第74章

She shrank, caught at the back of a chair for support, felt suddenly strong and defiant.To be this man's plaything, to submit to his moods, to his jealousies, to his caprices--to be his to fumble and caress, his to have the fury of his passion wreak itself upon her with no response from her but only repulsion and loathing--and the long dreary hours and days and years alone with him, listening to his commonplaces, often so tedious, forced to try to amuse him and to keep him in a good humor because he held the purse-strings--

``Please go,'' she said.

She was still very young, still had years and years of youth unspent.Surely she could find something better than this.Surely life must mean something more than this.At least it was worth a trial.

He held out his hand.She gave him her reluctant and cold fingers.He said something, what she did not hear, for the blood was roaring in her ears as the room swam round.He was gone, and the next thing she definitely knew she was at the threshold of Cyrilla's room.Cyrilla gave her a tenderly sympathetic glance.

She saw herself in a mirror and knew why; her face was gray and drawn, and her eyes lay dully deep within dark circles.

``I couldn't do it,'' she said.``I sent for him to marry him.But I couldn't.''

``I'm glad,'' said Cyrilla.``Marriage without love is a last resort.And you're a long way from last resorts.''

``You don't think I'm crazy?''

``I think you've won a great victory.''

``Victory!'' And Mildred laughed dolefully.``If this is victory, I hope I'll never know defeat.''

Why did Mildred refuse Stanley Baird and cut herself off from him, even after her hopes of Donald Keith died through lack of food, real or imaginary? It would be gratifying to offer this as a case of pure courage and high principle, untainted of the motives which govern ordinary human actions.But unluckily this is a biography, not a romance, a history and not a eulogy.

And Mildred Gower is a human being, even as you and I, not a galvanized embodiment of superhuman virtues such as you and I are pretending to be, perhaps even to ourselves.The explanation of her strange aberration, which will be doubted or secretly condemned by every woman of the sheltered classes who loves her dependence and seeks to disguise it as something sweet and fine and ``womanly''--the explanation of her almost insane act of renunciation of all that a lady holds most dear is simple enough, puzzling though she found it.Ignorance, which accounts for so much of the squalid failure in human life, accounts also for much if not all the most splendid audacious achievement.Very often--very, very often--the impossibilities are achieved by those who in their ignorance advance not boldly but unconcernedly where a wiser man or woman would shrink and retreat.Fortunate indeed is he or she who in a crisis is by chance equipped with neither too little nor too much knowledge--who knows enough to enable him to advance, but does not know enough to appreciate how perilous, how foolhardy, how harsh and cruel, advance will be.Mildred was in this instance thus fortunate--unfortunate, she was presently to think it.

She knew enough about loveless marriage to shrink from it.She did not know enough about what poverty, moneylessness, and friendlessness mean in the actuality to a woman bred as she had been.She imagined she knew--and sick at heart her notion of poverty made her.But imagination was only faintest foreshadowing of actuality.If she had known, she would have yielded to the temptation that was almost too strong for her.And if she had yielded--what then?

Not such a repulsive lot, as our comfortable classes look at it.Plenty to eat and drink and to wear, servants and equipages and fine houses and fine society, the envy of her gaping kind--a comfortable life for the body, a comfortable death for mind and heart, slowly and softly suffocated in luxury.Partly through knowledge that strongly affected her character, which was on the whole aspiring and sensitive beyond the average to the true and the beautiful, partly through ignorance that veiled the future from her none too valorous and hardy heart, she did not yield to the temptation.And thus, instead of dying, she began to live, for what is life but growth in experience, in strength and knowledge and capability?

A baby enters the world screaming with pain.The first sensations of living are agonizing.It is the same with the birth of souls, for a soul is not really born until that day when it is offered choice between life and death and chooses life.In Mildred Gower's case this birth was an agony.She awoke the following morning with a dull headache, a fainting heart, and a throat so sore that she felt a painful catch whenever she tried to swallow.She used the spray; she massaged her throat and neck vigorously.In vain; it was folly to think of going where she might have to risk a trial of her voice that day.The sun was brilliant and the air sharp without being humid or too cold.She dressed, breakfasted, went out for a walk.The throat grew worse, then better.She returned for luncheon, and afterward began to think of packing, not that she had chosen a new place, but because she wished to have some sort of a sense of action.But her unhappiness drove her out again--to the park where the air was fine and she could walk in comparative solitude.

``What a silly fool I am!'' thought she.``Why did I do this in the worst, the hardest possible way? Ishould have held on to Stanley until I had a position.

No, I'm such a poor creature that I could never have done it in that way.I'd simply have kept on bluffing, fooling myself, putting off and putting of.I had to jump into the water with nobody near to help me, or I'd never have begun to learn to swim.I haven't begun yet.I may never learn to swim.I may drown.

Yes, I probably shall drown.''