"Yes, you told me," the Tenor repeated thoughtfully. "But then you told me so many things."
"Well, I told you nothing that was not absolutely true," Angelica answered--"from Diavolo"s point of view. I a.s.sumed his manner and habits when I put these things on, imitated him in everything, tried to think his thoughts, and looked at myself from his point of view; in fact my difficulty was to remember that I was not him. I used to forget sometimes-- and think I was. But I confess that I never was such a gentleman as Diavolo is always under all circ.u.mstances. Poor dear Diavolo!" she added regretfully; "how he would have enjoyed those fried potatoes!"
The Tenor slightly changed his position. He only glanced at her now and then when he spoke to her, and for the rest he sat as she did, with his calm deep eyes fixed on the fire, and an expression of patient sadness upon his face that wrung her heart. Perhaps it was to stifle the pain of it that she began to talk garrulously. "Oh, I am sorry for the trick I have played you!" she exclaimed with real feeling. "I have been sorry all along since I knew your worth, and I came to-night to tell you, to confess and to apologize. When I first knew you all my _loving consciousness_ was dormant, if you know what that is; I mean the love in us for our fellow-creatures which makes it pain to ourselves to injure them. But you re-aroused that feeling, and strengthened and added to it until it had become predominant, so that, since I have known you as you are, I have hated to deceive you. This is the first uncomfortable feeling of that kind I have ever had. But for the rest I did not care. I was bored. I was always bored: and I resented the serene unconcern of my friends. Their indifference to my aspirations, and the way they took it for granted that I had everything I ought to want, and could therefore be happy if I chose, exasperated me. To be bored seems a slight thing, but a world of suffering is contained in the experience; and do you know, Israfil, I think it dangerous to leave an energetic woman without a single strong interest or object in life. Trouble is sure to come of it sooner or later--which sounds like a truism now that I have said it, and truisms are things which we habitually neglect to act upon. In my case nothing of this kind would have happened "--and again her glance round the room expressed a comprehensive view of her present situation--"if I had been allowed to support a charity hospital with my violin--or something; made to feel responsible, you know."
"But surely you must recognize the grave responsibility which attaches to all women--"
"In the abstract," Angelica interposed. "I know if things go wrong they are blamed for it; if they go right the Church takes the credit. The value attached to the influence of women is purely fict.i.tious, as individuals usually find when they come to demand a recognition of their personal power. I should have been held to have done my duty if I had spent the rest of my life in dressing well, and saying the proper thing; no one would consider the waste of power which is involved in such an existence.
You often hear it said of a girl that she should have been a boy, which being interpreted means that she has superior abilities; but because she is a woman it is not thought necessary to give her a chance of making a career for herself. I hope to live, however, to see it allowed that a woman has no more right to bury her talents than a man has; in which days the man without brains will be taught to cook and clean, while the clever woman will be doing the work of the world well which is now being so shamefully scamped. But I was going to say that I am sure all my vagaries have arisen out of the dread of having nothing better to do from now until the day of my death--as I once said to an uncle of mine--but to get up and go to bed, after spending the interval in the elegant and useless way ladies do--a ride, a drive, a dinner, a dance, a little music--trifling all the time to no purpose, not even amusing one"s self, for when amus.e.m.e.nt begins to be a business, it ceases to be a pleasure. This has not mended matters, I know," she acknowledged drearily; "but it has been a distraction, and that was something while it lasted. Monotony, however luxurious, is not less irksome because it is easy. A hardworking woman would have rest to look forward to, but I hadn"t even that, although I was always wearied to death--as tired of my idleness or purposeless occupations as anybody could possibly be by work. I think if you will put yourself in my place, you will not wonder at me, nor at any woman under the circ.u.mstances who, secure of herself and her position, varies the monotony of her life with an occasional escapade as one puts sauce into soup to relieve the insipidity. Deplore it if you will, but don"t wonder at it; it is the natural consequence of an unnatural state of things, and there will be more of it still, or I am much mistaken."
Again the Tenor changed his position. "I cannot, _cannot_ comprehend how you could have risked your reputation in such a way," he said, shaking his head with grave concern.
"No risk to my reputation," she answered with the insolence of rank.
"Everybody knows who I am, and, if I remember rightly, "That in the captain"s but a choleric word which in the soldier is rank blasphemy."
What would be an unpardonable offence if committed by another woman less highly placed than myself is merely an amusing eccentricity in me, so--for _my_ benefit--conveniently sn.o.bbish is society. Since I grew up, however, I find that I am not one of those who can say flippantly, "You can"t have everything, and if people have talents they are not to be expected to have characters as well." Great talent should be held to be a guarantee for good character; the loss of the one makes the possession of the other dangerous. But what I do maintain is that I have done nothing by which I ought in justice to be held to have jeopardised my character. I have broken no commandment, nor should I under any circ.u.mstances. It is only the idea of the thing that shocks your prejudices. You cannot bear to see me decently dressed as a boy, but you would think nothing of it if you saw me half undressed for a ball, as I often am; yet if the one can be done with a modest mind, and you must know that it can, so can the other, I suppose."
The Tenor was sitting sideways on his chair, his elbow resting on the back, his head on his hand, his legs crossed, half turned from her and listening without looking at her; and there was something in the way she made this last remark that set a familiar chord vibrating not unpleasantly. Perhaps, after the revelation, he had expected her to turn into a totally different person; at all events he was somewhat surprised, but not disagreeably, to perceive how like the Boy she was. This was the Boy again, exactly, in a bad mood, and the Tenor sought at once, as was his wont, to distract him rather than argue him out of it. This was the force of habit, and it was also due to the fact that his mind was rapidly adapting itself to a strange position and becoming easier in the new att.i.tude. The woman he had been idolizing was lost irretrievably, but the charm which had been the Boy"s remained to him, and he had already begun to reconcile himself to the idea of a wrong-headed girl who must be helped and worked for, instead of a wrong-headed boy.
"But why should you have chosen this impossible form of amus.e.m.e.nt in particular?" he said. "Why could you not interest yourself in the people about you--do something for them?"
"I did think of that, I did try," she answered petulantly. "But it is impossible for a woman to devote herself to people for whom there is nothing to be done, who don"t want her devotion; and, besides, devotion wasn"t my vocation. But, after all," she broke off, defending herself, "I only arrived at this by slow degrees, and I never should have come so far at all if Diavolo had stuck to me; but he got into a state of don"t-care-and-can"t-be-bothered, and separated his work from mine by going to Sandhurst. Then I found myself alone, and you cannot think how a woman, must suffer from the awful loneliness of a life like mine when I had no one near me in the sense in which Diavolo has always been near, a life that is full of acquaintances as a cake is full of currants, no two of which ever touch each other."
The Tenor"s habitual quiescence seemed to have deserted him. He changed his position incessantly, and did so now again; it was the only sign he made of being disturbed at all; and as he moved he brushed his hand back over his hair, but did not speak.
"I kept my disguise a long time before I used it," she began again, another morsel of incident and motive recurring to her. "I don"t think I had any very distinct notion of what I should do with it when I got it.
The pleasure of getting it had been everything for the moment, and having succeeded in that and tried the dress, I hid it away carefully and scarcely ever thought of it--never dreamt of wearing it certainly until one night--it was quite an impulse at last. That night, you know, the first time we met--it was such a beautiful night! I was by myself and had nothing to do as usual, and it tempted me sorely, I thought I should like to see the market-place by moonlight, and then all at once I thought I _would_ see it by moonlight. That was my first weighty reason for changing my dress. But having once a.s.sumed the character, I began to love it; it came naturally; and the freedom from restraint, I mean the restraint of our tight uncomfortable clothing, was delicious. I tell you I was a genuine boy. I moved like a boy, I felt like a boy; I was my own brother in very truth. Mentally and morally, I was exactly what you thought me, and there was little fear of your finding me out, although I used to like to play with the position and run the risk."
"It was marvellous," the Tenor said.
"Not at all," she answered, "not a bit more marvellous in real life than it would have been upon the stage--a mere exercise of the actor"s faculty under the most favourable circ.u.mstances; and not a bit more marvellous than to create a character as an author does in a book; the process is a.n.a.logous. But the same thing has been done before. George Sand, for instance; don"t you remember how often she went about dressed as a man, went to the theatres and was introduced to people, and was never found out by strangers? And there was that woman who was a doctor in the army for so long--until she was quite old. James Barry, she called herself, and none of her brother officers, not even her own particular chum in the regiment she first belonged to, had any suspicion of her s.e.x, and it was not discovered until after her death, when she had been an Inspector General of the Army Medical Department for many years. And there have been women in the ranks too, and at sea. It was really not extraordinary that an un.o.bservant and unsuspicious creature like yourself should have been deceived."
This recalled the patronizing manner of the Boy at times, and the Tenor smiled.
"The meeting with you was an accident, of course," Angelica proceeded with her disjointed narrative; "but I thought I would turn it to account. I was, as you used to say, devoured by curiosity, and my mind is always tentative. I wanted to hear how men talk to each other. I didn"t believe in goodness in a man, and I wanted to see badness from the man"s point of view. I expected to find you corrupt in some particular, to see your hoofs and your horns sooner or later, and I tried to make you show them: but that of course you never did, and I soon realized my mistake. I had a standing quarrel with your s.e.x, however, and at first it pleased me to deceive you simply because you were a man. That was only at the very first, for, as soon as I began to appreciate your worth, I felt ashamed of myself. Don"t you see, Israfil, you have been raising me all along. It has been a very gradual process, though, but still I _did_ wish to undeceive you. I would have done so at once if you had not been so far above me. If you had spoken to me when I gave you that chance--in the cathedral after the service, don"t you remember?--it would have been stepping down from your pedestal; we should have been on the same level then, and I need not have dreaded your righteous indignation. But as it was you maintained your high position, and I was afraid--and I could not give you up. It was delightful to look at myself--an ideal self--from afar off with your eyes; it made me feel as if I could be all you thought me; it made me wish to be so; and it also made me more sorry than anything to have you think so highly of me when I did not deserve it. All these were signs of awakening which I recognized myself--and I did try over and over again to undeceive you about my character, but you never would listen to me. I wish--I wish you had!"
"Do you love me then?" the Tenor asked her, and was startled himself as soon as he had spoken by the immediate effect of the question upon her. It was evident that she had received a terrible shock. She changed colour and countenance, and swayed for a moment as if she were about to faint, and he sprang up to catch her in his arms, but she recovered herself sufficiently to check the impulse: "No, no," she exclaimed hoa.r.s.ely,--"stop! stop! you don"t know--My G.o.d! how could I have put myself in such a position?--I mean--let me tell you--" She shut her eyes and waited, the Tenor looking at her in pained surprise. He sank again on to the seat from which he had risen, and waited also, wondering.
Presently she opened her eyes and looked at him: "The charm--the charm,"
she faltered, "has all been in the delight of a.s.sociating with a man intimately who did not know I was a woman. I have enjoyed the benefit of free intercourse with your masculine mind undiluted by your masculine prejudices and proclivities with regard to my s.e.x. Had you known that I was a woman--even you--the pleasure of your companionship would have been spoilt for me, so unwholesomely is the imagination of a man affected by ideas of s.e.x. The fault is in your training; you are all of you educated deliberately to think of women chiefly as the opposite s.e.x. Your manner to me has been quite different from that of any other man I ever knew. Some have fawned on me, degrading me with the supposition that I exist for the benefit of man alone, and that it will gratify me above all else to know that I please him; and some few, such as yourself, have embarra.s.sed me by putting me on a pedestal, which is, I can a.s.sure you, an exceedingly cramped and uncomfortable position. There is no room to move on a pedestal. Now, with you alone of all men, not excepting Diavolo, I almost think I have been on an equal footing; and it has been to me like the free use of his limbs to a prisoner after long confinement with chains." The expression which the Tenor"s abrupt question had called into her countenance pa.s.sed off as she spoke, and with it the impression it had made upon the Tenor. He mistook the remarks she had just been making for a natural girlish evasion of the subject, and he did not return to it, partly because he felt it to be an inopportune time, but also because he was pretty sure of her feeling for him, and thought that he would have ample leisure by and by, the leisure of a lifetime, to press the question.
There were other explanations to be asked for too, which it seemed advisable to him to get over at once and have done with.
"But how have you managed to get out night after night," he asked, "without being missed?"
"Not night after night," she answered. "If you remember, there were often long intervals. But I have told you, I was constantly alone. The house is large, none of the servants sleep near my room, and my husband--"
"Your--_what_?" the Tenor demanded, turning round on his chair to face her, every vestige of colour gone from his countenance, yet not convinced. "What did you say?" he repeated, aghast.
"My--husband," she faltered. "Mr. Kilroy, of Ilverthorpe."
Hitherto, he had uttered no reproach, but she knew that this reticence was due to self-respect rather than to any lingering remnant of deference, and now when she saw his face ablaze she was prepared for an outburst of wrath. All he said, however, was, speaking with quiet dignity: "You need not have allowed that part of the deception to go on. You should have told me that at once; why did you not?"
For the first time Angelica lost her presence of mind. "I--I forgot," she stammered.
The Tenor threw back his sunny head and laughed bitterly.
"It is a curious fact," Angelica remarked upon reflection, and as if speaking to herself, "but I really had forgotten."
The Tenor looked at the fire, and in the little pause that ensued Angelica suddenly lost her temper.
"If you are deceived in me you have deceived yourself," she burst out, "for I have tried my utmost to undeceive you. You go and fall in love with a girl you have never spoken to in your life, you endow her gratuitously with all the virtues you admire without asking if she cares to possess them; and when you find she is not the peerless perfection you require her to be, you blame her! oh! isn"t that like a man? You all say the same thing: "It wasn"t me!""
"What will your husband say?" the Tenor e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in an undertone.
"Well, you see the bargain was when I asked him to marry me--"
"When you _what?_" said the Tenor.
"Asked him to marry me," Angelica calmly repeated. "The bargain was that he should let me do as I liked, there being a tacit understanding between us, of course, that I should do nothing morally wrong. I could not under any circ.u.mstances do anything morally wrong--not, I confess, because I am particularly high-minded, but because I cannot imagine where the charm and pleasure of the morally wrong comes in. The best pleasures in life are in art, not in animalism; and all the benefit of your acquaintance, I repeat, has consisted in the fact that you were unaware of my s.e.x. I knew that directly you became aware of it another element would be introduced into our friendship which would entirely spoil it so far as I am concerned."
It is a noteworthy fact, as showing how hopelessly involved man"s moral perceptions are with his prejudices and faith in custom even when reprehensible, that the Tenor was if anything more shocked by Angelica"s outspoken objection to grossness than he would have been by a declaration of pa.s.sion on her part. The latter lapse is not unprecedented, and therefore might have been excused as natural; but the unusual nature of the declaration she had made put it into the category to which all things out of order are relegated to be taken exception to, irrespective of their ethical value. But he said nothing, only he turned from her once more, and gazed sorrowfully into the fire.
Angelica looked at him with a dissatisfied frown on her face. "I wish you would speak," she said to him under her breath; and then she began again herself with her accustomed volubility: "Oh, yes, I married. That was what was expected of me. Now, my brother when he grew up was asked with the most earnest solicitude what he would like to be or to do; everything was made easy for him to enter upon any career he might choose, but n.o.body thought of giving me a chance. It was taken for granted that I should be content to marry, and only to marry, and when I expressed my objection to being so limited n.o.body believed I was in earnest. So here I am. And I won"t deny," she confessed with her habitual candour, "that it did occur to me that I might have cared for you as a lover had I not been married.
But of course the thought did not disturb me. It was merely a pa.s.sing glimpse of a might-have-been. When one has a husband one must be loyal to him, even in thought, whatever terms we are on."
The Tenor rose abruptly and walked to the farther end of the room, and stood there for a little leaning against the window-frame with his back to her, looking out at the cathedral. He felt sick and faint, and found the fire and the smell of the roses overpowering. But presently he recovered, and then he returned to her. His face was set now, white and pa.s.sionless, as it had been while he waited to rescue her from the river, and when he spoke there was no tone in his voice; it was as if he were repeating some dry fact by rote.
"There is no excuse for you then," he said; and she perceived with surprise that until he knew she was married he had tried to believe that there was. "You were playing with me, cheating me, mocking me all the time."
Angelica looked at him in dismay. "Israfil! Israfil?" she pleaded, springing to her feet and clasping his arm with both hands, her better nature thoroughly aroused, "O Israfil! forgive me!" She almost shook him in her vehemence, then flung him from her, and pressed her hands to her eyes for an instant. "Mocking you? Oh, no!" she protested. "Believe me--believe me if you can. I respected you almost from the first; I reverenced you at last. I used to tease you about myself to begin with, I repeat, because it did not occur to me that you could care seriously for a girl to whom you had never spoken. Then I began to perceive my mistake.
Then I felt anxious to get you to go away and return, and be properly introduced to us."
"And so you schemed--"
"I arranged a future for you that is worthy of you. O Israfil, I have some conscience. I am not so bad as you think me. Even if I had not dared to tell you to-night, I should have sent you a full explanation as soon as you had gone. I thought when once you were engaged upon a new career, you would forget--all this."
"I am surprised to hear that you did not expect me to enjoy the joke at my own expense--the trick you have played me."
Angelica changed countenance; it was exactly what she had expected.
"Don"t speak bitterly to me," she exclaimed. "It is not natural for you to do so. Oh! I should know--I know only too well--all your good qualities.
My heart has been wrung a hundred times--by the thought--of all--I have--lost--by my folly." She raised her hands with a despairing gesture.
"Don"t imagine that you suffer--alone--or more than I do. There is hope for you; there is none for me. But one thing has been a comfort. I knew you only cared for an ideal creature, not at all like me. I was not afraid you would break your heart for a phantom that had never existed. And for me as I am, I knew you could have no regard. I see"--she broke off--"I see all the contradictions that are involved in what I have said and am saying, and yet I mean it all. In separate sections of my consciousness each separate clause exists at this moment, however contradictory, and there is no reconciling them; but there they are. I can"t understand it myself, and I don"t want you to try. All I ask you is to believe me--to forgive me."
There was an interval of silence after this, and then the Tenor spoke again.
"It is nearly morning," he said. "I will see you safely home."
The Boy had been allowed to come and go as he liked, but with her it was different; and the altered position made itself again apparent in this new-found need for an escort. It was evident, too, from the way the Tenor had allowed the subject to drop, tacitly agreeing to the a.s.sertion: "For me as I am I knew you could have no regard," that he considered there was nothing more to be said; but Angelica retained her childish habit of talking everything out, and this did not satisfy her, it was such a lame conclusion.