The Daughters of Danaus Part 21

"Do you mean to tell me you will never marry on this account?"

"I would never marry anyone who would exact the usual submissions and renunciations, or even desire them, which I suppose amounts almost to saying that I shall never marry at all. What man would endure a wife who demanded to retain her absolute freedom, as in the case of a close friends.h.i.+p? The man is not born!"

"You seem to forget, dear Hadria, in objecting to place yourself under the yoke, as you call it, that your husband would also be obliged to resign part of _his_ independence to you. The prospect of loss of liberty in marriage often prevents a man from marrying ("Wise man!"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hadria), so you see the disadvantage is not all on one side, if so you choose to consider it."

"Good heavens! do you think that the opportunity to interfere with another person would console me for being interfered with myself? I don't want my share of the constraining power. I would as soon accept the lash of a slave-driver. This moral lash is almost more odious than the other, for its thongs are made of the affections and the domestic 'virtues,' than which there can be nothing sneakier or more detestable!"

Henriette heaved a discouraged sigh. "You are wrong, my dear Hadria,"

she said emphatically; "you are wrong, wrong, wrong."

"How? why?"

"One can't have everything in this life. You must be willing to resign part of your privileges for the sake of the far greater privileges that you acquire."

"I can imagine nothing that would compensate for the loss of freedom, the right to oneself."

"What about love?" murmured Henriette.

"Love!" echoed Hadria scornfully. "Do you suppose I could ever love a man who had the paltry, ungenerous instinct to enchain me?"

"Why use such extreme terms? Love does not enchain."

"Exactly what I contend," interrupted Hadria.

"But naturally husband and wife have claims."

"Naturally. I have just been objecting to them in what you describe as extreme terms."

"But I mean, when people care for one another, it is a joy to them to acknowledge ties and obligations of affection."

"Ah! one knows what _that_ euphemism means!"

"Pray what does it mean?"

"That the one serious endeavour in the life of married people is to be able to call each other's souls their own."

Henriette stared.

"My language may not be limpid."

"Oh, I see what you mean. I was only wondering who can have taught you all these strange ideas."

Hadria at length gave way to a laugh that had been threatening for some time.

"My mother," she observed simply.

Henriette gave it up.

CHAPTER XV.

The family had rea.s.sembled for the New Year's festivities. The change in Algitha since her departure from home was striking. She was gentler, more affectionate to her parents, than of yore. The tendency to grow hard and fretful had entirely disappeared. The sense of self was obviously lessened with the need for self-defence. Hadria discovered that an attachment was springing up between her sister and Wilfrid Burton, about whom she wrote so frequently, and that this development of her emotional nature, united with her work, had given a glowing centre to her life which showed itself in a thousand little changes of manner and thought. Hadria told her sister that she felt herself unreal and fanciful in her presence. "I go twirling things round and round in my head till I grow dizzy. But you compare ideas with fact; you even turn ideas into fact; while I can get no hold on fact at all. Thoughts rise as mists rise from the river, but nothing happens. I feel them begin to prey upon me, working inwards."

Algitha shook her head. "It is a mad world," she said. "Week after week goes by, and there seems no lifting of the awful darkness in which the lives of these millions are pa.s.sed. We want workers by the thousand.

Yet, as if in mockery, the Devil keeps these well-fed thousands eating their hearts out in idleness or artificial occupations till they become diseased merely for want of something to do. Then," added Algitha, "His Majesty marries them, and sets them to work to create another houseful of idle creatures, who have to be supported by the deathly toil of those who labour too much."

"The devil is full of resources!" said Hadria.

Miss Temperley had been asked to stay at Dunaghee for the New Year.

Algitha conceived for her a sentiment almost vindictive. Hadria and the boys enjoyed nothing better than to watch Miss Temperley giving forth her opinions, while Algitha's figure gradually stiffened and her neck drew out, as Fred said, in truly telescopic fas.h.i.+on, like that of Alice in Wonderland. The boys constructed a figure of cus.h.i.+ons, stuffed into one of Algitha's old gowns, the neck being a padded broom-handle, made to work up and down at pleasure; and with this counterfeit presentment of their sister, they used to act the scene amidst shouts of applause, Miss Temperley entering, on one occasion, when the improvised cocoa-nut head had reached its culminating point of high disdain, somewhere about the level of the curtain-poles.

On New-Year's-eve, Dunaghee was full of guests. There was to be a children's party, to which however most of the grown-up neighbours were also invited.

"What a charming sight!" cried Henriette, standing with her neat foot on the fender in the hall, where the children were playing blind man's buff.

Mrs. Fullerton sat watching them with a dreamy smile. The scene recalled many an old memory. Mr. Fullerton was playing with the children.

Everyone remarked how well the two girls looked in their new evening gowns. They had made them themselves, in consequence of a wager with Fred, who had challenged them to combine pink and green satisfactorily.

"The gowns are perfect!" Temperley ventured to remark. "So much distinction!"

"All my doing," cried Fred. "I chose the colours."

"Distinction comes from within," said Temperley. "I should like to see what sort of gown in pink and green Mrs. ----." He stopped short abruptly.

Fred gave a chuckle. Indiscreet eyes wandered towards Mrs. Gordon's brocade and silver.

Later in the evening, that lady played dance music in a florid manner, resembling her taste in dress. The younger children had gone home, and the hall was filled with spinning couples.

"I hope we are to have some national dances," said Miss Temperley. "My brother and I are both looking forward to seeing a true reel danced by natives of the country."

"Oh, certainly!" said Mr. Fullerton. "My daughters are rather celebrated for their reels, especially Hadria." Mr. Fullerton executed a step or two with great agility.

"The girl gets quite out of herself when she is dancing," said Mrs.

Fullerton. "She won't be scolded about it, for she says she takes after her father!"

"That's the time to get round her," observed Fred. "If we want to set her up to some real fun, we always play a reel and wait till she's well into the spirit of the thing, and then, I'll wager, she would stick at nothing."

"It's a fact," added Ernest. "It really seems to half mesmerise her."

"How very curious!" cried Miss Temperley.

She and her brother found themselves watching the dancing a little apart from the others.