dr. andré was waiting for her in the dim-lighted halls of the new gallery, where large-eyed solemn-faced women, some of them so like egidia, as she thought, looked down from the walls on mrs. elles in her somewhat elf-like prettiness, as of a picture by tissot. all she had in common with them, was her large wide-open eyes, eyes without depth or mystery, and with unresting lids that had perhaps never drooped to hide an emotion worth the name, or a secret worth the keeping.
“i was afraid you were not coming after all!” the hypnotist said, in his soft, authoritative voice.
she sank on to a red leather causeuse, and blinked pathetically.
“don’t speak to me for a moment!” she whispered, throwing back her head and turning her profile only towards him.
“you have a headache?” dr. andré asked sympathetically.
she shook her head, and in that nugatory shake strove to indicate the region of her heart, as the seat of her uneasiness. he had the tact to hold his tongue, and presently she remarked, with a little sigh, “what nice pictures!” as a hint that conversation might begin.{252}
“you don’t care about pictures to-day,” he said, laughing. “you are terribly upset, i can see. have you had bad news? have you been fighting with wild beasts at ephesus?”
she was pleased at his way of putting things. he was alluding to her interviews with lawyers: of the circumstances in which she found herself he was now quite au fait.
“wild beasts!” she said. “well, not quite that, but—people are very odd, and never behave exactly as one has a right to expect them to?” her accent was slightly interrogative.
“most men will bully a woman if they get a chance!” said he, looking at her keenly.
the butterfly did look a little crushed, a little subdued, as if she had only very recently been brought face to face with some of the crude realities of life of which she was always talking.
“but it is against all my theories,” he continued.
“i believe in people too much,” she went on. “and the consequence is, i give myself away, and make a fool of myself.”
“you don’t say so?” said dr. andré, politely, and tenderly.
he was not one who looked for wisdom in women; it was on charm that he insisted. he admired mrs. elles extremely. she reminded him of heine’s famous definition of a latter-day venus—“a cross between a dressmaker and a duchess.” the little touch of red on her cheek that was not rouge, but{253} which gave her the faintly meretricious air beloved of décadents, pleased him; her large eyes, fuller at this moment of tears than of expression, were bent on him sadly and consciously appealing. by what art she avoided the vulgar catastrophe of falling tear-drops he did not know, but the brilliant result he could fully appreciate. he was a poseur himself, and her assumption of pose on his account flattered him.
“i wish i could help you,” he said, wondering if he would dare to take the little white hand stiff with rings that lay ungloved on the red-covered ottoman beside him. “dare” was not the word—andré was a determined flirt, and would dare most things,—but would it be advisable? he cared for her enough not to want to frighten her.
“you know i would do anything for you!” he confined himself to saying, and in spite of himself there was the strongest ring of sincerity in his voice.
“i know you would,” mrs. elles replied with pretty assurance. she knew that though he imagined he was only flirting, he was more nearly loving than he was himself aware. that was the way she liked it best; if he were to begin to think himself serious, he would begin to be tiresome, and she would have to discourage and snub him, and “see less” of him, as the phrase is. she did not want to lose him. her intercourse with the distinguished hypnotist had acted as a derivative during this troublous period of her life. she hardly realized his uses, in that capacity, but egidia did, and set no impediments in{254} the way of their frequent meetings. ph?be was a fool, but dr. andré was a gentleman.
after having been scolded and bullied, as mrs. elles conceived herself to have been, by her ascetic and frigid lover for the last hour, it was sweet to be sympathized with, respectfully petted, and made of much account by dr. andré, who was willing to act as a souffre douleur. and though he was not nearly so handsome as edmund rivers, yet his face had a great deal more expression. though his eyes were not deep like rivers’, they were mesmeric. his soul was willing, nay anxious, to go forth to meet hers; it did not, like that of rivers, obstinately remain hid in its fastnesses of reserve, to baffle and disappoint her, who was always on the look-out for the evidences of spiritual and intellectual communion.
she rose from the ottoman, giving herself a little shake. she tried to imagine herself in a world that knew not rivers, or egidia, or mortimer. they were not here, what had they to do with her? did they live? her senses were not aware of them. why then should she take them into account? what was this thing that was troubling her? had she any present evidence of its existence? did it exist, then?
trying to solve this intense problem in metaphysics, she went round the gallery with her accommodating cicerone, who kept up a running commentary of wise, witty, and educational remarks, without, however, in the least expecting her to take{255} in or appreciate them. he knew exactly the kind of woman with whom he had to deal.
suddenly they came on a representation of the parc?, three dreary, terrible old women sitting huddled up in a cowering circle, weaving, shaping and cutting the thread of the destinies of men. mrs. elles stopped and pondered deeply. there was a thread, yes, and many destinies were interwoven with the one. no man or woman stood alone. she had given a promise that had not been accepted, that day, but still she had made it; she had promised to cut the thread of her own life, so as to leave that of rivers free. it was all very well: she stood there ostensibly her own mistress in that room, beside dr. andré, but the thread of her fate was hopelessly entangled with the fates of two other persons, her husband and her lover. the divorce hung imminent over their heads, the machinery of which they had set in motion, and which now could not be averted.
she turned to dr. andré, and looked mysterious.
“shall i tell you what had always been one of my nightmares—a suicide manqué! if a person wishes to commit suicide, he should arrange to do it neatly and completely. instead of that, he contrives to make it a hideous and ridiculous fiasco, and generally goes on humbly living after all!”
“because intending suicides have as a rule got themselves worked up to such a state of nerves before they think of killing themselves, that having decided on it they are not fit to conduct such a ticklish enter{256}prise. they are so agitated, so upset, they are in such a hurry to get out of the world, when once they have screwed themselves up to the point of resolution, that lest that resolution waver, they rush it, and so muff the whole thing!”
“yes, but what i mean is that if i were perfectly calm and not in the least agitated, i should still ‘muff’ it, as you say, through not knowing how to set about it—the mere technique of the business would escape me!”
“i shall have to publish a little manual, at your service, ‘suicide made easy!’”
“you must not make fun of me. i am serious.”
“i deeply regret to hear it!” he said, still laughing.
“no, but don’t you know—to a nervous woman like me, it would be an immense consolation to know that i could, at a given moment, get out of it—i mean life—decently and in order.”
“if you must go, why stand upon the order of your going?”
“but that’s just it. i should hate to do it clumsily, ungracefully, grotesquely. i believe certain poisons make you die—quite hideously!” she shivered.
“nearly all!” he said, teasing her. “but i might mesmerise you—and never wake you up again!”
“you are just as unkind and unsympathetic as the others!” mrs. elles exclaimed, pettishly. “let us go home.”
“must we?” he said.
“even if i didn’t want to,” she said, “they want{257} to be rid of us. look, they are putting out some of the lights!”
“that is nothing. you want to punish me!”
“oh, no, i am not cross with you. i only am disappointed in you,” she replied, wearily. “you can see me home if you like. i want to walk, it might drive my headache away.”
“i shall be delighted. besides, as we live in the same house—or block—my way is yours, in a literal sense, at any rate.” he led the way to the door, and got her her umbrella. “i live so near,” he went on, as they turned down regent street, “that when the burden of life becomes really too hard to bear, you can send for me to come in and turn you off neatly.”
“i hate that word ‘neatly’!” was all she vouchsafed to reply. he spoke of other things and she answered absently and jerkily. as they drew near westminster, she said, looking up at him:
“i do wish you would trust me!”
“of course i do trust you, in what may i ask?”
“you might trust me not to use anything you might give me. i should just keep it by me, the means of death, as a man keeps a sleeping draught by his bedside, and the knowledge that one can put an end to wakefulness at any moment makes it possible to stand it, don’t you see? i could bear my awful life better—oh, so much better—if i knew i could get out of it at any moment! but nobody understands me—no—not even you.”
the accent she contrived to throw on the last{258} words touched him a little. he looked at her keenly but said nothing, and she continued defiantly:
“well, if i am left to my own devices, there’s always the six chemists, and a fourpennyworth of laudanum at each! oh, i know what one does. i’ve read novels.”
“too many! they are such a perversion of real life. well, i will see what i can do,” he said slowly.
she turned and caught hold of his hand.
“you can put it in an envelope, and seal it—with black sealing wax! it will be a bottle, won’t it? a tiny bottle?”
“i shall put it in one of those little venetian tear bottles,” dr. andré said, smiling. “it will be what browning calls ‘a delicate death.’ but”—his tone was as serious now as she could wish, “you must promise me faithfully not to use it ever! i should be your murderer, do you know? do you want to hang me?”
she promised, smiling at his simplicity. she took his hand more than cordially in the lift that stopped, and deposited him, on a lower floor than hers.
“is it possible that a magnetical rapport can be established between a man and a woman who loves another man?” she thought. “that would explain. at any rate he is kind to me—far, far kinder than edmund.”
she dined alone and cried. late that night a tiny little parcel was sent up to her from dr. andré. she shivered when she looked at it, and locked it up under two keys.
