CHAPTER IX

“It is sometimes possible to say ‘No,’ but hard to live up to it.”

MURIEL had not in the least intended to find herself alone with Jack Hurstly in a canoe. It all happened so naturally that protests and excuses were out of the question. She looked rather wistfully at Gladys in a larger boat, who was talking with nervous gaiety to Alec Bruce, while Mary Huntly in the stern looked on with serene approval. Gladys would not look at her friend, and something in the girl’s manner and carriage seemed to denote an intense displeasure, which, after her confidence to Muriel, was not on the whole incomprehensible. Muriel sighed hopelessly. Circumstances, she thought, were against her, and Jack was with her; she might be stronger than the circumstances, but she had begun to feel that she was not as strong as Jack.

“I really have changed my life a bit,” he went on, as if continuing their last conversation. “Do you know when you went to Stepney, and I got to know about all you were doing—how you gave those girls such a good time and helped them in their homes, and all that, you know—it made me feel what a cheap sort of thing the life of the fellows about town is, and how, after all, there isn’t so very much in just having a good time if there’s nothing else besides or beyond it. I hope you won’t think I’m talking awful rot?” he interrupted himself nervously. She shook her head; she found it difficult to speak; her hand dipped in the water seemed to her a sort of illustration of how impossible it was to grasp her treasure even while it surrounded her. They were singing down the stream the air of a new opera, and that, and the trailing branches overhead, would have made a wonder of beauty if she had not loved Gladys. “Sacrifices lasted too long,” she thought.

“And so,” he continued, watching her with eager, earnest eyes as he talked, “while I was waiting for leave to go out to India I started a sort of club at home—among the tenants, you know. Nothing much of a place—only games and a room where the men can go and smoke and read their papers in the mornings. And it struck me that Miss Gladys’ cousin—am I boring you?”

“No, Jack—Gladys’ cousin?”

“That Parson Cyril Johnstone,” he explained, “was really an awfully good sort, and might help me a bit with the men—on his own line, you know. And as the vicar wanted a curate, it seemed to fit in rather decently. I had no idea how awfully interesting that kind of thing could be. Why, now I know the men, and drop in to play a game of billiards with them, you couldn’t believe how jolly they are with me; and many of them more decent, wholesome kind of men than one’s own sort. I should so much like to show you the place, Muriel, and ask your advice about it. I’m afraid I’m an awfully poor hand at managing that kind of thing.”

“Mr. Cyril Johnstone knows more about men’s clubs than I do!” she replied with half-averted head. Jack smiled. He was not used to Muriel in this mood; it was more like other women whom he had been used to.

“You see,” he said, “Cyril Johnstone is all very well in his way, but an unecclesiastical eye might be able to suggest more.”

“I feel quite sure,” said Muriel firmly, “that my eyes will be able to suggest nothing.”

“They must have changed then a good deal in the last few minutes,” said Jack coolly; “they have always suggested plenty to me.” Muriel looked up desperately, and saw Dr. Grant on the bank.

“Row to the shore, please, Jack,” she said, “there is room for the doctor.” Jack set his lips together firmly. He had no intention of rowing to the shore for any such purpose.

“Sorry,” he said; “I’m afraid it’s impossible.”

“I must insist,” she replied coldly.

“Please don’t, for I hate to disobey your wishes,” he pleaded.

“You overlook the alternative,” cried Muriel.

“Muriel,” he said, “you don’t really mean it—I know you don’t wish it!” He knew this would have been fatal with another woman, but he counted on her sincerity. She looked from him to the shore, and back again to the softly shaded water.

“I must ask you to do it just the same,” she said finally. He turned the boat into mid-stream, and they floated awhile in silence.

“It is the first time I have ever refused to do what you wanted,” he said at last, drawing a deep breath.

“It is the last time I shall ever give you an opportunity,” said Muriel coldly. But if she had hoped to prevent further words her hope was in vain.

“You told me once that you cared for me, Muriel, but that I wasn’t worth marrying. I have tried to make myself a bit more so, and now you are not going to tell me, are you, that you have changed your mind?” She faced him steadily.

“I can’t marry you,” she said. “Please don’t ask me questions, Jack.”

“But I must,” he said frowning. “Why can’t you marry me?” She was silent. “You don’t love me?”

“Perhaps I never did.”

“Nonsense, dear, you’re not that sort. Tell me the truth—you do love me?” Muriel turned in exasperation.

“Oh, yes, then, if you _will_ have it. I _do_ love you, but I’m not now or at any other time ever going to marry you!”

They had forgotten the other boat and the river. A burst of merry laughter awoke them to the fact that they had drifted on a snag, and that the rest of the party had been watching them for the last few minutes from the opposite bank.

It was the doctor after all who rowed out to their assistance and took Muriel home after tea across the fields. Muriel was desperate. Jack had found means to say to her that he did not in the least believe her, and that he was not going to give her up. Gladys had found means of very pointedly, though with exquisite intangibility, expressing a state of mind anything but pleasant to her friend. The constant flow of bright, good-natured chaff, the utterly superficial, pleasant brightness of the boating party, gave Muriel a feeling of weariness and age. She felt glad to be with the doctor. He at least left her alone and seemed contented to talk or to be silent in an easy, effortless way. Perhaps it was because in his profession a man “learns to do his watching without its showing pain.” He talked chiefly about his sister, and when they got home advised her in an off-hand manner “to go and lie down.”

“But I am not tired,” she cried, half vexed.

“No,” he replied soothingly; “still you know it’s a warm afternoon; you would find it restful.” Muriel smiled submissively.

“To tell the truth,” she said, “I think perhaps I am a bit tired,” and she went upstairs.

An hour afterwards there came a soft knock at the door and Cynthia Grant came in.

“They told me you had a headache,” she said apologetically, “and I came to see if I could do anything for you.”

“It’s very kind of you,” said Muriel gratefully; “but do come and sit down. My headache was only an excuse for laziness, and it would do it good to be talked to.”

Cynthia sat down near the sofa, and after a little conversation on general subjects, began in abrupt, curt tones to tell Muriel the story of her life.

Why she told it, it would be impossible to tell, except that she wished to approach nearer to the girl who had won her brother’s love, and that such a confidence was the most painful sacrifice it was in her power to make. It was a strange story of how she and her brother had studied together side by side for their degree; of how she had advanced even farther than he, till at length, finding she was outstripping him, in one magnificent burst of sacrifice she had thrown the whole thing up; but how the fascination of her work proved almost too much for her, till in desperation she left her brother altogether, and went to the Paris studios to study art. Here she paused awhile as if reluctant to speak further. “You don’t know,” she said, “what it was to have lived as I did, almost as a man among men. It was only we two—my brother and I—against the world, you know, and it’s a hard world. After I left him—I’m not going to tell you the whole story—there was a man who was a very fine fellow, an Englishman and an artist, and he fell in love with me before he quite knew—well, all the incidents of my life. Paris is rather a place for incidents, you know. He wanted to marry me. But, of course, I told him—and, I daresay, it wasn’t an ideal story. At any rate he told me he could not make me his wife, and I care far too much for him to be satisfied with anything else. So I went back to my brother, and I have been with him ever since. I help him with his cases, and, as his practice is rather large, and contains a good many poor people, I find enough to do. Are you horribly shocked, Miss Dallerton?”

“Have you given up your art?” said Muriel. The other girl went to the window. She laughed nervously.

“Art?” she said. “I never look at a picture if I can help it.”

“And does your brother know?”

“Everything; but it has made no difference.”

“I wonder why you told me?” said Muriel thoughtfully. Cynthia smiled.

“You look as if people were in the habit of telling you things. Besides—I don’t know—it seemed to me as if you ought to know the truth if we were to be friends.”

“I hope we shall be,” said Muriel softly—“I hope very much we shall be.”

“I think,” said Cynthia as she went to the door, “that if I had known you, it might have been different.”

Muriel puzzled thoughtfully awhile over the rather grim pair she had come into contact with. She had known very little of that great wide world of professional life. Society and the slums, though they were a great contrast, were not, she thought, so great a mystery. But though Muriel was distinctly broad-minded for a woman, it was impossible for her just at present to absorb herself in abstract problems when her own life presented such pressing personal ones. Her first misery at Gladys’ jealousy and misunderstanding seemed gone. To her surprise she had begun to feel almost a sense of relief. If she didn’t understand, it was plain there was not so very much to worry about. If one looks for too many things in one place, the few things one finds lose their significance. It is not one’s love so much that gets dulled as one’s sense of importance. The halo of expectation fails; next time one’s eagerness goes with slower feet, and is positively astonished if it ever gets met at all. So that now Muriel felt she had simply over-estimated both her friends’ characters and affection, and that nothing therefore remained but to clearly make Gladys see she did not intend to marry Jack Hurstly. Her responsibility ended there she told herself, after that she need not try to keep up this very unequal friendship any more. As for Cynthia Grant, she was a woman and old enough to know what to take for granted, and how not to be exacting.