XXXVII
But it was not until four o'clock on the day of release that she foundherself actually alone in her chilly and chaste boudoir on the higherhill; Mrs. Hofer escorted her home and remained for many last words.Then Isabel fell into a chair before the mounting fire and shut hereyes. Lady Victoria was out. Gwynne was not expected until the eveningtrain. She wished that she had not promised to dine with the Stones atseven. The house was as silent as a tomb; but while she was stillrejoicing in the sudden cessation of sound and motion, the door openedand Gwynne entered. She gave him a surly nod, and he explained that hehad come down in the morning, in order to be at hand to welcome her; hadeven meditated going to her rescue. Isabel deigned no reply, and he tookpossession of a deep chair, settled himself on his backbone, andregarded her attentively.
"I am sorry you have not enjoyed your week as much as I have done," heobserved. "The weather has been magnificent, and I have spent all thedays out-of-doors, riding, walking, duck-shooting--taking liberties withyour boat, and even your launch. I never enjoyed myself more--after suchclose study, and all the rest of it, I suppose. I must say you don'tlook very fit. You are pale instead of white, and--well--cross. Judgingfrom those models of literary elegance and Christian charity, the SanFrancisco weekly society sheets--with which I whiled away that infernaltrain journey--you have been feted like visiting royalty, photographedby the foremost in his art--which would appear to be the equivalent ofpainted for the Academy--and your family history seems to have beenwritten up from old files, with even more picturesqueness thanaccuracy--"
"I wish you would keep still. You didn't talk half so much in England. Ishall hate you if you become wholly American."
"I am a born egotist. Ask my mother. Or my long-suffering friends andconstituents. You did all the talking at Capheaton--or gave me a wideberth. But here my mother neither talks nor listens--" He pausedsuddenly and lowered his voice. "Is anything the matter with my mother,do you think? I never saw any one so changed. Do you suppose she hatesCalifornia and is staying here only on my account?--I have offered morethan once to pay her bills; and she is used to them, anyway. Forheaven's sake persuade her to go back and enjoy herself in her ownfashion. I really don't need her--haven't time. And in spite of yourliberal thorns and maddening incomprehensibilities, you can always puthomesickness to flight. Sometimes I think she is ill, and then again shelooks as fit as ever."
"She has developed nerves. All women get them sometime or other. Andthere is a certain order of women with whom beauty and fascination are avocation. When those pass they hate life."
"What rot. No doubt she's a bit off her feed and restless. Probably theclimate doesn't suit her. Heaven knows it is nervous enough. But I don'tpretend to understand women. What's up with you? Didn't you enjoy beinga belle, after all?"
"I was not a belle. I was a distinct failure."
"What?" Gwynne sat up and forward. "If you want to psychologize, fireaway. It always interests me."
"I have no intention of psychologizing. I haven't had time to think. ButI do know that a life lived all on the surface--and at lightningspeed--doesn't suit me a bit." She gave him a rapid sketch of her week."I was with them, but not of them; no doubt of that. Old Mr. Toole toldme one day that I was a dreamer, and I am afraid that is the solution. Ilike to imagine myself doing things, but I don't like actually doingthem. I found that out over and over again in Europe. I can't tell youhow I have longed for a girl's good time here in San Francisco--deniedall these years, and my birthright. I was bored everywhere. I cannotmake talk; I can only talk spontaneously when I am interested. Icouldn't even enjoy the dancing--for the prospect of entertaining thosebrats between times. And they were all afraid of me. I never could be abelle like either the old ones or the new ones; the fault lies wholly inmyself, not in circumstances or materials. _I don't really want it._ Nogirl can be a social success unless she cares tremendously for it.Merely pretty girls are often popular, simply because popularity is thebreath of life to them. I wouldn't try it again for anything on earth. Ilong to be at home watching the marsh, and not a soul to talk to. Thatwas all I was made for. A dreamer! I am terribly disappointed."
"But Society is a mere phase. So is Stone's Bohemia. The town is full ofclever people. You can select and form your own set--when you areready."
"I am afraid I don't care about it. I dislike the actual effort. So longas Mr. Hofer and those men are talking I am interested, but even so Ihave enjoyed--far more--thinking about and planning to know them. I amnothing but a dreamer."
"And you have just discovered that?" asked Gwynne, curiously. "I may nothave made an exhaustive study of woman, but up to a certain point I knowyou; and I have not waited for Father O'Toole to enlighten me. I couldhave told you that you would hate all this sort of thing. You had a meretaste of it in English country-houses, where entertaining has reachedsuch a point of perfection that a man never feels so much at home aswhen in some one's else house. If you had waited for a London season youwould have been as quickly disillusioned. You have the most impossibleideals--"
"I can realize them when I am alone," said Isabel, defiantly. "I shallbe as happy as ever on the ranch, the day after to-morrow."
"That sort of happiness will do very well for a while--living in yourimagination and all that. But what is it going to lead to?"
"Lead to? It is enough in itself."
"You can't live on moonshine for ever. I told you before that Iunderstood your particular form of idealism; but although I believe thatman will certainly be happier when he lives more within that structureof infinite variety, himself, less and less dependent upon theaggregations Life has devised for amusing and tormenting him, still wemust reach that condition by very slow degrees; if we take it with aleap the result will be an ugly and disastrous selfishness. If you canprove to the world that you have found happiness in the cultivation ofthe higher faculties, you will serve a purpose in life, for you willencourage a certain class of women born with such serious lacks, in thehealth or the affections, or even in the power to endure the meremonotonies of married life, that they are better off alone; but whooften feel themselves a failure and drop into morbidity and decay. Thatmeans contact for your highness, however. If you sit down by your marshfor the rest of your life and dream, you miss the whole point. And whentime forced you to realize the uncompromising selfishness of such alife--where would your happiness be then?"
"Now you are talking by the book. Why are we so sure that it is a partof our duty to make others happy? That may be but one more superstitionto rout. If we manage to be happy ourselves, and through the exercise ofthe higher faculties alone, we may be serving an end decreed from thebeginning; by some subtle process, as incomprehensible as even thecommonplaces of life, add to the sum of happiness, and so serve life farbetter than by scattering ourselves all over the surface. But I told yousomething of this before and have not forgotten the result."
"Neither have I, but one can get accustomed to any idea. What I want toknow is--do you leave youth entirely out of your calculations?"
"Oh--youth! Well--it is possible I might not if I had not lived throughits tragedy already--for which I am thankful."
"You have had romance and tragedy, and you are a very experienced youngwoman, but you have not had happiness," said Gwynne, shrewdly. "That,too, is a birthright, and sooner or later you will demand it. Socialconquests have palled in seven days. In time chickens also will cease tosatisfy, and books, and dreams, and sunsets, and liberty. The peculiarconditions and events of your first quarter-century demanded an intervalbefore beginning again; and filled with all you have deliberatelychosen--all, that is, but chickens, which are a work not of God but ofsupererogation. But intervals come to an end like other things. Whenthis finishes you will suddenly demand happiness--the real thing."
"You mean that I will fall in love again, I suppose."
"I mean that you will love."
"Now you are hair-splitting. Are you qualifying to contributefictionized essays to the Ameri
can magazines?"
"I am stating facts and don't care a hang about sarcasm. Just now youhave spasms when some aspect of nature exalts you. I have watched youwith considerable amusement. But it is natural enough--merely a sort offorerunner of what will happen when nature establishes her currents withyour own interior landscapes. Then there will be earthquakes andhurricanes--your cultivated realism and inherent romanticism will becomehopelessly mixed, and you will be really happy."
"More likely, such moments are the forerunners of a state which shall bean eternal exaltation. Personal immortality is only to be desired if itinsures the lifting of our faculties to their highest power ofexpression. Anything else would mean a boundless ennui. As for mypresent inertia, is it not the duty of some few to pass their lives inappreciation of the past? Heaven knows there are enough looking out forthe present. And I am sick of the superstition that love is all. I toldyou before that the happiness of women, at least, depended uponrelegating it to its proper place. Once I regretted that Prestage didnot die while I still believed in him, so that I could have lived mylife with his memory, as Concha Argueello did with Rezanov's. But eventhat would have been a species of slavery, and I should have chafed atthe bond; never had this divine sense of freedom."
"I pass over the majority of your arguments--I must sleep on them. Butwhen have I maintained that love was all? If that were my doctrineshould I be reading my head off, investing in Class A buildings, talkingpolitics to farmers, and revolving plans for the conquest of California?I should be making love to you. That is what I should like to do,however, and what I propose to do when I am ready."
"Are you in love with me?"
"I hardly know, but I suspect that I shall be. If I deliberately chooseyou now as my life partner, you cannot complain that I am the mere slaveof passion. I don't fancy I look it at this moment. I have had thosefevers, and am willing to admit their brevity. No doubt if I had notbeen so occupied of late I should have had another. As it is, I amblessedly permitted to foresee it; and to keep my brain clear enoughmeanwhile to think for both of us."
"Very cousinly, but I can think for myself."
She had risen, but he stood with his back against the door for a moment.
"Another thing--" he said. "You need a buffer. You have remarkablepowers, and you might realize some of your dreams if the prospect ofinitiatives did not alarm your secretly feminine soul. The two of ustogether could conquer the world. Now go ahead and dream until dreamspall and I have more time."