The Daughters of Danaus Part 11

"Ah! there's the difficulty. What _can_ one do instead, without breaking somebody's heart? Nothing, except breaking one's own. And even putting that difficulty aside, it seems as if everyone's hand were against a woman who refuses the path that has been marked out for her."

"No, no, it is not so bad as that. There are many openings now for women."

"But," said Hadria, "as far as I can gather, ordinary ability is not sufficient to enable them to make a scanty living. The talent that would take a man to the top of the tree is required to keep a woman in a meagre supply of bread and b.u.t.ter."

"Allowing for exaggeration, that is more or less the case," Miss Du Prel admitted.

"I have revolted against the common lot," she went on after a pause, "and you see what comes of it; I am alone in the world. One does not think of that when one is quite young."

"Would you rather be in Mrs. Gordon's position than in your own?"

"I doubt not that she is happier."

"But would you change with her, surrendering all that she has surrendered?"

"Yes, if I were of her temperament."

"Ah! you always evade the question. Remaining yourself, would you change with her?"

"I would never have allowed my life to grow like hers."

"No," said Hadria, laughing, "you would probably have run away or killed yourself or somebody, long before this."

Miss Du Prel could not honestly deny this possibility. After a pause she said:

"A woman cannot afford to despise the dictates of Nature. She may escape certain troubles in that way; but Nature is not to be cheated, she makes her victim pay her debt in another fas.h.i.+on. There is no escape. The centuries are behind one, with all their weight of heredity and habit; the order of society adds its pressure--one's own emotional needs. Ah, no! it does not answer to pit oneself against one's race, to bid defiance to the fundamental laws of life."

"Such then are the alternatives," said Hadria, moving close to the river's brink, and casting two big stones into the current. "There stand the devil and the deep sea."

"You are too young to have come to that sad conclusion," said Miss Du Prel.

"But I haven't," cried Hadria. "I still believe in revolt."

The other shook her head.

"And what about love? Are you going through life without the one thing that makes it bearable?"

"I would not purchase it at such a cost. If I can't have it without despoiling myself of everything that is worth possessing, I prefer to go without."

"You don't know what you say!" exclaimed Miss Du Prel.

"But why? Love would be ruined and desecrated. I understand by it a sympathy so perfect, and a reverence so complete, that the conditions of ordinary domestic existence would be impossible, unthinkable, in connection with it."

"So do I understand love. But it comes, perhaps, once in a century, and if one is too fastidious, it pa.s.ses by and leaves one forlorn; at best, it comes only to open the gates of Paradise, for a moment, and to close them again, and leave one in outer darkness."

"Always?"

"I believe always," answered Miss Du Prel.

The running of the river sounded peacefully in the pause that followed.

"Well," cried Hadria at length, raising her head with a long sigh, "one cannot do better than follow one's own instinct and thought of the moment. Regret may come, do what one may. One cannot escape from one's own temperament."

"One can modify it."

"I cannot even wish to modify mine, so that I should become amenable to these social demands. I stand in hopeless opposition to the scheme of life that I have grown up amongst, to the universal scheme of life indeed, as understood by the world up to this day. Audacious, is it not?"

"I like audacity," returned Miss Du Prel. "As I understand you, you require an altogether new dispensation!"

Hadria gave a half smile, conscious of her stupendous demand. Then she said, with a peculiar movement of the head, as if throwing off a heavy weight, and looking before her steadily: "Yes, I require a new dispensation."

CHAPTER VIII.

Hubert Temperley made a point of going to the tennis-party, on Tuesday, at Dunaghee, in order to talk to Miss Fullerton. He had not expected to find original musical talent in this out-of-the-way place.

Hadria was in a happy mood, for her mother had so far overcome her prejudice against Miss Du Prel, as to ask her to join the party.

The festivity had, therefore, lost its usual quality of melancholy.

It was a warm afternoon, and every one seemed cheerful "and almost intelligent," Hadria commented. The first words that Mr. Temperley uttered, made her turn to him, in surprise. She was so unaccustomed to be interested in what the people about here had to say. Even intelligent visitors usually adopted the tone of the inhabitants. Hubert Temperley's manner was very polished. His accent denoted mental cultivation. He spoke with eloquence of literature, and praised enthusiastically most great names dating securely from the hallowed past. Of modern literature he was a stern critic; of music he spoke with ardour.

"I hear that you not only perform but compose, Miss Fullerton," he said.

"As soon as I heard that, I felt that I must make your acquaintance. My friends, the Gordons, are very charming, but they don't understand a note of music, and I am badly off for a kindred spirit."

"My composing is a very mild affair," Hadria answered. "I suppose you are more fortunate."

"Not much. I am pretty busy you see. I have my profession. I play a good deal--the piano and the _'cello_ are my instruments. But my difficulty is to find someone to accompany me. My sister does when she can, but of course with a house and family to look after----I am sometimes selfish enough to wish she had not married. We used to be such good friends."

"Is that all over?"

"It is different. She always manages to be busy now," said Temperley in a slightly ironical tone.

He plunged once more, into a musical discussion.

Hadria had reluctantly to cut it short, in order to arrange tennis-matches. This task was performed as usual, somewhat recklessly.

Polite and amiable in indiscriminate fas.h.i.+on, Hadria ignored the secret jealousies and heart-burnings of the neighbourhood, only to recognise and repent her mistakes when too late. To-day she was even more unchastened than usual in her dealings with inflammable social material.

"Hadria!" cried Mrs. Fullerton, taking her aside, "How _could_ you ask Cecilia Gordon to play with young McKenzie? You _know_ their families are not on speaking terms!"

Everyone, except the culprit, had remarked the haughty manner in which Cecilia wielded her racket, and the gloomy silence in which the set was played.

Hadria, though not impenitent, laughed. "How does Miss Gordon manage to be energetic and chilling at the same time!" she exclaimed.

The Gordons and the McKenzies, like hostile armies, looked on grimly.

Everyone felt awkward, and to feel awkward was nothing less than tragic, in the eyes of the a.s.sembly.