Florence L. Barclay

“ Jane laughed and held out her hand. "Oh, you dear boy! I think you have the sweetest temper in the world. I won't be cross any more. The truth is, I hate the duchess's concerts, and I don't like being the duchess's 'surprise-packet.'"
"I see," said Garth, sympathetically. "But, that being so, why did you offer?"
"Ah, I had to," said Jane. "Poor old dear! She so rarely asks me anything, and her eyes besought. Don't you know how one longs to have something to do for some one who belongs to one? ”

“ Garth, notwithstanding the pale violet shirt and dark violet tie, was quite unconscious of his own appearance; and, dazzled by the golden sunlight, was also unconscious of Jane's look.
"Oh, I say, Miss Champion!" he cried, boyishly. "Isn't it nice that they have all gone in? I have been wanting a good jaw with you. Really, when we all get together we do drivel sometimes, to keep the ball rolling. It is like patting up air-balls; and very often they burst, and one realises that an empty, shrivelled little skin is all that is left after most conversations. ”

“ The loneliness of years slipped from her. Life became rich and purposeful. He needed her always, and she was always there and always able to meet his need. "Are you content, my beloved?" she asked over and over; and Garth's joyous voice, with the ring of perpetual youth in it, always answered: "Perfectly content." And Jane smiled into the night, and in the depths of her calm eyes dawned a knowledge hitherto unknown, and in her tender smile trembled, with unspeakable sweetness, an understanding of the secret of a woman's truest bliss. "He is mine and I am his. ”

“ Jane was silent. The last things she wished to discuss were other women's souls.
"There is just one who seems to me perfect," continued Garth. "I am to paint her this autumn. I believe I shall find her soul as exquisite as her body."
"And she is—?" inquired Jane.
"Lady Brand."
"Flower!" exclaimed Jane. "Are YOU so taken with Flower?"
"Ah, she is lovely," said Garth, with reverent enthusiasm. "It positively is not right for any one to be so absolutely flawlessly lovely. It makes me ache. Do you know that feeling, Miss Champion, of perfect loveliness making you ache?" ”

“ If I loved a man who lost his sight, I should be glad to have mine in order to be eyes for him when eyes were needed; just as, were I rich and he poor, I should value my money simply as a thing which might be useful to him. But I know the daylight would often be a trial to me, because it would be something he could not share; and when evening came, I should long to say: 'Let us put out the lights and shut away the moonlight and sit together in the sweet soft darkness, which is more uniting than the light.'"
While Jane was speaking, Garth paled as he listened, and his face grew strangely set. ”

“ Jane smiled through a mist of tears.
"If he wanted me, Mr. Dalmain, I should have to go to him," said Nurse Rosemary.
"How I dread the day," continued Garth, "when you will come and say to me: 'I have to go.' And, do you know, I have sometimes thought—you have done so much for me and become so much to me—I have sometimes thought—I can tell you frankly now—it might have seemed as if there were a very obvious way to try to keep you always. You are so immensely worthy of all a man could offer, of all the devotion a man could give. ”

“ That he loved her still, it never occurred to Jane to doubt. At the very thought of sending for him and telling him the simple truth, he seemed so near her once more, that she could feel the clasp of his arms, and his head upon her heart. And those dear shining eyes! Oh, Garth, Garth!
"One thing is clear to me to-night," thought Jane. "If he still needs me—wants me—I cannot live any longer away from him. I must go to him." She opened her eyes and looked towards the Sphinx. The whole line of reasoning which had carried such weight at Shenstone flashed through her mind in twenty seconds. ”

“ I remembered the divine halo of his smile. Of course his actual plainness of feature remained. It was not the sort of face one could have wanted to live with, or to have day after day opposite to one at table. But then one was not called to that sort of discipline, which would have been martyrdom to me. And he has always stood to my mind since as a proof of the truth that goodness is never ugly; and that divine love and aspiration shining through the plainest features may redeem them temporarily into beauty; and, permanently, into a thing one loves to remember."
"I see," said Jane. ”

“ Even so, Boy, is poor Jane now tramping her patch of desert, which narrows daily to the measure of her despair. Migdol is HIS certainty that HER love could only be pity. The Red Sea is the confession into which she must inevitably plunge, to avoid scaling Migdol; in the chill waters of which, as she drags him in with her, his love is bound to drown, as waves of doubt and mistrust sweep over its head,—doubts which he has lost the power of removing; mistrust which he can never hope to prove to have been false and mistaken. ”

“ Nurse Rosemary moved towards the door. "How shall I know them?" she asked, and waited.
The chords of the Veni hushed to a murmur, Garth's voice from the piano came clear and distinct, but blending with the harmonies as if he were reciting to music.
"A woman and a man ... alone, in a garden—but the surroundings are only indicated. She is in evening dress; soft, black, and trailing; with lace at her breast. It is called: 'The Wife.'"
"Yes?"
"The same woman; the same scene; but without the man, this time. No need to paint the man; for now—visible or invisible—to her, he is always there. ”

“ Ah, Jane, Jane! I shall need your help. I want it so greatly, and not only your help, Jane—but YOU—you, yourself. Ah, how I want you! These three days have been one continual ache of loneliness, because you were not there; and life began to live and move again, when you returned. And yet it has been so hard, waiting all these hours to speak. I have so much to tell you, Jane, of all you are to me—all you have become to me, since the night of the concert. Ah, how can I express it? I have never had any big things in my life; all has been more or less trivial—on the surface. ”

“ Cake, Miss Gray?"
"Thank you. Right, this time."
"There! That is exactly as Jane would have said: 'Right, this time.' Is it not strange that after having for weeks thought your voice so like hers, to-morrow I shall be thinking her voice so like yours?"
"Oh, no, you will not," said Nurse Rosemary. "When she is with you, you will have no thoughts for other people."
"Indeed, but I shall!" cried Garth. "And, dear little Rosemary, I shall miss you, horribly. No one—not even she—can take your place. ”

“ I never thought it so until that summer at Overdene and Shenstone when you taught me the perception of beauty. Since then, in every sunset and sunrise, in the blue-green of the Atlantic, the purple of the mountains, the spray of Niagara, the cherry blossom of Japan, the golden deserts of Egypt, I have thought of you, and understood them better, because of you. Oh, Dal! I should like to come and tell you all about them, and let you see them through my eyes; and then you would widen out my narrow understanding of them, and show them again to me in greater loveliness. ”

“ You are so unused to lying, that you cannot have lied, on the chancel step, to the man you loved, with much conviction."
A dull red crept up beneath Jane's tan.
"Oh, Deryck, it was not entirely a lie. It was one of those dreadful lies which are 'part a truth,' of which Tennyson says that they are 'a harder matter to fight.'"
"'A lie which is all a lie
May be met and fought with outright;
But a lie which is part a truth
Is a harder matter to fight,'"
quoted the doctor. ”

“ Jane leaned her forehead on the window-sill. The moonlight fell on the heavy coils of her brown hair. The scent of the magnolia blooms rose in fragrance around her. The song of a nightingale purled and thrilled in an adjacent wood. The lonely years of the past, the perplexing moments of the present, the uncertain vistas of the future, all rolled away. She sailed with Garth upon a golden ocean far removed from the shores of time. For love is eternal; and the birth of love frees the spirit from all limitations of the flesh. ”

“ Jane gave a sudden sob; then turned to him, dry-eyed.
"Is there no hope, Deryck?"
The doctor laid his hand on hers. "He will always be blind, dear. But life holds other things beside sight. We must never say: 'No hope.'"
"Will he live?"
"There is no reason he should not live. But how far life will be worth living, largely depends upon what can be done for him, poor chap, during the next few months. He is more shattered mentally than physically."
Jane pulled off her gloves, swallowed suddenly, then gripped the doctor's knee. "Deryck—I love him." ”

“ She looked at the slight figure in white flannels, leaning against the window frame, so manly, so beautiful still, and yet so helpless and so needing the wealth of tenderness which was hers to give. Then, standing facing him, she opened her arms, as if the great preparedness of that place of rest, so close to him must, magnet-like, draw him to her; and standing thus in the sunlight, Jane spoke.
Was she beautiful? Was she paintable? Would a man grow weary of such a look turned on him, of such arms held out? Alas! Too late! On that point no lover shall ever be able to pass judgment. ”

“ Then the doctor spoke. "My dear boy," he said, and a deep tenderness was in his voice: "I must maintain my unalterable belief that to the One Woman you are still the One Man. In your blindness her rightful place is by your side. Perhaps even now she is yearning to be here. Will you tell me her name, and give me leave to seek her out, hear from herself her version of the story; and, if it be as I think, bring her to you, to prove, in your affliction, her love and tenderness?"
"Never!" said Garth. "Never, while life shall last! ”

“ And yet they are so pathetic—ah, SO pathetic; because you have made a plain woman, beautiful."
Garth rose to his feet, and turned upon her a face which would have blazed, had it not been sightless.
"A WHAT?" he exclaimed.
"A plain woman," repeated Nurse Rosemary, quietly. "Surely you realised your model to be that. And therein lies the wonder of the pictures. You have so beautified her by wifehood, and glorified her by motherhood, that the longer one looks the more one forgets her plainness; seeing her as loving and loved; lovable, and therefore lovely. It is a triumph of art." ”

“ Garth rose from his chair and stretched his slim figure in the slanting sun-rays, much as Myra had done. Jane looked at him. As is often the case with plain people, great physical beauty appealed to her strongly. She only allowed to that appeal its right proportion in her estimation of her friends. Garth Dalmain by no means came first among her particular chums. He was older than most of them, and yet in some ways younger than any, and his remarkable youthfulness of manner and exuberance of spirits sometimes made him appear foolish to Jane, whose sense of humour was of a more sedate kind. ”

“ There was an ecstasy in the songs of the birds and a transporting sense of sweetness about all the sights and scents of the country, such as Jane had never experienced so vividly before. She drew a deep breath and exclaimed, almost involuntarily: "Ah! it is good to be here!"
"You dear!" said Lady Ingleby, twirling her whip and nodding in gracious response to respectful salutes from the hay-field. "It is a comfort to have you! I always feel you are like the bass of a tune—something so solid and satisfactory and beneath one in case of a crisis. I hate crises. They are so tiring. ”

“ Garth considered this in silence, his level brows knitted. At last he said: "Beauty is so much a thing of the surface. I see it, and admire it. I desire it, and paint it. When I have painted it, I have made it my own, and somehow I find I have done with it. All the time I am painting a woman, I am seeking for her soul. I want to express it on my canvas; and do you know, Miss Champion, I find that a lovely woman does not always have a lovely soul." ”

“ Garth laughed. "Oh bother!" he said. "Are you like all the rest? Do you also think adoration and admiration must necessarily mean marriage. I should have expected you to take a saner and more masculine view."
"My dear boy," said Jane, "your friends have decided that you need a wife. You are alone in the world. You have a lovely home. You are in a fair way to be spoiled by all the silly women who run after you. Of course we are perfectly aware that your wife must have every incomparable beauty under the sun united in her own exquisite person. ”