Rest Harrow: A Comedy of Resolution Part 28

"You have been to church, I see. But you are not a Christian?" He did not look at her.

Nor did she turn her head to reply. "I don't know. Nominally, at least; fitfully, at the most."

"That must be the outside of it," he continued. "The thing is the ant.i.thesis of the h.e.l.lenic ideal--which is yours. Your seemingly pa.s.sive martyr is really in an ecstasy. He aims at outraging Nature; begins by despising and ends by dreading it. Nature, however, has ways of revenging herself."

"Yes, indeed," said Sanchia soberly.

They walked on together, she by this time very much absorbed. She was not conscious of the shifting crowd, the lifting of hats, the chatter, the yapping dogs that ran in and out of women's skirts.

Presently he spoke again. "You believe that you failed?"

Her voice came low. "I know that I failed."

Then he looked at her, and spoke with vehemence. "And what is that to you?

What is, failure in such a cause, to such as you?" But she could not meet his face, kept hers rigidly to the front.

"The cause," Morosine told her, "is everything, the aim, the loyalty, the great surrender. Beside this failure is nothing at all. Do you say that the sapling fails that springs out of a cleft rock and towers--seeking, as we all seek, the sun, the light in heaven? A gale gathers it up and tears it out: over it goes, and lies shattered. Is that failure? How can it be when nothing dies?"

Sanchia, very pale, turned her face to his at last. Her mouth was drawn down at the corners, to the tragic droop. She almost whispered the words, "Something did die."

His intuition worked like a woman's, in flashes. He knew immediately what she meant.

"I know, I know," he said. "You were mistaken. But you never faltered. You followed a call."

"You tell me," she said, "that there was none."

"I do."

"But," she argued, "that with which I began failed me. I was entirely certain, at the time; I could not possibly have hesitated. And then--it died." Her eyes loomed large. "It is quite dead now, and I feel that I have betrayed myself--broken faith with myself."

He shook his head. "You could not break faith; you are the soul of truth."

This praise she accepted. "I don't tell lies, I hope--and I don't shirk things. But you see that I can stultify my own acts. I believed, and acted on my belief; and then I ceased to believe, and acted on that. I cannot trust myself--I ought to be ashamed to say so, and I hope I am."

Morosine met her eyes again, and held them. "I can never believe that you would fail. I tell you that you have not failed. It is that you have been failed. You cannot give if what you give is not taken. Failed--you! Ah, no, you have succeeded, I think."

She bent her brows as she faced resolutely forward. "I must take the consequences of what I have done. I see that."

"Ah," said Morosine, "that is a question of courage. Courage you have."

"I need it," she said in a hush, and stopped dead. Ingram stood before her, and took off his hat.

"Well, Sanchia," he said, "here I am."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Well, Sanchia," he said. "Here I am."]

VIII

The scattered party was suddenly strung to tensity; Morosine drew himself up, stiff as steel, but stood his ground. Here was the man he had waited for, who was necessary to him. Lady Maria, blinking her little black eyes, Melusine, with hers in a blur of mist, Gerald Scales, level and impa.s.sive, joined the other three.

Ingram, with a stretched smile, was volubly explaining. "I've been in London a week--to-day's the first glimpse of the sun I've had. I do think they might make better arrangements for a man home from Africa. I met your mother last night at a play. She told me that I might see you here." He turned, without effrontery, to greet Melusine. "Ages since we have met.

Ah, Scales, how are you?"

The tall Melusine stooped her head; Scales nodded, then, by an afterthought, shook hands. "I'm very fit, thanks," he said. "Been travelling?"

Sanchia sought the side of Lady Maria, to whom she named Ingram. His exaggerated bow was accepted. "So you've arrived, I see," said Lady Maria.

"One does, you know." Ingram shrugged at the inevitable. "All roads lead to Rome."

"Most roads lead to Lady Maria," Morosine said to Sanchia, who replied from her heart, "I'm very glad that mine did." Moved either by loyalty to his friendship, or touched by his recent words, she then brought him bodily into play. "Mr. Nevile Ingram; Prince Morosine."

The two men inclined; Morosine lifted his hat, Ingram touched his brim.

Ingram, whom Morosine judged as a hard worker just now, supported his part with great gallantry. If he was naked to all these people who knew him, he appeared quite unashamed. Morosine, watching him carefully, believed that he had devoted a night's vigil to getting word perfect. He described Khartoum with vivacity--the English drill sergeant reigning over mudheaps, flies, and prowling dogs; getting up cricket-matches for the edification of contemptuous blacks. "They judge us, those fellows, you know. They are measuring us with their glazed eyes. The cud they chew has gall in it. I don't suppose anything offends them more deeply than our idiotic games. Is there a more frivolous race in the world than ours?"

Lady Maria suggested that the Boers might ask that question; Morosine that the Germans might answer it. Sanchia standing between these two, faced by Ingram, kept silent. She was conscious of being closely under observation.

Morosine did not once lose sight of her. Whatever he said was addressed to her. Once, when she looked at him, she saw the gleam of knowledge in his eyes. He and Ingram never spoke to each other directly; indirectly Morosine capped whatever Ingram said. It was these two who maintained the talk through her sensitive frame.

Melusine and her husband exchanged glances--she in obedience to his fidgety heels. He had dug a hole in the gravel deep enough to bury a kitten. Her curtsey--it was almost that--to Lady Maria was very pretty.

She drew in her suffering sister, almost embraced her. "Dearest, dearest!"

she whispered. Sanchia, who was very pale, made no answer, and hardly returned the salute.

"Insufferable beggar," was Gerald Scales' outburst. "I could have shot him at sight. But you women will go through with it, I suppose."

"Oh, Gerald," faltered Melusine, "it's dreadful--but what can she do?"

"Pon my soul, I'd take Morosov--the Polish party--what's-his-name--first.

I would indeed--on the whole."

There was nothing to say. Melusine knew that could not be.

Lady Maria, however, who never made a fuss over spilt milk, lost no time in ladling up what might be possible. She asked Ingram to luncheon, and was accepted with a cheerful, "Thanks, most happy." It may have been malice which turned her to Morosine with the question. "And you? Will you join us?"

Morosine promptly excused himself. He had guests, and must consider them.

He took ceremonious leave. "You remember, I hope, that I am to see you on Thursday, Lady Maria. And Miss Percival?" He looked to Sanchia, who did not turn him her eyes.

"Perfectly," said her ladyship. "What's your hour?"

"We will dine at half-past eight." He named the restaurant. He turned to pay his farewells to Sanchia. She looked him No, being unable to speak to him. Her eyes, deep lakes of woe, were crying to him. His answered.

He held out his hand and received hers. "Thursday," he repeated, and left her with her fate.

Lady Maria, at luncheon, made what she called the best of a bad business.

She treated Ingram to a brisk curiosity. "So you're a wanderer, I hear-- like the Gay Cavalier of my childhood. Your mother may have heard the song. Mine sang it. I believe that that kind of thing was considered heroic in her day; in ours, heroism is more difficult, and much more dull.

You might try heroism, Mr. Ingram."