I. A. R. Wylie

“ Dean Cornwell
“IT'S the unknown that we seek—that makes it possible for us to live. like a high mountain that no one has ever climbed—or an untraveled country—or like some one one loves for the first time.” And after all isn't that the whole lure of romance—man's passion for the new, for the rôle of the discoverer? It's every woman's charm to her lover—until time and even married happiness have dulled its shining luster. Would you have the courage to stand aside and wait, as Enid did, while your husband's wandering heart journeyed far and sought strange lands? ”

“ 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. 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 her 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 ourselves. But we are just human beings who can only love each other. ”

“ They came out of silence and grew loud and clear and died into silence again. And in each sound was a mystery—a universe. He seemed to be standing on a lonely rock in the midst of life, looking down into its magic waters in which romance floated like seaweed, spreading itself in lustrous, golden pattern against the stony bottom, moving softly with the tide. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when that hour came, he was like a man carried on a frail raft on the breast of a headlong torrent. He could look about him and see the world in splendor and fire melt past him from one vivid, pulsating picture into another. 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 forever. ”

“ 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 traveler 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. ”

“ He spent the day buying what he required for the immediate journey. Nothing was to be carried over from the past. A new beginning—a new youth.
It had been arranged that he should fetch Marie Barenoff from her rooms in time to catch the night boat-train, so that there remained at the end of his feverish shopping two hours to wait. He returned to his room to pick up a favorite book and his manuscript. There, too, he would write to Enid. His literary genius would have to lend him the required expression of affectionate regret and decent remorse—to give life to that extraordinary deadness. ”

“ The world shone with warmth and color 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. ”

“ 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 faerie still lingered about them like a faint cloud of incense. They looked at each other. 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. ”

“ I must understand. He is different. He must have his heart's desire.”
And beyond that he saw her suffering. He had said that she could not suffer as he suffered. This confounded him. It made everything that he had endured or written of endurance petty and insignificant. Yet it was so quiet. She did not break under it. She faced it as she had faced poverty and would face death, with her head up, thinking of how others might be spared. She was bigger than he would ever be.
“My wife!” he thought.
He could think of nothing else. An infinite thankfulness, humble and unreasoning, possessed him. ”

“ He felt that his own life was threatened—that he was being torn out of his soil—bleeding, withering.
He asked, “You were going away?”
And she laughed with defiance in her eyes. “Migratory birds fly with the seasons. 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. ”

“ Afterward he sat opposite Enid, just as he had foreseen, and the prettily dressed parlormaid 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 knowing nothing of the dark, secret places of each other's lives. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ It's better than anything you have ever done.”
“You gave me the power.”
Her eyes lifted to his with a dark tenderness. “Oh, Lyn, if I could believe that!”
“It's true. I was dead until you came.”
He stood close to her, but he did not touch her, Some instinct reined in his mounting eagerness, This was Enid's room. For the first time they had met in Enid's presence, and though he was without regret and could face the thought of her indifferently, there were decencies to which they must pay homage. “You are like my mother, too,” he said brokenly, “—for you have given me life.” ”

“ He spoke in a loud, conventional voice. “It's splendid. I'd like Enid to come—to see it—for you to get to know each other—but I'm afraid. Enid's so English. Our home would stifle you. You wouldn't understand.”
She followed him to the door. “It's as you think best,” she said tranquilly.
Her hand rested in his. He held it lightly, yet it was as though they could not free themselves. He felt her warmth steal up his arm to his heart. The half-light in which they stood enveloped them in a mysterious isolation.
“Marie Barenoff,'” he murmured again as though the name were a spell. “Princess!” ”

“ 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 colors, mellowed with age, hung where. the light fell upon its austere and mystic piety. There were strange stuffs, too, falling i gracious lines, into which antiquity had woven an inexpressible pathos. ”

“ 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? ”

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

“ 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 had killed her—his comrade—his love. ”

“ The very peace seemed to strip him naked, so that in dread 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. ”

“ 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. ”

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