Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

“ It wrings the human soul quite clear of everything save wonder at its loveliness.
Desire never bathed until the sun was up, not because she feared the dawn-cold water but because she would not stir the unbroken beauty of its opal tide. With the first rays of the sun, the spell would break, the waves would dance again, the gulls would soar and dip, the crabs would scuttle across the shining sand, the round wet head of a friendly seal would pop up here and there to say good-morning. Then, Desire would swim—far out—so far that Spence, watching her, would feel his heart contract. ”

“ She spoke to Miss Campion but her slightly mocking eyes watched for some change upon the face of her young hostess. Desire, as usual, was serene.
"Mary thinks we are all heathens not to have a car," said Benis. "When are you going to choose yours, Desire?"
"Not at all, I think," said Desire.
Men, even clever men, are like that. The professor had seen no possible sting in his idly spoken words. But the sore, hot spot, which now seemed ever present in Desire's heart, grew sorer and hotter. To owe a car to the reminder of another woman! Naturally, Desire could do very well without it. ”

“ He paused and Desire felt herself clutch, unaccountably, at the arm of her garden chair.
"She wouldn't understand," finished Benis.
Desire's grasp upon the chair relaxed.
"Life is like that," he went on slowly. "No matter how careful people are there is always someone who slips in and gets hurt. Our affairs are strictly our own affairs and yet—we stumble over Aunt Caroline and leave her indignant and disappointed and probably blaming Providence for the whole affair. It is just a curious instance of the intricacy of human relationships—you're not going in, are you?" ”

“ People take such silly risks—And where was Li Ho? Why wasn't he carrying the wood? Not that the wood seemed to bother Desire in the least.
The captive on the sofa sighed. It was no use trying to hide from himself his longing to be out there with her in that heavenly Spring-pierced air, revelling in its bloomy wetness; strong and fit in muscle and nerve, carrying wood, getting his head soaked, doing all the foolish things which youth does with impunity and careless joy. The new restlessness, which he had come so far to quiet, broke over him in miserable, taunting waves. ”

“ And I fancy Li Ho—watched."
"Good old Li Ho!"
Desire nodded. "I think now that perhaps I did not quite appreciate Li Ho. I should like to know—but what is the use? We shall never know more than we do."
"Not about Li Ho'. He is the eternal Sphinx wrapped in an everlasting yesterday. I suppose he did not have even a beginning?"
Desire smiled. "No. He was always there. He is one of my first memories. A kind of family familiar. Sometimes I think that if he had not been away the night my mother died she might have been alive still."
Spence hesitated. ”

“ Spence returned home with lagging step. The old distaste for familiar things, which he thought had gone with the coming of Desire, was heavy upon him. The gate of his pleasant home shut behind him like a prison gate. In short, Benis Spence paid for a moment's enlightenment with a bad day and a night that was no better.
By the morning he had won through. One must carry on. And the advantage of a quiet manner is that no one notices when it grows more quiet. ”

“ And, after he had brought Desire home, the idea had grown until he had seemed to feel an actual presence in its cool seclusion. But if presence there had been, it was gone now. The place was empty. The air hung dull and lifeless. The chairs stood stiff against the wall, the watching books had no greeting. Only Yorick swung and flapped in his cage, his throat full of mutterings.
It is all very well to be a good loser. But loss is bitter. Here was loss, stark and staring.
Spence walked over to the neatly tidied desk and there, for an instant, the cold finger lifted from his heart. ”

“ Apparently for nothing but that a girl with grey, enigmatic eyes and close-shut lips should keep from Mary a position which she did not want herself. For Mary, captive of her Thought, was more than ready to believe that Desire's hidden preference was for John. She naturally could not grant her rival a share of her own discriminating taste in loving.
"I suppose," thought Mary, "it is her immaturity which makes her prefer the doctor person to one who so far outranks him. She admires sleek hair and a straight nose. The finer fascinations of Benis escape her." ”

“ Anyone, that is, any man, might love deeply and hopelessly a woman of such rare and subtle charm. Possessing youth in glorious measure herself, Desire naturally discounted her rival's lack of it. With her, the slight blurring of Mary's carefully tended "lines," the tired look around her eyes, the somewhat cold-creamy texture of her delicate skin, weighed nothing against the exquisite finish and fine sophistication which had been the gift of the added years.
In age, she thought, Mary and Benis would rank each other. ”

“ I justify myself by the knowledge that I am of some use to Benis. You know I can interest most men when I try, and this time my 'heart is in it'—like Sentimental Tommy. I am even teaching a perfectly dear parrot they have here to sing, 'Oh, What a Pal was Mary.' Will you run over to my rooms and send down that London smoke chiffon frock with the silver underslip? Stockings and slippers to match in a box in the bottom drawer. I am contemplating a moon-light mood and must have the accessories. One loses half the effect if one does not dress the part. Madam Enigma never dresses in character. ”

“ I always dream very vividly. And fact and dream are easily confused in a child's mind. My most distinct memories are detached, like pictures, without any before or after to explain them. There is one, for instance, about waking up in the woods at night, wrapped in my mother's shawl and seeing her face, all frightened and white, with the moon, like a great, silver eye, shining through the trees. ”

“ With a wife so young and, if I may say so, so different. One feels that she has not been brought up amongst us. So sad. I always say 'Let our young men marry at home.' So sensible. One knows where one is then, don't you think?"
Mary agreed that, in such a position, one might know where one was.
"And book writing," said Mrs. Keene, "so fatiguing! So liable to occupy one's attention—to the exclusion of other matters.... The dear professor.... So bound up in the marvels of the human brain!"
"Not brain, mind," corrected Mary gently. "The professor is a psychologist." ”

“ He went outside. It was not so bright now. There were clouds on the moon. One side of the clearing lay wholly in shadow. He waited and, as the light brightened, he saw the thing he sought—trampled bracken, a broken bush.... He followed the trail with a slow certitude of which ordinarily he would have been incapable.... It did not lead very far. The trees thinned abruptly. A rounded moss-covered rock rose up between him and the moon ... and on the rock, grotesque and darkly clear, a crouching figure—looking down....
A curious sound broke from Spence's throat. He stooped and sprang. ”

“ At his usual hour for dictation, Professor Spence had come out upon the narrow veranda. But, although his secretary was there, pencil in hand, he had not dictated. Instead he had sat contemplating Friday so long that his secretary tapped her foot in impatience.
"Are you really lazy?" she asked, "Or are you just pretending to be?"
"I am really lazy. All truly gifted people are. You know what Wilde says, 'Real industry is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.'"
The prompt, "Who is Wilde?" of the secretary did not disconcert him. ”

“ Now you are getting more normal. Life is a thing of infinite adjustment."
"You think I could get 'adjusted' again if I had to?"
"You won't have to. Why discuss it?"
"Because it puzzles me. Why do I mind things more now than I did? I used to feel quite casual about father's oddities. They never seemed to exactly matter. But now," naively, "I would so much like to have a father like other people."
"That is more normal, too."
"I suppose," she went on, as if following her own thoughts, "what Li Ho calls the moon-devil is really a disease. Have you ever told Dr. John about father, Benis? ”

“ The professor decided that it might be advisable to go home.
Desire and Mary noticed his absence at about the same time. And both lost interest in the party with the suddenness of a light blown out.
"Things are moving," thought Mary with a thrill of triumph. But in spite of her triumph she was angry. It is not pleasant to have the power of one's rival so starkly revealed. Malice crept into her faun-like eyes as she looked across to where Desire sat, a composed young figure, listening with apparent interest to the biggest bore in Bainbridge. ”

“ Aunt Caroline, once more mistress of herself rose majestically. "I hope I know an Indian when I see one. I am not blind, I believe. But as there seems to be no question as to the marriage, I have nothing further to say. Another woman in my place might feel justified in voicing a just resentment, but I have made it a rule to expect nothing from any relative, especially if that relative be, even partially, a Spence. When my poor, dear sister married your father I told her what she was doing. And she lived to say, 'Caroline, you were right!' That was my only reward. ”

“ Burton Jones' garden party, the Bainbridge event for which Miss Davis was, presumably, staying over. Mary, in a new frock of sheerest grey and most diaphanous white, and a hat which lay like a breath of mist against the gold of her hair, had come down early. In the course of an observant career, she had learned that, in one respect at least, men are like worms. They are inclined to be early. Mary had often profited by this bit of wisdom, and was glad that so few other women seemed to realize its importance. One can do much with ten or fifteen uninterrupted minutes. ”

“ If thoughts are things (and Professor Spence continues to argue that they are) a mistaken thought is quite as powerful a reality as the other kind. Only let it be conceived with sufficient force and nourished by continual attention and it will grow into a veritable highwayman of the mind—a thievish tyrant of one's mental roads, holding their more legitimate travellers at the stand and deliver.
Desire, usually so clearsighted, ought to have seen that the attentions of Benis to the too-sympathetic Mary were hollow at the core. ”

“ Yesterday morning she had felt no desire to sit in the shallows and throw shells at crabs. Yesterday morning her mind had been full of that happy inconsequence which feels no need of thought. Today was different. Mentally she shook herself with some irritation. "What is the matter with you?" she asked. But the self she addressed seemed oddly reluctant. "Come now," said Desire, hitting an especially big crab, "out with it! There's no use pretending that you don't know." Thus adjured, the self offered one single and sulky word. The word was "Mary." ”

“ Would not another generation see the burial of them all? Was there no new Immortal anywhere?
"When I write a novel," thought the professor solemnly, "which, please God, I shall never do, I will write about people and not about things. Things change always; people never." It was a wise conclusion but it did not help the afternoon to pass.
Desire, that is to say Miss Farr, had passed the window twice already. He might have called her. But he hadn't. If people forget one's very existence it is not prideful to call them. And the Spences are a prideful race. ”

“ I, too, have an insuperable objection to marriage. My—er—disinclination is probably more soundly based than yours, since it is built upon a wider view of life. But I, too, want certain things which marriage might bring. I want a home. Not too homey a home, in the strictly domestic sense (Aunt Caroline is strictly domestic) but a—a congenial home. I want the advice and help of a clever woman together with the sense of permanence and security which, in our imperfect state of civilization, is made possible only by marriage. ”

“ Should he then, ignoring Mary, ascribe his symptoms to their true cause? By dragging out the horror of that moonlit night, he could account for any vagary of nerves. But that way of escape was equally impossible. He could not let that shadow fall across her path of new-found freedom. Nor would he, in any case, gain much by such postponement. The wretched professor began to realize that the devil is indeed the father of lies and that he who sups with him needs a long spoon. ”

“ An axe seemed a likely weapon, so, picking it up, I slid into the bushes at the point where Sami had come out of them.
Perfect serenity was there! The afternoon light lay golden on the moss above the fallen trees. No hidden scurrying in the underbrush told of wild, wood things hastening to safety from some half-sensed danger. No broken branches or trampled earth told of any past or present struggle. There was no trace of any fearsome creature having passed along that peaceful trail.
I searched thoroughly and found nothing. On my way back to the clearing I met Li Ho. ”

“ So very retiring was it that only fair words, aided by tactful displays of tea and tobacco, could penetrate its reservations. Desire was quite unhurried. But presently she began to extract bits of carefully hidden knowledge. It had to be slow work, for, witless as he of the hawk-eye seemed, he was well aware of the value (in tobacco) of a wise conservation. He who babbles all he knows upon first asking is a fool. But he who withholds beyond patience is a fool also. ”

“ Mary saw it—and John. You are acting strangely, Benis. I don't like it, that's flat. Desire is too much with John. And you are too much with Mary. It is not a natural arrangement. And it is largely your fault. It is almost as if you were acting with some purpose. But I'll tell you this—whatever your purpose may be—you have no right to expose your wife to comment."
She had his full attention now. The cigarette haze drifted away.
"Comment?" slowly. "You mean that people—but of course people always do. I hadn't allowed for that. Which shows how impossible it is to think of everything. ”