julia, excited, and well content, ran up to her room. as she opened the door she was astonished to see bridgit herbert standing at the window, scowling at the tombstones.
“you! how jolly!” she cried, as mrs. herbert turned. “how did you trace me? i purposely left no word?—”
“you forget your maid—”
“what is the matter? you look— sit down.”
“i’ve come north to see you. the devil is to pay.”
“the militants haven’t disbanded—”
“good lord, no. they’re all right. it’s i that have gone clean to the devil.”
“you?” julia stared at her. mrs. herbert certainly looked worn, even haggard. the fresh color was no longer in her dark face, her black eyes were heavy as if with much wakefulness. even her spirited nostrils hung limp.
“do come out with it!” gasped julia.
“i’m in love,” said mrs. herbert. and she sat down.
“oh!” exclaimed julia. and then she added thoughtfully, “what a bore.”
“isn’t it? and i thought i was immune, having had the disease so hard the first time. but the young thirties! oh, lord!”
“can’t you get over it?”
“can’t you imagine how i’ve tried? that’s the reason i look like this. it’s a wonder he doesn’t run when he sees me. but it’s no use. i’m done for.”
“what sort of a man can he be to bowl you over? do i know him?”
“possibly. he’s a cousin of geoff’s, although i never met him till lately, as it happened. they weren’t friends, and he was away nearly all the time i was coruscating in society. his name’s robert maundrell; he’s also a cousin of lord barnstaple, who married that beautiful californian. it was at their place, maundrell abbey, where i went for the twelfth, that the mischief was done. i met him at cannes, but he was clever enough to amuse me without rousing my suspicions; to interest me, and then make me miss him a bit. at just the right moment he reappeared—at maundrell abbey! heaven! but it’s bad. after all i’ve gone through for the cause, after standing on my own two feet for years, not giving a hang if all the men on earth were exterminated—rather wishing they were! i feel like a slave. it’s hideous to feel that you no longer belong to yourself.”
“but you won’t chuck the cause?”
“rather not. but the trouble is that i thought i was made on the same pattern as those women up in london, desexed, all brain and nerve and religious devotion to an ideal. and now i’m—oh, lord! and to make matters worse i’m marrying a man who cares about as much for the cause as he does for mohammedanism. oh, damn! and i thought myself possessed of the true martyr’s fire. i wonder if you are?”
“bridgit!” said julia, with equal abruptness. “be quite honest. did you never think of this, never dream of falling in love once more—of the real thing?”
mrs. herbert stood up and thrust her hands into the pockets of her covert coat. for a moment she glared at julia, then shrugged her shoulders. “well—i don’t fancy i admitted it at the time—but i also fancy it was in the back of my head more or less. oh—here goes—i used to wake up in the night and wonder in a sort of fury where he was—what are you laughing at?”
“oh, i fancy we idiots are all alike.”
“so you’ve been through it, too? good. but you’ll probably win out. you’ve got the ruthless will, like those others. oh! i worship the very air they breathe. they are the true women of destiny, equipped at every point, a new sex. and i—the worst of it is, when i did give my fancy rein it was to imagine a man who would be a great intellectual force in the world, a great editor or statesman to whom men deferred, who would fight single-handed, if necessary, to give the vote to women. i shouldn’t have cared a bit if he had sprung from the people. should have rather liked it, as i’d have felt the more consistent. but—well, we make ideals out of imported cloth, and then we marry our own sort. i fancy nature takes a hand in manipulating our instincts. oh, lord!” and she began pacing up and down the room.
“you haven’t told me anything about mr. maundrell. he can’t be a fool?—”
“rather not!”
“what attracted you to him? i don’t fancy i ever met him?—”
“you’d remember him if you had. he’s beastly good-looking, and he’s travelled and explored, and is as well-read as any man i ever met. he went out as a volunteer in the south african war and got three medals, one with clasps. now he’s standing for parliament—at a by-election next week. oh, he’s all right, as the americans say, only he doesn’t care a hang for suffrage?—”
“he’ll make you desert us—”
“no, he won’t. i may be an ass, as the man said in ‘the liars,’ but i’m not a silly ass. if he were as bad as that, i’d have been strong enough to resist him. no, he’s big in all his ideas. he only exacts the promise that i shall take part in no more raids, run no further risk of gaol, and not make engagements that would separate us. otherwise, i can speak in public, and give up every moment of my time to suffrage when he is not at home. he will also vote for our bill when it comes up.”
“it’s not so bad.”
“oh, it could be worse. but i wish i’d met him when i was eighteen, or had proved my strength by rooting this out, or had never met him at all. i’d have preferred the second, for i gloried in my strength. i’m not one of the chosen, like those women up there. that’s what rankles. i wonder if you are!”
she sat down abruptly and leaned forward. “i wonder? you’ve beauty. there’s the rub. they won’t let us alone. they give us the chance.”
“tell me,” said julia, hastily, “how did he ever make you consent? he must have had a difficult wooing.”
“he almost shook his fist in my face, if you will know; swore he’d have me if he had to beat me into submission—oh, worse! he didn’t frighten me, but he fascinated me. if the primal woman is born in you, there she is for good and all. i had the haunting sense that this man was my mate, the other half of me, and when a woman gets that idea into her head she’s done for. it’s more than passion, more than any longing for companionship. all sorts of subtle chords vibrate, inheritances from all the women, complex and simple, that have contributed to her brain cells. when those chords begin to hum you’re done for. i’m not one of the chosen, that’s all there is to it. i’ve got to marry and be happy.”
and then they both laughed.
in a moment julia said grimly, “the only thing to do is to set your ideal of man so high that no mortal can fill it.”
“rot. when the man comes along that can set those chords humming, ideals fly off in company with good resolutions. now tell me your experience. you’ve had one of some sort. it’s only fair you should tell me. i’ve admired you more than any living woman, and i’d feel better if i could admire you less. you look ruthless, and you’ve had a good training to make you so—i used to rejoice at it—but, well, you are young and beautiful and you’ve red hair. out with it.”
julia, who under all her careless frankness, was intensely reserved, colored and hesitated; but this exasperated baring of her haughty friend’s inner self merited response, and she told the tale of her sudden awakening in india, of her deliberate search for a lover. mrs. herbert nodded triumphantly.
“but you see,” added julia, “i couldn’t find him, because i wanted too much. they all made me laugh sooner or later, and a finer set of men i never met. they are all picked men out there, so to speak. they must be almost perfect physically, or they couldn’t stand the climate; they are absolutely without fear; they have every manly qualification, in fact, and quite enough brains. many were charming. but they all seemed to melt into one composite man and made no deeper impression on me than if they were a statue erected to the glorification of british manhood. one can’t marry that.”
“all the men in the world are not in india. how about nigel?”
“i like him better than anyone, but i can’t fall in love with him. i don’t fancy i’d have the chance again even if i wanted it. he’s now the head of his house and the last of it, and he takes his duties as a whig peer with socialist tendencies very seriously. to marry me would put an end to his public usefulness, for he would have to live out of england. when a man of nigel’s sort reaches his age he faces his responsibilities, and when he balances them against a love-marriage that would cut him off from a good half of them he keeps out of temptation. i like him all the better for it, and if i had not become almost depersonalized in this cause, the woman in me might?—”
“i don’t think it’s nigel, but i do believe that one day you’ll have a battle to fight?—”
“not now. for a few days after i came back from india, perhaps. but i doubt if i ever have time again even to think of it. when i’m not talking, or speaking, or writing, i deliberately relax, as my master taught me, and that banishes thought. every morning—during my walk—i recall some bit of the knowledge i was taught by hadji sadr?, and i could do this if my mind were excited, threatened with a deluge. oh, i have had discipline of all sorts!”
“it sounds formidable enough. perhaps you are one of the chosen. but?—”
“i even wrote a long letter this morning to a man i might say i don’t know,” continued julia, now in the full tide of self-revelation. “and it interested me mightily for the moment?—”
“ha!”
“not at all. he was a boy of fifteen when i met him at bosquith. i had forgotten his existence, but when i heard of the frightful disaster in san francisco, his home, i thought it only decent to write to him. of course he answered, and as his letter was lost for months—i only got it yesterday—and as he really has been through a tragic experience—he lost his fortune, and just missed losing his life—it was the least i could do to write again.”
“h’m. there’s nothing more fascinating than a correspondence with a man you don’t know. i’ve had one or two. the saving grace is, that you are always disappointed when you meet them. they are commonplace, if only by contrast with the arbitrary figure in your imagination. but it’s a bad sign—or a healthy one—that you can be interested even to that extent while conducting a suffrage campaign with the fury of the martyr in your soul—i can’t imagine any of those women up there?—”
“it means nothing to me!” said julia, angrily. “and if i hadn’t posted my letter, i’d tear it up. i don’t care in the least whether i ever see him again or not. and i probably won’t, for i wrote of nothing but the cause. i couldn’t think of anything else. he’ll hate that. besides, he can’t leave california for years yet. you know what those american business men are. he’s keen on making his millions. that’s all he thinks of.”
“good. see that you don’t go to california when they send you over to lecture. let me see his letter?”
julia made an instinctive, almost tigerish, and wholly traditional movement toward her bosom. then she remembered that the letter was in the hand-bag, laughed, and produced it.
“why not?”
mrs. herbert’s black eyes flashed through it.
“h’m!” she commented. “he seems to be a jolly sort. he’s a man. and there’s a sort of fresh western breeze in his letter. i can smell and hear the pacific—and see those wonderful ruins. i love that expression—‘makes the roman forum look like thirty cents.’ that’s fifteen pence—one and three. it’s not effective at all translated. but i’ve always liked american slang. there’s something big and free and young about it. and so is this man, i should say?—”
“oh, nonsense! don’t romance about him, please. he’s the antithesis of the man i’d made up in my imagination when i bolted from calcutta?—”
“that makes just about as much difference as if i had made up my mind that robert maundrell should fall in love with somebody else. mr. tay may give your ideal one in the eye that will make it look like—thirty cents. describe him to me. is he good-looking?”
“i don’t know,” said julia, crossly. “i’ve forgotten. he was a dark wiry boy with a lean face and a square jaw. he suggests the north american indian, but is a new type altogether—western american, no doubt. but i’d rather talk about you. you’ve disappointed me, but i don’t see why you should be quite so cut up about it. ishbel is married and in love and has two babies, but she has come out as an ardent suffragette; so much so that her business has suffered?—”
“yes, but she marches in no parades, and takes part in no raids. dark will stand for a good deal, but he’s threatened to go to india if she goes too far; and she won’t. trust her. she’s just like any other woman in love. and dark’s a good fellow, not the sort a woman would care to sacrifice. so is robert. there you are.”
“i love ishbel as much as ever,” said julia, thoughtfully. “but somehow i don’t find her as interesting?—”
“a happy woman has no psychology in her. her mind may go on developing, but her ego is at a standstill. that’s where i’m aiming! and i wanted to stand alone! i’m not the myself i thought. that’s what cuts. after those six men mauled me and broke my rib, and i lay in that wretched prison all night, i thought i was seasoned for life. and i wasn’t!”
julia sprang to her feet. “what’s the use of worrying about what can’t be helped?” she cried angrily. “let’s go down to supper.”
