no other way for me. _C'est plus fort que moi, _ I am going toTorquay. I let you know this--I hate concealment; and anyway you wouldfind out. But I shall trust you not to follow me. I shall trust you. Youare saying that this is a very different woman from last night. It is. Ihaven't yet realized what my feelings are. I expect I shall realize themin a few days. I send with this a manuscript. It is nothing. I send itmerely to put Emmeline off the scent, so that she shall think that it ispurely business. Now I shall _trust_ you. --C. P. '

I commenced the letter without even a 'Dear Frank, ' and I ended itwithout an affectionate word. 

'I should like you to take these down to Mr. Ispenlove's office, ' I saidto Emmeline. 'Ask for him and give them to him yourself. There's noanswer. He's pretty sure to be in. But if he isn't, bring them back. I'mgoing to Torquay by that eleven-thirty express--isn't it?'

'Eleven-thirty-five, ' Emmeline corrected me coldly. 

When she returned, she said she had seen Mr. Ispenlove and given him theletter and the parcel. 

IV

I had acquaintances in Torquay, but I soon discovered that the place wasimpossible for me. Torquay is the chosen home of the proprieties, therespectabilities, and all the conventions. Nothing could dislodge themfrom its beautiful hills; the very sea, as it beats primly, or with aviolence that never forgets to be discreet, on the indented shore, acknowledges their sway. Aphrodite never visits there; the human race isnot continued there. People who have always lived within the conventionsgo there to die within the conventions. The young do not flourish there;they escape from the soft enervation. Since everybody is rich, there areno poor. There are only the rich, and the servitors, who get rich. Thesetwo classes never mix--even in the most modest villas they live onopposite sides of the house. The life of the town is a vast conspiracy onthe part of the servitors to guard against any danger of the rich takingall their riches to heaven. You can, if you are keen enough, detectportions of this conspiracy in every shop. On the hills each abode standsin its own undulating grounds, is approached by a winding drive of atleast ten yards, is wrapped about by the silence of elms, is flanked bygreenhouses, and exudes an immaculate propriety from all its windows. Inthe morning the rich descend, the servitors ascend; the bosky andperfectly-kept streets on the hills are trodden with apologetic celerityby the emissaries of the servitors. The one interminable thoroughfare ofthe town is graciously invaded by the rich, who, if they have not walkeddown for the sake of exercise, step cautiously from their carriages, enunciate a string of orders ending with the name of a house, andcautiously regain their carriages. Each house has a name, and the prideof the true servitor is his ability to deduce instantly from the name ofthe house the name of its owner and the name of its street. In theafternoon a vast and complicated game of visiting cards is played. Onedoes not begin to be serious till the evening; one eats then, solemnlyand fully, to the faint accompaniment of appropriate conversation. Andthere is no relief, no surcease from utmost conventionality. It goes onnight and day; it hushes one to sleep, and wakes one up. On all but thestrongest minds it casts a narcotizing spell, so that thought isarrested, and originality, vivacity, individuality become a crime--ashame that must be hidden. Into this strange organism I took my woundedheart, imagining that an atmosphere of coma might help to heal it. Butno! Within a week my state had become such that I could have cried out inmid Union Street at noon: 'Look at me with your dead eyes, you dead whohave omitted to get buried, I am among you, and I am an adulteress inspirit! And my body has sinned the sin! And I am alive as only grief canbe alive. I suffer the torture of vultures, but I would not exchange mylot with yours!'

And one morning, after a fortnight, I thought of Monte Carlo. And thevision of that place, which I had never seen, too voluptuously lovely tobe really beautiful, where there are no commandments, whereunconventionality and conventionality fight it out on even terms, wherethe adulteress swarms, and the sin is for ever sinned, and wounded heartsgo about gaily, where it is impossible to distinguish between virtue andvice, and where Toleration in fine clothes is the supreme socialgoddess--the vision of Monte Carlo, as a place of refuge from theexacerbating and moribund and yet eternal demureness of Torquay, appealedto me so persuasively that I was on my way to the Riviera in two hours. In that crisis of my life my moods were excessively capricious. Let mesay that I had not reached Exeter before I began to think kindly ofTorquay. What was Torquay but an almost sublime example of what thehuman soul can accomplish in its unending quest of an ideal?

I left England on a calm, slate-coloured sea--sea that more than anyother sort of sea produces the reflective melancholy which makeswonderful the faces of fishermen. How that brief voyage symbolized for methe mysterious movement of humanity! We converged from the four quartersof the universe, passed together an hour, helpless, in somewhat inimicalcuriosity concerning each other, and then, mutually forgotten, took wing, and spread out into the unknown. I think that as I stood near the hotfunnel, breasting the wind, and vacantly staring at the smooth expansethat continually slipped from under us, I understood myself better than Ihad done before. My soul was at peace--the peace of ruin after aconflagration, but peace. Sometimes a little flame would dart out--flameof regret, revolt, desire--and I would ruthlessly extinguish it. I feltthat I had nothing to live for, that no energy remained to me, nointerest, no hope. I saw the forty years of probable existence in frontof me flat and sterile as the sea itself. I was coldly glad that I hadfinished my novel, well knowing that it would be my last. And the immensedisaster had been caused by a chance! Why had I been born with a vein ofoverweening honesty in me? Why should I have sacrificed everything to thepride of my conscience, seeing that consciences were the product ofeducation merely? Useless to try to answer the unanswerable! What is, is. And circumstances are always at the mercy of character. I might have beenwrong, I might have been right; no ethical argument could have bent myinstinct. I did not sympathize with myself--I was too proud andstern--but I sympathized with Frank. I wished ardently that he might beconsoled--that his agony might not be too terrible. I wondered where hewas, what he was doing. I had received no letter from him, but then I hadinstructed that letters should not be forwarded to me. My compassion wentout after him, followed him into the dark, found him (as I hoped), andsurrounded him like an alleviating influence. I thought pityingly of theravage that had been occasioned by our love. His home was wrecked. Ourlives were equally wrecked. Our friends were grieved; they would thinksadly of my closed flat. Even the serio-comic figure of Emmeline touchedme; I had paid her three months' wages and dismissed her. Where would shego with her mauve _peignoir_? She was over thirty, and would not easilyfall into another such situation. Imagine Emmeline struck down by asplinter from our passionate explosion! Only Yvonne was content at theprospect of revisiting France. 

'_Ah! Qu'on est bien ici, madame_!' she said, when we had fixed ourselvesin the long and glittering _train de grand luxe_ that awaited us atCalais. Once I had enjoyed luxury, but now the futility of all thisluxurious cushioned arrogance, which at its best only corresponded with arailway director's dreams of paradise, seemed to me pathetic. Could itdetain youth, which is for ever flying? Could it keep out sorrow? Couldit breed hope? As the passengers, so correct in their travellingcostumes, passed to and fro in the corridors with the subdued murmursalways adopted by English people when they wish to prove that they arenot excited, I thought: 'Does it matter how you and I go southwards? Thepride of the eye, and of the palate, and of the limbs, what can it helpus that this should be sated? We cannot leave our souls behind. ' Thehistory of many of these men and women was written on their faces. Iwondered if my history was written on mine, gazing into the mirrors whichwere everywhere, but seeing nothing save that which I had always seen. Then I smiled, and Yvonne smiled respectfully in response. Was I not partof the immense pretence that riches bring joy and that life is good? Onevery table in the restaurant-cars were bunches of fresh flowers that hadbeen torn from the South, and would return there dead, having ministeredto the illusion that riches bring joy and that life is good. I hatedthat. I could almost have wished that I was travelling southwards in aslow, slow train, third class, where sorrow at any rate does not wear amask. Great grief is democratic, levelling--not downwards but upwards. Itstrips away the inessential, and makes brothers. It is impatient with allthe unavailing inventions which obscure the brotherhood of mankind. 

I descended from the train restlessly--there were ten minutes to elapsebefore the departure--and walked along the platform, glimpsing the facesin the long procession of windows, and then the flowers and napery in thetwo restaurant-cars: wistful all alike, I thought--flowers and faces! Howfanciful, girlishly fanciful, I was! Opposite the door of the first carstood a gigantic negro in the sober blue and crimson livery of theInternational Sleeping Car Company. He wore white gloves, like all theservants on the train: it was to foster the illusion; it was part of whatwe paid for. 

'When is luncheon served?' I asked him idly. 

He looked massively down at me as I shivered slightly in my furs. Hecontemplated me for an instant. He seemed to add me up, antipathetically, as a product of Western civilization. 

'Soon as the train starts, madam, ' he replied suavely, in good American, and resumed nonchalantly his stare into the distance of the platform. 

'Thank you!' I said. 

I was glad that I had encountered him on that platform and not in theAfrican bush. I speculated upon the chain of injustice and oppressionthat had warped his destiny from what it ought to have been to what itwas. 'And he, too, is human, and knows love and grief and illusion, likeme, ' I mused. A few yards further on the engine-driver and stoker werebusy with coal and grease. 'Five minutes hence, and our lives, and ourcorrectness, and our luxury, will be in their grimy hands, ' I said tomyself. Strange world, the world of the _train de grand luxe_! But aworld of brothers! I regained my carriage, exactly, after all, as theinhabitants of Torquay regained theirs. 

Then the wondrous self-contained microcosm, shimmering with gilt andvarnish and crystal, glorious in plush and silk, heavy with souls and allthat correct souls could possibly need in twenty hours, gathered itselfup and rolled forward, swiftly, and more swiftly, into the wide, graylandscapes of France. The vibrating and nerve-destroying monotony of along journey had commenced. We were summoned by white gloves to luncheon;and we lunched in a gliding palace where the heavenly dreams of a railwaydirector had received their most luscious expression--and had then beenmodestly hidden by advertisements of hotels and brandy. The Southernflowers shook in their slender glasses, and white gloves balanced dishesas if on board ship, and the electric fans revolved ceaselessly. As I wasfinishing my meal, a middle-aged woman whom I knew came down the cartowards me. She had evidently not recognised me. 

'How do you do, Miss Kate?' I accosted her. 

It was the younger of Vicary's two maiden sisters. I guessed that theother could not be far away. 

She hesitated, stopped, and looked down at me, rather as the negro haddone. 

'Oh! how do you do, Miss Peel?' she said distantly, with a nervoussimper; and she passed on. 

This was my first communication, since my disappearance, with the worldof my London friends and acquaintances. I perceived, of course, fromMiss Kate's attitude that something must have occurred, or something musthave been assumed, to my prejudice. Perhaps Frank had also vanished for atime, and the rumour ran that we were away together. I smiled frigidly. What matter? In case Miss Vicary should soon be following her sister, Ileft without delay and went back to my coupé; it would have been a pityto derange these dames. Me away with Frank! What folly to suppose it! Yetit might have been. I was in heart what these dames probably took me for. I read a little in the _Imitation of Christ_ which Aunt Constance hadmeant to give me, that book which will survive sciences and evenChristianity itself. 'Think not that thou hast made any progress, ' Iread, 'unless thou feel thyself inferior to all . .. Behold how far offthou art yet from true charity and humility: which knows not how to beangry or indignant, with any except one's self. '

Night fell. The long, illuminated train roared and flashed on itsinvisible way under a dome of stars. It shrieked by mysterious stations, dragging furiously its freight of luxury and light and human masksthrough placid and humble villages and towns, of which it ignoredeverything save their coloured signals of safety. Ages of oscillationseemed to pass. In traversing the corridors one saw interior afterinterior full of the signs of wearied humanity: magazines thrown aside, rugs in disorder, hair dishevelled, eyes heavy, cheeks flushed, limbs inthe abandoned attitudes of fatigue--here and there a compartment withblinds discreetly drawn, suggesting the jealous seclusion of love, andhere and there a group of animated tatlers or card-players whose nervesnothing could affect, and who were incapable of lassitude; on every trainand every steamer a few such are to be found. 

More ages passed, and yet the journey had but just begun. At length wethundered and resounded through canyons of tall houses, their façadesoccasionally bathed in the cold, blue radiance of arc-lights; and understreets and over canals. Paris! the city of the joy of life! We were tosee the muddied skirts of that brilliant and sinister woman. We panted toa standstill in the vast echoing cavern of the Gare du Nord, staredhaughtily and drowsily at its bustling confusion, and then drew back, tocarry our luxury and our correctness through the lowest industrialquarters. Belleville, Menilmontant, and other names of like associationswe read on the miserable, forlorn stations of the Ceinture, past which wetrailed slowly our disgust. 

We made a semicircle through the secret shames that beautiful Pariswould fain hide, and, emerging, found ourselves in the deserted and stonymagnificence of the Gare de Lyon, the gate of the South. Here, where wewere not out of keeping, where our splendour was of a piece with thesplendour of the proudest terminus in France, we rested long, fretted bythe inexplicable leisureliness on the part of a _train de grand luxe_, while gilded officials paced to and fro beneath us on the platforms, guarding in their bureaucratic breasts the secret of the exact instant atwhich the great express would leave. I slept, and dreamed that the MissesVicary had brought several pairs of white gloves in order to have medismissed from the society of the train. A hand touched me. It wasYvonne's. I awoke to a renewal of the maddening vibration. We had quittedParis long since. It was after seven o'clock. '_On dit que le diner estservi, madame_ said Yvonne. I told her to go, and I collected my wits tofollow her. As I was emerging into the corridor, Miss Kate went by. Ismiled faintly, perhaps timidly. She cut me completely. Then I went outinto the corridor. A man was standing at the other end twirling hismoustaches. He turned round. 

It was Frank. 

He came towards me, uncertainly swaying with the movement of theswaying train. 

'Good God!' he muttered, and stopped within a yard of me. 

I clung convulsively to the framework of the doorway. Our lives paused. 

'Why have you followed me, Frank?' I asked gloomily, in a whisper. 

I had meant to be severe, offended. I had not meant to put his name atthe end of my question, much less to utter it tenderly, like anendearment. But I had little control over myself. I was almost breathlesswith a fatal surprise, shaken with terrible emotion. 

'I've not followed you, ' he said. 'I joined the train at Paris. I'd noidea you were on the train till I saw you in the corner asleep, throughthe window of the compartment. I've been waiting here till you came out. '

'Have you seen the Vicarys?'

'Yes, ' he answered. 

'Ah! You've been away from London all this time?'

'I couldn't stay. I couldn't. I've been in Belgium and Holland. Then Iwent to Paris. And now--you see me. '

'I'm going to Mentone, ' I said. 'I had thought of Monte Carlo first, butI changed my mind. Where are you going to?'

'Mentone, ' he said. 

We talked in hard, strained tones, avoiding each other's eyes. A stringof people passed along the car on their way to dinner. I withdrew into mycompartment, and Frank flattened himself against a window. 

'Come in here a minute, ' I said, when they were gone. 

He entered the compartment and sat down opposite to me and lifted hishand, perhaps unconsciously, to pull the door to. 

'No, ' I said; 'don't shut it. Leave it like that. '

He was dressed in a gray tourist suit. Never before had I seen him in anybut the formal attire of London. I thought he looked singularly gracefuland distinguished, even romantic, in that loose, soft clothing. But nomatter what he wore, Frank satisfied the eye. We were both extremelynervous and excited and timid, fearing speech. 

'Carlotta, ' he said at last--I had perceived that he was struggling to aresolution--'this is the best thing that could have happened. Whatever wedo, everybody will believe that we are running off together. '

'I think they have been believing that ever since we left London, ' Isaid; and I told him about Miss Kate's treatment of me at lunch. 'But howcan that affect us?' I demanded. 

'Mary will believe it--does believe, I'm sure. Long before this, peoplewill have enlightened her. And now the Vicarys have seen us, it's allover. Our hand is forced, isn't it?'

'Frank, ' I said, 'didn't you think my letter was right?'

'I obeyed it, ' he replied heavily. 'I haven't even written to you. Imeant to when I got to Mentone. '

'But didn't you think I was right?'

'I don't know. Yes--I suppose it was. ' His lower lip fell. 'Of course Idon't want you to do anything that you--'

'Dinner, please, ' said my negro, putting his head between us. 

We both informed the man that we should not dine, and I asked him to tellYvonne not to wait for me. 

'There's your maid, too, ' said Frank. 'How are we going to get out of it?The thing's settled for us. '

'My dear, dear boy!' I exclaimed. 'Are we to outrage our consciencessimply because people think we have outraged them?'

'It isn't my conscience--it's yours, ' he said. 

'Well, then--mine. '

I drew down my veil; I could scarcely keep dry eyes. 

'Why are you so hard, Carlotta?' he cried. 'I can't understand you. Inever could. But you'll kill me--that's what you'll do. '

Impulsively I leaned forward; and he seized my hand. Our antagonismmelted in tears. Oh the cruel joy of that moment! Who will dare to saythat the spirit cannot burn with pleasure while drowning in grief? Orthat tragedy may not be the highest bliss? That instant of renunciationwas our true marriage. I realize it now--a union that nothing can soilnor impair. 

'I love you; you are fast and fast in my heart, ' I murmured. 'But youmust go back to Mary. There is nothing else. '

And I withdrew my hand. 

He shook his head. 

'You've no right, my dearest, to tell me to go back to Mary. I cannot. '

'Forgive me, ' I said. 'I have only the right to ask you to leave me. '

'Then there is no hope?'

His lips trembled. Ah! those lips!

I made a sign that there was no hope. And we sat in silence, overcome. 

A servant came to arrange the compartment for sleeping, and we wereobliged to assume nonchalance and go into the corridor. All thewindows of the corridor were covered with frost traceries. The trainwith its enclosed heat and its gleaming lamps was plunging through anice-gripped night. I thought of the engine-driver, perched on hisshaking, snorting, monstrous machine, facing the weather, with ourlives and our loves in his hand. 

'We'll leave each other now, Frank, ' I said, 'before the people begin tocome back from dinner. Go and eat something. '

'But you?'

'I shall be all right. Yvonne will get me some fruit. I shall stay in ourcompartment till we arrive. '

'Yes. And when we do arrive--what then? What are your wishes? You see, I can't leave the train before we get to Mentone because of myregistered luggage. '

He spoke appealingly. 

The dear thing, with his transparent pretexts!

'You can ignore us at the station, and then leave Mentone againduring the day. '

'As you wish, ' he said. 

'Good-night!' I whispered. 'Good-bye!' And I turned to my compartment. 

'Carlotta!' he cried despairingly. 

But I shut the door and drew the blinds. 

Yvonne was discretion itself when she returned. She had surely seenFrank. No doubt she anticipated piquant developments at Mentone. 

All night I lay on my narrow bed, with Yvonne faintly snoring above me, and the harsh, metallic rattle of the swinging train beneath. I couldcatch the faint ticking of my watch under the thin pillow. The lamp burntdelicately within its green shade. I lay almost moveless, almost dead, shifting only at long intervals from side to side. Sometimes my brainwould arouse itself, and I would live again through each scene of myrelationship with Frank and Mary. I often thought of the engine-driver, outside, watching over us and unflinchingly dragging us on. I hoped thathis existence had compensations. 

V

Early on the second morning after that interview in the train I sat onmy balcony in the Hôtel d'Écosse, full in the tremendous sun that hadascended over the Mediterranean. The shore road wound along beneath meby the blue water that never receded nor advanced, lopping always thesame stones. A vivid yellow electric tram, like a toy, crept forward onmy left from the direction of Vintimille and Italy, as it were swimmingnoiselessly on the smooth surface of the road among the palms of anintense green, against the bright blue background of the sea; andanother tram advanced, a spot of orange, to meet it out of thevariegated tangle of tinted houses composing the Old Town. High upon thesummit of the Old Town rose the slim, rose-coloured cupola of the churchin a sapphire sky. The regular smiting sound of a cracked bell, viciously rung, came from it. The eastern prospect was shut in by thelast olive-clad spurs of the Alps, that tread violently and giganticallyinto the sea. The pathways of the hotel garden were being gently sweptby a child of the sun, who could not have sacrificed his gracefuldignity to haste; and many peaceful morning activities proceeded on theroad, on the shore, and on the jetty. A procession of tawnyfishing-boats passed from the harbour one after another straight intothe eye of the sun, and were lost there. Smoke climbed up softly intothe soft air from the houses and hotels on the level of the road. Thetrams met and parted, silently widening the distance between them whichpreviously they had narrowed. And the sun rose and rose, bathing theblue sea and the rich verdure and the glaring white architecture in thevery fluid of essential life. The whole azure coast basked in it like animmense cat, commencing the day with a voluptuous savouring of the factthat it was alive. The sun is the treacherous and tyrannical god of theSouth, and when he withdraws himself, arbitrary and cruel, the land andthe people shiver and prepare to die. 

It was such a morning as renders sharp and unmistakable the divisionbetween body and soul--if the soul suffers. The body exults; the bodycries out that nothing on earth matters except climate. Nothing can dampthe glorious ecstasy of the body baptized in that air, caressed by thatincomparable sun. It laughs, and it laughs at the sorrow of the soul. Itimperiously bids the soul to choose the path of pleasure; it shouts aloudthat sacrifice is vain and honour an empty word, full of inconveniences, and that to exist amply and vehemently, to listen to the blood as itbeats strongly through the veins, is the end of the eternal purpose. Ah!how easy it is to martyrize one's self by some fatal decision madegrandly in the exultation of a supreme moment! And how difficult toendure the martyrdom without regret! I regretted my renunciation. My bodyrebelled against it, and even my soul rebelled. I scorned myself for afool, for a sentimental weakling--yes, and for a moral coward. Everyargument that presented itself damaged the justice of my decision. Afterall, we loved, and in my secret dreams had I not always put love first, as the most sacred? The reality was that I had been afraid of what Marywould think. True, my attitude had lied to her, but I could not haveavoided that. Decency would have forbidden me to use any other attitude;and more than decency--kindness. Ought the course of lives to be changedat the bidding of mere hazard? It was a mere chance that Mary had calledon me. I bled for her grief, but nothing that I could do would assuageit. I felt sure that, in the impossible case of me being able to state myposition to her and argue in its defence, I could force her to see thatin giving myself to Frank I was not being false to my own ideals. Whatelse could count? What other consideration should guide the soul on itsmysterious instinctive way? Frank and I had a right to possess eachother. We had a right to be happy if we could. And the one thing that hadrobbed us of that right was my lack of courage, caused partly by myfeminine mentality (do we not realize sometimes how ignobly feminine weare?), and partly by the painful spectacle of Mary's grief. .. . And hergrief, her most intimate grief, sprang not from thwarted love, but froma base and narrow conventionality. 

Thus I declaimed to myself in my heart, under the influence of theseductive temptations of that intoxicating atmosphere. 

'Come down, ' said a voice firmly and quietly underneath me in theorange-trees of the garden. 

I started violently. It was Frank's voice. He was standing in the garden, his legs apart, and a broad, flat straw hat, which I did not admire, onhis head. His pale face was puckered round about the eyes as he looked upat me, like the face of a person trying to look directly at the sun. 

'Why, ' I exclaimed foolishly, glancing down over the edge of the balcony, and shutting my white parasol with a nervous, hurried movement, 'have--have you come here?'

He had disobeyed my wish. He had not left Mentone at once. 

'Come down, ' he repeated persuasively, and yet commandingly. 

I could feel my heart beating against the marble parapet of the balcony. I seemed to be caught, to be trapped. I could not argue with him in thatposition. I could not leave him shouting in the garden. So I nodded topacify him, and disappeared quickly from the balcony, almost scurryingaway. And in the comparative twilight of my room I stopped and gave aglance in the mirror, and patted my hair, and fearfully examined thewoman that I saw in the glass, as if to discern what sort of woman shetruly was, and what was the root of her character. I hesitated andsnatched up my gloves. I wanted to collect my thoughts, and I could not. It was impossible to think clearly. I moved in the room, dazed. I stoodby the tumbled bed, fingering the mosquito curtains. They might have beena veil behind which was obscured the magic word of enlightenment Ineeded. I opened the door, shut it suddenly, and held the knob tight, defying an imagined enemy outside. 'Oh!' I muttered at last, angry withmyself, 'what is the use of all this? You know you must go down to him. He's waiting for you. Show a little common-sense and go without so muchfuss. ' And so I descended the stairs swiftly and guiltily, relieved thatno one happened to see me. In any case, I decided, nothing could induceme to yield to him after my letter and after what had passed in thetrain. The affair was beyond argument. I felt that I could not yield, andthat though it meant the ruin of happiness by obstinacy, I could notyield. I shrank from yielding in that moment as men shrink from publicrepentance. 

He had not moved from his post in the garden. We shook hands. A bandof Italian musicians wandered into the garden and began to sing Verdito a vigorous thrumming of guitars. They sang as only Italians cansing--as naturally as they breathed, and with a rich and overflowinginnocent joy in the art which Nature had taught them. They sang loudly, swingingly, glancing full of naive hope up at the windows of the vast, unresponsive hotel. 

'So you are still in Mentone, ' I ventured. 

'Yes, ' he said. 'Come for a walk. '

'But--'

'Come for a walk. '

'Very well, ' I consented. 'As I am?'

'As you are. I saw you all in white on the balcony, and I was determinedto fetch you out. '

'But could you see who it was from the road?'

'Of course I could. I knew in an instant. '

We descended, he a couple of paces in front of me, the narrow zigzag pathleading down between two other hotels to the shore road. 

'What will happen now?' I asked myself wildly. My head swam. 

It seemed that nothing would happen. We turned eastwards, walking slowly, and I began to resume my self-control. Only the simple and the humblewere abroad at that early hour: purveyors of food, in cheerfully rattlingcarts, or hauling barrows with the help of grave and formidable dogs;washers and cleaners at the doors of highly-decorated villas, amiablyperforming their tasks while the mighty slept; fishermen and fatfisher-girls, industriously repairing endless brown nets on the otherside of the parapet of the road; a postman and a little policeman; aporcelain mender, who practised his trade under the shadow of the wall; afew loafers; some stable-boys exercising horses; and children withadorable dirty faces, shouting in their high treble as they played athopscotch. I felt very closely akin to these meek ones as we walkedalong. They were so human, so wistful. They had the wonderful simplicityof animals, uncomplicated by the disease of self-consciousness; they werethe vital stuff without the embroidery. They preserved the customs oftheir ancestors, rising with the sun, frankly and splendidly enjoying thesun, looking up to it as the most important thing in the world. Theynever attempted to understand what was beyond them; they troubled notwith progress, ideals, righteousness, the claims of society. Theyaccepted humbly and uninquiringly what they found. They lived the life oftheir instincts, sometimes violent, often kindly, and always natural. Why should I have felt so near to them?

A calm and gentle pleasure filled me, far from intense, but yetsatisfying. I determined to enjoy the moment, or, perhaps, withoutdetermination, I gave myself up, gradually, to the moment. I forgot careand sorrow. I was well; I was with Frank; I was in the midst ofenchanting natural beauty; the day was fair and fresh and virgin. I knewnot where I was going. Shorewards a snowy mountain ridge rose above thelong, wide slopes of olives, dotted with white dwellings. A single sailstood up seawards on the immense sheet of blue. The white sail appearedand disappeared in the green palm-trees as we passed eastwards. Presentlywe left the sea, and we lost the hills, and came into a street of poorlittle shops for simple folk, that naïvely exposed their cheap and tawdrygoods to no matter what mightiness should saunter that way. And then wecame to the end of the tram-line, and it was like the end of the world. And we saw in the distance abodes of famous persons, fabulously rich, defying the sea and the hills, and condescending from afar off to thehumble. We crossed the railway, and a woman ran out from a cabin with aspoon in one hand and a soiled flag in the other, and waved the flag ata towering black engine that breathed stertorously in a cutting. Alreadywe were climbing, and the road grew steeper, and then we came tocustom-houses--unsightly, squalid, irregular, and mean--in front of whichofficials laughed and lounged and smoked. 

We talked scarcely at all. 

'You were up early this morning, ' he said. 

'Yes; I could not sleep. '

'It was the same with me. '

We recovered the sea; but now it was far below us, and the footprints ofthe wind were marked on it, and it was not one blue, but a thousandblues, and it faded imperceptibly into the sky. The sail, making Mentone, was much nearer, and had developed into a two-masted ship. It seemed tobe pushed, rather than blown, along by the wind. It seemed to haverigidity in all its parts, and to be sliding unwillingly over a vastslate. The road lay through craggy rocks, shelving away unseen on onehand, and rising steeply against the burning sky on the other. We mountedsteadily and slowly. I did not look much at Frank, but my eye wasconscious of his figure, striding leisurely along. Now and then, when Iturned to glance behind, I saw our shadows there diagonally on the road, and again I did not care for his hat. I had not seen him in a straw hattill that morning. We arrived at a second set of French custom-houses, deserted, and then we saw that the gigantic side of the mountain wascleft by a fissure from base to summit. And across the gorge had beenthrown a tiny stone bridge to carry the road. At this point, by thebridge, the face of the rock had been carved smooth, and a great blacktriangle painted on it. And on the road was a common milestone, with'France' on one side and 'Italia' on the other. And a very old man washarmlessly spreading a stock of picture postcards on the parapet of thebridge. My heart went out to that poor old man, whose white curls glintedin the sunlight. It seemed to me so pathetic that he should be justthere, at that natural spot which the passions and the blood of men longdead had made artificial, tediously selling postcards in order to keephis worn and creaking body out of the grave. 

'Do give him something, ' I entreated Frank. 

And while Frank went to him I leaned over the other parapet andlistened for the delicate murmur of the stream far below. The splitflank of the hill was covered with a large red blossom, and at thebase, on the edge of the sea, were dolls' houses, each raising aslanted pencil of pale smoke. 

Then we were in Italy, and still climbing. We saw a row of narrow, slattern cottages, their backs over the sea, and in front of them marchedto and fro a magnificent soldier laced in gold, with chinking spurs and arifle. Suddenly there ran out of a cottage two little girls, aged aboutfour years and eight years, dirty, unkempt, delicious, shrill, theirmovements full of the ravishing grace of infancy. They attacked the lacedsoldier, chattering furiously, grumbling at him, intimidating him withthe charming gestures of spoilt and pouting children. And he bent downstiffly in his superb uniform, and managed his long, heavy gun, andtalked to them in a deep, vibrating voice. He reasoned with them till wecould hear him no more. It was so touching, so exquisitely human!

We reached the top of the hill, having passed the Italian customs, equally vile with the French. The terraced grounds of an immense desertedcastle came down to the roadside; and over the wall, escaped from thegarden, there bloomed extravagantly a tangle of luscious yellow roses, just out of our reach. The road was still and deserted. We could seenothing but the road and the sea and the hills, all steeped, bewitched, and glorious under the sun. The ship had nearly slid to Mentone. Thecurving coastline of Italy wavered away into the shimmering horizon. Andthere were those huge roses, insolently blooming in the middle of winter, the symbol of the terrific forces of nature which slept quiescent underthe universal calm. Perched as it were in a niche of the hills, we werepart of that tremendous and ennobling scene. Long since the awkwardself-consciousness caused by our plight had left us. We did not usespeech, but we knew that we thought alike, and were suffering the sametranscendent emotion. Was it joy or sadness? Rather than either, it wasan admixture of both, originating in a poignant sense of the grandeur oflife and of the earth. 

'Oh, Frank, ' I murmured, my spirit bursting, 'how beautiful it is!'

Our eyes met. He took me and kissed me impetuously, as though myutterance had broken a spell which enchained him. And as I kissed him Iwept, blissfully. Nature had triumphed. 

VI

We departed from Mentone that same day after lunch. I could not remove tohis hotel; he could not remove to mine, for this was Mentone. We went toMonte Carlo by road, our luggage following. We chose Monte Carlo partlybecause it was the nearest place, and partly because it has some of thequalities--incurious, tolerant, unprovincial--of a capital city. If weencountered friends there, so much the better, in the end. The greatadventure, the solemn and perilous enterprise had begun. I sent Yvonnefor a holiday to her home in Laroche. Why? Ah, why? Perhaps for thesimple reason that I had not the full courage of my convictions. Weseldom have--_nous autres_. I felt that, if she had remained, Yvonnewould have been too near me in the enterprise. I could not at first havebeen my natural self with her. I told the astonished and dissatisfiedYvonne that I would write to her as soon as I wanted her. Yet in otherways I had courage, and I found a delicious pleasure in my courage. WhenI was finally leaving the hotel I had Frank by my side. I behaved to himas to a husband. I publicly called him 'dear. ' I asked his advice intrifles. He paid my bill. He even provided the money necessary forYvonne. My joy in the possession of this male creature, whose part it nowwas to do for me a thousand things that hitherto I had been forced to dofor myself, was almost naive. I could not hide it. I was at last a man'swoman. I had a protector. Yes; I must not shrink from the equivocalsignificance of that word--I had a protector. 

Frank was able to get three rooms at the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. Ihad only to approve them. We met in our sitting-room at half-past three, ready to go out for a walk. It would be inexact to say that we were notnervous. But we were happy. He had not abandoned his straw hat. 

'Don't wear that any more, ' I said to him, smiling. 

'But why? It's quite new. '

'It doesn't suit you, ' I said. 

'Oh, that doesn't matter, ' he laughed, and he put it on. 

'But I don't like to see you in it, ' I persisted. 

'Well, you'll stand it this afternoon, my angel, and I'll get anotherto-morrow. '

'Haven't you got another one here?' I asked, with discontent. 

'No, ' and he laughed again. 

'But, dear--' I pouted. 

He seemed suddenly to realize that as a fact I did not like the hat. 

'Come here, ' he said, charmingly grave; and he led me by the hand intohis bedroom, which was littered with clothes, small parcels, boots, andbrushes. One chair was overturned. 

'Heavens!' I muttered, pretending to be shocked at the disorder. 

He drew, me to a leather box of medium size. 

'You can open it, ' he said. 

I opened it. The thing was rather a good contrivance, for a man. Itheld a silk hat, an opera hat, a bowler hat, some caps, and a softPanama straw. 

'And you said you had no others!' I grumbled at him. 

'Well, which is it to be?' he demanded. 

'This, of course, ' I said, taking the bowler. I reached up, removed thestraw hat from his head, and put the bowler in its place. 'There!' Iexclaimed, satisfied, giving the bowler a pat--there!'

He laughed, immensely content, enraptured, foolishly blissful. We wereindeed happy. Before opening the door leading to the corridor we stoppedand kissed. 

On the seaward terrace of the vast, pale, floriated Casino, soimpressive in its glittering vulgarity, like the bride-cake of astockbroker's wedding, we strolled about among a multifarious crowd, immersed in ourselves. We shared a contempt for the architecture, theglaring flower-beds, and the false distinction of the crowd, and anenthusiasm for the sunshine and the hills and the sea, and whatever elsehad escaped the hands of the Casino administration. We talked lightlyand freely. Care seemed to be leaving us; we had no preoccupations savethose which were connected with our passion. Then I saw, standing in anattitude of attention, the famous body-servant of Lord Francis Alcar, and I knew that Lord Francis could not be far away. We spoke to thevalet; he pointed out his master, seated at the front of the terrace, and told us, in a discreet, pained, respectful voice, that our venerablefriend had been mysteriously unwell at Monte Carlo, and was now takingthe air for the first time in ten days. I determined that we should goboldly and speak to him. 

'Lord Francis, ' I said gently, after we had stood some seconds by hischair, unremarked. 

He was staring fixedly at the distance of the sea. He looked amazinglyolder than when I had last talked with him. His figure was shrunken, andhis face rose thin and white out of a heavy fur overcoat and a large bluemuffler. In his eyes there was such a sadness, such an infinite regret, such a profound weariness as can only be seen in the eyes of the senile. He was utterly changed. 

'Lord Francis, ' I repeated, 'don't you know me?'

He started slightly and looked at me, and a faint gleam appeared in hiseyes. Then he nodded, and took a thin, fragile alabaster hand out ofthe pocket of his overcoat. I shook it. It was like shaking hands witha dead, starved child. He carefully moved the skin and bone back intohis pocket. 

'Are you pretty well?' I said. 

He nodded. Then the faint gleam faded out of his eyes; his head fell alittle, and he resumed his tragic contemplation of the sea. The fact ofmy presence had dropped like a pebble into the strange depths of thataged mind, and the waters of the ferocious egotism of senility had closedover it, and it was forgotten. His rapt and yet meaningless gazefrightened me. It was as if there was more desolation and disillusion inthat gaze than I had previously imagined the whole earth to contain. Useless for Frank to rouse him for the second time. Useless to explainourselves. What was love to him, or the trivial conventions of a worldwhich he was already quitting?

We walked away. From the edge of the terrace I could see a number ofboats pulling to and fro in the water. 

'It's the pigeon-shooting, ' Frank explained. 'Come to the railings andyou'll be able to see. '

I had already heard the sharp popping of rifles. I went to the railings, and saw a number of boxes arranged in a semicircle on a green, which was, as it were, suspended between the height of the terrace and the sea. Suddenly one of the boxes collapsed with a rattle, and a bird flew out ofthe ruin of it. There were two reports of a gun; the bird, its curvingflight cut short, fell fluttering to the grass; a dog trotted out fromthe direction of the gun unseen beneath us, and disappeared again withthe mass of ruffled feathers in its mouth. Then two men showedthemselves, ran to the collapsed box, restored it, and put in it a freshvictim, and disappeared after the dog. I was horrified, but I could notremove my eyes from the green. Another box fell flat, and another birdflew out; a gun sounded; the bird soared far away, wavered, and sank onto the surface of the sea, and the boats converged towards it in furioushaste. So the game proceeded. I saw a dozen deaths on the green; a fewbirds fell into the sea, and one escaped, settling ultimately on the roofof the Casino. 

'So that is pigeon-shooting, ' I said coldly, turning to Frank. 'I supposeit goes on all day?'

He nodded. 

'It's just as cruel as plenty of other sports, and no more, ' he said, asif apologizing for the entire male sex. 

'I presume so, ' I answered. 'But do you know, dear, if the idea once getsinto my head that that is going on all day, I shan't be able to stophere. Let us have tea somewhere. '

Not until dinner did I recover from the obsession of that continualslaughter and destruction of beautiful life. It seemed to me that theCasino and its gorgeous gardens were veritably established on themysterious arched hollow, within the high cliff, from which death shotout all day and every day. But I did recover perfectly. Only now do Icompletely perceive how violent, how capricious and contradictory weremy emotions in those unique and unforgettable hours. 

We dined late, because I had deprived myself of Yvonne. Already I wasalmost in a mind to send for her. The restaurant of the hotel was full, but we recognised no one as we walked through the room to our table. 

'There is one advantage in travelling about with you, ' said Frank. 

'What is it?' I asked. 

'No matter where one is, one can always be sure of being with the mostbeautiful woman in the place. '

I was content. I repaid him by being more than ever a man's woman. Iknew that I was made for that. I understood why great sopranos have oftheir own accord given up even the stage on marriage. The career ofliterature seemed to me tedious and sordid in comparison with that ofbeing a man's woman. In my rich black dress and my rings and bracelets Ifelt like an Eastern Empress; I felt that I could adequately rewardhomage with smiles, and love with fervid love. And I felt like acat--idle, indolently graceful, voluptuously seeking warmth andcaresses. I enveloped Frank with soft glances, I dazed him with glances. He ordered a wine which he said was fit for gods, and the waiter broughtit reverently and filled our glasses, with a ritual of precautions. Later during the dinner Frank asked me if I would prefer champagne. Isaid, 'No, of course not. ' But he said, 'I think you would, ' and orderedsome. 'Admit, ' he said, 'that you prefer champagne. ' 'Well, of course, 'I replied. But I drank very little champagne, lest I should be toohappy. Frank's wonderful face grew delicately flushed. The roomresounded with discreet chatter, and the tinkle of glass and silver andporcelain. The upper part of it remained in shadow, but every table wasa centre of rosy light, illuminating faces and jewels and napery. And inmy sweet illusion I thought that every face had found the secret of joy, and that even the old had preserved it. Pleasure reigned. Pleasure wasthe sole goddess. And how satisfying then was the worship of her! Lifehad no inconveniences, no dark spots, no pitfalls. The gratification ofthe senses, the appeasing of appetites that instantly renewedthemselves--this was the business of the soul. And as the wine sanklower in the bottles, and we cooled our tongues with ices, and the roombegan to empty, expectation gleamed and glittered in our eyes. At last, except a group of men smoking and talking in a corner, we were the onlydiners left. 

'Shall we go?' Frank said, putting a veil of cigarette smoke between us. 

I trembled. I was once more the young and timid girl. I could notspeak. I nodded. 

In the hall was Vicary, talking to the head-porter. He saw us andstarted. 

'What! Vicary!' I murmured, suddenly cooled. 

'I want to speak to you, ' said Vicary. 'Where can we go?'

'This way, ' Frank replied. 

We went to our sitting-room, silent and apprehensive. 

'Sit down, ' said Vicary, shutting the door and standing against it. 

He was wearing a tourist suit, with a gray overcoat, and his grizzledhair was tumbling over his hard, white face. 

'What's the matter?' Frank asked. 'Anything wrong?'

'Look here, you two, ' said Vicary, 'I don't want to discuss yourposition, and I'm the last person in this world to cast the first stone;but it falls to me to do it. I was coming down to Nice to stay with mysisters, and I've come a little further. My sisters wired me they hadseen you. I've been to Mentone, and driven here from there. I hoped Ishould get here earlier than the newspapers, and I have done, it seems. '

'Earlier than the newspapers?' Frank repeated, standing up. 

'Try to keep calm, ' Vicary continued. 'Your wife's body was found in theThames at seven o'clock last night. The doctors say it had been in thewater for forty-eight hours. Your servants thought she had gone to you. But doubtless some thoughtful person had told her that you two werewandering about Europe together. '

'_My wife_' cried Frank. 

And the strange and terrible emphasis he put on the word 'wife' proved tome in the fraction of a second that in his heart I was not his wife. Afearful tragedy had swept away the structure of argument in favour of therights of love which he had built over the original conventionality ofhis mind. Poor fellow!

He fell back into his chair and covered his eyes. 

'I thank God my mother didn't live to see this!' he cried. 

And then he rushed to his bedroom and banged the door. 

'My poor girl!' said Vicary, approaching me. 'What can I--I'm awfully--'

I waved him away. 

'What's that?' he exclaimed, in a different voice, listening. 

I ran to the bedroom, and saw Frank lifting a revolver. 

'You've brought me to this, Carlotta!' he shouted. 

I sprang towards him, but it was too late. 

PART III

THE VICTORY

I

When I came out of the house, hurried and angrily flushing, I perceivedclearly that my reluctance to break a habit and my desire for physicalcomfort, if not my attachment to the girl, had led me too far. I wasconscious of humiliation. I despised myself. The fact was that I hadquarrelled with Yvonne--Yvonne, who had been with me for eight years, Yvonne who had remained sturdily faithful during my long exile. Now thewoman who quarrels with a maid is clumsy, and the woman who quarrels witha good maid is either a fool or in a nervous, hysterical condition, orboth. Possibly I was both. I had permitted Yvonne too much liberty. I hadspoilt her. She was fidelity itself, goodness itself; but her characterhad not borne the strain of realizing that she had acquired power overme, and that she had become necessary to me. So that morning we haddiffered violently; we had quarrelled as equals. The worst side of herhad appeared suddenly, shockingly. And she had left me, demonstratingeven as she banged the door that she was at least my mistress inaltercation. All day I fought against the temptation to eat my pride, andask her to return. It was a horrible, a deplorable, temptation. Andtowards evening, after seven hours of solitude in the hotel in the Avenuede Kleber, I yielded to it. I knew the address to which she had gone, andI took a cab and drove there, hating myself. I was received withexcessive rudeness by a dirty and hag-like concierge, who, after refusingall information for some minutes, informed me at length that the younglady in question had quitted Paris in company with a gentleman. 

The insolence of the concierge, my weakness and my failure, the bittersense of lost dignity, the fact that Yvonne had not hesitated even a fewhours before finally abandoning me--all these things wounded me. But thesharpest stab of all was that during our stay in Paris Yvonne must havehad secret relations with a man. I had hidden nothing from her; she, however, had not reciprocated my candour. I had imagined that she livedonly for me. .. . 

Well, the truth cannot be concealed that the years of wandering which hadsucceeded the fatal night at Monte Carlo had done little to improve me. What would you have? For months and months my ears rang with Frank'sdespairing shout: '_You've_ brought me to this, Carlotta!' And theprofound injustice of that cry tainted even the sad sweetness of myimmense sorrow. To this day, whenever I hear it, as I do still, my inmostsoul protests, and all the excuses which my love found for him seeminadequate and unconvincing. I was a broken creature. (How few know whatit means to be broken--to sink under a tremendous and overwhelmingcalamity! And yet who but they can understandingly sympathize with theafflicted?) As for my friends, I did not give them the occasion to desertme; I deserted them. For the second time in my career I tore myself up bythe roots. I lived the nomad's life, in the usual European haunts of thenomad. And in five years I did not make a single new friend, scarcely anacquaintance. I lived in myself and on myself, nursing grief, nursing arancour against fate, nursing an involuntary shame. .. . You know, thescandal of which I had been the centre was appalling; it touched theextreme. It must have nearly killed the excellent Mrs. Sardis. I did notdare to produce another novel. But after a year or so I turned to poetry, and I must admit that my poetry was accepted. But it was not enough toprevent me from withering--from shrivelling. I lost ground, and I wasstill losing it. I was becoming sinister, warped, peculiar, capricious, unaccountable. I guessed it then; I see it clearly now. 

The house of the odious concierge was in a small, shabby street off theBoulevard du Montparnasse. I looked in vain for a cab. Even on the wide, straight, gas-lit boulevard there was not a cab, and I wondered why I hadbeen so foolish as to dismiss the one in which I had arrived. The great, glittering electric cars floated horizontally along in swift succession, but they meant nothing to me; I knew not whence they came nor whitherthey went. I doubt if I had ever been in a tram-car. Without a cab I wasas helpless and as timid as a young girl, I who was thirty-one, and hadtravelled and lived and suffered! Never had I been alone in the streetsof a large city at night. And the September night was sultry andforbidding. I was afraid--I was afraid of the men who passed me, staringat me. One man spoke to me, and I literally shook with fear as I hastenedon. What would I have given to have had the once faithful Yvonne by myside! Presently I came to the crossing of the Boulevard Raspail, and thisboulevard, equally long, uncharitable, and mournful with the other, endless, stretching to infinity, filled me with horror. Yes, with thehorror of solitude in a vast city. Oh, you solitary, you who have feltthat horror descending upon you, desolating, clutching, and chilling theheart, you will comprehend me!

At the corner, of the two boulevards was a glowing cafe, the Café duDome, with a row of chairs and little tables in front of its windows. Andat one of these little tables sat a man, gazing absently at a green glassin a white saucer. I had almost gone past him when some instinct promptedme to the bravery of looking at him again. He was a stoutish man, apparently aged about forty-five, very fair, with a puffed face andmelancholy eyes. And then it was as though someone had shot me in thebreast. It was as if I must fall down and die--as if the sensations whichI experienced were too acute--too elemental for me to support. I havenever borne a child, but I imagine that the woman who becomes a mothermay feel as I felt then, staggered at hitherto unsuspected possibilitiesof sensation. I stopped. I clung to the nearest table. There was ice onmy shuddering spine, and a dew on my forehead. 

'Magda!' breathed the man. 

He had raised his eyes to mine. 

It was Diaz, after ten years. 

At first I had not recognised him. Instead of ten, he seemed twenty yearsolder. I searched in his features for the man I had known, as thereturned traveller searches the scene of his childhood for rememberedlandmarks. Yes, it was Diaz, though time had laid a heavy hand on him. The magic of his eyes was not effaced, and when he smiled youthreappeared. 

'It is I, ' I murmured. 

He got up, and in doing so shook the table, and his glass was overturned, and scattered itself in fragments on the asphalte. At the noise a waiterran out of the cafe, and Diaz, blushing and obviously making a greateffort at self-control, gave him an order. 

'I should have known you anywhere, ' said Diaz to me, taking my hand, asthe waiter went. 

The ineptitude of the speech was such that I felt keenly sorry for him. Iwas not in the least hurt. My sympathy enveloped him. The position was sodifficult, and he had seemed so pathetic, sitting there alone on thepavement of the vast nocturnal boulevard, so weighed down by sadness, that I wanted to comfort him and soothe him, and to restore him to allthe brilliancy of his first period. It appeared to me unjust and cruelthat the wheels of life should have crushed him too. And so I said, smiling as well as I could:

'And I you. '

'Won't you sit down here?' he suggested, avoiding my eyes. 

And thus I found myself seated outside a cafe, at night, conspicuous forall Montparnasse to see. We never know what may lie in store for us atthe next turning of existence. 

'Then I am not much changed, you think?' he ventured, in an anxious tone. 

'No, ' I lied. 'You are perhaps a little stouter. That's all. '

How hard it was to talk! How lamentably self-conscious we were! Howunequal to the situation! We did not know what to say. 

'You are far more beautiful than ever you were, ' he said, looking at mefor an instant. 'You are a woman; you were a girl--then. '

The waiter brought another glass and saucer, and a second waiterfollowed him with a bottle, from which he poured a greenish-yellowliquid into the glass. 

'What will you have?' Diaz asked me. 

'Nothing, thank you, ' I said quickly. 

To sit outside the cafe was already much. It would have been impossiblefor me to drink there. 

'Ah! as you please, as you please, ' Diaz snapped. 'I beg your pardon. '

'Poor fellow!' I reflected. 'He must be suffering from nervousirritability. ' And aloud, 'I'm not thirsty, thank you, ' as nicelyas possible. 

He smiled beautifully; the irritability had passed. 

'It's awfully kind of you to sit down here with me, ' he said, in a lowervoice. 'I suppose you've heard about me?'

He drank half the contents of the glass. 

'I read in the papers some years ago that you were suffering fromneurasthenia and nervous breakdown, ' I replied. 'I was very sorry. '

'Yes, ' he said; 'nervous breakdown--nervous breakdown. '

'You haven't been playing lately, have you?'

'It is more than two years since I played. And if you had heard me thattime! My God!'

'But surely you have tried some cure?'

'Cure!' he repeated after me. 'There's no cure. Here I am! Me!'

His glass was empty. He tapped on the window behind us, and theprocession of waiters occurred again, and Diaz received a third glass, which now stood on three saucers. 

'You'll excuse me, ' he said, sipping slowly. 'I'm not very well to-night. And you've--Why did you run away from me? I wanted to find you, but Icouldn't. '

'Please do not let us talk about that, ' I stopped him. 'I--I must go. '

'Oh, of course, if I've offended you--'

'No, ' I said; 'I'm not at all offended. But I think--'

'Then, if you aren't offended, stop a little, and let me see you home. You're sure you won't have anything?'

I shook my head, wishing that he would not drink so much. I thought itcould not be good for his nerves. 

'Been in Paris long?' he asked me, with a slightly confused utterance. 'Staying in this quarter? Many English and Americans here. '

Then, in setting down the glass, he upset it, and it smashed on thepavement like the first one. 

'Damn!' he exclaimed, staring forlornly at the broken glass, as if in thepresence of some irreparable misfortune. And before I could put in aword, he turned to me with a silly smile, and approaching his face tomine till his hat touched the brim of my hat, he said thickly: 'Afterall, you know, I'm the greatish pianist in the world. '

The truth struck me like a blow. In my amazing ignorance of certainaspects of life I had not suspected it. Diaz was drunk. The ignominy ofit! The tragedy of it! He was drunk. He had fallen to the beast. I drewback from that hot, reeking face. 

'You don't think I am?' he muttered. 'You think young What's-his-name canplay Ch--Chopin better than me? Is that it?'

I wanted to run away, to cease to exist, to hide with my shame in somedeep abyss. And there I was on the boulevard, next to this animal, sharing his table and the degradation! And I could not move. There arepeople so gifted that in a dilemma they always know exactly the wisestcourse to adopt. But I did not know. This part of my story gives meinfinite pain to write, and yet I must write it, though I cannot persuademyself to write it in full; the details would be too repulsive. Nevertheless, forget not that I lived it. 

He put his face to mine again, and began to stammer something, and Idrew away. 

'You are ashamed of me, madam, ' he said sharply. 

'I think you are not quite yourself--not quite well, ' I replied. 

'You mean I am drunk. '

'I mean what I say. You are not quite well. Please do not twist mywords. '

'You mean I am drunk, ' he insisted, raising his voice. 'I am not drunk;I have never been drunk. That I can swear with my hand on my heart. Butyou are ashamed of being seen with me. '

'I think you ought to go home, ' I suggested. 

'That is only to get rid of me!' he cried. 

'No, no, ' I appealed to him persuasively. 'Do not wound me. I will gowith you as far as your house, if you like. You are too ill to be alone. '

At that moment an empty open cab strolled by, and, without pausing forhis answer, I signalled the driver. My heart beat wildly. My spirit wasin an uproar. But I was determined not to desert him, not to abandon himto a public disgrace. I rose from my seat. 

'You're very good, ' he said, in a new voice. 

The cab had stopped. 

'Come!' I entreated him. 

He rapped uncertainly on the window, and then, as the waiter did notimmediately appear, he threw some silver on the table, and aimed himselfin the direction of the cab. I got in. Diaz slipped on the step. 

'I've forgotten somethin', ' he complained. 'What is it? My umbrella--yes, my umbrella--_pépin_ as they say here. 'Scuse me moment. '

His umbrella was, in fact, lying under a chair. He stooped withdifficulty and regained it, and then the waiter, who had at lengtharrived, helped him into the cab, and he sank like a mass of inert clayon my skirts. 

'Tell the driver the address, ' I whispered. 

The driver, with head turned and a grin on his face, was waiting. 

'Rue de Douai, ' said Diaz sullenly. 

'What number?' the driver asked. 

'Does that regard you?' Diaz retorted crossly in French. 'I will tellyou later. '

'Tell him now, ' I pleaded. 

'Well, to oblige you, I will. Twenty-seven. But what I can't stand is theimpudence of these fellows. '

The driver winked at me. 

'Just so, ' I soothed Diaz, and we drove off. 

I have never been happier than in unhappiness. Happiness is not joy, andit is not tranquillity. It is something deeper and something moredisturbing. Perhaps it is an acute sense of life, a realization of one'ssecret being, a continual renewal of the mysterious savour of existence. As I crossed Paris with the drunken Diaz leaning clumsily against myshoulder, I was profoundly unhappy. I was desolated by the sight of thisruin, and yet I was happier than I had been since Frank died. I hadglimpses and intimations of the baffling essence of our human lives here, strange, fleeting comprehensions of the eternal wonder and the eternalbeauty. .. . In vain, professional writer as I am, do I try to expressmyself. What I want to say cannot be said; but those who have truly livedwill understand. 

We passed over the Seine, lighted and asleep in the exquisite Parisiannight, and the rattling of the cab on the cobble-stones roused Diaz fromhis stupor. 

'Where are we?' he asked. 

'Just going through the Louvre, ' I replied. 

'I don't know how I got to the other s-side of the river, ' he said. 'Don't remember. So you're coming home with me, eh? You aren't'shamed of me?'

'You are hurting me, ' I said coldly, 'with your elbow. '

'Oh, a thousand pardons! a thous' parnds, Magda! That isn't your realname, is it?'

He sat upright and turned his face to glance at mine with a fatuoussmile; but I would not look at him. I kept my eyes straight infront. Then a swerve of the carriage swung his body away from me, and he subsided into the corner. The intoxication was gaining on himevery minute. 

'What shall I do with him?' I thought. 

I blushed as we drove up the Avenue de l'Opera and across the GrandBoulevard, for it seemed to me that all the gay loungers must observeDiaz' condition. We followed darker thoroughfares, and at last the cab, after climbing a hill, stopped before a house in a street that appearedrather untidy and irregular. I got out first, and Diaz stumbled after me, while two women on the opposite side of the road stayed curiously towatch us. Hastily I opened my purse and gave the driver afive-franc-piece, and he departed before Diaz could decide what to say. Ihad told him to go. 

I did not wish to tell the driver to go. I told him in spite of myself. 

Diaz, grumbling inarticulately, pulled the bell of the great door of thehouse. But he had to ring several times before finally the door opened;and each second was a year for me, waiting there with him in the street. And when the door opened he was leaning against it, and so pitchedforward into the gloom of the archway. A laugh--the loud, unrestrainedlaugh of the courtesan--came from across the street. 

The archway was as black as night. 

'Shut the door, will you?' I heard Diaz' voice. 'I can't see it. Where are you?'

But I was not going to shut the door. 

'Have you got a servant here?' I asked him. 

'She comes in the mornings, ' he replied. 

'Then there is no one in your flat?'

'Not a shoul, ' said Diaz. 'Needn't be 'fraid. '

I'm not afraid, ' I said. 'But I wanted to know. Which floor is it?'

'Third. I'll light a match. '

Then I pushed to the door, whose automatic latch clicked. We were fast inthe courtyard. 

Diaz dropped his matches in attempting to strike one. The metal boxbounced on the tiles. I bent down and groped with both hands till I foundit. And presently we began painfully to ascend the staircase, Diazholding his umbrella and the rail, and I striking matches from time totime. We were on the second landing when I heard the bell ring again, andthe banging of the front-door, and then voices at the foot of thestaircase. I trembled lest we should be over-taken, and I would havehurried Diaz on, but he would not be hurried. Happily, as we were halfwaybetween the second and third story, the man and the girl whose voices Iheard stopped at the second. I caught sight of them momentarily throughthe banisters. The man was striking matches as I had been. '_C'est ici_, 'the girl whispered. She was dressed in blue with a very large hat. Sheput a key in the door when they had stopped, and then our matches wentout simultaneously. The door shut, and Diaz and I were alone on thestaircase again. I struck another match; we struggled on. 

When I had taken his key from Diaz' helpless hand, and opened his doorand guided him within, and closed the door definitely upon the outerworld, I breathed a great sigh. Every turn of the stair had been astation of the cross for me. We were now in utter darkness. The classicaleffluvium of inebriety mingled with the classical odour of the furnishedlodging. But I cared not. I had at last successfully hidden his shame. Noone could witness it now but me. So I was glad. 

Neither of us said anything as, still with the aid of matches, Ipenetrated into the flat. Silently I peered about until I perceived apair of candles, which I lighted. Diaz, with his hat on his head and hisumbrella clasped tightly in his hand, fell into a chair. We glanced ateach other. 

'You had better go to bed, ' I suggested. 'Take your hat off. You willfeel better without it. '

He did not move, and I approached him and gently took his hat. I thentouched the umbrella. 

'No, no, no!' he cried suddenly; 'I'm always losing this umbrella, and Iwon't let it out of my sight. '

'As you wish, ' I replied coldly. 

I was standing by him when he got up with a surprising lurch and put ahand on my shoulder. He evidently meant to kiss me. I kept him at arm'slength, feeling a sort of icy anger. 

'Go to bed, ' I repeated fiercely. 'It is the only place for you. '

He made inarticulate noises in his throat, and ultimately achievedthe remark:

'You're very hard, Magda. '

Then he bent himself towards the next room. 

'You will want a candle, ' I said, with bitterness. 'No; I will carry it. Let me go first. '

I preceded him through a tiny salon into the bedroom, and, leaving himthere with one candle, came back into the first room. The whole place wasdeplorable, though not more deplorable than I had expected from the lookof the street and the house and the stairs and the girl with the largehat. It was small, badly arranged, disordered, ugly, bare, comfortless, and, if not very dirty, certainly not clean; not a home, but a kennel--akennel furnished with chairs and spotted mirrors and spotted engravingsand a small upright piano; a kennel whose sides were covered withenormous red poppies, and on whose floor was something which had oncebeen a carpet; a kennel fitted with windows and curtains; a kennel withactually a bed! It was the ready-made human kennel of commerce, whichevery large city supplies wholesale in tens of thousands to its victims. In that street there were hundreds such; in the house alone there wereprobably a score at least. Their sole virtue was their privacy. Ah theblessedness of the sacred outer door, which not even the tyrant conciergemight violate! I thought of all the other interiors of the house, floorabove floor, and serried one against another--vile, mean, squalid, cramped, unlovely, frowsy, fetid; but each lighted and intensely alivewith the interplay of hearts; each cloistered, a secure ground where theinstincts that move the world might show themselves naturally and insecret. There was something tragically beautiful in that. 

I had heard uncomfortable sounds from the bedroom. Then Diaz called out:

'It's no use. Can't do it. Can't get into bed. ' I went directly to him. He sat on the bed, still clasping the umbrella, one arm out of his coat. His gloomy and discouraged face was the face of a man who retires baffledfrom some tremendously complicated problem. 

'Put down your umbrella, ' I said. 'Don't be foolish. '

'I'm not foolish, ' he retorted irritably. 'Don't want to loosh thishumbrella again. '

'Well then, ' I said, 'hold it in the other hand, and I will help you. '

This struck him as a marvellous idea, one of those discoveries thatrevolutionize science, and he instantly obeyed. He was now very drunk. Hewas nauseating. The conventions which society has built up in fiftycenturies ceased suddenly to exist. It was impossible that they shouldexist--there in that cabin, where we were alone together, screened, shutin. I lost even the sense of convention. I was no longer disgusted. Everything that was seemed natural, ordinary, normal. I became hismother. I became his hospital nurse. And at length he lay in bed, clutching the umbrella to his breast. Nothing had induced him to loose itfrom both hands at once. The priceless value of the umbrella was the oneclearly-defined notion that illuminated his poor devastated brain. I lefthim to his inanimate companion. 

II

I should have left then, though I had a wish not to leave. But I wasprevented from going by the fear of descending those sinister stairsalone, and the necessity of calling aloud to the concierge in order toget out through the main door, and the possible difficulties in finding acab in that region at that hour. I knew that I could not have borne towalk even to the end of the street unprotected. So I stayed where I was, seated in a chair near the window of the larger room, saturating myselfin the vague and heavy flood of sadness that enwraps the fretful, passionate city in the night--the night when the commonest noises seem tocarry some mystic message to the listening soul, the night when truthwalks abroad naked and whispers her secrets. 

A gas-lamp threw its radiance on the ceiling in bars through the slits ofthe window-shutters, and then, far in the middle wilderness of the night, the lamp was extinguished by a careful municipality, and I was left inutter darkness. Long since the candles had burnt away. I grew silly andsentimental, and pictured the city in feverish sleep, gaining withdifficulty inadequate strength for the morrow--as if the city had notbeen living this life for centuries and did not know exactly what it wasabout! And then, sure as I had been that I could not sleep, I woke up, and I could see the outline of the piano. Dawn had begun. And not a sounddisturbed the street, and not a sound came from Diaz' bedroom. As of old, he slept with the tranquillity of a child. 

And after a time I could see the dust on the piano and on the polishedfloor under the table. The night had passed, and it appeared to be almosta miracle that the night had passed, and that I had lived through it andwas much the same Carlotta still. I gently opened the window and pushedback the shutters. A young woman, tall, with a superb bust, clothed inblue, was sweeping the footpath in long, dignified strokes of a broom. She went slowly from my ken. Nothing could have been more prosaic, moresane, more astringent. And yet only a few hours--and it had been night, strange, voluptuous night! And even now a thousand thousand pillows werewarm and crushed under their burden of unconscious dreaming souls. Butthat tall woman must go to bed in day, and rise to meet the first wind ofthe morning, and perhaps never have known the sweet poison of the night. I sank back into my chair. .. . 

There was a sharp, decisive sound of a key in the lock of theentrance-door. I jumped up, fully awake, with beating heart and blushingface. Someone was invading the flat. Someone would catch me there. 

Of course it was his servant. I had entirely forgotten her. 

We met in the little passage. She was a stout creature and appeared tofill the flat. She did not seem very surprised at the sight of me, andshe eyed me with the frigid disdain of one who conforms to a certain codefor one who does not conform to it. She sat in judgment on my well-hungskirt and the rings on my fingers and the wickedness in my breast, andcondemned me to everlasting obloquy. 

'Madame is going?' she asked coldly, holding open the door. 

'No, madame, ' I said. 'Are you the _femme de ménage_ of monsieur?'

'Yes, madame. '

'Monsieur is ill, ' I said, deciding swiftly what to do. 'He does not wishto be disturbed. He would like you to return at two o'clock. '

Long before two I should have departed. 

'Monsieur knows well that I have another _ménage_ from twelve to two, 'protested the woman. 

'Three o'clock, then, ' I said. 

_Bien_, madame, ' said she, and, producing the contents of a reticule:'Here are the bread, the butter, the milk, and the newspaper, madame. '

'Thank you, madame. '

I took the things, and she left, and I shut the door and bolted it. 

In anticipation, the circumstances of such an encounter would have causedme infinite trouble of spirit. 'But after all it was not so verydreadful, ' I thought, as I fastened the door. 'Do I care for his _femmede ménage_?'

The great door of the house would be open now, and the stairs no longeraffrighting, and I might slip unobserved away. But I could not bringmyself to leave until I had spoken with Diaz, and I would not wake him. It was nearly noon when he stirred. I heard his movements, and a slightmoaning sigh, and he called me. 

'Are you there, Magda?'

How feeble and appealing his voice!

For answer I stepped into his bedroom. 

The eye that has learned to look life full in the face without a quiverof the lid should find nothing repulsive. Everything that is is theordered and calculable result of environment. Nothing can be abhorrent, nothing blameworthy, nothing contrary to nature. Can we exceed nature? Inthe presence of the primeval and ever-continuing forces of nature, can wemaintain our fantastic conceptions of sin and of justice? We are, andthat is all we should dare to say. And yet, when I saw Diaz stretched onthat wretched bed my first movement was one of physical disgust. He hadnot shaved for several days. His hair was like a doormat. His face wasunclean and puffed; his lips full and cracked; his eyes all discoloured. If aught can be vile, he was vile. If aught can be obscene, he wasobscene. His limbs twitched; his features were full of woe and desolationand abasement. 

He looked at me heavily, mournfully. 

'Diaz, Diaz!' said my soul. 'Have you come to this?'

A great and overmastering pity seized me, and I went to him, and laid myhand gently on his. He was so nervous and tremulous that he drew away hishand as if I had burnt it. 

'Oh, Magda, ' he murmured, 'my head! There was a piece of hot brick in mymouth, and I tried to take it out. But it was my tongue. Can I have sometea? Will you give me some cold water first?'

Strange that the frank and simple way in which he accepted my presencethere, and assumed my willingness to serve him, filled me with a new joy!He said nothing of the night. I think that Diaz was one of the few menwho are strong enough never to regret the past. If he was melancholy, itwas merely because he suffered bodily in the present. 

I gave him water, and he thanked me. 

'Now I will make some tea, ' I said. 

And I went into the tiny kitchen and looked around, lifting my skirts. 

'Can you find the things?' he called out. 

'Yes, ' I said. 

'What's all that splashing?' he inquired. 

'I'm washing a saucepan, ' I said. 

'I never have my meals here, ' he called. 'Only tea. There are two taps tothe gas-stove--one a little way up the chimney. '

Yes, I was joyous, actively so. I brought the tea to the bedroom with aglad smile. I had put two cups on the tray, which I placed on thenight-table; and there were some biscuits. I sat at the foot of the bedwhile we drank. And the umbrella, unperceived by Diaz, lay with itshandle on a pillow, ludicrous and yet accusing. 

'You are an angel, ' said Diaz. 

'Don't call me that, ' I protested. 

'Why not?'

'Because I wish it, ' I said. 'Angel' was Ispenlove's word. 

'Then, what shall I call you?'

'My name is Carlotta Peel, ' I said. 'Not Magdalen at all. '

It was astounding, incredible, that he should be learning my name thenfor the first time. 

'I shall always call you Magda, ' he responded. 

'And now I must go, ' I stated, when I had explained to him aboutthe servant. 

'But you'll come back?' he cried. 

No question of his coming to me! I must come to him!

'To a place like this?' I demanded. 

Unthinkingly I put into my voice some of the distaste I felt for hisdeplorable apartments, and he was genuinely hurt. I believe that in allhonesty he deemed his apartments to be quite adequate and befitting. Hissensibilities had been so dulled. 

He threw up his head. 

'Of course, ' he said, 'if you--'

'No, no!' I stopped him quickly. 'I will come here. I was only teasingyou. Let me see. I'll come back at four, just to see how you are. Won'tyou get up in the meantime?'

He smiled, placated. 

'I may do, ' he said. 'I'll try to. But in case I don't, will you take mykey? Where did you put it last night?'

'I have it, ' I said. 

He summoned me to him just as I was opening the door. 

'Magda!'

'What is it?'

I returned. 

'You are magnificent, ' he replied, with charming, impulsive eagerness, his eyes resting upon me long. He was the old Diaz again. 'I can't thankyou. But when you come back I shall play to you. '

I smiled. 

'Till four o'clock, ' I said. 

'Magda, ' he called again, just as I was leaving, 'bring one of your bookswith you, will you?'

I hesitated, with my hand on the door. When I gave him my name he hadmade no sign that it conveyed to him anything out of the ordinary. Thatwas exactly like Diaz. 

'Have you read any of them?' I asked loudly, without moving from thedoor. 

'No, ' he answered. 'But I have heard of them. '

'Really!' I said, keeping my tone free from irony. 'Well, I will notbring you one of my books. '

'Why not?'

I looked hard at the door in front of me. 

'For you I will be nothing but a woman, ' I said. 

And I fled down the stairs and past the concierge swiftly into thestreet, as anxious as a thief to escape notice. I got a fiacre at once, and drove away. I would not analyze my heart. I could not. I could butsavour the joy, sweet and fresh, that welled up in it as from some secretsource. I was so excited that I observed nothing outside myself, and whenthe cab stopped in front of my hotel, it seemed to me that the journeyhad occupied scarcely a few seconds. Do you imagine I was saddened by thepainful spectacle of Diaz' collapse in life? No! I only knew that heneeded sympathy, and that I could give it to him with both hands. I couldgive, give! And the last thing that the egotist in me told me before itexpired was that I was worthy to give. My longing to assuage the lot ofDiaz became almost an anguish. 

III

I returned at about half-past five, bright and eager, with vagueanticipations. I seemed to have become used to the house. It no longeroffended me, and I had no shame in entering it. I put the key into thedoor of Diaz' flat with a clear, high sense of pleasure. He had entrustedme with his key; I could go in as I pleased; I need have no fear ofinconveniencing him, of coming at the wrong moment. It seemed wonderful!And as I turned the key and pushed open the door my sole wish was to beof service to him, to comfort him, to render his life less forlorn. 

'Here I am!' I cried, shutting the door. 

There was no answer. 

In the smaller of the two tiny sitting-rooms the piano, which hadbeen closed, was open, and I saw that it was a Pleyel. But both roomswere empty. 

'Are you still in bed, then?' I said. 

There was still no answer. 

I went cautiously into the bedroom. It, too, was empty. The bed was made, and the flat generally had a superficial air of tidiness. Evidently thecharwoman had been and departed; and doubtless Diaz had gone out, toreturn immediately. I sat down in the chair in which I had spent most ofthe night. I took off my hat and put it by the side of a tiny satchelwhich I had brought, and began to wait for him. How delicious it would beto open the door to him! He would notice that I had taken off my hat, andhe would be glad. What did the future, the immediate future, hold for me?

A long time I waited, and then I yawned heavily, and remembered that forseveral days I had had scarcely any sleep. I shut my eyes to relieve thetedium of waiting. When I reopened them, dazed, and startled into suddenactivity by mysterious angry noises, it was quite dark. I tried to recallwhere I was, and to decide what the noises could be. I regained myfaculties with an effort. The noises were a beating on the door. 

'It is Diaz, ' I said to myself; 'and he can't get in!'

And I felt very guilty because I had slept. I must have slept for hours. Groping for a candle, I lighted it. 

'Coming! coming!' I called in a loud voice. 

And I went into the passage with the candle and opened the door. 

It was Diaz. The gas was lighted on the stairs. Between that and mycandle he stood conspicuous in all his details. Swaying somewhat, hesupported himself by the balustrade, and was thus distant about two feetfrom the door. He was drunk--viciously drunk; and in an instant I knewthe cruel truth concerning him, and wondered that I had not perceived itbefore. He was a drunkard--simply that. He had not taken to drinking as aconsequence of nervous breakdown. Nervous breakdown was a euphemism forthe result of alcoholic excess. I saw his slow descent as in a vision, and everything was explained. My heart leapt. 

'I can save him, ' I said to myself. 'I can restore him. '

I was aware of the extreme difficulty of curing a drunkard, of theimmense proportion of failures. But, I thought, if a woman such as Icannot by the lavishing of her whole soul and body deliver from no matterwhat fiend a man such as Diaz, then the world has changed, and theeternal Aphrodite is dead. 

'I can save him!' I repeated. 

Oh, heavenly moment!

'Aren't you coming in?' I addressed him quietly. 'I've beenwaiting for you. '

'Have you?' he angrily replied. 'I waited long enough for you. '

'Well, ' I said, 'come in. '

'Who is it?' he demanded. 'I inzizt--who is it?'

'It's I, ' I answered; 'Magda. '

'That's no' wha' I mean, ' he went on. 'And wha's more--you know it. Whois it addrezzes you, madame?'

'Why, ' I humoured him, 'it's you, of course--Diaz. '

There was the sound of a door opening on one of the lower storeys, and Ihoped I had pacified him, and that he would enter; but I was mistaken. Hestamped his foot furiously on the landing. 

'Diaz!' he protested, shouting. 'Who dares call me Diaz? Wha's myfull name?'

'Emilio Diaz, ' I murmured meekly. 

'That's better, ' he grumbled. 'What am I?'

I hesitated. 

'Wha' am I?' he roared; and his voice went up and down the echoingstaircase. 'I won't put foot ev'n on doormat till I'm told wha' I amhere. '

'You are the--the master, ' I said. 'But do come in. '

'The mas'r! Mas'r of wha'?'

'Master of the pianoforte, ' I answered at once. 

He smiled, suddenly appeased, and put his foot unsteadily on thedoormat. 

'Good!' he said. 'But, un'stan', I wouldn't ev'n have pu' foot ondoormat--no, not ev'n on doormat--'

And he came in, and I shut the door, and I was alone with my wild beast. 

'Kiss me, ' he commanded. 

I kissed him on the mouth. 

'You don't put your arms roun' me, ' he growled. 

So I deposited the candle on the floor, and put my arms round his neck, standing on tip-toe, and kissed him again. 

He went past me, staggering and growling, into the sitting-room at theend of the passage, and furiously banged down the lid of the piano, sothat every cord in it jangled deafeningly. 

'Light the lamp, ' he called out. 

'In one second, ' I said. 

I locked the outer door on the inside, slipped the key into my pocket, and picked up the candle. 

'What were you doing out there?' he demanded. 

'Nothing, ' I said. 'I had to pick the candle up. '

He seized my hat from the table and threw it to the floor. Thenhe sat down. 

'Nex' time, ' he remarked, 'you'll know better'n to keep me waiting. '

I lighted a lamp. 

'I'm very sorry, ' I said. 'Won't you go to bed?'

'I shall go to bed when I want, ' he answered. 'I'm thirsty. In thecupboard you'll see a bottle. I'll trouble you to give it me, with aglass and some water. '

'This cupboard?' I said questioningly, opening a cupboard papered tomatch the rest of the wall. 

'Yes. '

'But surely you can't be thirsty, Diaz?' I protested. 

'Must I repea' wha' I said?' he glared at me. 'I'm thirsty. Give methe bottle. '

I took out the bottle nearest to hand. It was of a dark green colour, andlabelled 'Extrait d'Absinthe. Pernod fils. '

'Not this one, Diaz?'

'Yes, ' he insisted. 'Give it me. And get a glass and some water. '

'No, ' I said firmly. 

'Wha'? You won't give it me?'

'No. '

He jumped up recklessly and faced me. His hat fell off the backof his head. 

'Give me that bottle!'

His breath poisoned the room. 

I retreated in the direction of the window, and put my hand on the knob. 

'No, ' I said. 

He sprang at me, but not before I had opened the window and thrown outthe bottle. I heard it fall in the roadway with a crash and scattering ofglass. Happily it had harmed no one. Diaz was momentarily checked. Hehesitated. I eyed him as steadily as I could, closing the while thewindow behind me with my right hand. 

'He may try to kill me, ' I thought. 

My heart was thudding against my dress, not from fear, but fromexcitement. My situation seemed impossible to me, utterly passing belief. Yesterday I had been a staid spinster, attended by a maid, in a hotel ofimpeccable propriety. Today I had locked myself up alone with a riotousdrunkard in a vile flat in a notorious Parisian street. Was I mad? Whatforce, secret and powerful, had urged me on?. .. And there was the fouldrunkard, with clenched hands and fiery eyes, undecided whether or not tomurder me. And I waited. 

He moved away, inarticulately grumbling, and resumed withdifficulty his hat. 

'Ver' well, ' he hiccupped morosely, 'ver' well; I'm going. Tha's all. '

He lurched into the passage, and then I heard him fumbling a long timewith the outer door. He left the door and went into his bedroom, andfinally returned to me. He held one hand behind his back. I had sunk intoa chair by the small table on which the lamp stood, with my satchelbeside it. 

'Now!' he said, halting in front of me. 'You've locked tha' door. Ican't go out. '

'Yes, ' I admitted. 

'Give me the key. '

I shook my head. 

'Give me the key, ' he cried. 'I mus' have the key. '

I shook my head. 

Then he showed his right hand, and it held a revolver. He bent slightlyover the table, staring down at me as I stared up at him. But as his chinfelt the heat rising from the chimney of the lamp, he shifted a little toone side. I might have rushed for shelter into some other room; I mighthave grappled with him; I might have attempted to soothe him. But I couldneither stir nor speak. Least of all, could I give him the key--for himto go and publish his own disgrace in the thoroughfares. So I just gazedat him, inactive. 

'I s'll kill you!' he muttered, and raised the revolver. 

My throat became suddenly dry. I tried to make the motion of swallowing, and could not. And looking at the revolver, I perceived in a swiftrevelation the vast folly of my inexperience. Since he was already drunk, why had I not allowed him to drink more, to drink himself into a stupor?Drunkards can only be cured when they are sober. To commence a course ofmoral treatment at such a moment as I had chosen was indeed the act of awoman. However, it was too late to reclaim the bottle from the street. 

I saw that he meant to kill me. And I knew that previously, during ourencounter at the window, I had only pretended to myself that I thoughtthere was a risk of his killing me. I had pretended, in order to increasethe glory of my martyrdom in my own sight. Moreover, my brain, which wasworking with singular clearness, told me that for his sake I ought togive up the key. His exposure as a helpless drunkard would be infinitelypreferable to his exposure as a murderer. 

Yet I could not persuade myself to relinquish the key. If I did so, hewould imagine that he had frightened me. But I had no fear, and I couldnot bear that he should think I had. 

He fired. 

My ears sang. The room was full of a new odour, and a cloud floatedreluctantly upwards from the mouth of the revolver. I sneezed, and then Igrew aware that, firing at a distant of two feet, he had missed me. Whathad happened to the bullet I could not guess. He put the revolver down onthe table with a groan, and the handle rested on my satchel. 

'My God, Magda!' he sighed, pushing back his hair with hisbeautiful hand. 

He was somewhat sobered. I said nothing, but I observed that the lamp wassmoking, and I turned down the wick. I was so self-conscious, soirresolute, so nonplussed, that in sheer awkwardness, like a girl at aparty who does not know what to do with her hands, I pushed the revolveroff the satchel, and idly unfastened the catch of the satchel. Within it, among other things, was my sedative. I, too, had fallen the victim of ahabit. For five years a bad sleeper, I had latterly developed into a verybad sleeper, and my sedative was accordingly strong. 

A notion struck me. 

'Drink a little of this, my poor Diaz!' I murmured. 

'What is it?' he asked. 

'It will make you sleep, ' I said. 

With a convulsive movement he clutched the bottle and uncorked it, andbefore I could interfere he had drunk nearly the whole of its contents. 

'Stop!' I cried. 'You will kill yourself!'

'What matter!' he exclaimed; and staggered off to the darkness ofthe bedroom. 

I followed him with the lamp, but he had already fallen on the bed, andseemed to be heavily asleep. I shook him; he made no response. 

'At any cost he must he roused, ' I said aloud. 'He must be forced towalk. '

There was a knocking at the outer door, low, discreet, and continuous. Itsounded to me like a deliverance. Whoever might be there must aid me towaken Diaz. I ran to the door, taking the key out of my pocket, andopened it. A tall woman stood on the doormat. It was the girl that I hadglimpsed on the previous night in the large hat ascending the stairs witha man. But now her bright golden head was uncovered, and she wore a blue_peignoir_, such as is sold ready made, with its lace and its ribbons, atall the big Paris shops. 

We both hesitated. 

'Oh, pardon, madame, ' she said, in a thin, sweet voice in French. 'I wasat my door, and it seemed to me that I heard--a revolver. Nothing serioushas passed, then? Pardon, madame. '

'Nothing, thank you. You are very amiable, madame, ' I replied stiffly. 

'All my excuses, madame, ' said she, turning away. 

'No, no!' I exclaimed. 'I am wrong. Do not go. Someone is ill--very ill. If you would--'

She entered. 

'Where? What is it?' she inquired. 

'He is in the bedroom--here. '

We both spoke breathlessly, hurrying to the bedroom, after I hadfetched the lamp. 

'Wounded? He has done himself harm? Ah!'

'No, ' I said, 'not that. '

And I explained to her that Diaz had taken at least six doses of mystrong solution of trional. 

I seized the lamp and held it aloft over the form of the sleeper, whichlay on its side cross-wise, the feet projecting a little over the edgeof the bed, the head bent forward and missing the pillow, the armsstretched out in front--the very figure of abandoned and perfectunconsciousness. And the girl and I stared at Diaz, our shoulderstouching, in the kennel. 

'He must be made to walk about, ' I said. 'You would be extremely kindto help me. '

'No, madame, ' she replied. 'He will be very well like that. When one isalcoholic, one cannot poison one's self; it is impossible. All thedoctors will tell you as much. Your friend will sleep for twentyhours--twenty-four hours--and he will waken himself quitere-established. '

'You are sure? You know?'

'I know, madame. Be tranquil. Leave him. He could not have done better. It is perfect. '

'Perhaps I should fetch a doctor?' I suggested. 

'It is not worth the pain, ' she said, with conviction. 'You would havevexations uselessly. Leave him. '

I gazed at her, studying her, and I was satisfied. With her flufflylocks, and her simple eyes, and her fragile face, and her long hands, she had, nevertheless, the air of knowing profoundly her subject. Shewas a great expert on males and all that appertained to them, especiallytheir vices. I was the callow amateur. I was compelled to listen withrespect to this professor in the professor's garb. I was impressed, inspite of myself. 

'One might arrange him more comfortably, ' she said. 

And we lifted the senseless victim, and put him on his back, andstraightened his limbs, as though he had been a corpse. 

'How handsome he is!' murmured my visitor, half closing her eyes. 

'You think so?' I said politely, as if she had been praising one of myprivate possessions. 

'Oh yes. We are neighbours, madame. I have frequently remarked him, youunderstand, on the stairs, in the street. '

'Has he been here long?' I asked. 

'About a year, madame. You have, perhaps, not seen him since a long time. An old friend?'

'It is ten years ago, ' I replied. 

'Ah! Ten years! In England, without doubt?'

'In England, yes. '

'Ten years!' she repeated, musing. 

'I am certain she has a kind heart, ' I said to myself, and I decided toquestion her: 'Will you not sit down, madame?' I invited her. 

'Ah, madame! it is you who should sit down, ' she said quickly. 'You musthave suffered. '

We both sat down. There were only two chairs in the room. 

'I would like to ask you, ' I said, leaning forward towards her, 'haveyou ever seen him--drunk--before?'

'No, ' she replied instantly; 'never before yesterday evening. '

'Be frank, ' I urged her, smiling sadly. 

'Why should I not be frank, madame?' she said, with a grave, gentle appeal. 

It was as if she had said: 'We are talking woman to woman. I know one ofyour secrets. You can guess mine. The male is present, but he is deaf. What reason, therefore, for deceit?'

'I am much obliged to you, ' I breathed. 

'Not at all, ' she said. 'Decidedly he is alcoholic--that sees itself, 'she proceeded. 'But drunk--no!. .. He was always alone. '

'Always alone?'

'Always. '

Her eyes filled. I thought I had never seen a creature more gentle, delicate, yielding, acquiescent, and fair. She was not beautiful, but shehad grace and distinction of movement. She was a Parisienne. She had wonmy sympathy. We met in a moment when my heart needed the companionship ofa woman's heart, and I was drawn to her by one of those sudden impulsesthat sometimes draw women to each other. I cared not what she was. Moreover, she had excited my curiosity. She was a novelty in my life. She was something that I had heard of, and seen--yes, and perhaps enviedin secret, but never spoken with. And she shattered all my preconceptionsabout her. 

'You are an old tenant of this house?' I ventured. 

'Yes, ' she said; 'it suits me. But the great heats are terrible here. '

'You do not leave Paris, then?'

'Never. Except to see my little boy. '

I started, envious of her, and also surprised. It seemed strange thatthis ribboned and elegant and plastic creature, whose long, thin armswere used only to dalliance, should be a mother. 

'So you have a little boy?'

'Yes; he lives with my parents at Meudon. He is four years old. 

'Excuse me, ' I said. 'Be frank with me once again. Do you love yourchild, honestly? So many women don't, it appears. '

'Do I love him?' she cried, and her face glowed with her love. 'I adorehim!' Her sincerity was touching and overwhelming. 'And he loves me, too. If he is naughty, one has only to tell him that he will make his _petitemère_ ill, and he will be good at once. When he is told to obey hisgrandfather, because his grandfather provides his food, he says bravely:"No, not grandpapa; it is _petite mère_!" Is it not strange he shouldknow that I pay for him? He has a little engraving of the Queen of Italy, and he says it is his _petite mère_. Among the scores of pictures he hashe keeps only that one. He takes it to bed with him. It is impossible todeprive him of it. '

She smiled divinely. 

'How beautiful!' I said. 'And you go to see him often?'

'As often as I have time. I take him out for walks. I run with him tillwe reach the woods, where I can have him to myself alone. I never stop; Iavoid people. No one except my parents knows that he is my child. Onesupposes he is a nurse-child, received by my parents. But all the worldwill know now, ' she added, after a pause. 'Last Monday I went to Meudonwith my friend Alice, and Alice wanted to buy him some sweets at thegrocer's. In the shop I asked him if he would like _dragées_, and he said"Yes. " The grocer said to him, "Yes who, young man?" "Yes, _petitemère_, " he said, very loudly and bravely. The grocer understood. We alllowered our heads. '

There was something so affecting in the way she half whispered the lastphrase, that I could have wept; and yet it was comical, too, and sheappreciated that. 

'You have no child, madame?' she asked me. 

'No, ' I said. 'How I envy you!'

'You need not, ' she observed, with a touch of hardness. 'I have been sounhappy, that I can never be as unhappy again. Nothing matters now. All Iwish is to save enough money to be able to live quietly in a littlecottage in the country. '

'With your child, ' I put in. 

'My child will grow up and leave me. He will become a man, and he willforget his _petite mère. '_

'Do not talk like that, ' I protested. 

She glanced at me almost savagely. I was astonished at the sudden changein her face. 

'Why not?' she inquired coldly. 'Is it not true, then? Do you stillbelieve that there is any difference between one man and another?They are all alike--all, all, all! I know. And it is we who suffer, we others. '

'But surely you have some tender souvenir of your child's father?' Isaid. 

'Do I know who my child's father is?' she demanded. 'My child hasthirty-six fathers!'

'You seem very bitter, ' I said, 'for your age. You are much youngerthan I am. '

She smiled and shook her honey-coloured hair, and toyed with the ribbonsof her _peignoir_. 

'What I say is true, ' she said gently. 'But, there, what would you have?We hate them, but we love them. They are beasts! beasts! but we cannot dowithout them!'

Her eyes rested on Diaz for a moment. He slept without the least sound, the stricken and futile witness of our confidences. 

'You will take him away from Paris soon, perhaps?' she asked. 

'If I can, ' I said. 

There was a sound of light footsteps on the stair. They stopped at thedoor, which I remembered we had not shut. I jumped up and went into thepassage. Another girl stood in the doorway, in a _peignoir_ the exactcounterpart of my first visitor's, but rose-coloured. And this one, too, was languorous and had honey-coloured locks. It was as though themysterious house was full of such creatures, each with her secret lair. 

'Pardon, madame, ' said my visitor, following and passing me; and then tothe newcomer: 'What is it, Alice?'

'It is Monsieur Duchatel who is arrived. '

'Oh!' with a disdainful gesture. '_Je m'en fiche. _ Let him go. '

'But it is the nephew, my dear; not the uncle. '

'Ah, the nephew! I come. _Bon soir, madams, et bonne nuit_. '

The two _peignoirs_ fluttered down the stairs together. I returned to myDiaz, and seeing his dressing-gown behind the door of the bedroom, I tookit and covered him with it. 

IV

His first words were:

'Magda, you look like a ghost. Have you been sitting there like that allthe time?'

'No, ' I said; 'I lay down. '

'Where?'

'By your side. '

'What time is it?'

'Tea-time. The water is boiling. 

'Was I dreadful last night?'

'Dreadful? How?'

'I have a sort of recollection of getting angry and stamping about. Ididn't do anything foolish?'

'You took a great deal too much of my sedative, ' I answered. 

'I feel quite well, ' he said; 'but I didn't know I had taken anysedative at all. I'm glad I didn't do anything silly last night. '

I ran away to prepare the tea. The situation was too much for me. 

'My poor Diaz!' I said, when we had begun to drink the tea, and he wassitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes full of sleep, his chin rough, and his hair magnificently disarranged, 'you did one thing that was sillylast night. '

'Don't tell me I struck you?' he cried. 

'Oh no!' and I laughed. 'Can't you guess what I mean?'

'You mean I got vilely drunk. '

I nodded. 

'Magda, ' he burst out passionately, seeming at this point fully to arousehimself, to resume acutely his consciousness, 'why were you late? Yousaid four o'clock. I thought you had deceived me. I thought I haddisgusted you, and that you didn't mean to return. I waited more than anhour and a quarter, and then I went out in despair. '

'But I came just afterwards, ' I protested. 'You had only to wait a fewmore minutes. Surely you could have waited a few more minutes?'

'You said four o'clock, ' he repeated obstinately. 

'It was barely half-past five when I came, ' I said. 

'I had meant never to drink again, ' he went on. 

'You were so kind to me. But then, when you didn't come--'

'You doubted me, Diaz. You ought to have been sure of me. '

'I was wrong. '

'No, no!' I said. 'It was I who was wrong. But I never thought that anhour and a half would make any difference. '

There was a pause. 

'Ah, Magda, Magda!'--he suddenly began to weep; it wasastounding--'remember that you had deserted me once before. Rememberthat. If you had not done that, my life might have been different. It_would_ have been different. '

'Don't say so, ' I pleaded. 

'Yes, I must say so. You cannot imagine how solitary my life has been. Magda, I loved you. '

And I too wept. 

His accent was sincerity itself. I saw the young girl hurrying secretlyout of the Five Towns Hotel. Could it be true that she had carried awaywith her, unknowing, the heart of Diaz? Could it be true that her panicflight had ruined a career? The faint possibility that it was true mademe sick with vain grief. 

'And now I am old and forgotten and disgraced, ' he said. 

'How old are you, Diaz?'

'Thirty-six, ' he answered. 

'Why, ' I said, 'you have thirty years to live. '

'Yes; and what years?'

'Famous years. Brilliant years. '

He shook his head. 

'I am done for--' he murmured, and his head sank. 

'Are you so weak, then?' I took his hand. 'Are you so weak? Look at me. '

He obeyed, and his wet eyes met mine. In that precious moment I lived. 

'I don't know, ' he said. 

'You could not have looked at me if you had not been strong, verystrong, ' I said firmly. 'You told me once that you had a house nearFontainebleau. Have you still got it?'

'I suppose so. '

'Let us go there, and--and--see. '

'But--'

'I should like to go, ' I insisted, with a break in my voice. 

'My God!' he exclaimed in a whisper, 'my God!'

I was sobbing violently, and my forehead was against the rough stuffof his coat. 

V

And one morning, long afterwards, I awoke very early, and the murmuringof the leaves of the forest came through the open window. I had knownthat I should wake very early, in joyous anticipation of that day. Andas I lay he lay beside me, lost in the dreamless, boyish, natural sleepthat he never sought in vain. He lay, as always, slightly on his rightside, with his face a little towards me--his face that was young again, and from which the bane had passed. It was one of the handsomest, fairest faces in the world, one of the most innocent, and one of thestrongest; the face of a man who follows his instincts with the directsimplicity of a savage or a child, and whose instincts are sane andpowerful. Seen close, perfectly at rest, as I saw it morning aftermorning, it was full of a special and mysterious attraction. The finecurves of the nostrils and of the lobe of the ear, the masterful linesof the mouth, the contours of the cheek and chin and temples, the tintsof the flesh subtly varying from rose to ivory, the golden crown ofhair, the soft moustache. I had learned every detail by heart; my eyeshad dwelt on them till they had become my soul's inheritance, till theywere mystically mine, drawing me ever towards them, as a treasure draws. Gently moving, I would put my ear close, close, and listen to the breathof life as it entered regularly, almost imperceptibly, vivifying thatorganism in repose. There is something terrible in the still beauty ofsleep. It is as though the spiritual fabric hangs inexplicably over theprecipice of death. It seems impossible, or at least miraculous, thatthe intake and the expulsion upon which existence depends shouldcontinue thus, minute by minute, hour by hour. It is as though one stoodon the very confines of life, and could one trace but one step more, onesingle step, one would unveil the eternal secret. I would not listenlong; the torture was too sweet, too exquisite, and I would gently slideback to my place. .. . His hand was on the counterpane, near to mybreast--the broad hand of the pianist, with a wrist of incredible force, and the fingers tapering suddenly at the end to a point. I let my owndescend on it as softly as snow. Ah, ravishing contact! He did not move. And while my small hand touched his I gazed into the spaces of thebedroom, with its walls of faded blue tapestry and its white curtains, and its marble and rosewood, and they seemed to hold peace, as thehollows of a field hold dew; they seemed to hold happiness as a greattree holds sunlight in its branches; and outside was the murmuring ofthe leaves of the forest and the virginal freshness of the morning. 

Surely he must wake earlier that day! I pursed my lips and blew tenderly, mischievously, on his cheek, lying with my cheek full on the pillow, sothat I could watch him. The muscles of his mouth twitched, his innerbeing appeared to protest. And then began the first instinctive blindmovement of the day with him. His arms came forward and found my neck, and drew me forcibly to him, and then, just before our lips touched, heopened his eyes and shut them again. So it occurred every morning. Ereeven his brain had resumed activity his heart had felt its need of me. This it was that was so wonderful, so overpowering! And the kiss, languidand yet warm, heavy with a human scent, with the scent of the night, honest, sensuous, and long--long! As I lay thus, clasped in his arms, Ihalf closed my eyes, and looked into his eyes through my lashes, smiling, and all was a delicious blur. .. . 

It was the summit of bliss! No! I have never mounted higher! I askedmyself, astounded, what I had done that I should receive such happiness, what I had done that existence should have no flaw for me. And what _had_I done? I know not, I know not. It passes me. I am lost in my joy. For Ihad not even cured him. I had anticipated painful scenes, interminablestruggles, perhaps a relapse. But nothing of the kind. He had simplyceased at once the habit--that was all. We never left each other. And hismagnificent constitution had perfectly recovered itself in a few months. I had done nothing. 

'Magda, ' he murmured indistinctly, drawing his mouth an inch away frommine, 'why can't your dark hair always be loose over your shoulders likethat? It is glorious!'

'What ideas you have!' I murmured, more softly than he. 'And do you knowwhat it is to-day?'

'No. '

'You've forgotten?' I pouted. 

'Yes. '

'Guess. '

'No; you must tell me. Not your birthday? Not mine?'

'It's just a year since I met you, ' I whispered timidly. 

Our mouths met again, and, so enlocked, we rested, savouring the truesavour of life. And presently my hand stole up to his head and strokedhis curls. 

Every morning he began to practise at eight o'clock, and continued tilleleven. The piano, a Steinway in a hundred Steinways, was in the furtherof the two drawing-rooms. He would go into the room smoking a cigarette, and when he had thrown away the cigarette I would leave him. And as soonas I had closed the door the first notes would resound, slow and solemn, of the five-finger exercises with which he invariably commenced hisstudies. That morning, as often, I sat writing in the enclosed garden. Ialways wrote in pencil on my knee. The windows of the drawing-room werewide open, and Diaz' music filled the garden. The sheer beauty of histone was such that to hear him strike even an isolated note gavepleasure. He created beauty all the time. His five-finger exercises werelovely patterns of sound woven with exact and awful deliberation. Itseemed impossible that these should be the same bald and meaninglessinventions which I had been wont to repeat. They were transformed. Theywere music. The material in which he built them was music itself, enchanting the ear as much by the quality of the tone as by theimpeccable elegance of the form. To hear Diaz play a scale, to catch thatmeasured, tranquil succession of notes, each a different jewel of equalsplendour, each dying precisely when the next was born--this was toperceive at last what music is made of, to have glimpses of the divinemagic that is the soul of the divinest art. I used to believe thatnothing could surpass the beauty of a scale, until Diaz, after writingformal patterns in the still air innumerably, and hypnotizing me withthat sorcery, would pass suddenly to the repetition of fragments of Bach. And then I knew that hitherto he had only been trying to be more purelyand severely mechanical than a machine, and that now the interpreter wasat work. I have heard him repeat a passage fifty times--and soslowly!--and each rendering seemed more beautiful than the last; and itwas more beautiful than the last. He would extract the final drop ofbeauty from the most beautiful things in the world. Washed, drenched inthis circumambient ether of beauty, I wrote my verse. Perhaps it mayappear almost a sacrilege that I should have used the practising of aDiaz as a background for my own creative activity. I often thought so. But when one has but gold, one must put it to lowly use. So I wrote, andhe passed from Bach to Chopin. 

Usually he would come out into the garden for five minutes at half-pastnine to smoke a cigarette, but that morning it had struck ten before themusic ceased. I saw him. He walked absent-minded along the terrace inthe strange silence that had succeeded. He was wearing hisriding-breeches, for we habitually rode at eleven. And that morning I didnot hide my work when he came. It was, in fact, finished; the time hadarrived to disclose it. He stopped in front of me in the sunlight, utterly preoccupied with himself and his labours. He had the rapt look onhis face which results from the terrible mental and spiritual strain ofpractising as he practised. 

'Satisfied?' I asked him. 

He frowned. 

'There are times when one gets rather inspired, ' he said, looking at me, as it were, without seeing me. 'It's as if the whole soul gets into one'shands. That's what's wanted. '

'You had it this morning?'

'A bit. '

He smiled with candid joy. 

'While I was listening--' I began. 

'Oh!' he broke in impulsively, violently, 'it isn't you that have tolisten. It's I that have to listen. It's the player that has to listen. He's got to do more than listen. He's got to be _in_ the piano with hisinmost heart. If he isn't on the full stretch of analysis the wholeblessed time, he might just as well be turning the handle of abarrel-organ. '

He always talked about his work during the little 'recess' which he tookin the middle of the morning. He pretended to be talking to me, but itwas to himself that he talked. He was impatient if I spoke. 

'I shall be greater than ever, ' he proceeded, after a moment. And hisattitude towards himself was so disengaged, so apart and aloof, socritically appreciative, that it was impossible to accuse him of egoism. He was, perhaps, as amazed at his own transcendent gift as any otherperson could be, and he was incapable of hiding his sensations. 'Yes, ' herepeated; 'I think I shall be greater than ever. You see, a Chopin playeris born; you can't make him. With Chopin it's not a question ofintellect. It's all tone with Chopin--_tone_, my child, even in the mostbravura passages. You've got to get it. '

'Yes, ' I agreed. 

He gazed over the tree-tops into the blue sky. 

'I may be ready in six months, ' he said. 

'I think you will, ' I concurred, with a judicial air. But I honestlydeemed him to be more than ready then. 

Twelve months previously he had said: 'With six hours' practice a dayfor two years I shall recover what I have lost. '

He had succeeded beyond his hopes. 

'Are you writing in that book?' he inquired carelessly as he threw downthe cigarette and turned away. 

'I have just finished something, ' I replied. 

'Oh!' he said, 'I'm glad you aren't idle. It's so boring. '

He returned to the piano, perfectly incurious about what I did, self-absorbed as a god. And I was alone in the garden, with thesemicircle of trees behind me, and the façade of the old house and itsterrace in front. And lying on the lawn, just under the terrace, wasthe white end of the cigarette which he had abandoned; it breathedupwards a thin spiral of blue smoke through the morning sunshine, andthen it ceased to breathe. And the music recommenced, on a differentplane, more brilliantly than before. It was as though, till then, hehad been laboriously building the bases of a tremendous triumphal arch, and that now the two wings met, dazzlingly, soaringly, in highestheaven, and the completed arch became a rainbow glittering in the faceof the infinite. He played two of his great concert pieces, and theirintricate melodies--brocaded, embroidered, festooned--poured themselvesthrough the windows into the garden in a procession majestic andimpassioned, perturbing the intent soul of the solitary listener, swathing her in intoxicating sound. It was the unique virtuoso bornagain, proudly displaying the ultimate sublime end of all thoseslow-moving exercises to which he had subdued his fingers. Not for tenyears had I heard him play so. 

When we first came into the house I had said bravely to myself: 'Hispresence shall not deter me from practising as I have always done. ' Andone afternoon I had sat down to the piano full of determination topractise without fear of him, without self-consciousness. But before myhands had touched the keys shame took me, unreasoning, terror-struckshame, and I knew in an instant that while he lived I should never moreplay the piano. He laughed lightly when I told him, and I called myselfsilly. Yet now, as I sat in the garden, I saw how right I had been. And Iwondered that I should ever have had the audacity even to dream ofplaying in his house; the idea was grotesque. And he did not ask me toplay, save when there arrived new orchestral music arranged for fourhands. Then I steeled myself to the ordeal of playing with him, becausehe wished to try over the music. And he would thank me, and say thatpianoforte duets were always very enjoyable. But he did not pretend thatI was not an amateur, and he never--thank God!--suggested that we shouldattempt _Tristan_ again. .. . 

At last he finished. And I heard distantly the bell which he had rung forhis glass of milk. And, remembering that I was not ready for the ride, Iran with guilty haste into the house and upstairs. 

The two bay horses were waiting, our English groom at their heads, when Icame out to the porch. Diaz was impatiently tapping his boot with hiswhip. He was not in the least a sporting man, but he loved the sensationof riding, and the groom would admit that he rode passably; but he lovedmore to strut in breeches, and to imitate in little ways the sportingman. I had learnt to ride in order to please him. 

'Come along, ' he exclaimed. 

His eyes said: 'You are always late. ' And I was. Some people always knowexactly what point they have reached in the maze and jungle of the day, just as mariners are always aware, at the back of their minds, of thestate of the tide. But I was not born so. 

Diaz helped me to mount, and we departed, jingling through the gate andacross the road into a glade of the forest, one of those long sandydefiles, banked on either side, and over-shadowed with tall oaks, whichpierce the immense forest like rapiers. The sunshine slanted through thecrimsoning leafwork and made irregular golden patches on the dark sand tothe furthest limit of the perspective. And though we could not feel theautumn wind, we could hear it in the tree-tops, and it had the sound ofthe sea. The sense of well-being and of joy was exquisite. The beauty ofhorses, timid creatures, sensitive and graceful and irrational as younggirls, is a thing apart; and what is strange is that their vast strengthdoes not seem incongruous with it. To be above that proud and lovelyorganism, listening, apprehensive, palpitating, nervous far beyond thehuman, to feel one's self almost part of it by intimate contact, to yieldto it, and make it yield, to draw from it into one's self some of itsexultant vitality--in a word, to ride--yes, I could comprehend Diaz' fineenthusiasm for that! I could share it when he was content to let thehorses amble with noiseless hoofs over the soft ways. But when he wouldgallop, and a strong wind sprang up to meet our faces, and the earthshook and thundered, and the trunks of the trees raced past us, then Iwas afraid. My fancy always saw him senseless at the foot of a tree whilehis horse calmly cropped the short grass at the sides of the path, orwith his precious hand twisted and maimed! And I was in agony till hereined in. I never dared to speak to him of this fear, nor even hint tohim that the joy was worth less than the peril. He would have been angryin his heart, and something in him stronger than himself would haveforced him to increase the risks. I knew him! . .. Ah! but when we wentgently, life seemed to be ideal for me, impossibly perfect! It seemed tocontain all that I could ever have demanded of it. 

I looked at him sideways, so noble and sane and self-controlled. And thedays in Paris had receded, far and dim and phantom-like. Was itconceivable that they had once been real, and that we had lived throughthem? And was this Diaz, the world-renowned darling of capitals, ridingby me, a woman whom he had met by fantastic chance? Had he really hiddenhimself in my arms from the cruel stare of the world and the insufferablecuriosity of admirers who, instead of admiring, had begun to pity? Had Iin truth saved him? Was it I who would restore him to his glory? Oh, theastounding romance that my life had been! And he was with me! He sharedmy life, and I his! I wondered what would happen when he returned to hisbright kingdom. I was selfish enough to wish that he might never returnto his kingdom, and that we might ride and ride for ever in the forest. 

And then we came to a circular clearing, with an iron cross in themiddle, where roads met, a place such as occurs magically in some balladeof Chopin's. And here we drew rein on the leaf-strewn grass, breathingquickly, with reddened cheeks, and the horses nosed each other, with longstretchings of the neck and rattling of bits. 

'So you've been writing again?' said Diaz, smiling quizzically. 

'Yes, ' I answered. 'I've been writing a long time, but I haven't let_you_ know anything about it; and just to-day I've finished it. '

'What is it--another novel?'

'No; a little drama in verse. '

'Going to publish it?'

'Why, naturally. '

Diaz was aware that I enjoyed fame in England and America. He wasprobably aware that my books had brought me a considerable amount ofmoney. He had read some of my works, and found them excellent--indeed, hewas quite proud of my talent. But he did not, he could not, takealtogether seriously either my talent or my fame. I knew that he alwaysregarded me as a child gracefully playing at a career. For him there wasonly one sort of fame; all the other sorts were shadows. A supremeviolinist might, perhaps, approach the real thing, in his generous mind;but he was incapable of honestly believing that any fame compared withthat of a pianist. The other fames were very well, but they were paste tothe precious stone, gewgaws to amuse simple persons. The sums paid tosopranos struck him as merely ridiculous in their enormity. He could notbe called conceited; nevertheless, he was magnificently sure that he hadbeen, and still was, the most celebrated person in the civilized world. Certainly he had no superiors in fame, but he would not admit thepossibility of equals. Of course, he never argued such a point; it was atacit assumption, secure from argument. And with that he profoundlyreverenced the great composers. The death of Brahms affected him foryears. He regarded it as an occasion for universal sorrow. Had Brahmscondescended to play the piano, Diaz would have turned the pages for him, and deemed himself honoured--him whom queens had flattered!

'Did you imagine, ' I began to tease him, after a pause, 'that while youare working I spend my time in merely existing?'

'You exist--that is enough, my darling, ' he said. 'Strange that abeautiful woman can't understand that in existing she is doing herlife's work!'

And he leaned over and touched my right wrist below the glove. 

'You dear thing!' I murmured, smiling. 'How foolish you can be!'

'What's the drama about?' he asked. 

'About La Vallière, ' I said. 

'La Vallière! But that's the kind of subject I want for my opera!'

'Yes, ' I said; 'I have thought so. '

'Could you turn it into a libretto, my child?'

'No, dearest. '

'Why not?'

'Because it already is a libretto. I have written it as such. '

'For me?'

'For whom else?'

And I looked at him fondly, and I think tears came to my eyes. 

'You are a genius, Magda!' he exclaimed. 'You leave nothing undone forme. The subject is the very thing to suit Villedo. '

'Who is Villedo?'

'My jewel, you don't know who Villedo is! Villedo is the director of theOpéra Comique in Paris, the most artistic opera-house in Europe. He usedto beg me every time we met to write him an opera. '

'And why didn't you?'

'Because I had neither the subject nor the time. One doesn't writeoperas after lunch in hotel parlours; and as for a good libretto--well, outside Wagner, there's only one opera in the world with a good libretto, and that's _Carmen_. '

Diaz, who had had a youthful operatic work performed at the Royal Schoolof Music in London, and whose numerous light compositions for thepianoforte had, of course, enjoyed a tremendous vogue, was much moreserious about his projected opera than I had imagined. He had frequentlymentioned it to me, but I had not thought the idea was so close to hisheart as I now perceived it to be. I had written the libretto to amusemyself, and perhaps him, and lo! he was going to excite himself; I wellknew the symptoms. 

'You wrote it in that little book, ' he said. 'You haven't got it inyour pocket?'

'No, ' I answered. 'I haven't even a pocket. '

He would not laugh. 

'Come, ' he said--'come, let's see it. '

He gathered up his loose rein and galloped off. He could not waitan instant. 

'Come along!' he cried imperiously, turning his head. 

'I am coming, ' I replied; 'but wait for me. Don't leave me likethat, Diaz. '

The old fear seized me, but nothing could stop him, and I followed asfast as I dared. 

'Where is it?' he asked, when we reached home. 

'Upstairs, ' I said. 

And he came upstairs behind me, pulling my habit playfully, in an effortto persuade us both that his impatience was a simulated one. I had tofind my keys and unlock a drawer. I took the small, silk-bound volumefrom the back part of the drawer and gave it to him. 

'There!' I exclaimed. 'But remember lunch is ready. '

He regarded the book. 

'What a pretty binding!' he said. 'Who worked it?'

'I did. '

'And, of course, your handwriting is so pretty, too!' he added, glancingat the leaves. '"La Vallière, an opera in three acts. "'

We exchanged a look, each of us deliciously perturbed, and then he ranoff with the book. 

He had to be called three times from the garden to lunch, and he broughtthe book with him, and read it in snatches during the meal, and whilesipping his coffee. I watched him furtively as he turned over the pages. 

'Oh, you've done it!' he said at length--'you've done it! You evidentlyhave a gift for libretto. It is neither more nor less than perfect! Andthe subject is wonderful!'

He rose, walked round the table, and, taking my head between his hands, kissed me. 

'Magda, ' he said, 'you're the cleverest girl that was ever born. '

'Then, do you think you will compose it?' I asked, joyous. 

'Do I think I will compose it! Why, what do you imagine? I've alreadybegun. It composes itself. I'm now going to read it all again in thegarden. Just see that I'm not worried, will you?'

'You mean you don't want me there. You don't care for me any more. '

It amused me to pretend to pout. 

'Yes, ' he laughed; 'that's it. I don't care for you any more. '

He departed. 

'Have no fear!' I cried after him. 'I shan't come into your horridgarden!'

His habit was to resume his practice at three o'clock. The hour was thenhalf-past one. I wondered whether he would allow himself to be seducedfrom the piano that afternoon by the desire to compose. I hoped not, forthere could be no question as to the relative importance to him of thetwo activities. To my surprise, I heard the piano at two o'clock, instead of at three, and it continued without intermission till five. Then he came, like a sudden wind, on to the terrace where I was havingtea. Diaz would never take afternoon tea. He seized my hand impulsively. 

'Come down, ' he said--'down under the trees there. '

'What for?'

'I want you. '

'But, Diaz, let me put my cup down. I shall spill the tea on my dress. '

'I'll take your cup. '

'And I haven't nearly finished my tea, either. And you're hurting me. '

'I'll bring you a fresh cup, ' he said. 'Come, come!'

And he dragged me off, laughing, to the lower part of the garden, wherewere two chairs in the shade. And I allowed myself to be dragged. 

'There! Sit down. Don't move. I'll fetch your tea. '

And presently he returned with the cup. 

'Now that you've nearly killed me, ' I said, 'and spoilt my dress, perhapsyou'll explain. '

He produced the silk-bound book of manuscript from his pocket and put itin my unoccupied hand. 

'I want you to read it to me aloud, all of it, ' he said. 

'Really?'

'Really. '

'What a strange boy you are!' I chided. 

Then I drank the tea, straightened my features into seriousness, andbegan to read. 

The reading occupied less than an hour. He made no remark when it wasdone, but held out his hand for the book, and went out for a walk. Atdinner he was silent till the servants had gone. Then he said musingly:

'That scene in the cloisters between Louise and De Montespan is a greatidea. It will be magnificent; it will be the finest thing in the opera. What a subject you have found! what a subject!' His tone altered. 'Magda, will you do something to oblige me?'

'If it isn't foolish. '

'I want you to go to bed. '

'Out of the way?' I smiled. 

'Go to bed and to sleep, ' he repeated. 

'But why?'

'I want to walk about this floor. I must be alone. '

'Well, ' I said, 'just to prove how humble and obedient I am, I will go. '

And I held up my mouth to be kissed. 

Wondrous, the joy I found in playing the decorative, acquiescent, self-effacing woman to him, the pretty, pouting plaything! I liked him todismiss me, as the soldier dismisses his charmer at the sound of thebugle. I liked to think upon his obvious conviction that the libretto wasless than nothing compared to the music. I liked him to regard the wholeartistic productivity of my life as the engaging foible of a prettywoman. I liked him to forget that I had brought him alive out of Paris. Iliked him to forget to mention marriage to me. In a word, he was Diaz, and I was his. 

And as I lay in bed I even tried to go to sleep, in my obedience, becauseI knew he would wish it. But I could not easily sleep for anticipatinghis triumph of the early future. His habits of composition were extremelyrapid. It might well occur that he would write the entire opera in a fewmonths, without at all sacrificing the piano. And naturally any operaticmanager would be loath to refuse an opera signed by Diaz. Villedo, apparently so famous, would be sure to accept it, and probably wouldproduce it at once. And Diaz would have a double triumph, a dazzling andgorgeous re-entry into the world. He might give his first recital in thesame week as the _première_ of the opera. And thus his shame would neverbe really known to the artistic multitude. The legend of a nervouscollapse could be insisted on, and the opera itself would form asufficient excuse for his retirement. .. . And I should be the secret causeof all this glory--I alone! And no one would ever guess what Diaz owed tome. Diaz himself would never appreciate it. I alone, withdrawn from thecommon gaze, like a woman of the East, Diaz' secret fountain of strengthand balm--I alone should be aware of what I had done. And my knowledgewould be enough for me. 

I imagine I must have been dreaming when I felt a hand on my cheek. 

'Magda, you aren't asleep, are you?'

Diaz was standing over me. 

'No, no!' I answered, in a voice made feeble by sleep. And I lookedup at him. 

'Put something on and come downstairs, will you?'

'What time is it?'

'Oh, I don't know. One o'clock. '

'You've been working for over three hours, then!'

I sat up. 

'Yes, ' he said proudly. 'Come along. I want to play you my notion of theoverture. It's only in the rough, but it's there. '

'You've begun with the overture?'

'Why not, my child? Here's your dressing-gown. Which is the topend of it?'

I followed him downstairs, and sat close by him at the piano, with onelimp hand on his shoulder. There was no light in the drawing-rooms, saveone candle on the piano. My slipper escaped off my bare foot. As Diazplayed he looked at me constantly, demanding my approval, my enthusiasm, which I gave him from a full heart. I thought the music charming, and, ofcourse, as he played it. .. !

'I shall only have three motives, ' he said. 'That's the La Vallièremotive. Do you see the idea?'

'You mean she limps?'

'Precisely. Isn't it delightful?'

'She won't have to limp much, you know. She didn't. '

'Just the faintest suggestion. It will be delicious. I can see Morenitain the part. Well, what do you think of it?'

I could not speak. His appeal, suddenly wistful, moved me so. I leanedforward and kissed him. 

'Dear girl!' he murmured. 

Then he blew out the candle. He was beside himself with excitement. 

'Diaz, ' I cried, 'what's the matter with you? Do have a little sense. And you've made me lose my slipper. '

'I'll carry you upstairs, ' he replied gaily. 

A faint illumination came from the hall, so that we could just see eachother. He lifted me off the chair. 

'No!' I protested, laughing. 'And my slipper. .. . The servants!'

'Stuff!'

I was a trifle in those arms. 

VI

The triumphal re-entry into the world has just begun, and exactly as Diazforetold. And the life of the forest is over. We have come to Paris, andhe has taken Paris, and already he is leaving it for other shores, and Iam to follow. At this moment, while I write because I have not slept andcannot sleep, his train rolls out of St. Lazare. 

Last night! How glorious! But he is no longer wholly mine. The world hasturned his face a little from my face. .. . 

It was as if I had never before realized the dazzling significance ofthe fame of Diaz. I had only once seen him in public. And though heconquered in the Jubilee Hall of the Five Towns, his victory, personaland artistic, at the Opera Comique, before an audience as exacting, haughty, and experienced as any in Europe, was, of course, infinitelymore striking--a victory worthy of a Diaz. 

I sat alone and hidden at the back of a _baignoire_ in the auditorium. Ihad drawn up the golden grille, by which the occupants of a _baignoire_may screen themselves from the curiosity of the _parterre_. I felt likesome caged Eastern odalisque, and I liked so to feel. I liked to existsolely for him, to be mysterious, and to baffle the general gaze in orderto be more precious to him. Ah, how I had changed! How he had changed me!

It was Thursday, a subscription night, and, in addition, all Paris was inthe theatre, a crowded company of celebrities, of experts, and ofperfectly-dressed women. And no one knew who I was, nor why I was there. The vogue of a musician may be universal, but the vogue of an Englishwriter is nothing beyond England and America. I had not been to arehearsal. I had not met Villedo, nor even the translator of my verse. Ihad wished to remain in the background, and Diaz had not crossed me. ThusI gazed through the bars of my little cell across the rows of bald heads, and wonderful coiffures, and the waving arms of the conductor, and therestless, gliding bows of the violinists, and saw a scene which wasabsolutely strange and new to me. And it seemed amazing that thesefigures which I saw moving and chanting with such grace in a palacegarden, authentic to the last detail of historical accuracy, were my LaVallière and my Louis, and that this rich and coloured music which Iheard was the same that Diaz had sketched for me on the piano, fromillegible scraps of ruled paper, on the edge of the forest. The fullmiracle of operatic art was revealed to me for the first time. 

And when the curtain fell on the opening act, the intoxicating humanquality of an operatic success was equally revealed to me for the firsttime. How cold and distant the success of a novelist compared to this!The auditorium was suddenly bathed in bright light, and every listeningface awoke to life as from an enchantment, and flushed and smiled, andthe delicatest hands in France clapped to swell the mighty uproar thatfilled the theatre with praise. Paris, upstanding on its feet, andleaning over balconies and cheering, was charmed and delighted by thefable and the music, in which it found nothing but the sober and prettyelegance that it loves. And Paris applauded feverishly, and yet with afull sense of the value of its applause--given there in the only Frenchtheatre where the claque has been suppressed. And then the curtain rose, and La Vallière and Louis tripped mincingly forward to prove that afterall they were Morenita and Montfériot, the darlings of their dear Paris, and utterly content with their exclusively Parisian reputation. Threetimes they came forward. And then the applause ceased, for Paris is notNaples, and it is not Madrid, and the red curtain definitely hid thestage, and the theatre hummed with animated chatter as elegant as Diaz'music, and my ear, that loves the chaste vivacity of the French tongue, was caressed on every side by its cadences. 

'This is the very heart of civilization, ' I said to myself. 'And even inthe forest I could not breathe more freely. '

I stared up absently at Benjamin Constant's blue ceiling, meretriciousand still adorable, expressive of the delicious decadence of Paris, andmy eyes moistened because the world is so beautiful in such various ways. 

Then the door of the _baignoire_ opened. It was Diaz himself whoappeared. He had not forgotten me in the excitements of the stage andthe dressing-rooms. He put his hand lightly on my shoulder, and Iglanced at him. 

'Well?' he murmured, and gave me a box of bonbons elaborately tied withrich ribbons. 

And I murmured, 'Well?'

The glory of his triumph was upon him. But he understood why my eyes werewet, and his fingers moved soothingly on my shoulder. 

'You won't come round?' he asked. 'Both Villedo and Morenita are dying tomeet you. '

I shook my head, smiling. 

'You're satisfied?'

'More than satisfied, ' I answered. 'The thing is wonderful. '

'I think it's rather charming, ' he said. 'By the way, I've just had anoffer from New York for it, and another from Rome. '

I nodded my appreciation. 

'You don't want anything?'

'Nothing, thanks, ' I said, opening the box of bonbons, 'except these. Thanks so much for thinking of them. '

'Well--'

And he left me again. 

In the second act the legend--has not the tale of La Vallière acquiredalmost the quality of a legend?--grew in persuasiveness and inmagnificence. It was the hour of La Vallière's unwilling ascendancy, andit foreboded also her fall. The situations seemed to me to be poignantlybeautiful, especially that in which La Vallière and Montespan and theQueen found themselves together. And Morenita had perceived my meaningwith such a sure intuition. I might say that she showed me what I hadmeant. Diaz, too, had given to my verse a voice than which it appearedimpossible that anything could be more appropriate. The whole effect wasastonishing, ravishing. And within me--far, far within the recesses of myglowing heart--a thin, clear whisper spoke and said that I, and I alone, was the cause of that beauty of sight and sound. Not Morenita, and notMontfériot, not Diaz himself, but Magda, the self-constituted odalisque, was its author. I had thought of it; I had schemed it; I had fashionedit; I had evoked the emotion in it. The others had but exquisitelyembroidered my theme. Without me they must have been dumb and futile. Onmy shoulders lay the burden and the glory. And though I was amazed, perhaps naively, to see what I had done, nevertheless I had done it--I!The entire opera-house, that complicated and various machine, was simplya means to express me. And it was to my touch on their heartstrings thatthe audience vibrated. With all my humility, how proud I was--coldly andarrogantly proud, as only the artist can be! I wore my humility as I woremy black gown. Even Diaz could not penetrate to the inviolable place inmy heart, where the indestructible egoism defied the efforts of love tosilence it. And yet people say there is nothing stronger than love. 

At the close of the act, while the ringing applause, much moreenthusiastic than before, gave certainty of a genuine and extraordinarysuccess, I could not help blushing. It was as if I was in danger of beingdiscovered as the primal author of all that fleeting loveliness, as if mysecret was bound to get about, and I to be forced from my seclusion inorder to receive the acclamations of Paris. I played nervously andself-consciously with my fan, and I wrapped my humility closer round me, until at length the tumult died away, and the hum of charming, eagerchatter reassured my ears again. 

Diaz did not come. The entr'acte stretched out long, and the chatter lostsome of its eagerness, and he did not come. Perhaps he could not come. Perhaps he was too much engaged, too much preoccupied, to think of thegallantry which he owed to his mistress. A man cannot always be dreamingof his mistress. A mistress must be reconciled to occasional neglect; shemust console herself with chocolates. And they were chocolates fromMarquis's, in the Passage des Panoramas. .. . 

Then he came, accompanied. 

A whirl of high-seasoned, laughing personalities invaded my privacy. Diaz, smiling humorously, was followed by a man and a cloaked woman. 

'Dear lady, ' he said, with an intimate formality, 'I present MademoiselleMorenita and Monsieur Villedo. They insisted on seeing you. Mademoiselle, Monsieur--Mademoiselle Peel. '

I stood up. 

'All our excuses, ' said Villedo, in a low, discreet voice, as hecarefully shut the door. 'All our excuses, madame. But it was necessarythat I should pay my respects--it was stronger than I. '

And he came forward, took my hand, and raised it to his lips. He is alittle finicking man, with a little gray beard, and the red rosette inhis button-hole, and a most consummate ease of manner. 

'Monsieur, ' I replied, 'you are too amiable. And you, madame. I cannotsufficiently thank you both. '

Morenita rushed at me with a swift, surprising movement, her cloakdropping from her shoulders, and taking both my hands, she kissed meimpulsively. 

'You have genius, ' she said; 'and I am proud. I am ashamed that I cannotread English; but I have the intention to learn in order to read yourbooks. Our Diaz says wonderful things of them. '

She is a tall, splendidly-made, opulent creature, of my own age, born forthe footlights, with an extremely sweet and thrilling voice, and thatslight coarseness or exaggeration of gesture and beauty which is thepenalty of the stage. She did not in the least resemble a La Vallière asshe stood there gazing at me, with her gleaming, pencilled eyes andheavy, scarlet lips. It seemed impossible that she could refine herselfto a La Vallière. But that woman is the drama itself. She would act nomatter what. She has always the qualities necessary to a rôle. And thegods have given her green eyes, so that she may be La Vallière to thevery life. 

I began to thank her for her superb performance. 

'It is I who should thank you, ' she answered. 'It will be my greatestpart. Never have I had so many glorious situations in a part. Do youlike my limp?'

She smiled, her head on one side. Success glittered in those orbs. 

'You limp adorably, ' I said. 

'It is my profession to make compliments, ' Villedo broke in; and then, turning to Morenita, '_N'est-ce pas, ma belle créature_? But really'--heturned to me again--'but very sincerely, all that there is of mostsincerely, dear madame, your libretto is made with a virtuosityastonishing. It is _du théâtre_. And with that a charm, an emotion. .. !One would say--'

And so it continued, the flattering stream, while Diaz listened, touched, and full of pride. 

'Ah!' I said. 'It is not I who deserve praise. '

An electric bell trembled in the theatre. 

Morenita picked up her cloak. 

'_Mon ami_, ' she warned Villedo. 'I must go. Diaz, _mon petit_! you willpersuade Mademoiselle Peel to come to the room of the Directeur later. Madame, a few of us will meet there--is it not so, Villedo? We shallcount on you, madame. You have hidden yourself too long. '

I glanced at Diaz, and he nodded. As a fact, I wished to refuse; but Icould not withstand the seduction of Morenita. She had a physicalinfluence which was unique in my experience. 

'I accept, ' I said. 

'_A tout à l'heure_, then, ' she twittered gaily; and they left as theyhad come, Villedo affectionately toying with Morenita's hand. 

Diaz remained behind a moment. 

'I am so glad you didn't decline, ' he said. 'You see, here in thistheatre Morenita is a queen. I wager she has never before in all her lifeput herself out of the way as she has done for you to-night. '

'Really!' I faltered. 

And, indeed, as I pondered over it, the politeness of these peopleappeared to be marvellous, and so perfectly accomplished. Villedo, whohas made a European reputation and rejuvenated his theatre in a dozenyears, is doubtless, as he said, a professional maker of compliments. Inhis position a man must be. But, nevertheless, last night's triumph isofficially and very genuinely Villedo's. While as for Morenita and Diaz, the mere idea of these golden stars waiting on me, the librettist, effacing themselves, rendering themselves subordinate at such a moment, was fantastic. It passed the credible. .. . A Diaz standing silent anddeferential, while an idolized prima donna stepped down from her throneto flatter me in her own temple! All that I had previously achieved ofrenown seemed provincial, insular. 

But Diaz took his own right place in the spacious salon of Villedoafterwards, after all the applause had ceased, and the success had beenconsecrated, and the enraptured audience had gone, and the lights wereextinguished in the silent auditorium. It is a room that seems to befurnished with nothing but a grand piano and a large, flat writing-tableand a few chairs. On the walls are numberless signed portraits of singersand composers, and antique playbills of the Opéra Comique, together withstrange sinister souvenirs of the great fires which have destroyed thehouse and its patrons in the past. When Diaz led me in, only Villedo andthe principal artists and Pouvillon, the conductor, were present. Pouvillon, astonishingly fat, was sitting on the table, idly swinging theelectric pendant over his head; while Morenita occupied Villedo'sarmchair, and Villedo talked to Montfériot and another man in a corner. But a crowd of officials of the theatre ventured on Diaz' heels. And thencame Monticelli, the _première danseuse_, in a coat and skirt, and thensome of her rivals. And as the terrible Director did not protest, theroom continued to fill until it was full to the doors, where stood asemicircle of soiled, ragged scene-shifters and a few fat old women, whowere probably dressers. Who could protest on such a night? The democracyof a concerted triumph reigned. Everybody was joyous, madly happy. Everybody had done something; everybody shared the prestige, and the rankand file might safely take generals by the hand. 

Diaz was then the centre of attraction. It was recognised that he hadentered that sphere from a wider one, bringing with him a radiancebrighter than he found there. He was divine last night. All felt that hewas divine. He spoke to everyone with an admirable modesty, gaily, hiseyes laughing. Several women kissed him, including Morenita. Not that Iminded. In the theatre the code is different, coarser, more banal. Healone raised this crowd above its usual level and gave it distinction. 

Someone suggested that, as the piano was there, he should play, andthe demand ran from mouth to mouth. Villedo, appreciating itsaudacity, made a gesture to indicate that such a thing could not beasked. But Diaz instantly said that, if it would give pleasure, hewould play with pleasure. 

And he sat down to the piano, and looked round, smiling, and the room washushed in a moment, and each face was turned towards him. 

'What?' he ejaculated. And then, as no definite recommendation wasoffered, he said: 'Do you wish that I improvise?'

The idea was accepted with passionate, noisy enthusiasm. 

A cold perspiration broke out over my whole body. I must have turnedvery pale. 

'You are not ill, madame?' asked that ridiculous fop, Montfèriot, whohad been presented to me, and was whispering the most fatuouscompliments. 

'No, I thank you. '

The fact was that Diaz, since his retirement, had not yet played toanyone except myself. This was his first appearance. I was afraid forhim. I trembled for him. I need not have done. He was absolutely masterof his powers. His fingers announced, quite simply, one of the mostsuccessful airs from _La Vallière_, and then he began to decorate it withan amazing lacework of variations, and finished with a bravura displaysuch as no pianist could have surpassed. The performance, marvellous initself, was precisely suited to that audience, and it electrified theaudience; it electrified even me. Diaz fought his way through kisses andembraces to Villedo, who stood on his toes and wept and put his armsround Diaz' neck. 

'_Cher maître_, ' he cried, 'you overwhelm us!'

'You are too kind, all of you, ' said Diaz. 'I must ask permission toretire. I have to conduct Mademoiselle Peel to her hotel, and there ismuch for me to do during the night. You know I start very earlyto-morrow. '

'_Hélas!_ Morenita sighed. 

I had blushed. Decidedly I behaved like a girl last night. But, indeed, the new, swift realization, as Diaz singled me out of that multitude, that after all he utterly belonged to me, that he was mine alone, wasmore than I could bear with equanimity. I was the proudest woman in theuniverse. I scorned the lot of all other women. 

The adieux were exchanged, and there were more kisses. '_Au revoir! Bonvoyage_! Much success over there. '

The majority of these good, generous souls were in tears. 

Villedo opened a side-door, and we escaped into a corridor, only Morenitaand one or two others accompanying us to the street. 

And on the pavement a carpet had been laid. The electric brougham waswaiting. I gathered up my skirt and sprang in. Diaz followed, smiling atme. He put his head out of the window and said a few words. Morenita blewa kiss. Villedo bowed profoundly. The carriage moved in the direction ofthe boulevard. .. . I had carried him off. Oh, the exquisite dark intimacyof the interior of that smooth-rolling brougham! When, after the theatre, a woman precedes a man into a carriage, does she not publish and gloryin the fact that she is his? Is it not the most delicious of avowals?There is something in the enforced bend of one's head as one steps in. And when the man shuts the door with a masculine snap--

I wondered idly what Morenita and Villedo thought of our relations. Theymust surely guess. 

We went down the boulevard and by the Rue Royale into the Place de laConcorde, where vehicles flitted mysteriously in a maze of lights underthe vast dome of mysterious blue. And Paris, in her incomparable toiletteof a June night, seemed more than ever the passionate city of love thatshe is, recognising candidly, with the fearless intellectuality of theLatin temperament, that one thing only makes life worth living. How softwas the air! How languorous the pose of the dim figures that passed ushalf hidden in other carriages! And in my heart was the lofty joy of workdone, definitely accomplished, and a vista of years of future pleasure. My happiness was ardent and yet calm--a happiness beyond my hopes, beyondwhat a mortal has the right to dream of. Nothing could impair it, noteven Diaz' continued silence as to a marriage between us, not even theimminent brief separation that I was to endure. 

'My child, ' said Diaz suddenly, 'I'm very hungry. I've never beenso hungry. '

'You surely didn't forget to have your dinner?' I exclaimed. 

'Yes, I did, ' he admitted like a child; 'I've just remembered. '

'Diaz!' I pouted, and for some strange reason my bliss was intensified, 'you are really terrible! What can I do with you? You will eat beforeyou leave me. I must see to that. We can get something for you at thehotel, perhaps. '

'Suppose we go to a supper restaurant?' he said. 

Without waiting for my reply, he seized the dangling end of thespeaking-tube and spoke to the driver, and we swerved round and regainedthe boulevard. 

And in the private room of a great, glittering restaurant, one of a longrow of private rooms off a corridor, I ate strawberries and cream andsipped champagne while Diaz went through the entire menu of a supper. 

'Your eyes look sad, ' he murmured, with a cigar between his teeth. 'Whatis it? We shall see each other again in a fortnight. '

He was to resume his career by a series of concerts in the United States. A New York agent, with the characteristic enterprise of New York agents, had tracked Diaz even into the forest and offered him two hundred andfifty thousand dollars for forty concerts on the condition that he playedat no concert before he played in New York. And in order to reach NewYork in time for the first concert, it was imperative that he shouldcatch the _Touraine_ at Havre. I was to follow in a few days by aHamburg-American liner. Diaz had judged it more politic that we shouldnot travel together. In this he was undoubtedly right. 

I smiled proudly. 

'I am both sad and happy, ' I answered. 

He moved his chair until it touched mine, and put his arm round my neck, and brought my face close to his. 

'Look at me, ' he said. 

And I looked into his large, splendid eyes. 

'You mustn't think, ' he whispered, 'that, because I don't talk about it, I don't feel that I owe everything to you. '

I let my face fall on his breast. I knew I had flushed to the ears. 

'My poor boy, ' I sobbed, 'if you talk about that I shall neverforgive you. '

It was heaven itself. No woman has ever been more ecstatically happy thanI was then. 

He rang for the bill. 

We parted at the door of my hotel. In the carriage we had exchanged onelong, long kiss. At the last moment I wanted to alter the programme, gowith him to his hotel to assist in his final arrangements, and then seehim off at early morning at the station. But he refused. He said he couldnot bear to part from me in public. Perhaps it was best so. Just as Iturned away he put a packet into my hand. It contained seven banknotesfor ten thousand francs each, money that it had been my delight to lendhim from time to time. Foolish, vain, scrupulous boy! I knew not where hehad obtained--

 * * * * *

It is now evening. Diaz is on the sea. While writing those last lines Iwas attacked by fearful pains in the right side, and cramp, so that Icould not finish. I can scarcely write now. I have just seen the oldEnglish doctor. He says I have appendicitis, perhaps caused by pips ofstrawberries. And that unless I am operated on at once--And that evenif--He is telephoning to the hospital. Diaz! No; I shall come safelythrough the affair. Without me Diaz would fall again. I see that now. AndI have had no child. I must have a child. Even that girl in the blue_peignoir_ had a--Chance is a strange--

_Extract translated from 'Le Temps, ' the Paris Evening Paper_. 

OBSEQUIES OF MISS PELL (_sic_). 

The obsequies of Mademoiselle Pell, the celebrated English poetess, andauthor of the libretto of _La Vallière_, were celebrated this morning ateleven o'clock in the Church of St. Honoré d'Eylau. 

The chief mourners were the doctor who assisted at the last moments ofMademoiselle Pell, and M. Villedo, director of the Opéra-Comique. 

Among the wreaths we may cite those of the Association of DramaticArtists, of Madame Morenita, of the management of the Opéra-Comique, andof the artists of the Opéra-Comique. 

Mass was said by a vicar of the parish, and general absolution given byM. Le Curé Marbeau. 

During the service there was given, under the direction of M. Lêtang, chapel-master, the _Funeral March_ of Beethoven, the _Kyrie_ ofNeidermeyer, the _Pie Jesu_ of Stradella, the _Ego Sum_ of Gounod, the_Libera Me_ of S. Rousseau. 

M. Deep officiated at the organ. 

After the ceremony the remains were transported to the cemetery ofPère-Lachaise and cremated.