"But are you sure you don"t like America best now? You can"t have lived here all these years without letting the place have its effect on you, however little you may have thought about it. Why, your very speech shows it! And what about your friends--haven"t you got as many on this side as the other? You"ve practically admitted it.... And do you realize what construction is sure to be put on your leaving just now...?"
"What are you driving at?" She looked quickly up at him, curious in spite of herself to discover the trend of his arguments, in themselves scarcely worth answering. He did not reply for a moment, but stared gravely back at her, and when he spoke again it was from a different angle.
"Beatrice, why have you been telling me all these things...?"
He knew what he was going to do now, what he was striving toward with the whole strength of his newly-forged determination. And if at the back of his brain there struggled a crowd of lost images--ghosts of ideals which at this time yesterday had been the unquestioned rulers of his life--stretching out their tenuous arms to him, giving their last faint calls for help before taking their last backward plunge into oblivion, he only went on the faster so as to drown their voices in his own.
"Beatrice, why did you think of confiding in me? Why did you pick out this particular time? You never have before; you"re not the sort of person that makes confidences. It wasn"t because you were going away; that was no real reason at all.... Beatrice, don"t you see? Don"t you see the bond that lies between us two? Don"t you see what"s going to happen to us both?"
"No--I don"t know what you"re talking about. James, don"t be absurd!"
She rose to her feet as if to break away, but she stood looking at his face, fascinated and possibly a little frightened by the onward rush of his words. James rose too and stood over her.
"Beatrice, we"ve both had a d.a.m.ned dirty trick played on us, the same trick at the same time. Are you going to take it lying down--spread yourself out to receive another blow, or are you going to stand up and make a fight--a.s.sert your independence--prove the existence of your own soul? I"m not, whatever happens! I"m going to make a fight, and I want you to make it with me. Beatrice, marry me! Now--to-day--this instant!
Don"t you see that"s the only thing to do?..."
"No! James, stop! You don"t know what you"re saying!" She broke away from him, a.s.serting her strength for the moment against even his impetuous onrush. "James, you"re mad, stark mad! Haven"t you lived long enough to know that you always regret words spoken like that? Try to act like a sensible human being, if you can"t be one!"
That was all very well, but why did she weaken it by adding "I won"t listen to any more such talk," which admitted the possibility that there might be more such talk very soon? And if she was determined not to listen, why did she not simply walk away and into the house? James did not put these questions to himself in this form, but the substance of their meaning worked its way through his excitement and lent him courage for an attack from a new quarter. He dropped his impetuosity and became very quiet and keen.
"You ask me to act like a sensible person; very well, I will. Let"s look at things from a practical point of view. There"s no love"s young dream stuff about this thing, at all. We"ve lost that; it"s been cut out of both our lives, forever. All there is left for us to do is to pick up the pieces and try to make something of ourselves, as we are. How can we possibly do that better than by marrying? Don"t you see the value of a comradeship founded on the sympathy there must be between us?"
He stopped for a moment and stood calmly watching her. No need now to use violence against those despairing voices in the background of his thoughts; they had been hushed by the strength of a determination no longer hot with the joy of self-discovery but taking on already something of the chill irrevocability of age. He watched Beatrice almost with amus.e.m.e.nt; he knew so well what futile struggles were going on within her. He had no more doubt of the outcome now than he had of his own determination.
"It all sounds very well, James," she answered at last, "but it won"t do. I couldn"t do it. Marriage...."
"Well?"
"Marriage is an ideal, you know, as well as--as a contract. I can"t--I won"t have one without the other."
"You are very particular. People as unpopular with chance as we are can"t afford to be particular."
"It would be false to--to--oh, I don"t know how to put it! To the best in life."
"Has the best in life been true to you?"
"You are so bitter!"
"Hasn"t one the right to be, sometimes? G.o.d--fate--what you call ideals--have their responsibilities, even to us. What claim have all those things got on us now?"
"I choose to follow them still!"
"Then you are weak--simply weak!--You act as if I were proposing something actually wicked. It"s not wicked at all; it"s simply a practical benefit. Marriage without love might be wicked if there were any chance left of combining it with love; but now--! It"s simply picking up pieces, making the best of things--straight commonsense...."
She might still have had her way against him, as long as he continued to base his appeal on commonsense. But he changed his tactics again, this time as a matter of impulse. He had been slowly walking toward her in the course of his argument and now stood close by her, talking straight down into her eyes, till suddenly her mere physical nearness put an end to speech and thought alike. Something of her old physical attraction for him, which had been much stronger than in the case of Madge, returned to him with a force for the moment irresistible. There was something about her wide eyes, her parted lips, her bosom slightly heaving with the effort of argument.... He put his hand on her shoulder and slowly yet irresistibly drew her to him. He bent his head till their lips touched.
So they stood for neither knew how long. Seconds flew by like years, or was it years like seconds? Sense of time was as completely lost as in sleep; indeed, their condition was very much like that of sleep. They had both become suddenly, acutely tired of life and had found at least temporary rest and refreshment. Neither of them was bothered by worries over the inevitable awakening; neither of them even thought of it, yet.
As for Beatrice, she was for the moment bowled over by the discovery that some one cared for her enough to clasp her to his bosom and kiss her. What had she wanted all these years, except to be loved? A wave of mingled self-pity and self-contempt swept over her. She felt suddenly weak; her knees trembled; what did that matter, though, when James was there to hold her up? She needed strength above all things, and James was strong above all things. Tears smarted in her eyes and streamed unheeded down her cheeks.
"I was so lonely," she whispered at last, raising her welling eyes to him. "I have been alone so long ... so long...."
"James," she began again after a while, "life is so horrible, isn"t it?"
"It is. Ghastly."
"Oh, it _is_ good to find some one else who thinks so!"
"Yes, I know."
"Anything is good--_anything_--that makes it easier to forget, isn"t it?"
"Yes. And we"re going to try to forget together."
Presently the moment came when they had to break apart, and they did it a little awkwardly, not caring to look at each other very closely. They sat down on the rail, side by side but not touching, and for some time remained silently busy regaining old levels and making new adjustments.
There was considerable to adjust, certainly. At last James looked at his watch and announced that it was nearly lunch time.
"When shall we get married?" he inquired, brusk and businesslike. It may have been only his tone that Beatrice involuntarily shuddered at. She told herself it was, and then reviled herself for shuddering. It was better to be prosaic and practical.
"Oh, as soon as possible.... Now--any time you say."
"Yes, but when? When shall we tell people?"
"Oh, not just yet...." she objected, almost automatically.
"Why not? Why not right now--before the other?"
"You think...?"
"Yes--every moment counts." He meant that the sooner the thing came out the better were their chances of concealment, and she understood him.
Yes, that was the way to look at things, she reflected; might as well do it well, if it was to be done at all. She warmed up to his point of view so quickly that when his next question came she was able to go him one better.
"And the other--the wedding? In about a fortnight, should you say?"
"Oh, no, not for a month, at least. At the very least. It must be in England, you see."
"In England?"
"Yes, that"s the way it would be...." If we were really in love with each other, of course she meant. He looked at her with new admiration.
They made a few more arrangements. Their talk was pervaded now with a sense of efficiency and despatch. If they could not call reasons by their real names they could call steamships and railroads by theirs, and did. In a few minutes they had everything planned out.
A maid appeared and announced lunch. They nodded her away and sat silent for a moment longer. It seemed as if something more ought to be said; the interview was too momentous to be allowed to end with an announcement of a meal. The sun beat down on them from the zenith with the full unsubtle light of noonday, prosaically enough, but the wind, blowing as hard as ever, whistled unceasingly around their exposed tower and provided a sort of counter-dose of eerieness and suggestiveness; it gave them the sense of being rather magnificently aloof from the rest of the world. The sun showed them plainly enough that they were on a summer-cottage verandah, but the wind somehow managed to suggest that they were really in a much more romantic place. Probably this dual atmosphere had its effect on them; it would need something of the sort, at any rate, to make James stand up and say aloud, in broad daylight:
"Beatrice, don"t you feel a sort of inspiration in fighting against something you can"t see?"
"Yes, James," she answered slowly; "I believe I do--now."
"Something we can neither see nor understand, but know is wrong and can only protest against with the whole strength of our souls? Blindly, unflinchingly?"