The Daughters of Danaus Part 71

"Oh, Hadria! And you don't count _me_ then?"

"Obviously I count you. But one's whole life becomes a lie."

"That is surely schoolgirl's reasoning. Strange that you should be guilty of it! Is one's life a lie because one makes so bold as to keep one's own counsel? Must one take the world into one's confidence, or stand condemned as a liar? Oh, Hadria, this is childish!"

"Yes, I am getting weak-minded, I know," she said feverishly. "I resent being forced to resort to this sort of thing when I am doing nothing wrong, according to my own belief. Why should I be forced to behave as if I _were_ sinning against my conscience?"

"So you may say; that is your grievance, not your fault. But, after all, compromise is necessary in _everything_, and the best way is to make the compromise lightly and with a shrug of the shoulders, and then you find that life becomes fairly manageable and often extremely pleasant."

"Yes, I suppose you are right." Hadria was picking the petals off a b.u.t.tercup one by one, and when she had destroyed one golden corolla, she attacked another.

"Fate _is_ ironical!" she exclaimed. "Never in my life did I feel more essentially frank and open-hearted than I feel now."

The Professor laughed.

"My impulse is to indulge in that sort of bluff, boisterous honesty which forms so charming a feature of our national character. Is it not disastrous?"

"It _is_ a little inopportune," Theobald admitted with a chuckle.

"Oh, it is no laughing matter! It amounts to a monomania. I long to take Mrs. Walker aside and say 'Hi! look here, Mrs. Walker, I just want to mention to you----' and so on; and Mrs. Jordan inspires me with a still more fatal impulse of frankness. If only for the fun of the thing, I long to do it."

"You are quite mad, Hadria!" exclaimed the Professor, laughing.

"Oh, no," she said, "only bewildered. I want desperately to be bluff and outspoken, but I suppose I must dissemble. I long painfully to be like 'truthful James,' but I must follow in the footsteps of the sneaky little boy who came to a bad end because he told a lie. The question is: Shall my mother be sacrificed to this pa.s.sionate love of truth?"

"Or shall I?" asked the Professor. "You seem to forget me. You frighten me, Hadria. To indulge in frankness just now, means to throw me over, and if you did that, I don't know how I should be able to stand it. I should cut my throat."

Hadria buried her face in her hands, as if to shut out distracting sights and sounds, so that she might think more clearly.

It seemed, at that moment, as if cutting one's throat would be the only way out of the growing difficulty.

How _could_ it go on? And yet, how could she give him up? (The imp gave a fiendish chuckle.) It would be so unfair, so cruel, and what would life be without him? ("Moral development impossible!" cried the imp, with a yell of laughter.) It would be so mean to go back now--("Shocking!" exclaimed the imp.) a.s.suming that she ought never to have allowed this thing to happen ("Oh, fie!") because she bore another man's name (not being permitted to retain her own), ought she to throw this man over, on second and (per a.s.sumption) better thoughts, or did the false step oblige her to continue in the path she had entered?

"I seem to have got myself into one of those situations where there is _no_ right," she exclaimed.

"You forget your own words: A woman in relation to society is in the position of a captive; she may justly evade the prison rules, if she can."

"So she may; only I want so desperately to wrench away the bars instead of evading the rules."

"Try to remember that you----" The Professor stopped abruptly and stood listening. They looked at one another. Hadria was deadly white. A step was advancing along the winding path through the bushes behind them: a half overgrown path, that led from a small door in the wall that ran round the park. It was the nearest route from the station to the house, and a short cut could be taken this way through the garden, to Craddock Place.

"It's all right," the Professor said in a low voice; "we were saying nothing compromising."

The step drew nearer.

"Some visitor to Craddock Place probably, who has come down by the 4.20 from town."

"Professor Fortescue!"

Hadria had sprung up, and was standing, with flushed cheeks, beside her calmer companion.

Professor Fortescue's voice broke the momentary silence. He gave a warm smile of pleasure and came forward with out-stretched hand.

"The hoped-for instant has come sooner than I thought," he cried genially.

Hadria was shocked to see him looking very ill. He said that his doctor had bullied him, at last, into deciding to go south. His arrangements for departure had been rather hastily made, and he had telegraphed this morning, to Craddock Place, to announce his coming. His luggage was following in a hand-cart, and he was taking the short cut through the Priory gardens. He had come to say good-bye to them all. Miss Du Prel, he added, had already made up her mind to go abroad, and he hoped to come across her somewhere in Italy. She had given him all news. He looked anxiously at Hadria. The flush had left her face now, and the altered lines were but too obvious.

"You ought to have change too," he said, "you are not looking well."

She laughed nervously. "Oh, I am all right."

"Let's sit down a moment, if you were not discussing anything very important----"

"Indeed, we were, my dear Fortescue," said Professor Theobald, drawing his colleague on to the seat, "and your clear head would throw much light on the philosophy of the question."

"Oh, a question of abstract philosophy," said Professor Fortescue. "Are you disagreeing?"

"Not exactly. The question that turned up, in the course of discussion, was this: If a man stands in a position which is itself the result of an aggression upon his liberty and his human rights, is he in honour bound to abide by the laws which are laid down to coerce him?"

"Obviously not," replied Professor Fortescue.

"Is he morally justified in using every means he can lay hold of to overcome the peculiar difficulties under which he has been tyrannously placed?"

"Not merely justified, but I should say he was a poor fool if he refrained from doing so."

"That is exactly what _I_ say."

"Surely Mrs. Temperley does not demur?"

"No; I quite agree as to the _right_. I only say that the means which the situation may make necessary are sometimes very hateful."

"Ah, that is among the cruelest of the victim's wrongs," said Professor Fortescue. "He is reduced to employ artifices that he would despise, were he a free agent. Take a crude instance: a man is overpowered by a band of brigands. Surely he is justified in deceiving those gentlemen of the road, and in telling and acting lies without scruple."

"The parallel is exact," said Theobald, with a triumphant glance at Hadria.

"Honour departs where force comes in. No man is bound in honour to his captor, though his captor will naturally try to persuade his prisoner to regard himself as so bound. And few would be our oppressions, if that persuasion did not generally succeed!"

"The relations of women to society for instance----" began Theobald.

"Ah, exactly. The success of that device may be said to const.i.tute the history of womanhood. Take my brigand instance and write it large, and you have the whole case in a nutsh.e.l.l."

"Then you would recommend rank rebellion, either by force or artifice, according as circ.u.mstances might require?" asked Hadria.

Professor Fortescue looked round at her, half anxiously, half enquiringly.

"There are perils, remember," he warned. "The woman is, by our a.s.sumption, the brigand's captive. If she offends her brigand, he has hideous punishments to inflict. He can subject her to pain and indignity at his good pleasure. Torture and mutilation, metaphorically speaking, are possible to him. How could one deliberately counsel her to risk all that?"

There was a long silence.