Phyllis of Philistia

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She threw herself on a sofa and stared at the Watteau group of
masquerading shepherds and shepherdesses on the great Sevres vase that
stood on a pedestal near her. The masks at the joining of the handles
were of grinning satyrs. They were leering at her, she thought. They
alone were aware of the good reason there was for satyrs to grin. A
woman had just sent away from her, forever, the bravest man in all the
world--those were Phyllis' words--a king of men--the one man who loved
her and whom she loved. She had pretended to him that she was subject to
the influences of religion, of honor, of duty! What hypocrisy! They
knew it, those leering creatures--they knew that she cared nothing for
religion, that she regarded honor and duty as words of no meaning when
such words as love and devotion were in the air.

She looked at the satyr masks, and had anyone been present in the room,
that one would have seen that her lovely face became gradually distorted
until the expression it wore was precisely the same as that upon the
masks--an expression that had its audible equivalent in the laugh which
broke from her.

She lay back on her broad cushions. One of the strands of her splendid
hair had become loose, and after coiling over half a yard of the
brocaded silk of a cushion, twisted its way down to the floor. She lay
back, pointing one finger at the face on the vase and laughing that
satyr-laugh.

"We know--we know--we know!" she cried, and her voice was like that of
a drunken woman. "We know all--you and I--we know the hypocrisy--the
pretense of religion--of honor--duty--a husband! Ah, a husband! that is
the funniest of all--that husband! We know how little we care for them
all."

She continued laughing until her cushion slipped from under her head.
She half rose to straighten it, and at that instant she caught a glimpse
of her face in the center silvered panel of the Venetian mirror. The cry
of horror that broke from her at that instant seemed part of her laugh.
It would not have occurred to anyone who might have heard it that it
was otherwise than consistent with the incongruity, so to speak, of
the existing elements of the scene. The hideous leer of the thing
with horns, looking down at the exquisite picture of the _fete
champetre_--the distorted features of the woman's face in the center
of the ruby and emerald and sapphire of the Venetian mirror--the cry
of horror mixed with the laugh of the woman who mocked at religion and
honor and purity--all were consistently incongruous.

In another instant she was lying on the sofa with her face down to the
cushion, trying to forget all that she had seen in the mirror. She wept
her tears on the brocaded silk for half an hour, and then she slipped
from where she was lying till her knees were on the floor. With a hand
clutching each side of the cushion she got rid of her passion in prayer.

"Oh, God! God! keep him away from me! keep him away from me!" was her
prayer; and it was possibly the best that she could have uttered. "Keep
him away from me! keep him away from me! Don't let my soul be lost! Keep
him away from me!"

When she struggled to her feet, at last, she stood in front of the
mirror once again.

She now saw a face purified of all passion by tears and prayer, where
she had seen the soulless face of a Pagan's orgy.

She went upstairs to her bed and went asleep, thanking God that she had
had the strength to send him away; that she had had strength sufficient
to stand where she had stood in the room, silent, while he had put
his arms on her bare shoulders and kissed her on the mouth, saying
"Good-by."

She felt that she had every reason to thank God for that strength, for
she knew that it had been given to her at that moment; it had not sprung
from within her own heart; her heart had been crying out to him, "Stay,
stay, stay!" her heart took no account of honor or purity or a husband.

Yes, she felt that the strength which had come to her at that moment had
been the especial gift of God, and she was thankful to God for it.

That consciousness of gratitude to God was her last sensation before
falling asleep; and, when morning came, her first sensation was that of
having a letter to write. Before she had breakfasted she had written her
letter and sent it to be posted.

This was the letter:

"MY ONE LOVE: I was a fool--oh, such a fool! How could I have done it?
How could I have sent you away in such coldness last night? Believe me,
it was not I who did it. How could I have done it? You know that my love
for you is limitless. You know that it is my life. I tell you that my
love for you laughs at such limits as are laid down by religion and
honor. Why should I protest? My love is love, and there can be no love
where there are any limits.

"Come to me on Thursday. I shall be at home after dinner, at nine, and
see if I am not now in my right mind. Come to me; come to me, Bertie, my
love."



CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT AM I THAT I SHOULD DO THIS THING?

"At last!"

He sat with the letter before him after he had breakfasted, and perhaps
for a time, say a minute or so, he caught a glimpse of the nature of
the woman who had written those lines to him. If he had not had some
appreciation of her nature he would have spent an hour or two--perhaps a
day or two--trying to reconcile her attitude of the previous night with
the tone of her letter. He did not, however, waste his time over such
an endeavor. He knew that she loved him, and that she did not love her
husband. He knew that she had allowed him to kiss her, and it had been
a puzzle to him for some months why she had not come to his arms
forever--he meant her to be his own property forever. He had been amazed
to hear her allude, as she had done on the previous night, to such
abstractions as honor, religion, her husband. He could not see what
they had to do with the matter in hand. He could not see why such
considerations should be potent to exercise a restraining influence on
the intentions of a man and a woman who love each other.

Well, now it would appear that she had cast to the winds all such
considerations as she had enumerated, and was prepared to live under the
rule of love alone, and it was at his suggestion she was doing so.

For a moment or two he saw her as she was: a woman in the midst of a
seething ocean, throwing up her hands and finding an absolute relief in
going down--down--down into very hell. For a moment or two his heart was
full of pity for her. Who could be a spectator of a woman's struggles
for life in the midst of that turbulent sea of passion which was
overwhelming her, and refrain from feeling pity? That letter which lay
before him represented the agonizing cry of a drowning creature; one
whom the long struggle has made delirious; one who looks forward to
going down with the delight born of delirium.

He recollected a picture which he had once seen--the picture of a
drowning woman. He saw it now before him with hideous vividness, and the
face of the woman was the face of Ella Linton. The agony of that
last fight with an element that was overpowering, overwhelming in its
ruthless strength, was shown upon every feature, and his soul was filled
with pity.

He sprang to his feet and crushed the letter into his pocket. He felt
none of the exultation of the huntsman--only sadness at the fate of the
hunted thing that lay at his feet. Once before the same feeling had come
over him. It was when, after the long struggle up the river, through the
forests, swamps, jungle grass that cut the body of a man as though it
were sharp wire, he fired his shot and the meteor-bird fell at his
feet. After the first few panting breaths that came to him he had stood
leaning on his gun, looking down at that beautiful thing which he had
deprived of life.

"What am I that I should have done this thing?" he had asked himself on
that evening, while the blacks had yelled around him like devils.

"What am I that I should do this thing?" was his cry now, as the voice
of many demons sounded in his ears.

What was he that he should rejoice at receiving that letter from the
woman over whose head the waters were closing?

He ordered his horse and, mounting it, rode to where he could put it
to the gallop. So men try to leave behind them the sneering demons of
conscience and self-reproach. Some of them succeed in doing so, but
find the pair waiting for them on their own doorstep. Herbert Courtland
galloped his horse intermittently for an hour or two, and then rode
leisurely back to his rooms. He felt that he had got the better of those
two enemies of his who had been irritating him. He heard their voices
no longer. He had lost them (he fancied), because there had come to him
another voice that said:

"I love her--I love her."

And whensoever that voice comes to a man as it came to Herbert Courtland
it drowns all other voices. He would love her to the end of his life.
Their life together would be the real life for which men and women have
come into the world. He would go to her, and so far from allowing her
to sink beneath the waters down to hell, his arms would be around her
to bear her up until--well, is it not generally conceded that love is
heaven and heaven is love?

He seated himself at a desk and wrote to her an impassioned line. He
would go to her, he said. If death should come to him the next day he
would still thank God for having given him an hour of life.

That was what he said--all. It expressed pretty well what he felt he
should feel. That reference to God she would, of course, understand. God
was to him a Figure of Speech. He had said as much to Phyllis Ayrton.
But then he had said that he had regarded God to mean the Power by
which men were able (sometimes) successfully to combat the influences
of nature. But had he not just then made up his mind to yield to that
passion which God, as a Principle, has the greatest difficulty in
opposing? Why, then, should he expect that Ella would understand
precisely what he meant in saying that he would thank God for his hour
of life, his hour of love?

He would have had considerable difficulty in explaining this apparent
discrepancy between his scheme of philosophy and his life as a man, had
Phyllis asked him to do so; and Phyllis would certainly have asked him
to do so had she become acquainted with the contents of his letter to
her friend Ella; though Phyllis' father, having acquired some knowledge
of men as well as of phrases, would not have asked for any explanation,
knowing that a man's philosophy is, in its relation to a man's life, a
good deal less important than the fuse is to a bomb. He would have known
that a scheme of philosophy no more brings wisdom into a man's life than
a telescope brings the moon nearer to the earth. He would have known
that for a man to build up a doctrine of philosophy around himself,
hoping that the devil will keep on the other side of the paling, is as
ridiculous as it is to raise a stockade of roses against a tiger.

Herbert Courtland, however, thought neither of philosophical consistency
nor of the advantages of having on one's side a sound Principle. He
thought of the stockade of roses, not to keep out the beast but to keep
love in. They would live together in the midst of roses forever, and
though each might possibly lose something by the transaction, yet what
they might lose was nothing compared to what they should certainly win.
Of that he was certain, and therefore he posted his impassioned line
with a light heart.

That was on Tuesday. He had still two days that he might employ thinking
over the enterprise to which he was committed; and he certainly made the
most of his time in this direction. Now and again, as he thought of
what was in store for him--for her--he felt as if he were lifted off
the earth, and at other times he felt that he was crushed into the
earth--crushed into it until he had become incapable of any thought that
was not of the earth, earthy. At such moments he felt inclined to walk
down to the docks and step aboard the first vessel that was sailing
eastward or westward or northward or southward. Then it was that he
found but the scantiest comfort in the consideration of the loveliness
of love. Glorifying life! No, corrupting life until life is more putrid
than death.

That was what love was--something to fly from. But still he did not
fly from the vision that came to him when he found himself alone after
spending the evenings in brilliant company--a vision of the lovely woman
who was waiting for him! What had she said? Her soul--her soul would be
lost forevermore?

Well, that showed that she was a woman, at any rate, and he loved her
all the better for her womanliness. He knew very well that if God is a
Figure of Speech with men, the losing of a soul is a figure of speech
with women. The expression means only that they have lost the chance of
drinking a number of cups of tea in drawing rooms whose doors are now
shut to them. That was what Ella meant, no doubt. If she were openly to
set at defiance certain of those laws by the aid of which society
was kept together with a moderate degree of consistency, she would be
treated as an outlaw.

After all, such a fate was not without its bright side. Some happiness
may remain to human beings in that world which is on the hither side of
London drawing rooms; and it would be his aim in life to see that she
had all the happiness that the world could give her.

Pah! He felt his sentiment becoming a trifle brackish. He loved her,
and she loved him. That was more than all the laws and the profits
of society to them. That was the beginning and the end of the whole
matter--the origin of the sin (people called it a sin) and the
exculpation of the sinners. There was nothing more to be said or thought
about the matter. Those who loved would understand. Those who did not
understand would condemn, and the existence of either class was of no
earthly importance to himself or to Ella.

When he awoke on the Thursday morning the feeling of exultation of which
he was conscious was not without a note of depression. So it had been
when the object of his explorations in New Guinea had been attained, and
he looked down at that exquisite thing--that dead splendor at his feet.

He wondered if the attainment of every great object which a man may have
in life brings about a feeling of sadness that almost neutralizes the
exultation. As he picked up his letters he had a fear that among them
there might be one from Ella, telling him that she had come to the
conclusion that she had written too hastily those lines which he had
received on Tuesday--that, on consideration, she was unwilling to lose
her soul for love of him.

No such letter, however, was among his correspondence. (Could it be
possible that he was disappointed on account of this?) He received
an intimation from Berlin of the conferring of an order upon him in
recognition of his exploration of a territory in which Germany was so
greatly interested. He received an intimation from Vienna that a
gold medal had been voted to him by one of the learned societies in
recognition of his contributions to biological science. He received an
intimation from his publishers that they had just gone to press with
another thousand (the twelfth) of his book, and he received thirteen
cards of invitation to various functions to take place in from three to
six weeks' time, but no line did he receive from Ella.

She was his forever and ever, whether her soul would be lost or saved in
consequence.

He rather thought that it would be lost; but that did not matter. She
was his forever and ever.



CHAPTER XVIII.

HERBERT COURTLAND IS A MAN WHO HAS LIVED WITH HONOR.

It was a long day.

Toward evening he recollected that he had to leave cards upon his host
and hostess of the Monday previous, but it was past six o'clock when he
found himself at the top of the steps of Mr. Ayrton's house. Before his
ring had been responded to a victoria drove up with Phyllis, and in a
moment she was on the step beside him.

She looked radiant in the costume which she was wearing. He thought he
had never seen a lovelier girl--he was certain that he had never seen a
better-dressed girl. (Mr. Courtland was not clever enough to know that
it is only the beautiful girls who seem well dressed in the eyes of
men.) There was a certain frankness in her face that made it very
interesting--the frankness of a child who looks into the face of the
world and wonders at its reticence. He felt her soft gray eyes resting
upon his face, as she shook hands with him and begged him to go in and
have tea with her. He felt strangely uneasy under her eyes this evening,
and his self-possession failed him so far as to make it impossible for
him to excuse himself. It did not occur to him to say that he could not
drink tea with her on account of having an appointment which he could
not break through without the most deplorable results. He felt himself
led by her into one of her drawing rooms, and sitting with his back
to the window while her frank eyes remained on his face, asking (so he
thought) for the nearest approach to their frankness in response, that a
man who has lived in the world of men dare offer to a maiden whose world
is within herself.

"Oh, yes! I got the usual notification of the Order of the Bald Eagle,"
said he, in reply to her inquiry. "I shall wear it next my heart until
I die. The newspapers announced the honor that had been done to me the
same morning."

"You cannot keep anything out of the papers," said Phyllis.

"Even if you want to--a condition which doesn't apply to my case," said
he. "My publishers admitted to me last week that they wouldn't rest easy
if any newspaper appeared during the next month without my name being in
its columns in some place."

"I'm sure they were delighted at the development of the _Spiritual
Aneroid's_ attack upon you," said Phyllis.

"They told me I was a made man," said he.

She threw back her head--it was her way--and laughed. Her laughter--all
the grace of girlhood was in its ring; it was girlhood made audible--was
lightening her fair face as she looked at him.

"How funny!" she cried. "You fight your way through the New Guinea
forests; you are in daily peril of your life; you open up a new country,
and yet you are not a made man until you are attacked by a wretched
newspaper."

"That is the standpoint of the people who sell books, so you may depend
upon its being the standpoint of the people who buy books," said he.

"I can quite believe it," said she. "Mr. Geraint, the novelist, took me
down to dinner at Mrs. Lemuel's last night, and he told me that the only
thing that will make people buy books is seeing the author's portrait in
some of the illustrated papers, or hearing from some of the interviews
which are published regarding him that he never could take sugar in his
coffee. The reviews of his books are read only by his brother authors,
and they never buy a book, Mr. Geraint says; but the interviews are read
by the genuine buyers."

"Mr. Geraint knows his public, I'm sure."

"I fancy he does. He would be very amusing if he didn't aim so
persistently at going one better than someone else in his anecdotes.
People were talking at dinner about your having massacred the natives
with dynamite--you did, you know, Mr. Courtland."

"Oh, yes; I have admitted so much long ago. There was no help for it."

"Well, of course everyone was laughing when papa told how the massacre
came about, and this annoyed Mr. Geraint and induced him to tell a story
about a poor woman who fancied that melinite was a sort of food for
children that caused their portraits to appear in the advertisements; so
she bought a tin of it and gave it all to her little boy at one meal. It
so happened, however, that he became restless during the night and fell
out of his cradle. That happened a year ago, Mr. Geraint said, and yet
the street isn't quite ready for traffic yet."

"That little anecdote of Mr. Geraint makes me feel very meek. If at any
time I am tempted to think with pride upon my dynamite massacre, I shall
remember Mr. Geraint's story, and hang my head."

"We were all amused at Mr. Geraint's lively imagination, but much more
so when Mr. Topham, the under-secretary, shook his head gravely,
and said in his most dignified manner, that he thought the reported
occurrence--the melinite incident--quite improbable. He was going on
to explain that the composition of the explosive differed so materially
from that of the food that it would be almost impossible for any mother
to take the one for the other, when our hostess rose."

"Mr. Topham must have been disappointed. As a demonstrator of the
obvious he has probably no equal even among the under-secretaries. You
discussed him pretty freely in the drawing room afterward, I may venture
to suggest."

"No; we discussed you, Mr. Courtland."

"A most unprofitable topic. From what standpoint--dynamite massacres?"

"From the standpoint of heredity, of course. Can you imagine any topic
being discussed in a drawing room, nowadays, from any other standpoint?
There was a dear old lady present, Mrs. Haddon, and she said she had
been a friend of your mother's."

"So she was; I recollect her very well. I should like to go see her."

"She told us a great deal about your mother, and your sister--a sister
to whom you were greatly attached."

Phyllis' voice had become low and serious; every tone suggested
sympathy.

"I had such a sister," said he slowly. His eyes were not turned toward
her. They were fixed upon a little model of St. Catherine of Siena,--a
virgin among the clouds,--which was set in the panel of an old cabinet
beside him. "I had such a sister--Rosamund; she is dead."

"Mrs. Haddon told us so," said Phyllis. "She talked about your mother,
and your sister, and of the influence which they had had upon your
life--your career."

"They are both dead," said he.

"They did not live to see your triumph; that is what your tone
suggests," said she. "That is what Mrs. Haddon said--the tears were in
her eyes--last night, Mr. Courtland. I wish you could have heard her. I
wish you could have heard what she said when someone made a commonplace
remark as to how sad it was they were dead."

"What did she say, Miss Ayrton?"

"She said, 'No, no; please do not talk about death overtaking such as
they. The mother, who transmits her nature to the son, renews her life
in him; it is not he, but his mother, who lives.' And then she asked,
'Do you suppose that Herbert Courtland ever sets out on any of his great
enterprises without thinking of his mother and sister, without feeling
that he must do something worthy of them, something for their sake?
And you talk of them as if they were dead--as if they had passed
away forever from the concerns of earth!' That is what she said, Mr.
Courtland."

He had bent forward on his low seat, and was leaning his head on one
of his hands. He had his eyes fixed on the parquet of the floor. He was
motionless. He did not speak a word.

"Mrs. Haddon said something more," Phyllis continued, after a pause. Her
voice had fallen still another tone. "'Yes,' she said, as if musing,
'dead--dead! A man is as his mother has made him. He is with her from
the moment she loves his father. She is evermore thinking of him; he is
precious to her before the mystery of his birth is revealed to her.
He grows up by her side, and loves her because he knows that she
understands him. She does understand him, and she understands his father
better by understanding her son.' She said that, Mr. Courtland, and I
felt that she had spoken one of the greatest truths of this mysterious
life of ours. Then she said, 'Herbert Courtland is a man who has lived
with honor to himself, with honor to the memory of his mother, and of
his sister, whom he loved. He is a man, and he has not merely attained
distinction in the world; if he is without fear, he is also without
reproach; and ask him if he has not been strengthened in his fight with
whatever of base may have risen up within him, being a man, from day to
day, by the thought that his sister is one with him; that his purity of
heart and of act is the purity of his mother and his sister, upon which
no stain must ever come.' That was all she said, Mr. Courtland."

There was a long pause after she had spoken. He sat there with his head
bent, his fingers interlaced. He had his eyes fixed upon the floor. His
cup of tea stood untasted beside him on a little Algerian table.

And she--as she looked at him her soft eyes became dim with tears.
She knew that the words which she had spoken, the words which she had
repeated as they were spoken by the lady whom she had met the previous
night, had awakened many memories within him. She too had her memories.
She knew that there was a certain gratefulness in the midst of the
bitterness of such memories.

That was all she knew.

And the tears continued to well up to her eyes until she was aware that
he had risen from his seat and was standing in front of her. She drew
her hand across her eyes. She saw a movement in his lips. They were
trembling, but no sound came from them. The hand that he stretched out
to her was trembling also. She put her own into it. He held her hand
tightly for a moment, then dropped it suddenly and almost fled from the
room, without uttering a word.