CHAPTER XVIII

“Where will God be absent? In His Face Is light, but in His Shadow healing too.”

“MY DEAR MURIEL,

“You and I have always been good friends, and though I have never said anything to you about your trouble over Jack Hurstly it has not been because I have not felt for you. I thought that you were very foolish to give him up. Still you were never really suited to each other, and it is better to give a thing up than to hold on to it too long. I think one of the saddest things is to realize how well one can get on without some one who seemed so absolutely necessary. Men always reach it soonest, for if they can’t attain their ideals they can satisfy their instincts, while we women have to rub on between the two and dress nicely. My husband wants to see India again—why, I don’t know—smells, heat, travel and inferior races, not to mention being cut off from everything for months, and I’ve promised to accompany him, principally because it’s easier to accept than refuse, and Gladys seems so set on it. She has promised to give Alec Bruce his answer when she returns. It is positively a last flourish, she declares; and between you and me I think she means to try once more for the bird in the bush before settling on the hand one.

“It’s rather brutal of me to write of it to you, but though she is clever enough and blinds most people I feel certain she cares for Jack, and I am a little uncertain as to how he will act when he finds it out.

“If pebbles were as rare, we should most of us prefer them to diamonds, I expect, and only a few would say, ‘Ah, but they don’t shine!’ How you will shake your head, dear! but, trust me, proximity and the hat that suits weigh a good deal more than a fine character with most men, and Gladys always chooses her hats well. Women of my age are past the time of romance (Edith le Mentier would scarcely agree with me). Legitimate romance, at any rate—if there is such a thing—is a little worn out, and I’m not one of the sort that prefer religion to rouge, yet to-night I can’t help confessing the game seems not worth the candle. Not much behind, and not much before, and very little for the meantime. Still I should marry if I were you. You’ll have the compensation of saying ‘Well, that’s done,’ and when everything else seems unsubstantial the solid inevitability of wife and motherhood keeps one steady. That’s my argument against free love—it’s not final enough, and the uncertainties are too great. I had rather myself have a broken heart and a settled position than a broken heart without one. Perhaps you will succeed in avoiding both. Don’t think I’m morbid—probably my dinner has disagreed with me. By-the-bye, the doctor says there’s something wrong with my lungs—but I don’t believe in doctors. Good-bye.

“MARY.”

Muriel read Mary Huntly’s letter over slowly with sad eyes. There was a hopeless ring in it, as if the plucky effort to avoid the admission of a life failure had almost proved too much for her. She had attained most things that a woman of the world wishes to attain: a good income, a convenient husband, a boy at Eton, and a fine figure for forty; she was very popular, even with other women, and she had a most capital cook.

“Leslie Damores and I are going on a bus top to Kew Gardens this afternoon,” said Cynthia irrelevantly. “And I shall go to tea with him in the studios to see his new picture; he has called it ‘The Years of the Locust.’ I should rather like to see what he has made of it.” Muriel was still puzzling over Mary Huntly’s letter.

“She is so fine,” she said. “It must count for something, her pluck and dash and the way she faces things; it can’t be all shallow, or all selfish—and yet it does work death. Look at poor Mary. Her age of primary things has passed. She has run through most of the thrills, as I suppose we all do by forty, and now what’s left for her? She has been keeping yesterday’s manna, and she finds that it has gone bad!” Cynthia looked interested.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that a great love is the only thing to fill a woman’s life. I don’t believe that would wear out, would it?”

“I suppose,” said Muriel thoughtfully, “that depends on how one uses it; one must carry things on to their farthest extent. I mean—it’s stifling to be satisfied. If we go on far enough we shall come to a vista, and it’s not till we get to see that things have no end that we are really beginning at all. It is what you can’t grasp makes life worth living.” Cynthia listened reluctantly.

“But love,” she said again, “you can grasp that; and it won’t go, will it?”

“All that’s best and highest in love you can’t grasp, I think,” replied Muriel. “It’s because one expects to do that that it hurts. The invincible thrill of things is only meant as a launching into life. After that friendship, comradeship, a blending of life to life and heart to heart becomes unconscious development. Paroxysms aren’t love, and they have their reaction; but love is beyond and through all, and even in the most sad and sordid moments gleams and throbs an impossible possibility! A thing always to strive for, never to attain!” Cynthia rose and paced the room restlessly.

“Oh, Muriel! Muriel!” she said, “you don’t know——” Then she stopped short, and went over and kissed her, an unusual demonstration from Cynthia. “You’re so good,” she said, “and yet somehow so remote from it all! I think I begin to see now why you didn’t marry Jack. I should have faced it as you did, but I should have read the letters, talked about them—and then married him!”

“And been unhappy ever afterwards,” said Muriel softly.

“Yes! but that’s nothing to do with it,” cried Cynthia impatiently. “I acknowledge no afterwards. I would give myself body and soul to the man I loved, like Browning’s lady, even if he were the greatest rascal unhung!”

“That’s a horribly selfish theory!” said Muriel with sudden emphasis, “and a very dangerous one. You would degrade yourself, hurt the man, and ruin future generations, simply because of an effervescing passion, which soon becomes stagnant if you give it time enough. No one can afford to ignore consequences, least of all a lover. Why is it, do you suppose, that these girls of mine, living like animals, working like slaves, suffering like human beings, don’t oftener catch at this passion-flower of yours, and take the poison of it? Simply because they are face to face with the consequences. They can’t get away from themselves, and their life is visible and public. They know what a few days’ rapture implies—shame, pain, publicity, perhaps starvation. They know that to cut off your nose spites your face, however you may wish to make the surrender! You don’t risk a rapid when you see the rocks, only when the rocks are hidden; the consequences ignored, then the selfish, hopeless, aimless life gives in to its instincts; and though before the leap you may have ignored the consequences, it will not prevent the rocks beneath from grinding your life out after the fall.” She stopped, her eyes flashing with the intensity of all she meant.

She had given little by little her life over to a problem; one that she hated, had avoided, and that even now racked her with its misery—but it absorbed her.

Things cease to be bearable only when life is empty, and to Muriel her own sorrow, her own heart, had been filled and uplifted by full renunciative hours. Discontent and leisure walk hand in hand, wandering disconsolate over a world teeming with openings and opportunities for energy and power. Then it becomes necessary to invent new games, and religion runs to melancholia—or Christian science.

“I don’t think Leslie Damores will ever marry me,” said Cynthia slowly. She looked suddenly older and more careworn. “I—I don’t think I will go with him this afternoon.”

Muriel put on her things to go to the club. Before she went she threw her arms around Cynthia.

“Dearest,” she said with glistening eyes, “I don’t know what I should do without you.”

“Pray more,” said Cynthia shortly. Muriel shook her head.

“If you knew what strength you give, and how bright this all seems to come back to!”

“Don’t! don’t!” said Cynthia sharply. “For God’s sake go to the club and leave me alone!”

Muriel went and understood; she knew that it had been necessary to say those words, and after they were said she could do no more. One can start a crisis, but one cannot guide it, and it is usually best to get out of the way. Cynthia sent Leslie Damores away that afternoon, and faced for the first time in her life the years that the locust had eaten. Her lover’s picture could not have been more realistic.