Claire Part 13

"Unfortunately"--Philip turned to Claire--"a bachelor's storehouse contains no treat for a lady. Your visit was unexpected."

"I shall gain my pleasure through watching you two sink back into a beloved vice," she answered.

"Horrible!" Lawrence sat down, and took the cigarette which Philip produced. "To enjoy seeing one succ.u.mb to vice."

"Isn't it characteristic of scandal-loving humanity?" she rejoined.

"And on Christmas Day!" Philip chided her lightly. Then he went on, seriously: "But one should really be above all things save love and grat.i.tude to G.o.d on this day."

"I suppose so," said Lawrence, "but it's difficult to determine just where this object of grat.i.tude abides and what He is."

"Is it necessary to locate Him?" asked Claire.

Lawrence breathed deeply with the satisfaction in his cigarette. "I should hate to direct my grat.i.tude toward some one who missed it, and thus have it lost in desert s.p.a.ce," he answered.

"It isn't that we need G.o.d so much as it is simply the good we gain ourselves," said Philip slowly. "I still follow the old trail for my own heart's sake."

"And does it get you anywhere?" Lawrence's question was characteristic.

"Yes, I think so. I find myself nearer to the source of that which is worth while."

"What is worth while?" Claire asked.

The answers she obtained were the two men revealed.

"The fullest life possible for me," said Lawrence.

"The fullest heart possible for me," followed Philip.

"But you both mean the same thing, don't you?" asked Claire.

"I mean the fullest number of my own desires gratified," Lawrence avowed.

Philip leaned back in his chair and looked at Claire, meditatively.

"If he did as he says, we should have to lock him up," he observed.

They all laughed.

"Not at all." Lawrence was amiably argumentative. "To be sure, if my desires were gratified at your expense, as this smoke, for example"--he laughed--"and on an all-inclusive scale, you might have to resort to personal violence. But, in fact, many of my desires would bring you joy in their gratification, you know."

"I do know," said Philip cordially, "but the danger in your point of view is that it allows for no check. You would sacrifice both of us if it were necessary to gratify your desires--that is, if you lived true to your a.s.sertion."

"Perhaps I would. I don't know. There is the weak point in my whole scheme. I evade it by failing to sacrifice you, but I support my theory by saying there is no occasion to do so."

"I don't like your principles," Philip rejoined, "though I admit that my own fail me more often than not."

"Exactly. We humans do fail, and the conclusion to which it brings me is, why hold principles that you find unworkable? I prefer a standard to which I can at least be true, in the main, and avoid self-condemnation, p.r.i.c.ks of conscience, and other little inconveniences."

"Such as a sense of duty?" interrupted Claire.

"That above all, Claire," he laughed.

"And obligation?"

"Yes, that too, if you mean a sense of being bound to one because of something he has done in the past. For instance, I am obliged to Philip for his food, his house, my life, and this cigarette, but I scarcely feel that that would imply that I must sacrifice my greatest desire in life as payment if necessary. Of course, it isn't necessary, but if it were, I should refuse."

"I think you would not," a.s.serted Philip.

"I know I would. I rather believe you would also, though it might be that you would not."

"I would sacrifice anything to pay a debt of grat.i.tude." Philip spoke warmly.

"You would--perhaps--but in so doing would you not feel that grat.i.tude was the thing of supreme worth to yourself?"

"Not necessarily. I might even suffer all my life for having done so."

"Impossible. You would either redeem your sense of life's value by a new belief, or you would die."

"Then you think a man can do as he pleases and maintain his self-respect, his personal integrity?"

"He will find some way to make himself feel worth while, or he will cease to be."

"You think that a criminal, or perhaps better, a person abandoned to vice, feels justified?"

"Yes. He creates a belief by which his abandonment is not destructive to himself, or he is converted, which is simply a convulsion of nature for the same end, to preserve his life and make it seem valuable to him."

"Could you, for instance, murder a man, and do it believing that afterward you would somehow make it seem right, or at least so necessary that you would feel as self-respecting and sin-free as before?" Philip was speaking earnestly.

"I should not do so unless I were forced to it, but if I were, I know that I would somehow reconstruct my mental life so that I would still feel existence worth the price."

Claire leaned forward. "Lawrence," she said jestingly, "you have swept away the bulwark of the home, made infidelity easy, and numberless separated families inevitable with your bold, bad talk. Aren't you sorry for all those tragedies?"

He laughed. "Very," he said, "though it was watching such proceedings take place so frequently that led me to accept my theory. Think of the men and women who are unfaithful, who leave their wedded partner for another, and still find life worth while."

"But that is their failure to live true to their principles," said Philip. "It is commonly called sin, my friend."

"It may be, according to their light, but they generally get a new light afterward. You see, I do not believe that G.o.d joins men and women. I am persuaded that a very natural physical desire does so, and it doesn't follow that the first is the only or best union."

"My husband would simply dread me if I held your view, and I should feel very wary if I were your wife, Lawrence," remarked Claire.

That was the central point in the whole discussion, though none of them were aware of it. Vaguely they felt that they were groping their way toward the future, but they did not allow the feeling to reach a conscious state, and Philip laughingly broke up the talk.

"Here we are," he said, yawning, "the fire is making us all sleepy, we're talking foolishness, and we need exercise. Why not get it? I think we might all of us go out and face the wind for a quarter of an hour, then let it blow us back to camp like three children. I have the skis for us all."

"Great!" Claire clapped her hands in applause.

"It's a splendid idea," agreed Lawrence, and they set forth.