"Ah, that is impossible!" she cried. "We were made for each other. We cannot live apart."
"Ideala," I exclaimed, exasperated, "he never believed in you. He thought you were as so many women of our set are, and he showed it, if only you could have understood, when you saw him at the Hospital on that last occasion. You felt that there was some change, as you say yourself, and that was it. You talked to him of truth then, and it irritated him as the devil quoting Scripture might be supposed to irritate; and when you went back again he showed what he thought of you by his unexplained absence. He thought you were not worth consideration, and he gave you none."
"It would have been paying himself a very poor compliment if he had thought that only a corrupt woman could care for him," she answered, confidently. "But, I tell you, I am sure there is some satisfactory explanation of that business. I only wish I had remembered to ask for it, that I might satisfy you now. And, at any rate," she added, "whatever he may have thought, he knows better by this time."
I could say no more. Baffled and sick at heart, I left her, wondering if some happy inspiration would come before it was too late, and help me to save her yet.
CHAPTER XXV.
I went to consult my sister Claudia. The blow was a heavy one for her also; but I was surprised to find that she did not share my contempt for the person whom I considered responsible for all this trouble.
"Ideala is no common character herself," Claudia argued; "and it isn"t likely that a common character would fascinate her as this man has done."
"Will you speak to her, Claudia, and see what your influence will do?"
"It is no use my speaking to her," she answered, disconsolately.
"Ideala is a much cleverer woman than I am. She would make me laugh at my own advice in five minutes. And, besides, if she be infatuated, as you say she is, she will be only too glad to be allowed to talk about him, and that will strengthen her feeling for him. No. She has chosen you for her confidant, and you had better talk to her yourself--and may you succeed!" she added, laying her head on the table beside which she was sitting, and giving way to a burst of grief.
I tried to comfort her, but I had little hope myself, and I could not speak at all confidently.
"I believe," Claudia said, before we parted, "that there is nothing for her now but a choice of two evils. If she gives him up she will never care for anything again, and if she does not, she will have done an unjustifiable thing; and life after that for such a woman as Ideala would be like one of those fairy gifts which were bestowed subject to some burdensome condition that made the good of them null and void."
I did not meet Ideala again until the evening, and then I was not sorry to see that her manner was less serene. It was just possible that she had been thinking over what I had said, and that some of the doubts I had suggested were beginning to disturb her perfect security.
After dinner she brought the conversation round to those social laws which govern our lives arbitrarily. I did not see what she was driving at, neither did the good old Bishop, who was one of the party, nor a lawyer who was also present.
"You want to know something," said the latter. "What is it? You must state your case clearly."
"I want to know if a thing can be legally right and morally wrong,"
Ideala answered.
"Of course not," the Bishop rashly a.s.serted.
"That depends," the lawyer said, cautiously.
"If I signed a contract," Ideala explained, "and found out afterwards that those who induced me to become a party to it had kept me in ignorance of the most important clause in it, so that I really did not know to what I was committing myself, would you call that a moral contract?"
"I should say that people had not dealt uprightly with you," the Bishop answered; "but there might be nothing in the clause to which you could object."
"But suppose there _was_ something in the clause to which I very strongly objected, something of which my conscience disapproved, something that was repugnant to my whole moral nature; and suppose I was forced by the law to fulfil it nevertheless, should you say that was a moral contract? Should you not say that in acting against my conscience I acted immorally?"
We all fell into the trap, and looked an encouraging a.s.sent.
"And in that case," she continued, "I suppose my duty would be to evade the law, and act on my conscience?"
The Bishop looked puzzled.
"I should only be doing what the early martyrs had to do," she added.
"That is true," he rejoined, with evident relief.
"But I don"t see what particular contract you are thinking of," said the lawyer.
"The marriage contract," Ideala answered, calmly.
This announcement created a sensation.
The lawyer laughed: the Bishop looked grave.
"Oh, but you cannot describe marriage in that way," he declared, with emphasis.
"Humph!" the lawyer observed, meditatively. "I am afraid I must beg to differ from your Lordship. Many women might describe their marriages in that way with perfect accuracy."
"Marriages are made in heaven!" the Bishop e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, feebly.
"Let us hope that some are, dear Bishop." Claudia sweetly observed, and all the married people in the room looked "Amen" at her.
"I think an ideal of marriage should be fixed by law, and lectures given in all the colleges to teach it," Ideala went on; "and a standard of excellence ought to be set up for people to attain to before they could be allowed to marry. They should be obliged to pa.s.s examinations on the subject, and fit themselves for the perfect state by a perfect life. It should be made a reward for merit, and a goal towards which goodness only could carry us. Then marriages might seem to have been made in heaven, and the blessing of G.o.d would sanctify a happy union, instead of being impiously p.r.o.nounced in order to ratify a business transaction, or sanction the indulgence of a pa.s.sing fancy. But only the love that lasts can sanctify marriage, and a marriage without such love is an immoral contract."
"Marriage an immoral contract!" the Bishop exclaimed. "O dear! O dear!
This is not right, you know; this is not at all right. I must make a note of this--I really must. You are in the habit of saying things of this sort, my dear. I remember you said something like it once before; and really it is not a subject to joke about. Such an idea is quite pernicious; it must not be allowed to spread--even as a joke. I wish, my dear, you had not promulgated it, even in that spirit. You have--ah --a knack of making things seem plausible, and of giving weight to opinions by the way you express them, although the opinions themselves are quite erroneous, as on the present occasion. Some of your ideas are so very mistaken, you know; and you really ought to leave these matters to those who understand them, and can judge. It is very dangerous to discuss such subjects, especially--ah--when you know nothing about them, and--ah--cannot judge. I really must preach a sermon on the subject. Let me see. Next Sunday--ah, yes; next Sunday, if you will kindly come and hear me."
We all thanked him as enthusiastically as we could.
Later, I found Ideala alone in one of the conservatories. She took my arm affectionately, and we walked up and down for a time in silence.
She was smiling and happy; so happy, indeed, that I found it hard to say anything to disturb her. For a moment I felt almost as she did about the step she proposed to take. There had been little joy in her life, and she had borne her cross long and bravely; what wonder that she should rebel at last, and claim her reward?
"Do you remember how you used to talk about the women of the nineteenth century, Ideala," I said at last, "and describe the power for good which they never use, and rail at them as artificial, milliner-made, man-hunting, self-indulgent _animals?_"
"I know," she answered; "and now you would say I am worse than any of them? I used to have big ideas about woman and her mission; but I always looked at the question broadly, as it affects the whole world; now my vision is narrowed, and I see it only with regard to one individual. But I am sure that is the right way to look at it. I think every woman will have to answer for one man"s soul, and it seems to me that the n.o.blest thing a woman can do is to devote her life to that soul first of all--to raise it if it be low, to help it to peace if peace be lacking, and to gather all the sunshine there is in the world for it; and, after that, if her opportunities and powers allow her to help others also, she should do what she can for them. I do not know all the places which it is legitimate for women to fill in the world, but it seems to me that they are many and various, and that the great object in life for a woman is to help. To be a Pericles I see that a man must have an Aspasia. Was Aspasia vile? some said so--yet she did a n.o.bler work, and was finer in her fall, if she fell, than many good women in all the glory of uprightness are. And was she impure? then it is strange that her mind was not corrupting in its influence. And was she low? then whence came her power to raise others? It seems to me that it only rests with ourselves to make any position in life, which circ.u.mstances render it expedient for us to occupy, desirable."
"And you propose to be an Aspasia to this modern Pericles?"
"If you like to put it so. The cases are not dissimilar, as there was an obstacle in the way of their marriage also."
"The law was the obstacle."
"Yes; another of those laws which are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. They might not marry because she came from Miletus!
and Lorrimer may not marry me because I came out of the house of bondage. Unwise laws make immoral nations."
"But you have gone about this business in such an extraordinary way, Ideala," I said. "You seem to have tried to make it appear as bad for yourself as you can. Why did you not leave your husband when Lorrimer advised you to?"
"If I had gone then I should have been obliged to live somewhere else-- a long way from Lorrimer; and I might never have seen him again."