"Well, then, I can only see one thing."
"I know. You"re going to say I must leave off seeing her?"
"No. I don"t say that."
"I do, though. If I were sure----"
"You may be sure of one thing. That she doesn"t know what"s the matter with her--yet. She mustn"t know. If you do go and see her, you must be careful not to let her find out. I did my best to hide it, to cover it up, so that she shouldn"t see."
"Your suspicion?"
"What do you think we"re made of? The truth--the truth."
"If this is the truth, I mustn"t, of course, go near her. But I know you"re mistaken."
"Have I ever been mistaken? Have I ever told you wrong?"
"Well, Julia, you"re a very wise woman, and I"ll admit that, when you"ve warned me off anybody, you"ve warned me for my good."
She colored. "I"m not warning you "off" anybody now. I"ve warned you before for your own sake. I"m warning you this time for hers."
"I see. I see that, all right. But--you never saw a woman like her, did you? I wonder if you understand her."
"I do understand her. You can"t look at her and not see that she has a profound capacity for suffering."
"I know."
Of course he knew. Hadn"t he called her the Musa Dolorosa?
"Just because," said Julia, "she has imagination."
He had said good-bye and was going; but at the doorway he turned to her again.
"No," he said, "you"re wrong, Julia. She"s not like that."
Julia arched her brows over eyes tender with compa.s.sion--compa.s.sion for his infinite stupidity.
"Oh, my dear!" she cried, and waved him away as a creature hopeless, impossible to help.
He closed the door and stood with his back to it, facing her.
"Well," he said, "you may be right; but before I do anything I must be sure."
"How do you propose to make sure?"
"I shall go and see her."
"Of course," said Julia, "you"ll go and see her."
V
He went on to Montagu Street, so convinced was he that Julia was mistaken.
Freda knew well what she was going to say to him. She had chosen her path, the highest, the farthest from the abyss. Once there she could let herself go.
He himself led her there; he started her. He brought praises of the gift.
Other people, he said, were beginning to rave about it now.
"I wish they wouldn"t," said she. "It makes me feel so dishonest."
"Dishonest?"
"As if I"d taken something that didn"t belong to me. It doesn"t belong to me."
"What doesn"t?"
"It--the gift! I feel as if it had never had anything--really--to do with me."
"Ah, that"s the way to tell that you"ve got it."
"I know, but I don"t mean that. I mean--it does belong so very much to somebody else, that I ought almost to give it back."
He had always wondered how she did it. Now for one moment he believed that she was about to clear up her little mystery. She was going to tell him that she hadn"t done it at all, that somebody else had borrowed her name for some incomprehensible purpose of concealment. She was going to make an end of Freda Farrar.
"Of course," she said, "I know you don"t want it back."
"I?"
"Yes. It"s really yours, you know. I should never have had it at all if it hadn"t been for you."
"I"m very glad," he said gravely, "if I"ve helped you."
He was thinking, "She does really rather pile it on."
Freda went piling it on more. She felt continuously that the gift would see them through. She would hold it well before him, and turn it round and round, that he might see for himself that there was nothing that could be considered sinister behind it. Her pa.s.sionate concentration on it would show that there _was_ nothing behind, no vision of anything darker and deeper. It was as if she said to him, "I know the dreadful thing you"re afraid of. I"m showing you what it is, so that you needn"t think it"s that."
Not that she was afraid of his thinking it. She had set her happiness high, in a pure serene place, safe from the visitations of his terror. She conceived that the peace of it might in time come to const.i.tute a kind of happiness for him. That gross fear could never arise between him and her. All the same, she perceived that a finer misgiving might menace his perfect peace. He might, if he were subtle enough, imagine that she was giving him too much, and that he owed her something. His chivalry might become uneasy. She must show him how perfectly satisfied she was. He must see that the thing she had hold of was great, was immense, that it filled her life to the brim, so that there wasn"t any room for anything else. How could he owe her anything when he had given her that?
She must make him see it very clearly.
"It wasn"t only that you _helped_," she said, "to bring it out of me. It wasn"t in me. When it came, it seemed to come from somewhere outside. Somebody must have put it into me. I believe such a thing is possible. And there wasn"t anybody, you know, but you."
"I doubt," said he, "the possibility. Anyhow, you may safely leave me out of it."
"Think," she said, "think of the time when you were left out of it, when it was only me. It"s inconceivable--the difference----"