"I find it to the contrary," said I, with a laugh. "My convictions, always lukewarm, are now stone-cold. I don"t say that the principles of the party are wrong. But they"re wrong for me, which is all-important.
If they are not right for me, what care I how right they be? And as I don"t believe in those of the other side, I"m going to give up politics altogether."
"What will you do?"
"I don"t know. I honestly don"t. But I have an insistent premonition that I shall soon find myself doing something utterly idiotic, which to me will be the most real thing in life."
I had indeed awakened that morning with an exhilarating thrill of antic.i.p.ation, comparable to that of the mountain climber who knows not what panorama of glory may be disclosed to his eyes when he reaches the summit. I had whistled in my bath--a most unusual thing.
"Are you going to turn Socialist?"
"_Qui lo sa_? I"m willing to turn anything alive and honest. It doesn"t matter what a man professes so long as he professes it with all the faith of all his soul."
I broke into a laugh, for the echo of my words rang comic in my ears.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked.
"Don"t you think it funny to hear me talk like a two-penny Carlyle?"
"Not a bit," she said seriously.
"I can"t undertake to talk like that always," I said warningly.
"I thought you said you were going to be serious."
"So I am--but plat.i.tudinous--Heaven forbid!"
The little clock on the mantelpiece struck six. Eleanor rose in alarm.
"How the time has flown! I must be getting back. Well?"
Our eyes met. "Well?" said I.
"Are we ever to meet again?"
"It"s for you to say."
"No," she said. And then very distinctly, very deliberately, "It"s for you."
I understood. She made the offer simply, n.o.bly, unreservedly. My heart was filled with great grat.i.tude. She was so true, so loyal, so thorough.
Why could I not take her at her word? I murmured:
"I"ll remember what you say."
She put out her hand. "Good-bye!"
"Good-bye and G.o.d bless you!" I said.
I accompanied her to the front door, hailed a pa.s.sing cab, and waited till she had driven off. Was there ever a sweeter, grander, more loyal woman? The three little words had changed the current of my being.
I returned to take leave of Agatha. I found her in the drawing-room reading a novel. She twisted her head sideways and regarded me with a bird-like air of curiosity.
"Eleanor gone?"
Her tone jarred on me. I nodded and dropped into a chair.
"Interview pa.s.sed off satisfactorily?"
"We were quite comfortable, thank you. The only drawback was the tea.
Why a woman in your position can"t give people China tea instead of that Ceylon syrup will be a mystery to me to my dying day."
She rose in her wrath and shook me.
"You"re the most aggravating wretch on earth!"
"My dear Tom-t.i.t," said I gravely. "Remember the moral tale of Bluebeard."
"Look here, Simon"--she planted herself in front of me--"I"m not a bit inquisitive. I don"t in the least want to know what pa.s.sed between you and Eleanor. But what I would give my ears to understand is how you can go through a two hours" conversation with the girl you were engaged to--a conversation which must have affected the lives of both of you--and then come up to me and talk drivel about China tea and Bluebeard."
"Once on a time, my dear," said I, "I flattered myself on being an artist in life. I am humbler now and acknowledge myself a wretched bungling amateur. But I still recognise the value of chiaroscuro."
"You"re hopeless," said Agatha, somewhat crossly. "You get more flippant and cynical every day."
CHAPTER XX
I went home to my solitary dinner, and afterwards took down a volume of Emerson and tried to read. I thought the cool and s.p.a.cious philosopher might allay a certain fever in my blood. But he did nothing of the kind.
He wrote for cool and s.p.a.cious people like himself; not for corpses like me revivified suddenly with an overcharge of vital force. I pitched him--how much more truly companionable is a book than its author!--I pitched him across the room, and thrusting my hands in my pockets and stretching out my legs, stared in a certain wonder at myself.
I, Simon de Gex, was in love; and, _horribile dictu!_ in love with two women at once. It was Oriental, Mormonic, New Century, what you will; but there it was. I am ashamed to avow that if, at that moment, both women had appeared before me and said "Marry us," I should have--well, reflected seriously on the proposal. I had pa.s.sed through curious enough experiences, Heaven knows, already; but none so baffling as this. The two women came alternately and knocked at my heart, and whispered in my ear their irrefutable claims to my love. I listened throbbingly to each, and to each I said, "I love you."
I was in an extraordinary psychological predicament. Lola had remarked, "You are not quite alive even yet." I had come to complete life too suddenly. This was the result. I got up and paced the bird-cage, which the house-agents termed a reception-room, and wondered whether I were going mad. It was not as if one woman represented the flesh and the other the spirit. Then I might have seen the way to a decision. But both had the large nature that comprises all. I could not exalt one in any way to the abas.e.m.e.nt of the other. All my inherited traditions, prejudices, predilections, all my training ranged me on the side of Eleanor. I was clamouring for the real. Was she not the incarnation of the real? Her very directness piqued me to a perverse and delicious obliquity. And I knew, as I knew when I parted from her months before, that it was only for me to awaken things that lay virginally dormant.
On the other hand stood Lola, with her magnetic seduction, her rich atmosphere, her great wide simplicity of heart, holding out arms into which I longed to throw myself.
It was monstrous, abnormal. I hated the abominable indelicacy of weighing one against the other, as I had hated the idea of their meeting.
I paced my bird-cage until it shrank to the size of a rat-trap. Then I clapped on my hat and fled down into the streets. I jumped into the first cab I saw and bade the driver take me to Barbara"s Building.
Campion suddenly occurred to me as the best antidote to the poison that had entered my blood.
I found him alone, clearing from the table the remains of supper. In spite of his soul"s hospitable instincts, he stared at me.
"Why, what the----?"
"Yes, I know. You"re surprised to see me bursting in on you like a wild animal. I"m not going to do it every night, but this evening I claim a bit of our old friendship."
"Claim it all, my dear de Gex!" he said cordially. "What can I do for you?"
It was characteristic of Campion to put his question in that form.