"Then it is this man. You love him, you've ceased to care for me, and you ask me to barter my right to kiss you, to take you in my arms, so that I may remain your friend." "Why, Evelyn, have you got tired of me?"

"But I have not got tired of you, Owen. I am very fond of you."

"Yes, but you don't care any more for me to make love to you."

"Of course it is not the same as it was in the beginning, but there is affection."

"When pa.s.sion is dead, all is dead, the rest is nothing."

It seemed so shameful that he should suffer like this, and she strove to rouse herself out of her stony determination. She was like one upon a rampart; she could see the surrounding country, but could not escape to it; this rampart was the instinct, in which Nature had shut her soul.

But she could not bear to see him cry.

"Oh, Evelyn, this cannot be."

Then, feeling that the reality was too brutal, she yielded to the temptation to disguise the truth.

"I don't know what I shall do, Owen; there would be no use making promises."

"Then you do love me a little, Evelyn?"

"Yes, Owen, you must never doubt that. I shall always be fond of you; remember that, whatever happens."

"Yes, I know, as a friend. Look round! the earth and the sky are quiet, and one day we shall be quiet too, only that is sure."

As they walked towards the house, their self-consciousness rose to so high a pitch that the park and house seemed to them like a thin illusion, a sort of painted paper reality, which might fall to pieces at any moment. He thought how little were the hours between the present moment and the moment when she would be taken from him. Whereas she was thinking that these hours would never pa.s.s. She realised the long hours before the sunlight waned. She thought of their lonely dinner and their evening after it. All that while she would witness his grief for the love that had gone from her, a love which she could no more give than she could once withhold. The great green park lay before their eyes, they strayed through the woods talking of her Isolde. He had not seen the performance. He had been called away the day she played it, but his pockets were full of the articles that had been written about her. The leaves of the beech trees shimmered in the steady sunlight, and they could see the green park through the drooping branches. She often detected a sob in his voice, and once, while sitting under a cedar tree at the edge of the terrace, he had to turn aside to hide his tears, and the sadness of everything made her sick and ill.

They had tea in the west hall. Owen had ceased to complain, and she had begun to think that she could not give him up entirely.

The day had pa.s.sed somehow; dinner was over. Around the green park the last light of the sunset grew narrower, and the cattle faded mysteriously into the gathering gloom. Owen held converse with himself, but with recognition of the fact that he was listened to by the second subject of his discourse, and that they themselves were his ideas, the figuration of his teaching, endowed his philosophy with a dramatic intensity.

"How you used to hang round my neck and listen with eager nervous eyes.

You always had the genius of exaltation. You were wonderful; I watched you, I understood you, I appreciated you; you were a marvellous jewel I had found, and of which I was excessively proud. I hardly lived at all for myself. You were my life; my life lived in you. Every time I went to see you, every appointment was a thrill, a wonder, a mystery. But it was not until you took me back after that separation at Florence that I sank into the depths of love. Then I became like a diver in the deep sea.

What I had known before were but the shallows of pa.s.sion. What I felt after Florence was the translucid calm of the ocean's depth. I lived in the light of an inner consciousness, seeing you always, your face always before me, and my whole being held in a rapt devotion, a self-sufficiency, an exaltation beyond the reach of words. Oh, Evelyn, I have been extraordinarily in love. But all this is nothing to you; it even bores you."

"No, Owen, no, but you don't understand."

The desire to tell him the truth came up in her throat, but the moment she sought to express it in words it became untruth, and it was to save herself from falsehood that she remained silent.

"I knew my mistake, but the temptation was irresistible. I wanted so to tell you that I loved you. I could not deny myself, effusion, tears, aspiration. I gained two very wonderful years, and so I lost you. I wonder if any lover would have the courage to forswear these joys so that he might retain his mistress? Would any mistress be worthy of the sacrifice? 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"

"Owen, dear, you're very cruel. Why do you speak like that? I shall never cease to love you. Owen, dear, you don't hate me?" she said, turning towards him.

The silence was intense. It seemed to enter her ears and eyes like water or fire, and with dim sight and a dissolution of personal control of her body, she was moved towards him, and without any sort of thrill of desire she was drawn, almost thrown at his feet.

She accepted his kisses wearily. There was a strange look in her eyes which he could not interpret, and she could not confide her secret, and there was an inexpressible sadness in these last kisses, and Owen's heart seemed to stand still when he said,--

"Her last wish was our marriage; she would be glad if she could see us."

Evelyn hid her face on his shoulders several times. He thought she was weeping, but her eyes remained dry. He came to her room that evening, and now that they were lovers again, it seemed to him impossible that she could refuse to marry him. But she stood looking at him, absorbed, in the presence of her future life, her eyes full of a strange farewell.

He could extort no words from her, and her eyes retained their strange melancholy till her departure; his last memory of her visit was their melancholy.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The forces within her were at truce. She was conscious of a suspension of hostilities. The moment was one in which she saw, as in a mirror, her poor, vague little soul in its hopeless wandering through life. She drew back, not daring to see herself, and then was drawn forward by a febrile curiosity. She felt towards them so differently that she could not think of herself as the same person when she was with Owen as she was when she was with Ulick. She remembered what she had heard the "dresser" say, and she remembered the sin. But apart from the deception she practised upon both men, there was the wrong-doing. Her conscience did not a.s.sail her now; but she knew that she would suffer to-morrow or next day. That sense of sin which she could not obliterate from her nature would rise to her lips like a salt wave, and poison her life with its bitterness, and she asked herself vain questions: Why had she left her father? Why had she two lovers? Why did she rise to seek things that made her unhappy? She thought of yesterday's journey to see a dying woman, and of to-night's performance of "Tristan and Isolde." What an unhappy, maddening jingle. The bitter wave of conscience, which rose to her lips and poisoned her taste, forced from her an avowal that she would mend her life. She foresaw nothing but deception, and easily imagined that not a day would pa.s.s without lies. All her life would be a lie, and when her nature rose in vehement revolt, she looked round for means to free herself from the fetters and chains in which she had locked herself.

Thinking of Owen, she vowed that it must not happen again. But what excuse would she give? Should she tell him that Ulick was her lover?

That was the only way, only it seemed so brutal. Even so she would have a lover; and strictly speaking, she ought to send them both away. Very probably that is what she would do in the end.... In the meantime, she would keep them both on! Her face contracted in an expression of terror and disgust. Had her moralising, then, ended in such miserable selfishness as this?

To escape from her thoughts she looked out at the landscape, hoping it would distract her. But she could take no interest in it. Yesterday it had seemed so beautiful, but to-day it was all reversed, and the light was different. She preferred to remember it. She thought that they must be nearing the river, and she remembered how in one place it ran round a field, making a silver horse shoe in the green land, they had crossed it twice in the s.p.a.ce of a quarter of a mile; then it followed the railway, placid, docile, reflecting the trees and sky. Then like a child it was soon taken with a new idea; it ran far away out of sight, and Evelyn thought it would never return. But it came back again, turbulent and shallow; and with woods on the steep hillside, and spanned by a beautiful stone bridge. A little later its wanderings grew still more perplexing, and she was not sure that it had not been joined in some strange way by another river. But flowing round a low-lying field, coming suddenly from behind a bend in the land, it had seemed in that place like a pond. One bank was lined with bushes, the other lay open to a view of a treeless plain divided by ditches. Three ladies had held their light boat in the deep current, and she had wondered who they were, and what was their manner of living and their desires, and though she would never know these things, the image of these ladies in their boat had fixed itself in her mind for ever.

Soon after the train began to slacken speed, and nervously she awaited her destiny.

For she was uncertain whether she would send Ulick a telegram, telling him to come to Park Lane, or whether she would drive straight to his lodgings. At the bottom of her heart she knew that when she arrived at St. Pancras she would tell the cabman, "Queen's Square, Bloomsbury." And an hour later, nervous with expectation, she sat in the cab, seeing the streets pa.s.s behind her. She was beginning to know the characteristics of the neighbourhood, and in the afternoon light they awoke her out of a trembling lethargy. She recognised the old iron gateway, the open s.p.a.ce, the thirsty fountain and the troop of neglected children. She liked the forlorn and rusty square. She experienced a sort of sinking anguish while waiting on the doorstep, lest he might not be at home. But when the servant girl said Mr. Dean was upstairs, she liked her dirty, good-natured smile, and she loved the stairs and banisters--it was all wonderful, and she could hardly believe that in a few moments more she would catch the first sight of his face. She would have to tell some part of the truth; and since Lady Asher was dead, he could not fail to believe. He would never think of asking her--she put the ugly thought aside, and ran up the second flight.

In the pauses of their love-making, they often wandered round the walls partic.i.p.ating in the mystery of the Wanderers, and the sempiternal loveliness of figures who stood with raised arms, by the streams of Paradise. It seemed a profanation to turn from these aspirations to the enjoyment of material love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly.

But he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to aspire. In an Indian temple, it had once been asked who was the most holy man of all.

A young saint who had not eaten for ten days had been pointed out, but he said that the holiest man who ever lived stood yonder. It was then noticed that the man pointed to was drunk ... Ulick explained that the drunkenness did not matter; it was an unimportant detail in the man's life, for none aspired as he did; and laughing at the story, they stood by the dusty, windy pane, her hand resting on his shoulder, and they always remembered that that day they had seen the foliage in the square.

Lady Duckle had gone to Homburg; Owen had been obliged to go to Bath on account of his gout; and Evelyn was free to abandon herself to her love of Ulick and to her love of her father, and she begged him not to spoil her happiness, but to come to Dulwich with her. His scruples were easily argued away. She urged that he had not taken her away, he had brought her back to her father. This last argument was convincing, and the happiest time in their lives was the week they spent in Dulwich. They sat down together to dinner under the lamp at the round table in the little back room, and their evenings were pa.s.sed at the harpsichord and the clavichord; and amid the dreams and aspirations of great men they attained their sublime nature. The music that had been given and that was to be given at St. Joseph's furnished a never-failing subject of discussion, and Mr. Innes told them stories of Italy in the sixteenth century. How almost every Sunday there was a festival in some church where the most beautiful music was heard. Along the nave were eight choirs, four on one side and four on the other, raised on stages eight to ten feet high, and facing one another at equal distances. Each choir had a portable organ, and the _maitre composateur_ beat the time for the princ.i.p.al choir. And Mr. Innes's eyes lighted up when he spoke of the admirable _style recitatif_ in the oratory of St. Marcellus when there was a congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Crucifix. This order was composed of the chief n.o.blemen of Rome, who had therefore the power of bringing together the rarest musicians Italy could produce. The voices began with a psalm in motet form, and then the instruments played a symphony, after which the voices sang a story from the Old Testament.

Each chorister represented a personage in the story, etc. He spoke of the great organist at St. Peter's, and the wonderful inventions he is said to have displayed in his improvisations. No one since had played the harp like the renowned Horatio, but there was no one who could play the lyre like the renowned Ferrabosco in England. Evelyn leaned across the table, transported three centuries back, hearing all this music, which she had known from her earliest years, performed by virtue of her father's description in Italy, in St. Peter's, in the oratory of St.

Marcellus and in the church of Minerva. Sometimes her father and Ulick began an argument, her sympathies alternated between them; she spoke very little, preferring to listen, not liking to side with either, agreeing with them, sometimes angering her father by her neutrality. But one evening he was a little too insistent, and Evelyn burst into tears, and ran upstairs to her room. The two men looked at each other, and Mr.

Innes begged Ulick to tell him if he had been unkind, and then besought him to go upstairs and try to induce Evelyn to come down. Her face brightened into merry laughter at her own folly, and it called from her many entertaining remarks, so Ulick was tempted to set them one against the other, and to do so he had only to ask if Evelyn could sing such light soprano parts as Zerlina or Rosetta as well as her mother.

In the mornings Evelyn and Ulick lingered in the shade of the chestnut trees or loitered in the lanes. At one moment they were telling each other of the fatality of their pa.s.sion; in the next, by some transition of which they were not aware, they found themselves discussing some musical question. They went for long drives; and Richmond Park, not more than eight or ten miles distant, was at this season a beautiful, plaintive languor. There was a strange stillness in the air and a tender bloom upon the blue sky which spoke to the heart as no words, as only music could. The shadows moved listlessly among the bracken, and every vista was an enticement. Soft rain had allayed the dust of the road, and the distant hillsides seemed in the morning mists extraordinarily blue and romantic. There were wide prospects suggesting some great domain, and about the large oaks which stood in these open s.p.a.ces herds of deer browsed, themselves the colour of the approaching month. About a sudden hillside, brilliantly blue, the evanescent mist hung over the heavy fronds, going out in the sunlight that was breaking through a grey sky.

Ulick exclaimed, "How beautiful," and at the same moment Evelyn said, "Look at the deer, they are going to jump the railings." But the deer ran underneath, and galloped down the sloping park between a line of ma.s.sive oaks; and the white and the tan hinds and fawns expressed in their life and beauty something which thrilled in the heart, and perforce Evelyn and Ulick remained silent. The park was wreathed that morning in sunlight and mist, it seemed to invite confidences, and the lovers dreamed of a perfect union of soul. The carriage was told to wait for them, and they took a path leading under a long line of trees toward high ground. Carts had pa.s.sed there, and the ruts were full of water, but the earth about them was a little crisp, as if there had been frost during the night. They had brought with them a score of "Parsifal," for it was not yet certain that Evelyn would not play the part of Kundry.

Notwithstanding Ulick's criticism, she thought she would like to act in the third act. But they were too interested in each other to open the score, and they were excited by the wonder of Nature in the still morning. The sky was all silver, and a very little distance bathed the hillsides in beautiful blue tones. The leaves of the oak trees hung languidly, as if considering the lowly earth to which they must soon return. Yet the blood was hot and the nerves were highly strung, and life seemed capable of great things in this moody, contemplative morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park, with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment as the first man and woman.

The morning seemed to inspire adventure, and the little tale that Evelyn was telling was just what was required to enhance its suggestion. By some accident in the conversation she had been led to speak of how she had been nearly captured by pirates in the Mediterranean. They were becalmed off the African coast, and a boat had rowed out with fruits and vegetables. The suspicious countenances of this boat's crew did not strike them at the time. But they were a reconnoitring party, and next day about four in the afternoon they noticed a vessel propelled by sails and oars steering straight for them, as if in the intention of running them down. It paid no attention to the cries of the captain, but came straight at them, and would have succeeded in its design if the yacht had not been going through the water faster than the pirates supposed, so they fell astern, and no one thought any more of them till they tacked, and they had almost overtaken the yacht, they were hardly distant more than fifty yards, when their intention was suspected. The captain put the _Medusa's_ head up to the wind, and she soon began to leave her pursuer behind.

"We had no arms on board, they were fifty to twenty; the men would have been ma.s.sacred, and I should have finished my days in a harem."

Ulick had brought his violin with him, and they walked under the drooping boughs, she singing and he playing old-world melodies by Lulli and Rameau. Sometimes a pa.s.ser-by stopped, and peering through, discovered them in a hollow sitting under an oak. A snake crawled out of its hole, and Ulick was about to rush forward to kill it, but Evelyn laid her hand upon his, and said--

"Let it listen, poor thing. No living thing should meet its death for its love of music."

"You're no longer the Evelyn Innes that loved Owen Asher."

"I think I have changed a great deal. I was very young when I knew him first."

She spoke of the influence he had exercised over her, but now his ideas meant as little as he did himself--it was all far away. Only a little trick of speech and a turn of phrase remained to recall his pa.s.sage through her life. When they returned home she found a letter from him on the table, and her face clouded as she read his letter, for it announced an intention to call when he came to town, and to avoid his visit she thought she would stop in Dulwich. But if she stayed over Sat.u.r.day, she would have to go to Ma.s.s on Sunday. Last Sunday she escaped by pleading indisposition. She wondered which she would prefer, to face Owen or to brave the effect that she knew Ma.s.s would produce upon her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX