Robert W. Chambers

“ Valerie West is a law unto herself—a law as sweet and good and excellent and as inflexible as any law made by men to restrain women's liberty, arouse them to unhappy self-consciousness and infect them with suspicion. Every one of you are the terrified slaves of custom, and you know it. Most men like it. I don't. I'm no tea drinker, no cruncher of macaroons, no gabbler at receptions, no top-hatted haunter of weddings, no social graduate of the Ecole Turvydrop. And these places—if I want to find companionship in any girl of your world—must frequent. ”

“ I wish it were possible that your, own world could find me agreeable and desirable—for your sake, my darling, more than for mine. But it never will—never could. There is a wall around your world which I can never scale. And it does not make me unhappy—I only wish you to know that I want to be what you would have me—and if I can't be all that you might wish, I love and adore you none the less—am none the less willing to give you all there is to me—all there is to a girl named Valerie West who finds this life a happy one because you have made it so for her. ”

“ So far there had been but one man supreme in the new world as a great painter of sunlight and of women. There could not be two. And he already felt the approach of a shadow menacing the glory of his sunlight—already stood alert and fixedly observant of a young man who had painted something disquieting into an unfinished canvas.
That man and the young girl whom he had painted to the astonishment and inward disturbance of José Querida, were having no easy time in that new world which they had created for themselves. ”

“ Rita is a good sport," said Neville.
"I hope so. It's an important picture. Really, Kelly, it's great stuff—a still, turquoise-tinted pool among wet rocks; ebb tide; a corking little mermaid caught in a pool left by the receding waves—all tones and subtle values," he declared, waving his arm.
"Don't paint things in the air with your thumb," said Neville, coldly.
"No wonder Rita is nervous."
"Rita is nervous," said Ogilvy, "because she's been on a bat and supped somewhere until the coy and rosy dawn chased her homeward. ”

“ Rita sprang to her feet and began pacing the floor.
"I will not have it so!" she said excitedly, "I will not have it so! If he is a man—a real man—he will not have it so, either. If he will, he does not love you; mark what I say, Valerie—he does not love you enough. No man can love a woman enough to accept that from her; it would be a paradox, I tell you!"
"He loves me enough," said Valerie, very pale. "He could not love me as I care for him; it is not in a man to do it, nor in any human being to love as I love him. You don't understand, Rita. ”

“ And neglect or transfer will cause him neither happiness nor pain.... Both are ended for Querida;—let men exalt him above all, or bury him and his work out of sight—what does he care about it now? He has had all that life held for him, and what another life may promise him no man can know. All reward for labour is here, Rita; and the reward lasts only while the pleasure in labour lasts. Creative work—even if well done—loses its savour when it is finished. Happiness in it ends with the final touch. It is like a dead thing to him who created it; men's praise or blame makes little impression ”

“ Nothing else matters. But to be kind is to be first of all interested in the happiness of others. And you care nothing for people. You must care, Louis!
"And, somehow, you who are, at heart, good and kind and merciful, have not really awakened real love in many of those about you. For one thing your work has absorbed you. But if, at the same time, you could pay a little more attention to human beings—"
"Valerie!" he said in astonishment, "I have plenty of friends. Do you mean to say I care nothing for them?"
"How much do you care, Louis?"
"Why, I—" He fell silent, troubled gaze searching hers. ”

“ And who will care then how Valerie West loved Louis Neville?—or what letters in a forgotten language spelled 'wife' and what letters spelled 'mistress'? After all, I am not afraid of words. Nor do I fear what is in my heart. God reads it as I stand here; and he can see no selfishness in it. So if merely loving you all my life—and proving it—is an evil thing to do, I shall be punished; but I'm going to do it and find out what celestial justice really thinks about it. ”

“ I am too proud—and too merciful to you!"
"I am my own master!" he broke out, angrily—
"I am my own mistress—and incidentally yours," she added in a low voice.
"Valerie!"
"Am I not?" she asked, quietly.
"How can you say such a thing, child!"
"Because it is true—or will be. Won't it?" She lifted her clear eyes to his, unshrinking—deep brown wells of truth untroubled by the shallows of sham and pretence.
His face burned a deep red; she confronted him, slender, calm eyed, composed: "I am not the kind of woman who loves twice. I love you so dearly that I will not marry you. That is settled. ”

“ You know I am devoted to your happiness!—your real happiness—which those blinded eyes in that obstinate head of yours refuse to see. Believe me—believe me, dear, that your real happiness is not in this pretty, strange girl's keeping. No, no, no! You are wrong, Louis—terribly and hopelessly wrong! Because happiness for you lies in the keeping of another woman—a woman of your own world, dear—of your own kind—a gently-bred, lovable, generous girl whom you, deep in your heart and soul, love, unknowingly—have always loved! ”

“ Neville? Valerie, child, I'm perfectly enchanted to see you. But where in the world are you stopping?"
"At Ashuelyn," said the girl, looking straight into Hélène's eyes. A faint flash of telepathy passed between them; then, slowly, Hélène turned and looked at Neville.
"Will you wish us happiness?" he said, smiling.
"Oh-h," whispered Hélène under her breath—"I do—I do—God knows. I wish you everything that makes for happiness in all the world!" ”

“ For the world is sharp-eyed, and its attitude is always alert, ears pricked forward even when its tail wags good-naturedly.
Ogilvy watched her curiously as she took her seat at the tea table.
Then he glanced at Neville; but could not make up his mind.
It would be funny if there was anything between Valerie and Neville—anything more than there ever had been between the girl and dozens of her men friends. For Ogilvy never allowed himself to make any mistake concerning the informality and freedom of Valerie West in her intimacies with men of his kind. ”

“ Suppose you love a man."
"Yes," said Valerie, smiling, "I can imagine that."
"Listen, dear. Suppose you love a man. And you think that perhaps he is beginning—just beginning to care a little for you. And suppose—suppose that you are—have been—long ago—once, very long ago—"
"What?"
"Unwise," said Rita, in a low voice.
"Unwise? How?"
"In the—unwisest way that a girl can be."
"You mean any less unwise than a man might be—probably the very man she is in love with?"
"You know well enough what is thought about a girl's unwisdom and the same unwisdom in a man." ”

“ Annan said: "Personally I don't see how Kelly could paint happiness or sorrow or wonder or fear into any of his creations any more convincingly than he does. And yet—and yet—sometimes we love men for their shortcomings—for the sincerity of their blunders—for the fallible humanity in them. That after all is where love starts. The rest—what Kelly shows us—evokes wonder, delight, awe, enthusiasm.... If he could only make us love him—"
"I love him!" said Burleson.
"We all are inclined to—if we could get near enough to him," said Annan with a faint smile. ”

“ She was obliged to force herself to recollect that this girl was a model hired to pose for men—paid to expose her young, unclothed limbs and body! Yet—could it be possible! Was this the girl hailed as a comrade by the irrepressible Ogilvy and Annan—the heroine of a score of unconventional and careless gaieties recounted by them? Was this the coquette who, it was rumoured, had flung over Querida, snapped her white fingers at Penrhyn Cardemon, and laughed disrespectfully at a dozen respected pillars of society, who appeared to be willing to support her in addition to the entire social structure? ”

“ He stirred in his chair, and his sombre gaze rested on the floor at her feet.
"What are we to do?" he said dully.
Rita shook her head:
"I don't know. I am not instructing you, Kelly, only recalling to your mind what you already know; what all men know, and find so convenient to forget. Love is not excuse enough; the peril is unequally divided. The chances are uneven; the odds are unfair. If a man really loves a woman, how can he hazard her in a game of chance that is not square? How can he let her offer more than he has at stake—even if she is willing? ”

“ Yes, he does. And you are no better than other men, Louis—not exempt from their vanities and cunning little weaknesses. Are you?
"Well, then, as you admit that you are thoroughly masculine, I'll admit that deep in a corner of my heart I've wished for you a hundred times. The moon suggests Querida; but about everything suggests you. Now are you flattered?
"Anyway, I do want you. I like you, Louis! I like you, Mr. Neville! And oh, Kelly, I worship you, without sentiment or any nonsense in reserve. You are life, you are happiness, you are gaiety, you are inspiration, you are contentment. ”

“ Love grew as the winter sped glittering toward the far primrose dawn of spring; work filled their days; evening brought the happiness of a reunion eternally charming in its surprises, its endless novelty. New, forever new, love seemed; and youth, too, seemed immortal.
On various occasions when Valerie chanced to be at his studio, pouring tea for him, friends of his sister came unannounced—agreeable women more or less fashionable, who pleaded his sister's sanction of an unceremonious call to see the great painted frieze before it was sent to the Court House. ”

“ We can't love a man who has never endured what we have," said another. "No genius can hide his own immunity. That man paints with an unscarred soul. A little hell for his—and no living painter could stand beside him."
"Piffle," observed John Burleson.
Ogilvy said: "It is true, I think, that out of human suffering a quality is distilled which affects everything one does. Those who have known sorrow can best depict it—not perhaps most plausibly, but most convincingly—and with fewer accessories, more reticence, and—better taste."
"Why do you want to paint tragedies?" demanded Burleson. ”

“ Valerie said laughingly to Rita: "They'll never grow up, these two—" nodding her head toward Ogilvy and Annan. And to Neville carelessly—too carelessly: "Will you have a little more tea, Kelly dear?"
Her attitude was amiable and composed; her voice clear and unembarrassed. There may have been a trifle more colour in her cheeks; but what preoccupied Rita was in her eyes—a fleeting glimpse of something that suddenly concentrated all of Rita's attention upon the girl across the table. ”

“ For me—your Byzantine canvas—there is in it something not intimate—"
"Austere?"
"Yes—even in those divine and lovely throngs. There is, perhaps, an aloofness—even a self-denial—" He laughed again: "I deny myself nothing—on canvas—even I have the audacity to try to draw as you do!"
Neville sat thinking, watching the landscape speed away on either side in a running riot of green.
"Self-denial—too much of it—separates you from your kind," said Querida. "The solitary fasters are never personally pleasant; hermits are the world's public admiration and private abomination. ”

“ For she never pictured herself as standing still to await the man she loved.
When Hélène left, Valerie had the place to herself; and, without any disloyalty to the little countess, she experienced a new pleasure in the liberty of an indolence which exacted nothing of her.
She prowled around the library, luxuriously, dipping into inviting volumes; she strolled at hazard from veranda to garden, from garden to lawn, from lawn to farmyard.
About luncheon time she arrived at the house with her arms full of scented peonies, and spent a long while selecting the receptacles for them. ”

“ I'm afraid that I am not destined to be entirely easy for you, dear, even with love as the only tie with which to bind you. The arbitrary laws of a false civilisation are going to impose on you what you think are duties and obligations to me and to yourself—until I explain them away. You must come to me in your perplexity, Louis, and give me a chance to remind you of the basic and proven proposition that a girl is born into this world as free as any man, and as responsible to herself and to others ”

“ She looked up quietly, and her eyes met Lily's:
"I promise not to marry him," she said. "You are perfectly right. He belongs to his own family; he belongs in his own world."
She looked down again at her sewing with a faint smile:
"I shall not attempt to enter that world as his wife, Mrs. Collis, or to draw him out of it.... And I hope that you will not be anxious any more."
She laid aside her work and rose to her slender height, smilingly, as though the elder woman had terminated the interview; and Lily, utterly confounded, rose, too, as Valerie offered her hand in adieu. ”