This Freedom Part 28

There was then a silence.

He spoke, "But I am going to press this, Rosalie. I say, with all admitted, this thing--this 'I could go but you should not go'--is different as between us. I am a man."

She made a movement in her chair. "Ah, let that go. I have a reply to that."

"What reply?"

"I am a woman."

He began--"It's nothing--."

She said, "Oh, painful to give you pain. To me--everything."

He got up from his position beside her and went to his chair and seated himself. He sat on the edge of the chair, bowed forward, his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped; not smoking; his pipe between his fingers, his eyes upon the fire. Once or twice, his hands close to his face, he slightly raised them and with his pipe-stem softly tapped his teeth.

CHAPTER IX

He had called it the principle. She watched him. That att.i.tude in which he sat was of a profundity of meditation not to be looked upon without that sense of awe, of oppression, of misgiving that is aroused by the suggestion in man or nature of brooding forces mysteriously engrossed. There came to her, watching him, a thought that newly disturbed her thoughts. He had called it the principle.

She had been astonished but she had not been perturbed. Upon the principle as between man and woman, husband and wife, she was, as she had said, so strong, so confident, accustomed and a.s.sured, that there was nothing could be said could touch her there. But it was not the principle. This was the knowledge brought to her by the new thought suddenly appeared in her mind, standing there like a strange face in a council of friends, unbidden and of a suspect look. What if she communicated that knowledge to Harry brooding there? He had called it the principle. What if she put across the shadowed room the sentence that should inform him it was not the principle but was an issue flying the flag of ships whose freights are dangerous? What if she put across the shadowed room the sentence, "Men that marry for a home"?

Ay, that was it! The thing she had always known and never told.

Those are keepsakes of our secret selves, those observations, vows, conspiracies with which romantically we plot towards our ideals.

This the sole keepsake of her treasury she never had revealed to Harry. Significant she had not. Some instinct must have stayed her.

Yes, significant! He had called it the principle. It was not the principle. He was sincere upon the principle and in the examination of eleven years had proved his sincerity. It was not the principle.

It was that herein, in her intention to exercise her freedom in a new dimension, she had touched him, not through the principle, but upon the instinct that led him, as she believed men to be led, to marry for a home, a settling-in place, a settling-down place, a cave to enter into and to shut the door upon.

Oh, this was dangerous! There were no lengths to which this might not lead! If at her first essay at that which countered his idea of home she was to be asked to pause, what, in the increasing convolutions of the years, might not she be asked to abandon? Let him attempt restriction of her by appeal to principle and she could stand, and win, unscathed. Let him oppose her by his wish within his home to shut the door, and that was to put upon her an injury that only by giving him pain could be fought. Oh, dangerous! Not less an injury because by sentiment and not by reason done! Much more an injury because so subtly done! Much more! Dangerous! Ah, from this the outset to be withstood!

He spoke and his first words were confirmation of her fears.

"Rosalie, do you feel quite all right about the children?"

Yes, she could see where this was set to lead. He could leave her with the children; but she--men that married for a home--could not leave him with the children.

She said gently, "Dear, there'll not be the least difficulty.

Everything's perfectly arranged. Everything will perfectly well go on."

He had not moved his pose and did not move it. His voice presented in tone the profound meditation that his pose presented. He said, "I don't quite mean that. I mean, do you always feel everything's quite all right with them?"

How setting now? She answered, "Dear, of course I do."

His eyes remained upon the fire. "Rosalie, d'you know I sometimes don't."

Her motion--a lifting of her face, a questing of her brows--was of a helmsman's gesture, suspicious to catch before it set a shifting of the breeze. "Harry, in what way? They're splendid."

"You feel that?"

"Dear, you know they are."

He put his pipe to his mouth and with that meditative tapping tapped his teeth. "Splendid, yes, in health, in appearance, in development, in all that kind of thing. I don't mean that." He turned his face towards her and spoke directly. "Rosalie, have you ever thought they're not quite like other children?"

Oh, setting from what quarter this? She said, "They're better--miles and miles."

He got up. "Well, that's all right. If you have noticed nothing, that's all right."

"But, Harry. I am at a loss, dear. Of course it's all right. But what have you noticed, think you've noticed?"

He was standing before her, his back against the mantelpiece, looking down at her. "Just that--not quite like other children."

"But in what way?"

"It's hard to say, old girl. If you've not noticed it, harder still.

Not quite so childish as at their age I seem to remember myself with my brothers and sisters being childish. A kind of--reserve.

A kind of--self-contained."

She shook her head, "No, no."

"You think it's fancy?"

"I'm sure it is."

He was silent a moment. "It's rather worried me. And of course now--If you are going to be away--"

Stand by! She had the drift of this!

She said simply, "Harry, this can't be."

"You can't give up the idea?"

Her hand upon the helm that steered her life constricted. "It is not to be asked of me to give it up." She paused. She said softly, "Dear, this is a forward step for me. You are asking me to make a sacrifice. I would not ask you."

He began, "There are sacrifices--"

"They are not asked of men."

He said, "Rosalie, you said once, when Benji was born, that, if at any time need be, you would give up, not a thing like this, but your work entirely."

As if to shield or to support her heart she drew her left hand to it. "Would you give up yours, Harry?"

He said quickly, "I'm not suggesting such a thing. It is ridiculous.