the next evening julia sat in her room divided between consternation and secret joy. the women of st. kitts had given her a reception such as had never been offered to another woman in the history of the island. a military band had played a welcome as her boat approached the jetty, a committee of representative women had met her, and all basse terre, black as well as white, had turned out to escort her to the house of mrs. ridgley, the first lady of st. kitts, where a select few had been invited to greet her at luncheon. the meeting itself had taken place in the ball-room of government house, and been attended by every man and woman that could obtain entrance, irrespective of sympathies. all were eager to be instructed, but far more eager to see and hear the famous julia france, to be able to talk about it for the rest of their lives.
julia had talked to them for two hours. she instructed them to the full, and she related many of her personal experiences in and out of holloway gaol. never had she spoken more brilliantly, been more amusing and witty, and never before had she spoken with an unremitting sense of effort. her speech had come from the head alone. it had felt like a wound-up mechanical toy. the personal passion with which she had infused her speeches and won her great following never stirred. it had retreated to her depths, and taken her magnetism with it. she entertained her audience and she converted no one. she concentrated her mind with a determination almost vicious, but more than once it slipped its anchor, and she failed utterly to reduce the brains below her into one relaxing helpless whole for the planting of her suggestions.
she alone, however, realized her failure. st. kitts was delighted with the entertainment, to say nothing of the profound satisfaction of listening to the woman who had been introduced to the world in this very ball-room, and then gone forth to make their islands famous: st. kitts and nevis had more than once been pictured in the weekly press of england while julia’s comet was playing about the heavens. as for mrs. edis she swelled with pride and treated the ladies of st. kitts, who showed her almost as much honor as they did her daughter, with a haughty urbanity that made them feel humble and insignificant.
when the lecture was over, there was an informal reception, during which julia had never been more gracious and talkative, while wishing them all at the bottom of the caribbean sea. then the wife of the administrator had invited them into the dining-room for an elaborate tea; and it was six o’clock before release was sounded, and julia found herself in the boat once more, listening to the congratulations and the rapt prophecies of her mother.
at dinner fanny had stared with open mouth at her grandmother’s almost excited account of the day’s events, but she had finally turned to julia with a laugh.
“really, my famous aunt,” she said, “there can be no doubt as to what you were born for. it must be quite wonderful to have a career. shan’t you change your mind and speak at bath house?”
“no,” said mrs. edis, sharply. “julia will devote the rest of her visit to me. it is quite enough to have two members of the family gadding at bath house.”
“upon my word,” said mrs. winstone, languidly, “i didn’t come to nevis to chaperon a young girl. chaperonin’s not my line. i think julia had better take fanny to the party to-morrow night.”
“oh, no, aunt maria! julia—julia needs a good long rest.”
fanny stared apprehensively at her young aunt, but was immediately reassured.
“i shall not go to bath house at present. and you, aunt maria, you have your two old cronies, and bridge. mrs. morison will look out for fanny?—”
“all very well, but—ah—i shouldn’t advise you to stay away too long. mr.—ah—the morisons are getting impatient—say they’ll leave by the next steamer, if you don’t give them the benefit of your society. that, it appears, is what they came for.”
julia saw fanny frown at mrs. winstone, but could only interpret her aunt’s words as a warning that tay was showing signs of impatience; by no means unwelcome news. she answered lightly:?—
“i didn’t ask them to come. they must take the consequences.”
mrs. winstone shrugged her shoulders. “i take very little interest in other people’s affairs, as you know. and advice was always thrown away on you.”
mrs. edis’s dry sarcastic tones interposed before fanny could speak. and fanny’s breath was short, and her chair might have been sown with tacks.
“really, maria, you must grudge every moment spent away from bath house and that young fool of yours. i wonder you can still talk of coming to your old home to rest.”
“quite so!” mrs. winstone, recalled, fluttered her eyelashes, and glanced into an old concave mirror. “he grows more devoted every minute. one couldn’t imagine he had ever had a thought for another woman.”
“good for you, aunt maria,” cried julia, gayly, and escaped to her room.
here she promptly forgot the conversation and sat down to face her own problem once more. was her love for the great impersonal cause, which had commanded all the forces of her nature, extinct? or was her appalling coldness but the natural result of her present state of mind—and the agitating nearness of the man? surely, if she broke with him definitely, returned to england, submerged herself in work, became a part once more of the crowding incidents, triumphs, disappointments, problems, of a cause that could never write finis, all her old passionate interest would return.
but if they no longer needed her? she had inferred from ishbel’s cablegram that the government was about to surrender. but it was hard to believe that mr. asquith, in any circumstances, would become a convert to a revolution he abhorred and sincerely disbelieved in; and as for lloyd-george, the cleverest man in england, it was far more likely that he was playing for a long respite, hoping to relegate the women quietly out of the public eye, to take the fight and courage out of them by degrees, while pretending sympathy, promising his personal assistance, advising them to abstain from demonstrations which forbade the government to capitulate in a manner inconsistent with its dignity. of course he would succeed for a brief interval only, for if he was clever and subtle, the women were as clever—and alert; but—well—on the other hand, did she care? from nevis england looked like an old page of written history, shut up between calfskin. moreover, the cause was bound to sweep on to victory with its own momentum—why should she?—
her subtle brain, unleashed, marched straight ahead, and in step with her desires. how were women to improve the world, if they progressed to that point of superiority and self-completion, of unity in the ego, where they could no longer marry and produce a worthy race to complete their work? even to-day many a high-minded woman went through life unwedded rather than degrade herself in marriage with a man whom she was forced to admit her inferior in all but the common attraction of sex. but she had no such excuse. and if her power to devote herself to this cause, impersonally and wholly, had vanished, with her interest in it, now that her mind was recentred; if she must, did she return to england, resent her sacrifice, possibly with hatred, of what use her lip service? if the experience of to-day were prophetic, she could give to the work but a hypocritical shell, while her aching soul was on the other side of the globe. on the other hand, with tay, even in an alien land, there was no question that she might be of service for the rest of her life.
and what of the immorality of loving a man irrevocably and not living with him? morality was still of higher account than politics. and children? the inadequacy of fanny, who almost repelled her, had renewed her intense longing for children of her own. and if she so desired these children, the children of one man out of all the millions of men on earth, did not this mean that they were clamoring for their right to live? what right hers to deny them, that being, after all, the first reason for which she had received life herself?
but at this point she went to bed.
“what is the use?” she thought. “i’m going to marry him, and that is the end of it. i’ll not give the matter another thought from this time forth.”
and for the first time since her arrival on nevis she slept soundly.
