William John Locke

“ Even if a marriage between them had not been too ludicrous for contemplation, it would not have been fair towards her cousin Morland to encourage this intrigue. She vowed she had been a little fool to meddle with such gunpowdery matters. And yet she had acted in all innocence for Jimmie's sake. It was right for Norma to be friends with him again. It was monstrous he should suffer. If he could not marry the woman he loved, at least he could have the happiness of knowing himself no longer a blackened wretch in her eyes. But then, Norma had taken it into her head to love him too. ”

“ Such episodes in life cannot be measured by time as it is reckoned in the physical universe. To Jimmie, standing amid the chaos of his dreams, indefinite hours seemed to have passed since he had spoken. For indefinite hours he seemed to grope towards reconstruction. He lived intensely in the soul's realm, where time is not, was swept through infinite phases of emotion; finally awoke to a consciousness of renunciation, full and generous. Perhaps a minute and a half had elapsed. He crossed swiftly to Morland and clapped him on the shoulder. ”

“ Connie Deering had never heard a man speak in agony of spirit. Her lot had fallen among pleasant places, where life was a smooth, shaven lawn and emotions not more violent than the ripples on a piece of ornamental water. His tone gave her a sudden fright.
“You do love her, then?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said Jimmie, drawing himself up in a tight, awkward heap on the slope. “My God, yes, I do love her. I love her with every fibre of brain and body.” ”

“ The abandonment of Jimmie by Aline had been the subject of the last half-hour's discussion between the lovers. The thought of Jimmie alone and helpless appalled her. She was a horrid selfish wretch, she had informed Tony, for listening to a word he said. How could Jimmie live by himself? She shuddered at the dismal chaos of the studio, the gaping holes in his socks, the impossible meals, the fleecing of him by every plausible beggar in frock coat or rags, the empty treasury. He needed more care than a baby. ”

“ She was happy in Morland's love for her. She had not identified with herself the imaginary woman of his adoration. She had not drunk in the outpouring of his passion. Her breath had not fallen warm upon his cheek. And the quickening of a wonderful birth had no reference to emotions and cravings quite different, intangible, inexpressible, existent in a far-away spirit land.
He was strangely silent during their homeward journey in the omnibus and the simple evening meal, and Aline, sensitive to his mood, choked down the eager questions that rose to her lips. ”

“ The scrag end of boiled mutton and the rind of cheese had also affected her, stirred her pity for the poor optimist, although in a revulsion of feeling she had shivered at his lot. She had closed her eyes for a second, and some impish wizardry of the brain had conjured up a picture of herself sitting down to such a meal, with Jimmie at the other side of the table. It was horrible. She had turned to fill her soul with the solid magnificence about her. The pity for Jimmie lingered, however, as a soothing sensation, and she welcomed the opportunity of playing Lady Bountiful. ”

“ Every woman has a Holy Ghost of sorts within her.
Norma did not write to Morland. She dreaded renewal of relations, and yet she had not the courage to cut him finally adrift. The thought of withered spinsterhood beneath her father's roof was a dismaying vision. Marriage was as essential as ever to the scheme of her future. Why not with Morland? Her mother's words, though spoken as with the tongues of asps, were those of wisdom.
All that she could bring to a husband was her beauty, her superb presence, her air of royalty. ”

“ Certain men who dress well are quick, like women, to notice these things. Morland's keen glance took in the discoloured brown boots and the frayed hem of trousers, the weather stains on the old tweed suit, the greasiness of the red tie, the irregular mark of perspiration on the band of the old Homburg hat. An impulse to spring out of the carriage and greet him was struggling with sheer shame, when Jimmie suddenly threw up his head—an old trick of his whose familiarity brought a pang to the man watching him—and crossed the road, disappearing among the traffic behind the brougham. ”

“ But pride and loyalty to Morland restrained her within bounds of sanity. She assented to his proposition with a gesture of the shapely hand that lay on the tea-table absently tracing the pattern of the cloth.
“Yes, I have that. But it isn't the fairyland of those two children. You yourself say there is nothing like it in the world. You don't know how I pine for it sometimes—for the things that are sweet and clean and untainted and pure as a mountain spring. They don't come my way. They never will.”
“You are wrong,” said Jimmie. ”

“ She had given a passionate heart for good and all to the handsome young fellow who had refused to bow the knee to the man whom he had every reason to consider a blackguard. They had come together, youth to youth, as naturally as two young birds in the first mating-season; but, fortunately or unfortunately for Aline, she was not a bird, but a human being of unalterable affections and indomitable character. She had the glorious faith, quia incredibile, in Jimmie, and rather than swerve aside from it she would have walked on knife edges all the rest of her days. ”

“ A man is allowed but a breath, a moisture, that makes the eyes bright. Morland had said the final word of sentiment; equally, utterly true of himself. Morland was equally a part of his life. It were folly to discuss the reasons. Loyal friendships between men are often the divinest of paradoxes.
The touch upon Jimmie's heart was magnetic. It soothed pain. It set free a flood of generous emotion, even thanksgiving that he was thus allowed vicarious joy in infinite perfections. It was vouchsafed him to be happy in the happiness of two dear to him. ”

“ Jimmie, talking with picturesque fancy about his student days in the Rue Bonaparte to his neighbour, a frank fox-hunting and sport-loving young woman, never dreamed of the chaos of thoughts and feelings that whirled behind the proud face on the opposite side of the table; and Norma, when her mind now and then worked lucidly, wondered at the strength and sweetness of the man who could subdue such passion and laugh with a gaiety so honest and sincere. ”

“ The fact of his easy inclusion in the charmed circle cast a glamour over the crudities of the gala costume designed and furbished up with so much anxious thought by Aline, and people (who are kindly as a rule when their attention is diverted from the trivial) looked only at his face and were attracted to the man himself. Only Lady FitzHubert, who had private reasons for frigidity, treated him in an unbecoming manner. Other fair ladies smiled sweetly upon him, and spread abroad tales of his niceness, and thus helped in the launching of him as a fashionable portrait-painter upon the gay world. ”

“ Norma sat by the window again. The red September sun was setting, and bathed downs and trees in warm light, and glinted on the spire of a little village church a mile away. Everything it touched was at peace, save the bowed head of the girl, clasped with white fingers which still retained the dull brown marks of blood. Could she believe the revolting story? A woman so driven to desperation must have been cruelly handled. Her sex rose up against the destroyer. Her social training had caused her to regard with cynical indifference ordinary breaches of what is popularly termed the moral law. ”

“ Thus the happiness of each pair of lovers caught a reflection from that of the other, and its colour was rendered ever so little fictitious, unreal. The light of spring sunrise, exquisite though it is, invests things with a glamour which the light of noon dispels. The spectacle of the young romance unfolding itself before the eyes of Jimmie and Norma completed their delicious sense of the idyllic ”

“ A circle of comfortable chairs reserved by the host, invited the contented diner to languorous ease and restful gossip. It was the part of a Carlton dinner that Connie usually enjoyed the most. She still took her pleasures whole-heartedly, wherein lay much of her charm. The world, as Jimmie once told her, had not rubbed the dust off her wings. But to-night the sweet after-dinner hour was filled with fears and agitations, and while the party was settling down, she begged release from her host on the score of headache, and made her escape. ”

“ One has to be the poor artist, with his youth—one record of desperate endeavour—behind him, to know what these things mean. The delicate flattery of strange women, however commonplace or contemptible it may be to the successful, was a new, rare thing to Jimmie and appeased an unknown hunger. The prospect of good work done and delivered to the world, without sordid, heart-breaking bargainings, shimmered before him like a paradise. Old habit made him long for Aline. ”

“ Don't despise the one and waste the other. Get all the beauty you can out of life and you'll shed it on other people. You'll shed it on me. That's why I want you to marry as soon as ever you are ready. You'll let me come and look at you sometimes, and if you are happy together, as God grant you will be, that will be my great happiness—the greatest I think that earth has in store for me. I have stood between you long enough—all that is over. I shall miss my little girl, Tony. I should be an inhuman monster if I didn't. ”