He could have told her that so it appeared to those who are bound in the house of bondage; but that in Leuce, the country of deliverance, the dream and the reality are indivisible, being both divine. He could have told her that he had known as much five years ago; even before he knew her.
"After all," he said, "that"s admitting that they _are_ divided. And that, if you remember, was what I said, not what you said."
Lucia evaded the issue in a fashion truly feminine. "It doesn"t matter a bit what either of us said then, so long as _you_ know now."
"There"s one thing I don"t know. I don"t know how you really take it; or whether you will really understand. Just now I thought you did, But after all it seems you don"t. You think I"m only trying to pay you a stupid literary compliment. You think when I wrote those things I didn"t mean them; my imagination was simply taking a rather more eccentric flight than usual. Isn"t that so?"
"I"m certainly allowing for your imagination. I can"t forget that you are a poet. You won"t let me forget it. I can"t separate your genius from the rest of you."
"And I can"t separate the rest of me from it. That makes the difference, you see." He was angry as he said that. He had wondered whether she would deal as tenderly with his pa.s.sion as she had dealt with his dream; and she had dealt just as tenderly. But it was because she identified the pa.s.sion with the dream. He had not been prepared for that view of it; and somehow it annoyed him. But for that, he would never have spoken as he now did. "When I wondered how you would take it I thought it might possibly strike you as something rather too real, almost offensively so. Do you know, I"d rather you"d taken it that way than that you should talk about my dreams. My _dreams_." (It was shocking, the violent emphasis of disgust the poet, the dreamer, flung into that one word.) "As if I"d dreamed that I knew you. As if I"d dreamed that I cared for you. Would you rather think I dreamed it?
You can if you like. Or would you rather think it was the most real thing that ever happened to me? So real that after it happened--_because_ it happened--I left off being the sort of man and the sort of poet I was, and became another sort. So real and so strong that it saved me from one or two other things, uncommonly strong and real, that had got a pretty tight hold of me, too. Would you rather think that you"d really done this for me, or that I"d dreamed it all?"
She looked at his face, the unforgotten, unforgetable face, which when she first knew it had kindled and darkened so swiftly and inexplicably. She knew it now. She held the key of all its mysteries.
It was the face that had turned to her five years ago with just that look; in the mouth and lifted chin that imperious impetuous determination to make her see; in the eyes that pathetic trust in her seeing. The same face; and yet it would have told her, if he had not, that he was another man. No, not another man; but of all the ways that were then open to him to take he had chosen the n.o.blest. And so, of all the expressions that in its youth had played on that singularly expressive face, it was the finest only that had become dominant. That face had never lied to her. Why should he not plead for the sincerity of his pa.s.sion, since it was all over now? Was it possible that there was some secret insincerity in her? How was it that she had made him think that she desired to ignore, to repudiate her part in him? That she preferred a meaningless compliment to the confession which was the highest honour that could be paid to any woman? Was it because the honour was so great that she was afraid to take it?
"Of course I would rather think it was really so."
"Then you must believe that I really cared for you; and that it is only because I cared that it is really so."
"I do believe it. But I can"t take it all to myself. Another person might have cared just as much, and it might have done him harm--I would never have forgiven myself if I had done you harm--I want you to see that it wasn"t anything in _me_; it was something in _you_ that made the difference."
He smiled sadly. "You know it _does_ sound as if you wanted to keep out of it."
"Does it? If I had really been in it, do you think that I wouldn"t be glad and thankful? I am, even for the little that I have done. Even though I know another woman might have done as much, or more, I"m glad I was the one. But, you see, I didn"t know I was in it at all. I didn"t know the sort of help you wanted. Perhaps, if I had known, I couldn"t have helped you. But my knowing or not knowing doesn"t matter one bit. If I _did_ help you--that way--I helped some one else too. At least I should like to think I did. I should like to think that one reason why you care for your wife so much is because you cared a little for me. There is that way of looking at it." Then, lest she should seem to be seeking some extraneous justification of a fact that in her heart she abhorred, she added, "Every way I look at it I"m glad. I"m glad that you cared. I"m glad because it"s been, and glad because it"s over. For if it hadn"t been over--"
"What were you going to say?"
"I was going to say that if it hadn"t been over you couldn"t have given me these. I didn"t say it; because it would have sounded as if that were all I cared about. As if I wouldn"t have been almost as glad if you"d never written a line of them. Only in that case I should never have known."
"No. You would never have known."
"I think I should have been glad, even if the poems had been--not very good poems."
"You wouldn"t have known in that case either. I wouldn"t have shown them to you if they had not been good. As it is, when I wrote them I never meant to show them to you."
"Oh, but I think--"
"Of course you do. But I wasn"t going to print them before you"d seen them. Do you know what I"d meant to do with them--what in fact I _did_ do with them? I left them to you in my will with directions that they weren"t to be published without your consent. It seems a rather unusual bequest, but you know I had a conceited hope that some time they might be valuable. I don"t know whether they would have sold for three thousand pounds--I admit it was a draft on posterity that posterity might have dishonoured--but I thought they might possibly go a little way towards paying my debt."
"Your debt? I don"t understand." But the trembling of her mouth belied its words.
"Don"t you? Don"t you remember?"
"No, I don"t. I never _have_ remembered."
"Probably not. But you can hardly suppose that I"ve forgotten it."
"What has it to do with you, or me--or this?"
"Not much, perhaps; but still something, you"ll admit."
"I admit nothing. I can"t bear your ever having thought of it. I wish you hadn"t told me. It spoils everything."
"Does it? Such a little thing? Surely a friend might be allowed to leave you a small legacy when he was decently dead? And it wasn"t _his_ fault, was it, if it paid a debt as well?"
The tears rose in her eyes to answer him.
"But you see I didn"t leave it. I didn"t wait for that. I was afraid that my being dead would put you in a more embarra.s.sing position than if I"d been alive. You might have hated those poems and yet you might have shrunk from suppressing them for fear of wounding the immortal vanity of a blessed spirit. Or you might have taken that horrid literary view I implored you not to take. You might have hesitated to inflict so great a loss on the literature of your country." He tried to speak lightly, as if it were merely a whimsical and extravagant notion that he should be reckoned among the poets. And yet in his heart he knew that it must be so. "But now the things can"t be published unless you will accept them as they were originally meant.
There"s nothing gross about the transaction; nothing that need offend either you or me."
"I can"t--I can"t--"
"Well," he said gently, fearing the appearance of grossness in pressing the question, "we can settle that afterwards, can"t we?
Meanwhile at all events the publication rests with you."
"The publication has nothing whatever to do with me--The dedication, _perhaps_."
"You"ve accepted that. Still, you might object to your name appearing before the public with mine."
Lucia looked bewildered. She thought she had followed him in all his subtleties; but she had had difficulty in realizing that he was actually proposing to suppress his poems in deference to her scruples, if she had any. Some shadowy notion of his meaning was penetrating her now.
"My name," she said, "will mean nothing to the public."
"Then you consent?"
"Of course. It"s absurd to talk about my consent. Besides, why should I mind now--when it is all over?"
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, it was by an effort, as if he unwillingly obeyed some superior constraint. "If it hadn"t been all over would you have minded then? Would you have refused your consent?"
"To your publishing your own poems? How could I?"
"To the dedication, I mean. If it hadn"t been all over, would you have given your consent to that?"
His anxiety had deepened to an agony which seemed to have made his face grow sharp and thin almost as she looked at him. She judged that this question was vital, and that the truth was required of her.
"No, not to that. You see, it"s only because it"s all over that I"ve consented now."
"I see; that"s the condition? You would never have consented but for that."
"Why should we talk about that now?"
"I wanted to know the truth."
"Why should you? It"s a truth that has nothing to do with things as they are, only with things as they might have been. Isn"t it enough to be glad that they weren"t, that it is all over, and that this is the end of it?"
Even as she said the words it struck her that there was something ominous in this reiteration.
"But it isn"t all over. This isn"t the end of it."