"Oh, I don"t know," Celia replied, idly. "It seemed to me that he was the kind of piratical buccaneer who oughtn"t to be shaved and polished and taught drawing-room tricks--I feel that merely in the interest of the fitness of things. Have you looked into his eyes--I mean when they"ve got that lack-l.u.s.tre expression? You can see a hundred thousand dead men in them."
"I know the look you mean," said Lady Cressage, in a low voice.
"Not that I a.s.sume he is going to kill anybody," pursued Miss Madden, with ostensible indifference, but fixing a glance of aroused attention upon her companion"s face, "or that he has any criminal intentions whatever. He behaves very civilly indeed, and apparently his niece and nephew idolize him. He seems to be the soul of kindness to them. It may be that I"m altogether wrong about him--only I know I had the instinct of alarm when I caught that sort of dull glaze in his eye. I met an African explorer a year ago, or so, about whose expeditions dark stories were told, and he had precisely that kind of eye. Perhaps it was this that put it into my head--but I have a feeling that this Thorpe is an exceptional sort of man, who would have the capacity in him for terrible things, if the necessity arose for them."
"I see what you mean," the other repeated. She toyed with the bread-crumbs about her plate, and reflectively watched their manipulation into squares and triangles as she went on. "But may that not be merely the visible sign of an exceptionally strong and masterful character? And isn"t it, after all, the result of circ.u.mstances whether such a character makes, as you put it, a hundred thousand dead men, or enriches a hundred thousand lives instead? We agree, let us say, that this Mr. Thorpe impresses us both as a powerful sort of personality. The question arises, How will he use his power? On that point, we look for evidence. You see a dull glaze in his eye, and you draw hostile conclusions from it. I reply that it may mean no more than that he is sleepy. But, on the other hand, I bring proofs that are actively in his favour. He is, as you say, idolized by the only two members of his family that we have seen--persons, moreover, who have been brought up in ways different to his own, and who would not start, therefore, with prejudices in his favour. Beyond that, I know of two cases in which he has behaved, or rather undertaken to behave, with really lavish generosity--and in neither case was there any claim upon him of a substantial nature. He seems to me, in fact, quite too much disposed to share his fortune with Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry--anybody who excites his sympathy or gets into his affections." Having said this much, Lady Cressage swept the crumbs aside and looked up. "So now," she added, with a flushed smile, "since you love arguments so much, how do you answer that?"
Celia smiled back. "Oh, I don"t answer it at all," she said, and her voice carried a kind of quizzical implication. "Your proofs overwhelm me. I know nothing of him--and you know so much!"
Lady Cressage regarded her companion with a novel earnestness and directness of gaze. "I had a long, long talk with him--the afternoon we came down from Glion."
Miss Madden rose, and going to the mantel lighted a cigarette. She did not return to the table, but after a brief pause came and took an easy-chair beside her friend, who turned to face her. "My dear Edith,"
she said, with gravity, "I think you want to tell me about that talk--and so I beg you to do so. But if I"m mistaken--why then I beg you to do nothing of the kind."
The other threw out her hands with a gesture of wearied impatience, and then clasped them upon her knee. "I seem not to know what I want! What is the good of talking about it? What is the good of anything?"
"Now--now!" Celia"s a.s.sumption of a monitor"s tone had reference, apparently, to something understood between the two, for Lady Cressage deferred to it, and even summoned the ghost of a smile.
"There is really nothing to tell,"--she faltered, hesitatingly--"that is, nothing happened. I don"t know how to say it--the talk left my mind in a whirl. I couldn"t tell you why. It was no particular thing that was said--it seemed to be more the things that I thought of while something else was being talked about--but the whole experience made a most tremendous impression upon me. I"ve tried to straighten it out in my own mind, but I can make nothing of it. That is what disturbs me, Celia. No man has ever confused me in this silly fashion before. Nothing could be more idiotic. I"m supposed to hold my own in conversation with people of--well, with people of a certain intellectual rank,--but this man, who is of hardly any intellectual rank at all, and who rambled on without any special aim that one could see--he reduced my brain to a sort of porridge. I said the most extraordinary things to him--babbling rubbish which a school-girl would be ashamed of. How is that to be accounted for? I try to reason it out, but I can"t. Can you?"
"Nerves," said Miss Madden, judicially.
"Oh, that is meaningless," the other declared. "Anybody can say "nerves." Of course, all human thought and action is "nerves.""
"But yours is a special case of nerves," Celia pursued, with gentle imperturbability. "I think I can make my meaning clear to you--though the parallel isn"t precisely an elegant one. The finest thoroughbred dog in the world, if it is beaten viciously and cowed in its youth, will always have a latent taint of nervousness, apprehension, timidity--call it what you like. Well, it seems to me there"s something like that in your case, Edith. They hurt you too cruelly, poor girl. I won"t say it broke your nerve--but it made a flaw in it. Just as a soldier"s old wound aches when there"s a storm in the air--so your old hurt distracts and upsets you under certain psychological conditions. It"s a rather clumsy explanation, but I think it does explain."
"Perhaps--I don"t know," Edith replied, in a tone of melancholy reverie.
"It makes a very poor creature out of me, whatever it is."
"I rather lose patience, Edith," her companion admonished her, gravely.
"n.o.body has a right to be so deficient in courage as you allow yourself to be."
"But I"m not a coward," the other protested. "I could be as brave as anybody--as brave as you are--if a chance were given me. But of what use is bravery against a wall twenty feet high? I can"t get over it. I only wound and cripple myself by trying to tear it down, or break through it.--Oh yes, I know what you say! You say there is no wall--that it is all an illusion of mine. But unfortunately I"m unable to take that view.
I"ve battered myself against it too long--too sorely, Celia!"
Celia shrugged her shoulders in comment. "Oh, we women all have our walls--our limitations--if it comes to that," she said, with a kind of compa.s.sionate impatience in her tone. "We are all ridiculous together--from the point of view of human liberty. The free woman is a fraud--a myth. She is as empty an abstraction as the "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" that the French put on their public buildings. I used to have the most wonderful visions of what independence would mean. I thought that when I was absolutely my own master, with my money and my courage and my free mind, I would do things to astonish all mankind. But really the most I achieve is the occasional mild surprise of a German waiter. Even that palls on one after a time. And if you were independent, Edith--if you had any amount of money--what difference do you think it would make to you? What could you do that you don"t do, or couldn"t do, now?"
"Ah, now"--said the other, looking up with a thin smile--"now is an interval--an oasis."
Miss Madden"s large, handsome, clear-hued face, habitually serene in its expression, lost something in composure as she regarded her companion.
"I don"t know why you should say that," she observed, gently enough, but with an effect of reproof in her tone. "I have never put limits to the connection, in my own mind--and it hadn"t occurred to me that you were doing so in yours."
"But I"m not," interposed Lady Cressage.
"Then I understand you less than ever. Why do you talk about an "interval"? What was the other word?--"oasis"--as if this were a brief halt for refreshments and a breathing-spell, and that presently you must wander forth into the desert again. That suggestion is none of mine. We agreed that we would live together--"pool our issues," as they say in America. I wanted a companion; so did you. I have never for an instant regretted the arrangement. Some of my own shortcomings in the matter I have regretted. You were the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen, and you were talented, and you seemed to like me--and I promised myself that I would add cheerfulness and a gay spirit to your other gifts--and in that I have failed wofully. You"re not happy. I see that only too clearly."
"I know--I"m a weariness and a bore to you," broke in the other, despondingly.
"That is precisely what you"re not," Celia went on. "We mustn"t use words of that sort. They don"t describe anything in our life at all. But I should be better pleased with myself if I could really put my finger on what it is that is worrying you. Even if we decided to break up our establishment, I have told you that you should not go back to what you regard as poverty. Upon that score, I had hoped that your mind was easy.
As I say, I think you attach more importance to money than those who have tested its powers would agree to--but that"s neither here nor there. You did not get on well on 600 pounds a year--and that is enough.
You shall never have less than twice that amount, whether we keep together or not--and if it ought to be three times the amount, that doesn"t matter.
"You don"t seem to realize, Edith"--she spoke with increased animation--"that you are my caprice. You are the possession that I am proudest of and fondest of. There is nothing else that appeals to me a hundredth part as much as you do. Since I became independent, the one real satisfaction I have had is in being able to do things for you--to have you with me, and make you share in the best that the world can offer. And if with it all you remain unhappy, why then you see I don"t know what to do."
"Oh, I know--I behave very badly!" Lady Cressage had risen, and with visible agitation began now to pace the room. "I deserve to be thrown into the lake--I know it well enough! But Celia--truly--I"m as incapable of understanding it as you are. It must be that I am possessed by devils--like the people in the New Testament. Perhaps someone will come along who can cast them out. I don"t seem able to do it myself. I can"t rule myself at all. It needs a strength I haven"t got!"
"Ah!" said Celia, thoughtfully. The excited sentences which Edith threw over her shoulder as she walked appeared, upon examination, to contain a suggestion.
"My dear child," she asked abruptly, after a moment"s silence, "do you want to marry?"
Lady Cressage paused at the mantel, and exchanged a long steadfast glance with her friend. Then she came slowly forward. "Ah, that is what I don"t know," she answered. Apparently the reply was candid.
Miss Madden pursed her lips, and frowned a little in thought. Then, at some pa.s.sing reflection, she smiled in a puzzled fashion. At last she also rose, and went to the mantel for another cigarette. "Now I am going to talk plainly," she said, with decision. "Since the subject is mentioned, less harm will be done by speaking out than by keeping still.
There is a debate in your mind on the matter, isn"t there?"
The other lady, tall, slender, gently ruminative once more, stood at the window and with bowed head looked down at the lake. "Yes--I suppose it might be called that," she replied, in a low voice.
"And you hesitate to tell me about it? You would rather not?" Celia, after an instant"s pause, went on without waiting for an answer. "I beg that you won"t a.s.sume my hostility to the idea, Edith. In fact, I"m not sure I don"t think it would be the best thing for you to do. Marriage, a home, children--these are great things to a woman. We can say that she pays the price of bondage for them--but to know what that signifies, we must ask what her freedom has been worth to her."
"Yes," interposed the other, from the window. "What have I done with my freedom that has been worth while?"
"Not much," murmured Celia, under her breath. She moved forward, and stood beside Edith, with an arm round her waist. They looked together at the lake.
"It is Lord Plowden, is it not?" asked the American, as the silence grew constrained.
Lady Cressage looked up alertly, and then hesitated over her reply.
"No," she said at last. Upon reflection, and with a dim smile flickering in her side-long glance at Celia, she added, "He wants to marry you, you know."
"Leave that out of consideration," said Celia, composedly. "He has never said so. I think it was more his mother"s idea than his, if it existed at all. Of course I am not marrying him, or anybody else. But I saw at Hadlow that you and he were--what shall I say?--old friends."
"He must marry money," the other replied. In an unexpected burst of candour she went on: "He would have asked me to marry him if I had had money. There is no harm in telling you that. It was quite understood--oh, two years ago. And I think I wished I had the money--then."
"And you don"t wish it now?"
A slight shake of Edith"s small, shapely head served for answer. After a little, she spoke in a musing tone: "He is going to have money of his own, very soon, but I don"t think it would attract me now. I like him personally, of course, but--there is no career, no ambition, no future."
"A Viscount has future enough behind him," observed Celia.
"It doesn"t attract me," the other repeated, vaguely. "He is handsome, and clever, and kind and all that--but he would never appeal to any of the great emotions--nor be capable of them himself He is too smooth, too well-balanced, too much the gentleman. That expresses it badly--but do you see what I mean?"
Celia turned, and studied the beautiful profile beside her, in a steady, comprehending look.
"Yes, I think I see what you mean," she said, with significance in her tone.
Lady Cressage flushed, and released herself from her companion"s arm.
"But I don"t know myself what I mean!" she exclaimed, despairingly, as she moved away. "I don"t know!--I don"t know!"