a spirit of unrest had fallen upon gabriel strong, a passionate discontent crying like a wild, prophetic voice out of the future. he was oppressed by numberless forebodings; his own heart piped dismally a traitorous refrain. a flippant levity served to cheat the curiosity of numberless excitable neighbors. even john strong believed his son to be in most excellent fettle and thoroughly enamoured of so passionate a bargain.
judith, seraph of the pearly brow, had questioned her brother out of the deep tenderness of her love for him. evening stood golden-bosomed in the west and a glimmering silence covered the world. the two were wandering over the saltire lawns, swaying slowly side by side under the black arches of the yews and cedars.
gabriel’s words had failed to satisfy the girl’s soul. her doubts had found an echo in his brain; his desire for sympathy quickened his unrest. stirred by the dogged melancholy that held him, she broke forth into an appeal, ardent as her heart’s blood, wistful as the wild music of a wind.
“for god’s sake, gabriel,” she said, “play the man. what is the smart of a month compared to the misery of years. if you perjure yourself, you will do much to slay two souls.”
the man boasted an artificial strength that spoke with facile scorn.
“i am as happy as i can expect to be in this world,” he argued. “i have given up heroics, and intend to see things as they are. it is an error to meditate over one’s psychical inconsistencies. always ask yourself whether you are happy, and you are doomed to be miserable.”
judith was not the woman to be deluded with sophistry. she had convictions—convictions that could not live on air.
“you know very well whether you are happy or not,” she said.
“i have never arrived at any such conclusion since i began to think, eight years ago.”
“a soul never attains to happiness by theorizing.”
“possibly not. the mind of the thinker is always daring storm and shipwreck. mentally i am a species of raleigh, ever promising myself an el dorado, a dream that other people always quash. i find my friends the surest iconoclasts of my ideals.”
judith halted under the great cedar; green grass stretched brilliant at her feet; the western sunlight shone upon her face.
“your very words betray you. you are flippant.”
“men are often flippant when they are most in earnest,” he answered her. “little woman, you create moral problems unnecessarily.”
judith withstood him, gracious and beautifully eager.
“i will ask you a simple question,” she said. “would you be happier if at this moment you were free?”
he hung his head and looked into the gloom of the trees.
“no one is free from the cradle. we are beset by eternal obligations.”
“you prevaricate.”
“life is one long obligation. i only maintain the inevitable.”
“gabriel, break off this alliance.”
the man laughed, half cynically, yet with a wistful scorn.
“there are many things you do not understand,” he said.
“reconsider it.”
“i can reconsider nothing.”
judith shook her head and looked long at him out of her large eyes.
“my heart tells me that all is not well with you,” she said.
her brother gazed at her with a smile of melancholy tenderness.
“judith,” he answered her, “why worry yourself over my future. a man may often repent; he can rarely alter. by my own deeds i have made this match inevitable. you can only pain me by suggesting impossibilities. i have incurred a debt—a debt heavier than you can guess. i am happier in doing my duty as a man of honor than i should be in playing the craven. you have the truth.”
judith hid her eyes from him under her lashes.
“this is a sad world,” she said.
“perhaps.”
“men pledge themselves to an error and spend their blood in justifying it.”
“what of sincerity?”
“true sincerity never errs,” she said. “it looks ahead and deceives not the future. the greatest strength is that which emancipates itself from a moral lie.”
“well and good,” he answered her; “but sheer egotism is unpardonable under certain circumstances.”
“it is the false egotism that in the beginning shackles the true.”
“then must the true try to remedy the false. we all err. errors are the illegitimate offspring of the soul; as their parents, we must maintain them. they are ours and of us. the laws of society saddle us with the responsibility. my dear girl, say no more.”
thus ended judith’s pleading with her brother ineffectually, though not for lack of eloquence or ardor. possibly the man knew himself a fool in the deep recesses of his heart. when present in the flesh, his betrothed overpowered him with her perilous splendor. she poured her sensuous magic upon his soul, and, like tannh?user, he knelt before her impotent and helpless. the hashish of her beauty had lulled his deeper self to sleep.
matters mundane were moving on apace. john strong had draughted a company of craftsmen into the antique rooms and galleries of the friary. tapestries were being spread, walls garnished, friezes gilded, rich fabrics wafted into its dusky rooms. the merchant’s coffers ran gold. truly the house was a haunt for lovers, consecrated by all the charters of romance.
september waited to hear the bells of saltire pealing for the pair. italy was to receive them, passionate pilgrims, treading the earth to the tune of love. ophelia, gracious maid, had wandered from arcady to the marts of the city of lud to spend a novitiate amid fabrics from the loom. her large eyes sparkled amid the splendors of bond street, and glib-tongued ’prentices bowed before her feet. she was very radiant, very fair, very pleasurable. many a delectable dandy coveted unconsciously the lot of gabriel strong.
