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The Passionate Puritan

Chapter XXVII

page 283

Chapter XXVII

For more than an hour after he had left her Sidney walked up and down the road.

She could hardly be said to be thinking. Her mind was a chaos of mangled mental waves that struggled to become thoughts and failed. As at first she did not really believe Arthur's story, she did not begin to feel the relief she might have done. That his living with Mana was a thing back in the past did not immediately change her attitude. She had suffered too much of a shock for that.

In that first hour she simply felt at sea with everything she had ever believed about human beings. Arthur's words about Jack Ridgefield troubled her absurdly. In the curious way that people do when life hits them hard she limited her world to these two men and her smashed illusions concerning them. It was not till the next day that she remembered that the world was a considerable place, and that vast numbers of women seemed to be getting on very comfortably with men as they were.

The thing that irritated her most in the nextpage 284 few weeks was the training that had made her believe in a world of phantom men. Her dear sentimental aunt, married to a mild, lovable man who had been satisfied with her, had pictured men of gigantic moral proportions, St. Anthonys and Sir Galahads, as being quite common in the world, and had assured her niece that her only hope for happiness lay in getting one of them, and that she would know him by some mysterious mark when she saw him.

She now cursed her foolish aunt for committing her to such folly. And she was mad at herself that after several years of meeting men freely, and hearing a good deal about them she should have remained so unsophisticated. She saw what a fool she must now appear to Arthur, not at all a consoling thought.

When she went to see Sophie that evening she found that her nurse had arrived, a superior nurse, and an old friend of Mrs. Jack. Sidney was glad to feel that she would not be wanted there now in the evenings. She did not want to see Jack. She thought she was sick of the sight of everybody she knew. She would have given anything to get away somewhere alone.

The next night she went into the schoolroom to play to herself. She hoped Bob Lindsay would not come as he had on two occasions when he heard the organ. She wondered why she likedpage 285 Bob. He was obviously emotional, and putty in the hands of any woman who wanted him. She had never supposed him chaste or faithful, and yet she liked him. She did not condemn him for being an ordinary male. She knew it was because he had no power to hurt her.

What a horrible thing love was! "What a weapon for agony it put into the hands of the people one loved. Was marriage a constant succession of sword thrusts? If so she could not stand it. Better be lonely and unstabbed. She envied the bovine women who did not suspect their husbands. She hated her own imagination.

Sidney loved the empty school at night. Its peace was intensified by the memory of the activity of the day. In its curious isolation she could almost enjoy her breaking heart.

She opened a book of Handel and began to play. She was absorbed in it when she heard the door open behind her. She was vexed with Bob for intruding. She turned to find herself looking up at Arthur Devereux. She stared helplessly at him as he stepped up to the organ.

"Well, child," he said, taking up one of the hymn books. He turned the pages rapidly, while she tried to stifle a smothering thumping of her heart.

He set the open book down over her Handel

"Let's sing 'Lead, Kindly Light, Amid the

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Eternal Gloom.' It seems appropriate," he said solemnly.

She dropped her face, sternly setting her lips against a smile.

"Oh, don't laugh," he said forbiddingly, looking down at her. "If you began to laugh, you might like me again. And then what would become of your principles?"

It was rather an unfortunate remark, as she had not yet recovered her sense of humour, and was feeling very touchy about her principles because they were in a precarious position.

"You needn't sneer at my principles," she retorted. "Men of your type are very particular about them when it comes to your wives, I've noticed."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Sidney, what have you done with your sense of humour? Let's go out and look for it."

Because she felt strongly the pressure of his personality, she deliberately set herself against it, determined that she would think her own way out of the mess she was in. And she was still full of the idea that he had deceived her for his own ends, and that his code of morality was not hers.

"Arthur, you had no business to come here. I'm too tired to discuss anything to-night," she said harshly.

"I didn't suggest a discussion. I suggested apage 287 search. You've lost your most valuable possession. But I suspect we may find it in a star."

He looked at her with such a comical expression that she wanted to jump up and, like a child, throw herself into his arms. But she was a ruthless young woman, inhumanly strong. And she had the idea that if she taught him a good lesson now he would remember it. This obnoxious idea was one of the results of her training and her dear aunt, who had always believed in improving the occasion, a method that seldom improves anything but the occasion.

"I'm in no mood to talk to-night, Arthur. You think I've changed, but I have not. I still feel I cannot trust you. I'm sick about the whole thing. I do not consider myself engaged to you or bound to you in any way. Now will you please go? Somebody will come and find us here."

He knew quite well that her heart really belied every word she said.

"Then they will," he said calmly, drawing a second chair up to the organ.

Flushing with quick anger because he took no notice of her, and really afraid that somebody might walk in at any minute, she rose and left him.

He blew out the candles and followed her. At her gate his manner changed.

"Just a moment, Sidney," he began, in tonespage 288 that startled her. "If you dismiss me like this, I swear I'll never come to you again. I've every sympathy for your bruised mind. I remember what I felt like when I went through it. God knows I'm sorry enough if I've been the man to open your eyes. I should have preferred it to be someone else. But you will get over it, you know, and when you are forty you will laugh to think you ever went through such a phase. Now will you let me talk to you and help you if I can, or are you determined to be a fool? For nobody but a fool would wreck the prospects for happiness that you and I have. They may not be burning brightly at this moment, but they have cast pretty substantial shadows at times during the last year. Well, am I to go?"

The hardness of his tone and manner startled and hurt her. And she was frightened by the alternative he offered. Two weeks ago she was sure she never wanted to see him again. Now the thought that she might not was unthinkable. Of course she had never really supposed he would go right out of her life. What had she supposed? She didn't know.

"All right, Arthur," she said in a crushed voice, "I'll hear you."

"The devil!" he retorted irritably, "if it's as bad as all that I'll go. Good God! I thought you loved me. I see I've been a fool too——"

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He stopped, for he saw that her shoulders had begun to shake.

"Forgive me, Sidney. I didn't sleep well last night, and my nerves are on edge. Come on, let's talk this out. We can't quarrel like this."

She turned with him towards the old wagon track leading into the gully behind the cottages. She took the cigarette he offered her.

It was a clear, cool night, with an intensely black sky and brilliant stars. Sidney looked up at the Southern Cross, the great love of southern star gazers, and felt it was ridiculous of her to hang on to a mood and make a religion of gloom. But something had gone out of her relation to Arthur, never to return, and the fact that she had not yet adjusted herself to the absence of glamour made her feel that she had ceased to love him with her mind. It was too soon yet for her to see that the glamour was being replaced by something more lasting than honeymoon hypnotism.

"May I talk to you?" he asked presently.

"Yes, but let me say something first."

She had regained her composure, and her voice was steady and detached.

"This whole thing has been a shock to me, Arthur. I know it seems stupid to you. I suppose it will seem funny to me when I am forty. I have been absurdly idealistic, and so this has hurt me, and I cannot get over it all at once. It'spage 290 done something to me, I don't know what. And you seem almost a stranger to me, to my mind. It's as if we would have to begin all over again. If you had only told me about Mana in the beginning—but it's no use going over that now. And it was a shock to see the child—it has spoiled everything, all the memories—you may be humorous about it, but I can't—it will take weeks——"

She stopped, feeling that she could not go on without breaking.

"I know, child. I suppose it serves me right. But you don't hate me, do you?"

He stopped on the track, took her face between his hands, and looked earnestly into it. He had been hurt in the school to see how drawn and sad it was.

"No, I suppose I couldn't really hate you, Arthur, whatever you did. But I never thought I—I——" she paused.

"Yes, go on," he said, seeing she found It difficult to say what was in her mind.

"Well, it used to be so wonderful to think of you, to see you coming——" her voice rasped.

He swore beneath his breath. But he faced it squarely. He took her hand under his arm and walked on a few yards before speaking.

"I know, my dear. It's that wonderful glamour about a person that we want to last for ever.

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But it never does last Most honeymoons see the end of it and the compromises begun. You and I could not have escaped that. And the trouble with you now is that you don't see what is left, what will grow out of the ashes of the glamour—the wonderful plant of good company. Have you thought of that? The things that hold two people together so that nothing can ever disrupt their friendship are companionable habits. I think of you, and I remember that you have never made a banal remark about scenery, that you've never called a sunset 'pretty' or a view 'sweet,' and I have no fear for the future. You are worrying now, you have been worrying about my possible infidelity. The thing that will keep me more than anything else from being unfaithful to you is that you never bore me, that you can be quiet, that you do not try to express the inexpressible, that you do not call me your 'pet' and your 'baby' when I am kissing you, that we like the same things for breakfast——"

Sidney laughed suddenly, surprising both herself and him.

"Good," he exclaimed. "Patient past the crisis, but great care still necessary."

She looked at him.

"Arthur, you know, you frighten me. You are such a clever talker, and you appear to have no feelings. There isn't a thing you couldn't jokepage 292 about. It really scares me. I've a feeling that you could gloss over everything. Everything is funny to you. And I look ahead and see that it always will be. If you were unfaithful to me, you would try to make me think it funny."

"Well, wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if I could?"

"Oh, Arthur, please, don't joke about that——"

"My dear girl, for God's sake get infidelity out of your head. You women think far too much of it anyway. It is incidental. It is the least of marital tragedies, the least of reasons for divorce. What is it that drives most men into loving other women anyway? Think of the horrors of nerves, and irritation, and banal conversation that your sex imposes on ours without a thought of their soul racking effects! The Americans have the right idea in granting divorce for mental cruelty. If you'll only start off by seeing me as I am, and then continue the habits you have led me to believe you possess, I have no fear about my future infidelity. Of course, if you are determined I shall be unfaithful to you I may have to be to prove you right. Because, of course, it would never do for you to be wrong."

Sidney laughed again, a healthy laugh this time.

"Good," said Arthur again. "Patient now able to sit up and take nourishment."

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She laughed on rather helplessly, and was afraid she was going to take hysterics. She pulled herself up with difficulty.

Arthur dropped his foolery.

"You're really awfully tired, child, I know that. That damned fire and everything. By the way, I haven't heard the whole of that Mrs. James story yet. The house was burned, wasn't it? Tell me how you got to that stump."

It seemed curious to her to talk to him about ordinary things again. The time when she had done so seemed so far away. She told him briefly how she had got Mrs. James across the creek. He fully appreciated the grimness of his being the person to go to her rescue.

Then he gave her the full story of the fight at the Big Dam, omitting any reference to his part in it, and praising Jack and his men, and so talking got back to her gate.

He was wise enough to see that she needed a rest from him, that she would grow nearer to him in his absence.

"Sidney, you are very tired. I'm not going to worry you. When you really want to see me again, will you let me know?"

He held out his hand. He had meant to tell her that he now had his divorce, but he decided that he would not try to force her feelings in any way.

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If he had held out his arms, she would have fallen into them, for her body was not as obedient as it ought to have been to her mind. But he was afraid to hurry up her convalescence, for he knew they had had a narrow escape. He did not know her, for no man ever knows the intricate contradictions between a woman's words and her emotional needs.

"All right, good-night," she said stupidly, for she was very tired.

He gripped her hand, and in a moment was gone towards the stables.

She lay awake cursing her pride and stupidity, and hungering for his arms and lips.