Viola laughed and drank the wine.
"Trevor," she said reflectively, as if following up some train of thought she had been pursuing already a long time. "What heaps of wonderfully beautiful girls and women we saw to-night. Wouldn"t you like some of them?"
I laughed.
"Some of them! Supposing you send me up a dozen or two?"
"No, but really I was thinking as I sat there to-night, how pretty they were, and how varied. I can quite understand how a man would like to try them all."
"You would object, I am afraid," I said gravely. "You object even to Veronica."
"I know. I don"t think it"s possible to do otherwise. I shouldn"t love you if I didn"t. But if you gave me up you could have all these others."
"Well, you see, it is the other way; I have given them all up for you."
"I know, but is it wise for your own happiness? I thought about it a great deal to-night."
"Women like that can give one only the simple pleasure of the senses.
It is very much the same with them all; but with you there is some extraordinary pa.s.sion created in the brain as well as in the senses, that makes it a different thing."
"I am so glad," she murmured, leaning her arms on the table and looking at me with eyes absorbed and abstracted.
"There is no single thing in this world I would not do to give you pleasure, to delight and satisfy you. I have never refused you anything, have I?"
"Never."
And it was true. She never had refused me anything it was in her power to give. Still she held something that was not yet mine; the inner spirit of the Soul.
Days pa.s.sed and things continued in the same way. I had not the strength of mind to dismiss Veronica, to deprive myself of that subtle, delicious pleasure that lay in her soft kisses, in the bloom of her beauty, in her professed devotion to myself. The Bacchante was not quite finished, so that gave me the outward excuse. The excuse I put forward to myself was that Viola could not possibly know what I felt for the girl nor what I did, and so it could not hurt her.
Veronica made no secret of her wishes to tie me more closely to her still. But, in spite of the clamour of the senses, there was something within me or round me that held me irresistibly from this.
All that I had done already I knew that Viola would forgive, even though it grieved and distressed her. If I went further I did not know that she would ever forgive, and that made an insurmountable barrier that nothing Veronica could do or say could break down.
The weeks slipped by and brought us to the date when Viola"s operetta was to be produced. On the evening which she had so looked forward to, now it had come, she seemed tired and spiritless, and we dressed for dinner almost in silence. Captain Lawton and another man who had helped in the production of the piece were dining with us, and we were then going on to our box at the theatre.
At dinner Viola seemed to regain some of her old gay spirits, and the light rose colour I loved crept back into her cheeks as she laughed and talked with Lawton seated on her right hand. I had always thought him a particularly handsome fellow, and to-night it struck me suddenly what an extremely attractive man he must be in a woman"s eyes. He was dark and a little sunburnt from being in South Africa, and, combined with really beautiful features and a fine figure, he had that dashing grace of carriage, that unaffected simple manner of the soldier, which even by itself has a charm of its own.
I looked at Viola curiously, and wondered how she felt towards this man who was so obviously in love with her. Whether it moved her at all to see those dark eyes fill with fire as she smiled at him, to know that the whole of this engaging personality was hers if she chose to stretch out her hand and claim it.
The dinner pa.s.sed off well, thanks princ.i.p.ally to the inexhaustible tide of good spirits and fun that flowed from Lawton. We took a couple of hansoms afterwards and arrived at the theatre in good time.
The "Lily of Canton" went smoothly from beginning to end. The crowded house laughed and applauded the whole time. In fact, the humour and fun of Lawton"s libretto were irresistible, and the beautiful airs that Viola"s fancy had woven in and out to carry the wit of Lawton"s sparkling lines enchanted the audience.
At the end there were calls for both of them to appear before the curtain, and Viola left the box with him, radiant and smiling. When they both appeared on the stage the enthusiasm was unbounded. Viola was in white, and her delicate, rose-like fairness delighted the audience, and the women clapped Lawton with good-will. Handsome, easy, dignified, graceful, and debonair as usual, he smiled and bowed his acknowledgments over and over again beside Viola, into whose face came the wrapt, glad look that her music always gave, replacing the expression of pain she had worn now for so many weeks.
I sat in our box watching her, with sore, jealous feelings rising up like mists over the pride I had in my possession. As the whole scene and her triumph stirred and roused my pa.s.sion for her, some voice seemed interrogating me--"Is she and her love not enough for you? Why do you wear thin and fray the delicious tie between you?"
They were both up again in the box beside me, directly surrounded by congratulating friends; and then Lawton gathered together his party and we all filed off in a stream of hansoms to the supper that he was giving in Viola"s honour. It was already daylight before we reached home.
The next evening I had to attend an artists" dinner. It was for men only, so that Viola was not invited. I spent a very busy morning and afternoon in the studio. The Bacchante was almost finished, and I had made up my mind to dismiss Veronica as soon as I was sure I was satisfied with the picture and did not need her again. Full of this resolve, I was perhaps a little more careless than usual, less on my guard, and when at the end Veronica came to kiss me, I returned her caress with more warmth than I was accustomed to do. It did not really matter, I thought; the girl would be gone in a day or two and I should have no more to do with her.
Feeling rather pleased with myself for having taken the decided resolution to dismiss her in order to please Viola I went downstairs, and was rather vexed when I met her to see her looking particularly white and ill. She had seemed fairly well at luncheon, and I could not shake off the extraordinary idea that my conduct with Veronica through the afternoon was in some way connected with her pallor and expression now.
I had it on my lips to say--"I have decided to dismiss the model,"
when that feeling of irritation against her for looking so wretched came uppermost and held the words back.
If she couldn"t trust me and would worry about things when I told her not to, she might worry and I would let her alone.
It really always hurt and alarmed me so much to see Viola look ill or delicate that it made me angry with her, instead of extra considerate and kind as I should have been.
She came upstairs to be with me while I dressed, and sat in the armchair at the foot of the bed.
I asked her if she had a headache, and she said, "No."
"What did you do all this afternoon?" I asked. "Did any one come in to tea?"
"No, n.o.body came. I was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room most of the time, thinking. I didn"t feel able to do anything."
I did not ask her what she had been thinking about, but went on dressing in silence.
Before I left I kissed her, but it was rather a cold kiss, as I felt she ought to be happy and pink-cheeked as a result of my good intentions--unreasonably enough, since I had not told her of them.
She accepted it, but seemed to hesitate as if she wished to say something to me. I saw her grow paler and her lips quiver. She did not speak, however, and so in rather a strained silence we parted and I went downstairs.
How I regretted that coldness afterwards! How mad and blind one is sometimes where one loves most!
I did not enjoy the dinner at all because I could not deny to myself that I had been unkind to her, with that tacit unkindness that is so keenly felt and is so difficult to meet or combat. I left the hotel where the dinner had been held quite early, and drove back to the house, longing and impatient to be with her again, hold her in my arms, and tell her all I had resolved and been thinking about, and kiss the bright colour back into her face again.
I let myself in with my latch-key and ran up the stairs into the drawing-room.
It was brightly lighted, but empty. I was just going to seek her upstairs when a note set up before the clock on the mantelpiece caught my eye.
I crossed the room, took it up, tore it open, and ran my eyes hurriedly down it, line after line.
"_Dearest,_
"Our relations have entered upon a new phase lately. I suppose it cannot be helped, it is merely the turning on of the wheel of time. We cannot stay the wheel, still less turn it back. All we can do is to adjust ourselves to the new position.
"You have wished for your freedom. It is yours. I have never wanted to take it away, but I feel I cannot go on dedicating my life and every thought I have to you as I have done, if you wish to share with others all that has been mine and all that I value most in this or any world. I have tried, but it is beyond me. You cannot think what I have suffered in these last weeks. I have reasoned with myself, asked myself what did it matter what you did when you were away from me, why should one rival now matter more than those the past has held for me? I have argued, reasoned, fought with myself, but it is useless. These unconquerable instincts of jealousy have been placed in us and are as strong as those other instincts of desire that excite them.
"The life of the last few weeks is killing me. I am losing my health, losing my power to work. It is the concentration of all my thoughts upon you that is maddening, impossible now that you no longer belong to me. Even your presence, once the sun of my existence, is painful to me now; and when you come straight from another woman to kiss me, it is agony. I cannot bear it.
"You thought I did not know all the kisses and caresses you have given Veronica. Dear Trevor, a woman always knows--perhaps a man does, too. Certainly I knew. One does not have to see or hear; there is a sense, not yet discovered, that is above all the others, that tells us these things. When you came from her to me you brought with you an influence that killed. Perhaps it was that you were surrounded with an electricity from her that was hostile to my own.
"I have felt lately a longing to be away from you, a longing to escape from pain and torture, but the music keeps me in town, and we cannot well separate here without a scandal, which I know you would not wish. So I am going to try and escape mentally from you, though our bodies must occupy the same house for a little while longer.