Part 61

She affects a thousand arts that in her heart she despises, pretends to housewifery that she hates, forces herself to play tunes though she has no gift for music, and chatters glibly of independence when she has none at all.

In making herself "all things to all men," she loses her own individuality, and becomes no more than a harp which any passing hand may strike to quick response. To one man she is a sage, to another an incarnate temptation, to another a sensible, business-like person, to another a frothy bit of frivolity. To one man she is the guardian of his ideals, as Elaine in her high tower kept Launcelot's shield bright for him, to another she is what he very vaguely terms "a good fellow," with a discriminating taste in cigarettes and champagne.

Let Man ask what he will and Woman will give it, praying only that somewhere she will come upon Love. She adapts herself to him as water adapts itself to the shape of the vessel in which it is placed. She dare not assert herself or be herself, lest, in some way, she should lose her tentative grasp upon the counterfeit which largely takes the place of love. If he prefers it, she will expatiate upon her fondness for vaudeville and musical comedy until she herself begins to believe that she likes it. With tears in her eyes and her throat raw, she will choke upon the assertion that she likes the smell of smoke; she will assume passion when his slightest touch makes her shudder and turn cold.

And, most pitiful of all, when blinded by her own senses, she will surrender the last citadel of her womanhood to him who comes a-wooing, undismayed by the weeping women around her whose sacred altars have been profaned and left bare. They may have told her that if it is love, the man will protect her even against himself, but why should she take account of the experience of others? Has not he himself just told her that she is different from all other women? Hugging this sophistry to her breast, and still searching for love, she believes him until the day of realisation dawns upon her--old and broken and bitter-hearted, with scarcely a friend left in the world, and not even the compensating coin thriftily demanded by her sister of the streets.

Under her countless masques and behind her multitudinous phases, lurks the old hunger, the old appeal. Man, too, though more rarely, guessing that the imperishable beauty of the soul is above the fog of sense and not in it, searches hopefully at first, then despairingly, and finally offers the counterfeit to the living Lie who is waiting for it with eager, outstretched hands.

* * * * *

Stirred to the depths by the pity of it, Edith brushed away a tear or two. She was not at all sleepy, but drew the blanket closer around her, for the night grew chill as the earth swept farther and farther away from the sun. The clouds had begun to drift away, and faintly, through the shadow, glimmered one pale star. Gradually, others came out, then a white and ghostly moon, with a veil of cloud about it, grey, yet iridescent, like mother-of-pearl.

Blown far across the seas of space by a swiftly rising wind, the clouds vanished, and all the starry hosts of heaven marched forth, challenging the earth with javelins of light.

"Starbreak," murmured Edith, "up there and in my soul."

The blue rays of the love-star burned low upon the grey horizon, that star towards which the eyes of women yearn and which women's feet are fain to follow, though, like a will-o'-the-wisp, it leads them through strange and difficult places, and into the quicksands.

The body grows slowly, but the soul progresses by leaps and bounds. Through a single hurt or a single joy, the soul of a child may reach man's estate, never to go backward, but always on. And so, through a great love and her own complete comprehension of its meaning, Edith had grown in a night out of herself, into a beautiful fellowship with the whole world.

Strangely uplifted and forever at peace, she rose from her chair. The blanket slipped away from her, and her loosened hair flowed back over her shoulders, catching gleams of starlight as it fell. She stretched out her arms in yearning toward Alden, her husband, Madame--indeed, all the world, having come out of self into service; through the love of one to the love of all.

Then, through the living darkness, came the one clear call: "Mine?"

Unmistakably the answer surged back: "In all the ways of Heaven and for always, I am thine."

XIX

If Love Were All

The last of the packing was done, and four trunks stood in the lower hall, waiting for the expressman. Alden had not seen Edith that day, though he had haunted the house since breakfast, waiting and hoping for even a single word.

She had been too busy to come down to luncheon, and had eaten only a little from the tray Madame sent to her room. She was to take the early train in the morning.

The afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen when she came down, almost as white as her fresh linen gown, but diffusing about her some radiance from within that seemed not wholly of earth. He met her at the foot of the stairs, and took her hand in his.

"Edith! I've been longing for you all day!"

"And I for you," she returned, avoiding his eyes.

"Listen, dear. Give me the rest of it, won't you?"

"The rest of what?"

"The little time you have left with us--this afternoon and to-night."

For a moment she hesitated, then looked him full in the face, her eyes mutely questioning his.

"I won't," he said. "I promise you that."

"Then I'll come."

"Out on the river?"