Five Nights Part 20

Good-bye."

"Good-bye," I said, and she went out. I laid the sketch on the table beside me, and sat thinking. A sudden blankness fell upon me as I stood mentally opposite this new idea that had never presented itself to me in the same form before, that in my former easy, wandering existence I had always welcomed a beautiful model, not only for the gain to my art, but because of the incidental pleasure it might bring me. But now I realised suddenly that this girl's beauty brought me no elation. _It was not any use_, and in a flash I saw, too, that no woman now, no beauty could be any use to me ever any more, for I was not a single irresponsible existence any longer, but involved with another which was sacred to me.

How often in the past, when entangled in some light _liaison_, I had wished for deeper, stronger emotions, something to wake the mind and stir the soul! Then in my love for Viola I had found all these and welcomed them madly. She had stirred my whole sleeping being into flame, and given me those keener and stronger desires of the brain, and satisfied them; and till now it had seemed to me that this pa.s.sion for her was a free gift from the hands of Fate. Now, suddenly, I saw that the gift had its price. That, after all, there was something to be said for those light free loves of the past. That some joy had been taken out of life, now those glittering trifles, toys of the senses, were taken from me, made impossible.

For the first time I realised that a great pa.s.sion has its yoke, and that, in return for the great joy it gives, it demands and takes one's freedom.

I sat motionless, feeling overwhelmed by the sudden blaze of light that the simple incident of this model's advent had thrown on an obscure psychological fact.

I saw now that my love for Viola was not wholly a gain, not something extra added to my life's-cup that made it full to overflowing, but, as always in this life, something had been taken away as well as added.

I felt as a child might feel who was presented with a magnificent gift with which he was overjoyed, but who on taking it to the nursery to add to his other treasures, saw his nurse locking these all away from him for ever in a gla.s.s case above his reach.

As the child might, I hugged my new gift to me and delighted in it, but I could not help feeling regret for those other small, glittering toys with which I had formerly played so much, now shut away behind the deadly gla.s.s pane of conscience.

It was not that Veronica appealed to me specially. I did not feel I cared whether she came to the studio again or not except for the picture, but the great principle involved, now that I was face to face with it, appalled me.

Viola had sought to leave me free, by refusing marriage with me; but, after all, what difference does the mere nominal tie make?

The essential attribute of a great pa.s.sion--something that cannot be eliminated from it--is the chain of fidelity it forges round its prisoners.

I do not know how long I sat there, but at last I rose mechanically, put the sheets of paper together, and went downstairs.

As I came to the drawing-room door I heard that Viola was playing.

The door stood ajar, and silently I entered and took my seat behind her. She was improvising, just playing as the inspiration came to her, and wholly absorbed and unconscious of my presence. There was a great gla.s.s facing her, in which her whole image was reflected, and had she glanced into it she must have seen me; but she did not. Her eyes gazed out before her, wrapt, delighted; her face was quite white, her lips parted in a little smile.

I saw she was under the influence of her music and absolutely happy, full of joy, such as I could never give her. A great jealousy ran through me, kindling all that pa.s.sion I had for her. The thoughts and reflections of an hour back seemed swept out of mind like dead leaves before a storm. No other lighter loves could give me one-tenth of the emotion that the pursuit and conquest of this strange soul could do.

For I had not conquered it. It was absorbed in, and lived in mysteries of joy that its art alone could give it, and I was outside--almost a stranger to it.

The thought burnt and stung me, and the fire of it wrapped round me as I sat watching her. That body, so slim, so perfect, she had given me, but I wanted more, I wanted that inner spirit to be mine, I wanted to conquer that.

I watched her in a fierce, jealous anger, almost as I might have done seeing her caressed by another lover, she was so wonderfully happy, so independent of me, so unconscious of me; but man loves that which is above him, difficult to obtain, hard to pursue. We cannot help it. We are made to be hunters, and I felt I loved Viola then with fresh pa.s.sion.

Some time or other I would succeed in breaking through that charmed circle in which she lived, in making her yield up to me the spiritual maidenhood which, as it were, was hers.

I would be first and last and everything to her, and not even her art should count beside me.

I closed my eyes and put my head back on the couch where I was sitting and gave myself up to listening to the music.

How the instrument answered her! What a divine melody rose from it, floating gently on the air like quivering wings.

Then suddenly came a storm of pa.s.sion, and the room was filled with a tempest of sound, while one strong thread of melody low down in the ba.s.s ran through it all and seemed a fierce reproach of one in anguish. At last one sheet of sound seemed to sweep the piano from end to end, a cry of dismay, of pain, the woe and grief of one who sees his world shattered suddenly before his eyes; then there was silence.

I sprang up and clasped her in my arms.

"Trevor," she exclaimed, like one awakening from a dream; "I had no idea you were there."

"No," I said savagely; "you were so absorbed, you never noticed me come in."

"Well, I heard the model go, and I waited and waited for you to come down; but you were so long I turned to the piano to console me."

"Which it did quite well, apparently," I answered.

A sweet, tender look came over her face, and she stretched out her arms to me.

"Nothing could wholly console me for your absence," she said; "and you know that quite well; but the music always helps me to bear it."

I drew her to me and strained her close up to me in silence, longing to conquer, to come into union with that mysterious inner something we call the Soul.

Yet in this unconquerable quality, in this pursuit of that which always escapes from our most pa.s.sionate embraces, man finds an inexhaustible delight.

CHAPTER VII

FREEDOM

The weeks slipped by, and I worked hard at the painting, while Viola gave herself up to the music and all the work that the approaching production of her opera gave her. Our evenings were always spent together. We set aside two evenings in the week for our friends, giving only small dinners of eight or ten. On the other evenings when we were not dining out ourselves we went to the opera, and supper after.

I often wondered whether there was anything or nothing in the fact that we were not married to each other, which affected our feelings and relations to each other. Does that conventional bond make some subtle difference, just by its existence; and did that account for the fact that we seemed to find a greater delight in each other's society, a greater need of each other than the average husband and wife do; or was it only because we happened to be two who had met and really loved more than most people do, and had we been married, we should have felt the same?

Certainly we were looked upon as peculiar because, being married, we were so much together.

The true explanation is perhaps that, as a rule, the people who love do not marry, and those who marry do not love.

Coming home from our supper after the opera, I felt the same pa.s.sionate delight in Viola as that first evening when I had driven her to my studio. Waking in the dawn to find her sleeping on my arm, I had the same joyous elation as I had known under the thatched roof, during our first stay together. Unfortunately, however, a great pa.s.sion for one object does not necessarily exclude lesser pa.s.sions, or, rather, pa.s.sing fancies of the senses for other objects. It is generally supposed that it does, but my experience is rather to the contrary.

With women possibly it may do so oftener than with men, but extreme constancy, absolute exclusiveness is not the natural product of a great pa.s.sion. It is a question rather of sentiment and artificial restraint.

Nature is not on the side of sentiment. She is always a prodigal, with the one great aim before her of ensuring the continuance of the race.

Consequently, when a man is already loving one object with all his force, it is not Nature's plan to make him turn from all others by instinct. No, she is ever ready with others, ever rather prompting him, leading him towards others, in order that, should accident or death remove his first mate, others should not be wanting, and her great scheme should not be spoiled nor interrupted.

Nature is always on a grand scale, always acting in and for the plural, never for the singular.

Does she want one oak to survive, she throws on the ground a million acorns for that purpose.

Man she has fitted to love not one, but hundreds, and our senses act automatically and are always on the side of Nature. It is the mind alone that man has taught to act against her, and that demands and gives fidelity in love.

A woman's att.i.tude towards a second lover, when she is deeply in love with the first, is not so often "I don't want him," as "It would grieve my first lover, therefore I will not take him."

A man, when offered a second mistress, usually thinks "I will take her, but I mustn't let the first one know." In both it is the anxiety of Nature that neither should be left mateless, part of her tremendous scheme of insurance against mischance.

And all this great love and pa.s.sion which I had for Viola, pa.s.sion which exhausted me almost to the point sometimes of being unable to work, did not seal my senses against the beauty of Veronica--beauty I painted daily in the studio.

I used to enjoy the afternoon spent there now with a different pleasure from that of work merely. The sensuous attraction had become very great, and I was beginning to feel it was not innocent and to half-long for, half-dread an interruption, something to break through it, end it.

Veronica professed to have fallen in love with me. It is rather a trick of models to do this. They think it can do no harm, and possibly extra benefits to themselves may accrue. Perhaps she was in love with me, if a mere covetousness of the senses can be called love. This she had, and from the first she had determined to subdue me. Her ruse of the first day had succeeded. Viola had never again come to the studio while she was there, and so hour after hour we were alone together undisturbed. I kept hard at work the whole time, hardly exchanging a word with her, and would go downstairs for tea with Viola; but she employed her eyes continually to tell her story, and caught my hand and kissed it whenever she was able.