I. A. R. Wylie

“ Presently, worn out, he knelt beside her, his head against her breast, and she spoke, almost for the first time, brokenly, like some one whose thought has been torn out of their very depths, who has always found it difficult to speak.
"It may be that it is God we seek so hungrily in one another," she said, "something unknown and greater than we. But we are just human beings who can only love one another. I am just the woman who loves you."
He answered humbly.
"It is enough."
And she held him close to her, looking into the fire and smiling a little through her tears. ”

“ Their littleness, the thought that their individual, mysterious life should have risen, like twin springs, from his and from Enid's love, had thrilled him with pity and wonder and an aching tenderness which once or twice had rekindled passion only to die almost at once under the stifling commonplaceness of their daily life. ”

“ It was the fire that had gone—the splendid authentic fire that blazing down upon each lifeless incident made it to glow and live.
"It's my soul," he thought. "My soul's grown fat. If it ever grows thin again it'll be because it has withered." And suddenly the little fear be came monstrous and closed down on him like a cold hand. ”

“ Enid had been sitting by the fire. Now with a slow strong movement she rose to meet him. She was tall and once she had been slender but she had broadened out into a lovable matronliness. Her crown of fair hair was as thick as it had ever been, and if there were lines on her pleasant face they were the ennobling and beautiful lines of some one who has never thought basely or unkindly.
He liked the simple black dress she wore. He always like the way she dressed. ”

“ Its gently bustling well-being had dropped from it like a formal dress. It greeted him in silence and shadow. Silence and shadow veiled his possessions with a mysterious dignity. Their loveliness stood free from the dross of his success. And there was pathos, too, about them, as there is pathos in all things that sleep, in all inanimate things that have fallen from tired human hands. Enid's work-box, neatly closed, stood on the round table by the fire. ”

“ He looked up and met Enid's smiling eyes.
"Did you have a good day, Lyn?"
He laughed ruefully.
"Not very, I'm afraid. I stuck fast."
"I knew you would." She nodded to herself, with a look of tender happy wisdom. "It's all so new—too new. I could see you, you know—like a boy with a roomful of new playthings—moving about, picking them up, spreading yourself in lordly possession before the fire. But after you have worked a little it will grow warm and familiar. It will get a heart. And you will settle down."
"That's it," he said, smiling back at her understanding. ”

“ The hearts of men were opened in their breasts for him to gaze into, and he thought in his dizzy sense of power how he would make their lives live for ever. Most splendid of all, the old spiritual deafness was gone. He heard, with the intoxicating clearness of those whose lost hearing has been miraculously restored, the song of the river with its burden of high romance and great adventure—but as yet, only in the far distance, the thunder of the cataract towards which he was being borne, faster and faster. ”

“ Lyn Roscoe had come here, following an errant fancy. There seemed nowhere else to go. He had not been able to work in the beautiful room overlooking the river. And he did not want to go home because of Enid's sympathy and understanding. She would have been so gentle with him, humouring what would have seemed only another of those unhappy sterile moods from which genius suffered. ”

“ He tried to think of Enid. He could not see her save as a dim, unreal figure, stolid, worthy.
"She won't suffer—not as we suffer. She will be shocked. But she has the home—the children. That is her world. I was stilling, dying in it, and I have a right to live. You have given me everything I am—take me—keep me."
Strange wooing, humble, irresistible, dominating and ruthless as the instinct of self-preservation. ”

“ But I am a woman of honour too, in my own way. I do not take what is not mine." She looked at Enid. "You will understand."
She passed him quickly, going towards the door. But Enid stretched out her hand. It was taken and held for a long moment. They did not seem to be thinking of him, but of each other and of something that they both knew—at once a little laughable and very sad like a child's grief.
Then Marie Barenoff was gone.
Long after they still sat by the dying fire, his hand in hers. And what one human being can tell another he had told her. ”

“ The fog made it seem that he was passing from one half-lit cave to another. In the circumscribed orbit of yellow light were pews, and here and there a bowed faceless figure of some other traveller resting by the wayside. He came suddenly into a clearing. It was as though the trees of this strange wilderness had been cut away to make place for a great camp or for some stupendous ceremonial. The light from the great window overhead was like the last glimmer of an unearthly sunset. ”

“ Afterwards he sat opposite Enid, just as he had foreseen, and the prettily dressed parlourmaid stood by the sideboard, motionless and watchful for his slightest need. It struck him for the first time as odd that a friendly human being should be in the room and that they should not speak to her. ”

“ He knew that his fear grinned cynically, and he thought how strange it was that two people should live together, day in, day out, for years, loving each other, knowing each other's moods and fancies, and yet know nothing of the dark secret places of each other's lives. ”

“ A prettily uniformed housemaid fitted across the passage into the dining-room. The familiar fragrance of a gracious refinement and meticulous order laved him like a narcotic. It stupefied unrest and dissatisfaction. He caught a glimpse of himself in the hall glass as he passed and saw the handsome, calm face of a successful man. Enid called him from the drawing-room and he went in. A clean bright fire was burning. ”

“ It was an attic that was a studio by reason of its northern skylight and led into another attic that was her bedroom. The walls sloped so that it was like a magic cave full of treasure. Everything in it was rare and beautiful and unconscious of its beauty. An ikon of faded gold and rich dark colours, mellowed with age, hung where the light fell upon its austere and mystic piety. There were strange stuffs too, falling in gracious lines, into which antiquity had woven an inexpressible pathos. ”

“ I could have cried with relief because my heart jumped when you said, 'Romance. Here lies the Greatest Romance——'"
She was silent. They went down the transept side by side. The door swung back behind them and the spell which had made their odd companionship seem so natural was broken. They were plunged in a chill reality. And yet something fantastic and faërie still lingered about them like a faint cloud of incense. They looked at one another. It seemed to him that he saw her for the first time. She had been a sort of spirit with whom his spirit had spoken. Now she was a stranger—a woman. ”

“ The little cold fear had uncurled itself. The very peace seemed to strip him naked so that for fear of what he should see he had got up to escape—to get back to Enid and the children and the beautiful Lutyens house (built out of the proceeds of his last success) . In the midst of their cheerful warmth he would laugh at this attack of nerves, thinking, "Why, I'm the biggest novelist living. I can sell every line I write. ”

“ One of them he could distinguish—scarcely more than a trawler, slender and over delicate, which to-morrow with its handful of a crew was to set out for the frozen ends of the earth, seeking knowledge but most of all the old glory of living—danger, suffering and perhaps death. ”

“ You are not the woman to come at the last with morbid doubts."
"No," she answered. "I am not. You need not be afraid of that. What is worth having is worth sinning for. I have my own morality. I am my own judge."
She was silent for a moment. And yet he stood and waited. A new tension had come into the atmosphere. He had a sudden urgent need to escape from this room quickly before it became unbearable. The room was a power, passive, immeasurably patient, working its will on him. Marie Barenoff had moved away from the fireside. ”

“ My season here is over."
"Migratory birds do not fly alone," he retorted, laughing back at her. "They have their mates, princess."
They had been standing, facing each other like enemies. Now she sat down, as though her strength had gone from her, and the next instant he was at her feet, his arms about her, his face pressed against her breast. It was no mastering, possessive passion. It was adoration and surrender. He gave himself to her. He lost himself in her mystery. He had ceased to be the strong self-sufficient man, arid of emotion and faith. ”

“ He watched Marie Barenoff go to the instrument and take down the receiver. The stillness was almost as terrible, a pit of emptiness on the brink of which his mind reeled. He heard her voice at last, subdued, urgent.
"Yes, yes, he is here. What is it?"
A little far-off ghost answered. Suddenly she stood upright, looking at him.
"Lyn, it's terrible. Mrs. Roscoe."
He knew then. Instantly. He had known from the first moment. Enid. Something frightful. Enid. An accident. Death, perhaps. And he had forsaken her. She who had never forsaken him, never failed him. ”

“ He began to write.
"My dear Enid," and then sat with his pen in his hand waiting for the first well-balanced sentence as he waited for the first sentence of a new novel. It was difficult to write when one did not care. And he did not want to care.
Marie Barenoff stood by the fire. He could feel her presence as something holy in its mysteriousness. Suddenly she spoke. ”

“ He saw her lifted face in the light of a street lamp—a pale, girl's face, elfishly beautiful, ardent and proud and candid.
She held out her hand.
"Shall we? Because we both understood?"
He stammered, half laughing.
"Why, that doesn't seem a reason, does it? For saying good-bye like that. Wouldn't you let me see you safe through the fog? I'm awfully, horribly respectable."
"I don't know that I am. I think I'm an adventuress. That isn't respectable, is it? But if you want to, my rooms aren't far from here." ”

“ The world shone with warmth and colour and sunshine. He had become miraculously reconciled to life and man and the floodgates of inspiration were flung wide.
Then years of fine work and clean-limbed, clear-eyed austerity—hard years of grinding poverty and rich happiness. ”

“ No serious cloud had ever overshadowed their married life. She was everything that a woman could be—generous and brave and loyal. as She would die for him and the children—he would die for her—taking it as a matter of course—gladly. ”

“ We feel now that we have got to solve it at all costs. But when it is done, when I have found out that you are just a man with a man's sins and follies, when you have found that I am just another faulty woman, what will remain to us? ”

“ And the strangest thing of all was that he who had thought and reasoned as a civilised man, dealing subtly and finely with the intricacies of life, could now only demand with the primitive directness of a savage. ”

“ It's the unknown that we seek, that makes it possible for us to live. It's like a high mountain that no one has ever climbed, or an untravelled country, or"—she stammered a little as though all at once she had realised how strange it was that she should be thinking aloud—"or like some one one loves for the first time." ”

“ I'm a successful man. I've got everything, a comfortable home and money and reputation. I've got two lovely children and a wife who is the finest woman in the world, who is faithful to me and to whom I have been faithful to my last thought. ”

“ He had started guiltily. (What did it matter about his last book? Why couldn't people understand that a creator cares nothing for what he has created but only for the thing that he is to create—for that other chance of complete fulfilment?) ”

“ A fearless fellow who didn't suffer at all, a coward who went into it shrinking, a brave man who was horribly frightened, a lover, a genius, a coarse young man who kissed his girl and got drunk on Saturday nights. ”