The Creators Part 120

"And do you suppose I'm going to let you go? After last night?"

"After--last--night--I _must_ go. And I must go back."

"No. Remember what you said to me last night. We know ourselves and we know each other now as G.o.d knows us. We're not afraid of ourselves or of each other any more."

"No," she said. "I am not afraid."

"Well--you've had the courage to get so far, why haven't you the courage to go on?"

"You think I'm a coward still?"

"A coward." He paused. "I beg your pardon. I forgot that you had the courage to go back."

Her face hardened as they looked at each other.

"I believe after all," he said, "you're a cold little devil. You stand there staring at me and you don't care a d.a.m.n."

"As far as d.a.m.ns go, it was you, if you remember, that didn't care."

"Are you always going to bring that up against me? I suppose you'll remind me next that you're a married woman and the mother of two children."

"We do seem rather to have forgotten it," she said.

"Jinny--_that_ ought never to have happened. You should have left that to the other women."

"Why, George, that's what you said six years ago, if you remember."

"You _are_----"

"Yes, I know I am. You've just said so."

"My G.o.d. I don't care what you are."

He came to her and stood by her, with his face close to her, not touching hers, but very close. His eyes searched her. She stood rigid in her supernatural self-possession.

"Jinny, you knew. You knew all the time I cared."

"I thought I knew. I did know you cared in a way. But not in this way.

This--this is different."

She was trying to tell him that hitherto his pa.s.sion had been to her such a fiery intellectual thing that it had saved her--as by fire.

"It isn't different," he said gravely. "Jinny--if I only wanted you for myself--but that doesn't count as much as you think it does. If you didn't suffer----"

"I'm not suffering."

"You are. Every nerve's in torture. Haven't I seen you? You're ill with it now, with the bare idea of going back. I want to take you out of all that."

"No, no. It isn't that. I want to go."

"You don't. You don't want to own that you're beaten."

"No. It's simpler than that. I don't care for you, George, not--not as you want me to."

He smiled. "How do you think I want you to?"

"Well--you know."

"I know that I care so much that it doesn't matter how you care, or whether you care or not, so long as I can put a stop to that brutality."

"There isn't any brutality. I've got everything a woman can want."

"You've got everything any other woman can want."

She closed her eyes. "I'm quite happy."

[Ill.u.s.tration: She closed her eyes. "I'm quite happy."]

"For heaven's sake be honest. What is the use of lying, to me of all people? Don't I know how happy you are?"

"But I am--I am, George. It's only this horrid, devilish thing that's been tacked on to me----"

"That beautiful, divine thing that G.o.d made part of you, the thing that you should have loved and made sacrifices to--if there were to have been sacrifices--the thing you've outraged and frustrated, and done your best to destroy, in your blind, senseless l.u.s.t for what you call happiness.

You've no right to make It suffer."

"They say suffering's the best thing that can happen to it."

"Not Its suffering. _Your_ suffering is--the pain that makes you alive, that stings and urges and keeps you going--going till you drop. To feel the pull of the bit when you swerve on the road--Its road--to have the lash laid about your shoulders when you jib--that's good. You women need the lash more than we because you're more given to swerving and jibbing. Look at Nina. _She_ was lashed into it if any woman ever was."

"She isn't the only one, George."

"I hope she isn't. G.o.d is good to the great artists sometimes, and he was good to her."

"Do you suppose Laura thinks so?"

"Laura's not a great artist."

"And do you suppose Owen was thinking of Nina's genius when he married Laura instead of her?"

"I don't think that Owen was thinking at all. It's not the thinkers who are tools in the hands of destiny, dear child."

His gaze fell on the ma.n.u.script she was packing.

"Jinny, you know--you've always known that you can't do anything without me."

"It seems as if I couldn't," she admitted.

"Well--be honest with me."