The Daughters of Danaus Part 35

"Because--look, Valeria, our present relation to life is _in itself_ an injury, an insult--you have never seriously denied that--and how can one make for oneself a moral code that has to lay its foundation-stone in that very injury? And if one lays one's foundation-stone in open ground beyond, then one's code is out of touch with present fact, and one's morality consists in sheer revolt all along the line. The whole matter is in confusion. You have to accept Mrs. Walker's and Mrs. Gordon's view of the case, plainly and simply, or you get off into a sort of mora.s.s and blunder into quicksands."

"Then what happens?"

"That's just what I don't know. That's just why I say that I am probably wrong, because, in this transition period, there seems to be no clear right."

"To cease to believe in right and wrong would be to founder morally, altogether," Valeria warned.

"I know, and yet I begin to realize how true it is that there is no such thing as absolute right or wrong. It is related to the case and the moment."

"This leads up to some desperate deed or other, Hadria," cried her friend, "I have feared it, or hoped it, I scarcely know which, for some time. But you alarm me to-day."

"If I believed in the efficacy of a desperate deed, Valeria, I should not chafe as I do, against the conditions of the present scheme of things. If individuals could find a remedy for themselves, with a little courage and will, there would be less occasion to growl."

"But can they not?"

"Can they?" asked Hadria. "A woman without means of livelihood, breaks away from her moorings--well, it is as if a child were to fall into the midst of some gigantic machinery that is going at full speed. Let her try the feat, and the cracking of her bones by the big wheels will attest its hopelessness. And yet I long to try!" Hadria added beneath her breath.

Miss Du Prel admitted that success was rare in the present delirious state of compet.i.tion. Individuals here and there pulled through.

"I told you years ago that Nature had chosen our s.e.x for ill-usage. Try what we may, defeat and suffering await us, in one form or another. You are dissatisfied with your form of suffering, I with mine. A creature in pain always thinks it would be more bearable if only it were on the other side."

"Ah, I know you won't admit it," said Hadria, "but some day we shall all see that this is the result of human cruelty and ignorance, and that it is no more 'intended' or inherently necessary than that children should be born with curvature of the spine, or rickets. Some day it will be as clear as noon, that heartless 'some day' which can never help you or me, or any of us who live now. It is we, I suppose, who are required to help the 'some day.' Only how, when we are ourselves _in extremis_?"

"The poor are helpers of the poor," said Valeria.

"But if they grow too poor, to starvation point, then they can help no more; they can only perish slowly."

"I hoped," said Valeria, "that Professor Fortescue would have poured oil upon the troubled waters."

"He does in one sense. But in another, he makes me feel more than ever what I am missing."

Miss Du Prel's impulsive instincts could be kept at bay no longer.

"There is really nothing for it, but some deed of daring," she cried. "I believe, if only your husband could get over his horror of the scandal and talk, that a separation would be best for you both. It is not as if he cared for you. One can see he does not. You are such a strange, inconsequent being, Hadria, that I believe you would feel the parting far more than he would (conventions apart)."

"No question of it," said Hadria. "Our disharmony, radical and hopeless as it is, does not prevent my having a strong regard for Hubert. I can't help seeing the admirable sides of his character. He is too irritated and aggrieved to feel anything but rancour against me. It is natural. I understand."

"Ah, it will only end in some disaster, if you try to reconcile the irreconcilable. Of course I think it is a great pity that you have not more of the instincts on which homes are founded, but since you have not----"

Hadria turned sharply round. "Do you really regret that just for once the old, old game has been played unsuccessfully? Therein I can't agree with you, though I am the loser by it." Hadria grasped a swaying spray that the wind blew towards her, and clasped it hard in her hand, regardless of the thorns. "It gives me a keen, fierce pleasure to know that for all their training and constraining and incitement and starvation, I have _not_ developed ma.s.ses of treacly instinct in which mind and will and every human faculty struggle, in vain, to move leg or wing, like some poor fly doomed to a sweet and sticky death. At least the powers of the world shall not prevail with me by _that_ old device.

Mind and will and every human faculty may die, but they shall not drown, in the usual applauded fas.h.i.+on, in seas of tepid, bubbling, up-swelling instinct. I will dare anything rather than endure that. They must take the trouble to provide instruments of death from without; they must lay siege and starve me; they must attack in soldierly fas.h.i.+on; I will not save them the exertion by developing the means of destruction from within. There I stand at bay. They shall knock down the citadel of my mind and will, stone by stone."

"That is a terrible challenge!" exclaimed Miss Du Prel.

A light laugh sounded across the lawn.

The afternoon suns.h.i.+ne threw four long shadows over the gra.s.s: of a slightly-built woman, of a very tall man, and of two smaller men.

The figures themselves were hidden by a group of shrubs, and only the shadows were visible. They paused, for a moment, as if in consultation; the lady standing, with her weight half leaning on her parasol. The tall man seemed to be talking to her vivaciously. His long, shadow-arms shot across the gra.s.s, his head wagged.

"The shadows of Fate!" cried Valeria fantastically.

Then they moved into sight, advancing towards the terrace.

"Who are they I wonder? Oh, Professor Fortescue, for one!"

"Lady Engleton and Joseph Fleming. The other I don't know."

He was very broad and tall, having a slight stoop, and a curious way of carrying his head, craned forward. The att.i.tude suggested a keen observer. He was attired in knickerbockers and rough tweed Norfolk jacket, and he looked robust and powerful, almost to excess. The chin and mouth were concealed by the thick growth of dark hair, but one suspected unpleasant things of the latter. As far as one could judge his age, he seemed a man of about five-and-thirty, with vigour enough to last for another fifty years.

"That," said Valeria, "must be Professor Theobald. He has probably come to see the house."

"I am sure I shall hate that man," exclaimed Hadria. "He is not to be trusted; what nonsense he is talking to Lady Engleton!"

"You can't hear, can you?"

"No; I can see. And she laughs and smiles and bandies words with him. He is amusing certainly; there is that excuse for her; but I wonder how she can do it."

"What an extraordinary creature you are! To take a prejudice against a man before you have spoken to him."

"He is cruel, he is cruel!" exclaimed Hadria in a low, excited voice.

"He is like some cunning wild animal. Look at Professor Fortescue! his opposite pole--why it is all clearer, at this distance, than if we were under the confusing influence of their speech. See the contrast between that quiet, firm walk, and the insinuating, conceited tread of the other man. Joseph Fleming comes out well too, honest soul!"

"He is carrying a fis.h.i.+ng-rod. They have been fis.h.i.+ng," said Valeria.

"Not Professor Fortescue, I am certain. _He_ does not find his pleasure in causing pain."

"This hero-wors.h.i.+p blinds you. Depend upon it, he is not without the primitive instinct to kill."

"There are individual exceptions to all savage instincts, or the world would never move."

"Instinct rules the world," said Miss Du Prel. "At least it is obviously neither reason nor the moral sense that rules it."

"Then why does it produce a Professor Fortescue now and then?"

"Possibly as a corrective."

"Or perhaps for fun," said Hadria.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Professor Theobald, if you are able to resist the fascinations of this old house you are made of sterner stuff than I thought."

"I can never resist fascinations, Lady Engleton."