Books: Maurice Guest

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The PENSION at which she had stayed in Dresden, had been frequented by
leisured foreigners: over twenty people, of various nationalities, had
sat down daily at the dinner-table. Among so large a number, it would
have been easy for Louise to hold herself aloof. But, as far as
Maurice could gather, she had felt no inclination to do this. From the
first, she seemed to have been the nucleus of an admiring circle,
chief among the members of which was a family of Americans--a brother
and two sisters, rich Southerners, possessed of a vague leaning
towards art and music. The names of these people recurred persistently
in her talk; and, as the days went by, Maurice found himself listening
for one name in particular, with an irritation he could not master.
Raymond van Houst--a ridiculous name!--fit only for a backstairs
romance. But as often as she spoke of Dresden, it was on her lips.
Whether in the Galleries, or at the Opera, on driving excursions, or
on foot, this man had been at her side; and soon the mere mention of
him was enough to set Maurice's teeth on edge.

One afternoon, he found her standing before an extravagant mass of
flowers, which were heaped up on the table; there were white and
purple violets, a great bunch of lilies of the valley, and roses of
different colours. They had been sent to her from Dresden, she said;
but, beyond this, she offered no explanation. All the vases in the
room were collected before her; but she had not begun to fill
them: she stood with her hands in the flowers, tumbling them about,
enjoying the contact of their moist freshness.

To Maurice's remark that she seemed to take a pleasure in destroying
them, she returned a casual: "What does it matter?" and taking up as
many violets as she could hold, looked defiantly at him over their
purple leaves. Through all she said and did ran a strong undercurrent
of excitement.

But before Maurice left, her manner changed. She came over to him, and
said, without looking up: "Maurice I want to tell you something."

"Yes; what is it?" He spoke with the involuntary coolness this mood of
hers called out in him; and she was quick to feel it. She returned to
the table.

"You ask so prosaically: you are altogether prosaic to-day. And it is
not a thing I can tell you off-hand. You would need to sit down again.
It's a long story; and you were going; and it's late. We will leave it
till to-morrow: that will be time enough. And if it is fine, we can go
out somewhere, and I'll tell you as we go."

It was a brilliant May afternoon: great white clouds were piled one on
the top of another, like bales of wool; and their fantastic bulging
roundnesses made the intervening patches of blue seem doubly distant.
The wind was hardly more than a breath, which curled the tips of thin
branches, and fluttered the loose ends of veils and laces. In the
ROSENTAL, where the meadow-slopes were emerald-green, and each branch
bore its complement of delicately curled leaves, the paths were so
crowded that there could be no question of a connected conversation.
But again, Louise was not in a hurry to begin.

She continued meditative, even when they had reached the KAISERPARK,
and were sitting with their cups before them, in the long, wooden,
shed-like building, open at one side. She had taken off her hat--a
somewhat showy white hat, trimmed with large white feathers--and laid
it on the table; one dark wing of hair fell lower than the other, and
shaded her forehead.

Maurice, who was on tenterhooks, subdued his impatience as long as he
could. Finally, he emptied his cup at a draught, and pushed it away.

"You wanted to speak to me, you said."--His manner was curt, from sheer
nervousness.

His voice startled her. "Yes, I have something to tell you,"
she said, with a hesitation he did not know in her. "But I must go
back a little.--If you remember, Maurice, you wrote to me while I was
away, didn't you?" she said, and looked not at him, but at her hands
clasped before her. "You gave me a number of excellent reasons why it
would be better for me not to come back here. I didn't answer your
letter at the time because . . . What should you say, Maurice, if I
told you now, that I intended to take your advice?"

"You are going away?" The words jerked out gratingly, of themselves.

"Perhaps.--That is what I want to speak to you about. I have a chance
of doing so."

"Chance? How chance?" he asked sharply.

"That's what I am going to tell you, if you will give me time."

Drawing a letter from her pocket, she smoothed the creases out of the
envelope, and handed it to him.

While he read it, she looked away, looked over the enclosure. Some
people were crossing it, and she followed them with her eyes, though
she had often seen their counterparts before. A man in a heavy
ulster--notwithstanding the mildness of the day--stalked on ahead,
unconcerned about the fate of his family, which dragged, a woman and
two children, in the rear: like savages, thought Louise, where the
male goes first, to scent danger. But the crackling of paper recalled
her attention; Maurice was folding the sheet, and replacing it in the
envelope, with a ludicrous precision. His face had taken on a pinched
expression, and he handed the letter back to her without a word.

She looked at him, expecting him to say something; but he was
obdurate. "This was what I was waiting all these days to tell you,"
she said.

"You knew it was coming then?" He scarcely recognised his own voice;
he spoke as he supposed a judge might speak to a proven criminal.

Louise shrugged her shoulders. "No. Yes.--That is, as far as it's
possible to know such a thing."

Through the crude glass window, the sun cast a medley of lines and
lights on her hands, and on the checkered table-cloth. There were two
rough benches, and a square table; the coffeecups stood on a metal
tray; the lid of the pot was odd, did not match the set: all these
inanimate things, which, a moment ago, Maurice had seen without seeing
them, now stood out before his eyes, as if each of them had
acquired an independent life, and no longer fitted into its
background.

"Let us go home," he said, and rose.

"Go home? But we have only just come!" cried Louise, with what seemed
to him pretended surprise. "Why do you want to go home? It is so quiet
here: I can talk to you. For I need your advice, Maurice. You must
help me once again."

"I help you?--in this? No, thank you. All I can do, it seems, is to
wish you joy." He remained standing, with his hand on the back of the
bench.

But at the cold amazement of her eyes, he took his seat again. "It is
a matter for yourself--only you can decide. It's none of my business."
He moved the empty cups about on the cloth.

"But why are you angry?"

"Haven't I good reason to be? To see you--you !--accepting an
impertinence of this kind so quietly. For it IS an impertinence,
Louise, that a man you hardly know should write to you in this
cocksure way and ask you to marry him. Impertinent and absurd!"

"You have a way of finding most things I want to do absurd," she
answered. "In this case, though, you're. mistaken. The tone of the
letter is all it should be. And, besides, I know Mr. Van Houst very
well."

Maurice looked at her with a sardonic smile.

"Seven weeks is a long time," she added.

"Seven weeks!--and for a lifetime!"

"Oh, one can get to know a man inside out, in seven weeks," she said,
with wilful flippancy. "Especially if, from the first, he shows so
plainly . . . Maurice, don't be angry. You have always been kind to
me; you're not going to fail me now that I really need help? I have no
one else, as you very well know." She smiled at him, and held out her
hand. He could not refuse to take it; but he let it drop again
immediately.

"Let me tell you all about it, and how it happened, and then you will
understand," Louise went on, in a persuasive voice--he had once
believed that the sound of this voice would reconcile him to any fate.
"You think the time was short, but we were together every day, and
sometimes all day long. I knew from the first that he cared for me; he
made no secret of it. If anything, it is a proof of tactfulness on his
part that he should have written rather than have spoken to me
himself. I like him for doing it, for giving me time. And
then, listen, Maurice, what I should gain by marrying him. He is rich,
really rich, and good-looking--in an American way--and thirtytwo years
old. His sisters would welcome me--one of them told me as much, and
told me, too, that her brother had never cared for anyone before. He
would make an ideal husband," she added with a sudden recklessness, at
the sight of Maurice's unmoved face. "Americanly chivalrous to the
fingertips, and with just enough of the primitive animal in him to
ward off monotony."

Maurice raised his hand, as if in self-defence. "So you, too, then,
like any other woman, would marry just for the sake of marrying?" he
asked, with bitter disbelief.

"Yes.--And just especially and particularly I."

"For Heaven's sake, let us get out of here!"

Without listening to her protest, he went to find the waiter. Louise
followed him out of the enclosure, carrying hat and gloves in her
hand.

They struck into narrow by-paths going back, to avoid the people. But
it was impossible to escape all, and those they met, eyed them with
curiosity. The clear English voices rang out unconcerned; the pale
girl with the Italian eyes was visibly striving to appease her
companion, who marched ahead, angry and impassive.

For a few hundred yards neither of them spoke. Then Louise began anew.

"And that is not all. You judge harshly and unfairly because you don't
know the facts. I am almost quite alone in the world. I have no
relatives that I care for, except one brother. I lived with him, on
his station in Queensland, until I came here. But now he's married,
and there would be no room for me in the house--figuratively speaking.
If I go back now, I must share his home with his wife, whom I knew and
disliked. While here is some one who is fond of me, and is rich, and
who offers me not only a home of my own, but, what is far more to me,
an entirely new life in a new world."

"Excellent reasons! But in reckoning them up, you have forgotten what
seems to me the most important one of all; whether or no you care for
him, for this . . . "this in his trouble, he could not find a suitable
epithet.

But Louise refused to be touched. "I like him," she answered, and
looked across the slope of meadow they were passing. "I liked him,
yes, as any woman would like a man who treated her as he did
me. He was very good tome. And not in the least repugnant.--But care?"
she interrupted herself. "If by care, you mean . . . Then no, a
hundred thousand times, no! I shall never care for anyone in that way
again, and you know it. I had enough of that to last me all my life."

"Very well, then, and I say, if you married a man you care for as
little as that, I should never believe in a woman again.--Not, of
course, that it matters to you what I believe in and what I don't? But
to hear you--you, Louise!--counting up the profits to be gained from it,
like . . . like--oh, I don't know what! I couldn't have believed it of
you."

"You are a very uncomfortable person, Maurice."

"I mean to be. And more than uncomfortable. Listen to me! You talk of
it lightly and coolly; but if you married this man, without caring for
him more than you say you do, just for the sake of a home, or his
money, or his good manners, or the primitive animal, or whatever it is
that attracts you in him:"--he grew bitter again in spite of
himself--"if you did this, you would be stifling all that is good and
generous in your nature. For you may say what you like; the man is
little more than a stranger to you. What can you know of his real
character? And what can he know of you?"

"He knows as much of me as I ever intend him to know."

"Indeed! Then you wouldn't tell him, for instance, that only a few
months ago, you were eating your heart out for some one else?"

Louise winced as though the words had struck her in the face. Before
she answered, she stood still, in the middle of the path, and pinned
on, with deliberate movements, the big white hat, beneath the drooping
brim and nodding feathers of which, her eyes were as black as coals.

"No, I should not," she said. "Why should I? Do you think it would
make him care more for me to know that I had nearly died of love for
another man?"

"Certainly not. And it might also make him less ready to marry you."

"That's exactly what I think."

One was as bitter as the other; but Maurice was the more violent of
the two.

"And so you would begin the new life you talk of, with lies and
deceit?--A most excellent beginning!"

"If you like to call it that. I only know, that no one with
any sense thinks of dragging up certain things when once they are dead
and buried. Or are you, perhaps, simple enough to believe any man
living would get over what I have to tell him, and care for me
afterwards in the same way ?"

He turned, with tell-tale words on his tongue. But the expression of
her face intimidated him. He had only to look at her to know that, if
he spoke of himself at this moment, she would laugh him to scorn.

But the beloved face acted on him in its own way; his sense of injury
weakened. "Louise," he said in an altered tone; "whatever you say to
the contrary, in a matter like this, I can't advise you. For I don't
understand--and never should.--But of one thing I'm as sure as I am
that the sun will rise to-morrow, and that is, that you won't do it.
Do you honestly think you could go on living, day after day, with a
man you don't sincerely care for?--of whom the most you can say is that
he's not repugnant to you? You little know what it would mean!--And you
may reason as you will; I answer for you; and I say no, and again no.
It isn't in you to do it. You are not mean and petty enough. You can't
hide your feelings, try as you will.--No, you couldn't deceive some
one, by pretending to care for him, for months on end. You would be
miserably unhappy; and then--then I know what would happen. You would
be candid--candid about everything--when it was too late."

There was no mistaking the sincerity of his words. But Louise was
boundlessly irritated, and made no further effort to check her
resentment.

"You have an utterly false and ridiculous idea of me, and of
everything belonging to me."

"I haven't spent all this time with you for nothing. I know you better
than you know yourself. I believe in you, Louise. And I know I am
right. And some day you'll know it, too."

These words only incensed her the more.

"What you know--or think you know--is nothing to me. If you had listened
to me patiently, as I asked you to, instead of losing your temper, and
taking what I said as a personal affront, then, yes, then I should
have told you something else besides. How, when I came back, a
fortnight ago, I was quite resolved to marry this man, if he asked me
marry him and cut myself off for ever from my old life and its hateful
memories.--And why not? I'm still young. I still have a right to
pleasure--and change--and excitement.--And in all these days, I
didn't once hesitate--not till the letter came yesterday--and then not
till night. It wasn't like me; for when once I have made up my mind, I
never go back. So I determined to ask you--ask you to help me to
decide. For you had always been kind to me.--But this is what I get
for doing it." Her anger flared up anew. "You have treated me
abominably, to-day, Maurice; and I shan't forget it. All your
ridiculous notions about right and wrong don't matter a straw. What
does matter is, that when I ask for help, you should behave as if--as
if I were going to commit a crime. Your opinion is nothing to me. If I
decide to marry the man, I shall do it, no matter what you say."

"I'm sure you will."

"And if I don't, let me tell you this: it won't be because of anything
you've said to-day. Not from any high-flown notions of honesty, or
generosity, as you would like to make yourself believe; but merely
because I haven't the energy in me. I couldn't keep it up. I want to
be quiet, to have an easy life. The fact that some one else had to
suffer, too, wouldn't matter to me, in the least. It's myself I think
of, first and foremost, and as long as I live it will always be
myself."

Her voice belied her words; he expected each moment that she would
burst out crying. However, she continued to walk on, with her head
erect; and she did not take back one of the unkind things she had
said.

They parted without being reconciled. Maurice stood and watched her
mount the staircase, in the vain hope that she would turn, before
reaching the top.

He did not see how the fine May afternoon declined, and passed into
evening; how the high stacks of cloud were broken up at sunset, and
shredded into small flakes and strips of cloud, which, saturated with
gold, vanished in their turn: how the shadows in the corners turned
from blue to black; nor did he note the mists that rose like steam
from the ground, intensifying the acrid smell of garlic, with which
the woods abounded. Screened by the thicket, he sat on his accustomed
scat, and gave himself up to being miserable.

For some time he was conscious only of how deeply he had been
wounded--just as one suffers from the bruise after the blow. At the
moment, he had been stunned into a kind of quiescence; now his nerves
throbbed and tingled. But, little by little, a vivid recollection of
what had actually occurred returned to sting him: and certain details
stood out fixed and unforgettable. Yet, in reliving the hours just
past, he felt no regret at the fact that they had quarrelled. What
first smote him was an unspeakable amazement at Louise. The knowledge
that, for weeks on end, she had been contemplating marriage, was
beyond his belief. Hardly recovered from the throes of a suffering
believed incurable, and while he was still going about her with gloved
hands, as it were, she was ready to throw herself into the arms of the
first likely man she met. He could not help himself: in this
connection, every little trait in her that was uncongenial to him,
started up with appalling distinctness. Hitherto, he had put it down
to his own sensitiveness; he was over-nice. But for the most part, he
had forgiven her on account of all she had come through; for he
believed that this grief had swept destructively through her nature,
leaving a jagged wound, which only time could heal. Now, as if to
prove to him what a fool he was, she showed him that he had been
mistaken in this also; she could recover her equilibrium, while he
still hedged her round with solicitude--recover herself, and transfer
her affection to another person. Good God! Was it so easy, a matter of
so little moment, to grow fond of one who was almost a stranger to
her?--for, in spite of what she said to the contrary, he was persuaded
that she had a stronger feeling for this man than she had been willing
to admit: this riper man, with his experienced way of treating women.
Was, then, his own idea of her wholly false? Was there, after all,
something in her nature that he could not, would not, understand? He
denied it fiercely, almost before he had formulated the question: no
matter what her actions were, or what words she said, deep down in her
was an intense will for good, a spring of noble impulse. It was only
that she had never had a proper chance. But he denied it to a vision
of her face: the haunting eyes which, at first sight, had destroyed
his peace of mind; the dead black hair against the ivory-coloured
skin. It was in these things that the truth lay, not in the blind
promptings of her inclination.

For the first time, the idea of marriage took definite shape in his
mind. For all he knew, it might have been lying dormant there, all
along; but he would doubtless have remained unconscious of it, for
weeks to come, had it not been for the events of the afternoon. Now,
however, Louise had made it plain that his feelings for her were of an
exaggerated delicacy; plain that she herself had no such scruples. He
need hesitate no longer. But marry! . . . marriage! . . . he marry
Louise!--at the thought of it, he laughed. That he, Maurice
Guest, should, for an instant, put himself on a par with her American
suitor! The latter, rich, leisured, able to satisfy her caprices,
surround her with luxury: himself, younger than she by several years,
without prospects, with nothing to offer her but a limitless devotion.
He tried to imagine himself saying: "Louise, will you marry me?" and
the words stuck in his throat; for he saw the amused astonishment of
her eyes. And not merely at the presumption he would be guilty of;
what was as clear to him as day was that she did not really care for
him; not as he cared for her; not with the faintest hint of a warmer
feeling. If he had never grasped this before, he did so now, to the
full. Sitting there, he affirmed to himself that she did not even like
him. She was grateful to him, of course, for his help and friendship;
but that was all. Beyond this, he would not have been surprised to
learn from her own lips that she actually disliked him: for there was
something irreconcilable about their two natures. And never, for a
moment, had she considered him in the light of an eligible lover--oh,
how that stung! Here was she, with an attraction for him which nothing
could weaken; and in him was not the smallest lineament, of body or of
mind, to wake a response in her. He was powerless to increase her
happiness by a hair's breadth. Her nerves would never answer to the
inflection of his voice, or the touch of his hand. How could such
things be? What anomaly was here?

To-day, her face rose before him unsought--the sweet, dark face with
the expression of slight melancholy that it wore in repose, as he
loved it best. It was with him when, stiff and tired, he emerged from
his seclusion, and walked home through the trails of mist that hung,
breast-high, on the meadow-land. It was with him under the
street-lamps, and, to its accompanying presence, the strong conviction
grew in him that evasion on his part was no longer possible. Sooner or
later, come what might, the words he had faltered over, even to
himself, would have to be spoken.

XI.

One day, some few weeks later, Madeleine sat at her writingtable,
biting the end of her pen. A sheet of note-paper lay before her; but
she had not yet written a word. She frowned to herself, as she sat.

Hard at work that morning, she had heard a ring at the door-bell, and,
a minute after, her landlady ushered in a visitor, in the shape of
Miss Martin. Madeleine rose from the piano with ill-concealed
annoyance, and having seated Miss Martin on the sofa, waited
impatiently for the gist of her visit; for she was sure that the
lively American would not come to see her without an object. And she
was right: she knew to a nicety when the important moment arrived.
Most of the visit was preamble; Miss Martin talked at length of her
own affairs, assuming, with disarming candour, that they interested
other people as much as herself. She went into particulars about her
increasing dissatisfaction with Schwarz, and retailed the glowing
accounts she heard on all sides of a teacher called Schrievers. He was
not on the staff of the Conservatorium; but he had been a favourite of
Liszt's, and was attracting many pupils. From this, Miss Martin passed
to more general topics, such as the blow Dove had recently received
over the head of his attachment to pretty Susie Fay. "Why, Sue, she
feels perfectly DREADFUL about it. She can't understand Mr. Dove
thinking they were anything but real good friends. Most every one here
knew right away that Sue had her own boy down home in Illinois. Yes,
indeed."

Madeleine displayed her want of interest in Dove's concerns so
plainly, that Miss Martin could not do otherwise than cease discussing
them. She rose to end her call. As, however, she stood for the
momentary exchange of courtesies that preceded the hand-shake, she
said, in an off-hand way: "Miss Wade, I presume I needn't inquire if
you're acquainted with the latest about Louise Dufrayer? I say, I
guess I needn't inquire, seeing you're so well acquainted with Mr.
Guest. I presume, though, you don't see so much of him now. No,
indeed. I hear he's thrown over all his friends. I feel real
disappointed about him. I thought he was a most agreeable young man.
But, as momma says, you never can tell. An' I reckon Louise is
most to blame. Seems like she simply CAN'T exist without a beau. But I
wonder she don't feel ashamed to show herself, the way she's talked
of. Why, the stories I hear about her! . . . an' they're always
together. She's gotten her a heap of new things, too--a millionaire
asked her to marry him, when she was in Dresden, but he wasn't good
enough for her, no ma'am, an' all on account of Mr. Guest.--Yes,
indeed. But I must say I feel kind of sorry for him, anyway. He was a
real pleasant young man."