"Well, I've done it now for good and all," she said to Stephen Aikenhead.
"Oh yes, you've done it. And what are you going to do next?"
"Just what Hobart asked me! Why should he – or why should you? If a woman doesn't marry, or becomes a widow, you don't ask her what she's going to do next! Consider me unmarried, or, if you like, a widow."
"That's all very well – excellently put. I am rebuked!" Stephen smiled comfortably and broadly. "You women do put things well. But may I observe that, if you were the sort of woman you're asking me to think about, you'd probably be living pretty contentedly with Cyril Maxon?"
The point was presented plainly enough for her. She smiled reflectively. "I think I see. Yes!"
"People differ as well as cases."
She sat down by him, much interested. They were, it seemed, to talk about herself.
"Hobart Gaynor's rather uneasy about me, I think."
"And you about yourself?"
"No, I'm just rather excited, Stephen."
"You're a small boat – and it's a big sea."
"That's the excitement of it. I've been – land-locked – for years. Oh, beached – whatever's your best metaphor for somebody wasting all this fine life!"
"Do you suppose you made your husband happy?"
The question was unexpected. But there was no side of a situation too forlorn for Stephen's notice.
"I really don't know," said Winnie. "I always seemed to be rather – well, rather a minor interest."
"I expect not – I really expect not, you know."
"Supposing I was, or supposing I wasn't – what does it amount to?"
"I was only just looking at it from his point of view for a minute."
"Did he make me happy?"
"Oh, certainly the thing wasn't successful all round," Stephen hastily conceded.
"He said marriage wasn't invented solely to make people happy."
"Well, I suppose he's got an argument there. But you probably thought that the institution might chuck in a little more of that ingredient incidentally?"
"Rather my feeling – yes. You put things well too, now and then, Stephen."
"You suffer under the disadvantage of being a very attractive woman."
"We must bear our infirmities with patience, mustn't we?"
She was this evening in a rare vein of excited pleasure, gay, challenging, admirably provoking, exulting in her freedom, dangling before her own dazzled eyes all its possibilities. Stephen gave a deep chuckle.
"I think I'll go in and tell Tora that I'm infernally in love with you," he remarked, rising from his chair.
"It would be awfully amusing to hear what she says. But – are you?"
A rolling laugh, full of applause, not empty of pity, rumbled over the lawn as Stephen walked back to the house.
No, Stephen was not in love with her; that was certain. He admitted every conceivable doubt as to his duty, but harboured none as to his inclination. That trait of his might, to Winnie's present mood, have been vexatious had he chanced to be the only man in the world, or even the only one in or near Shaylor's Patch. Winnie sat in the twilight, smiling roguishly. She had no fears for herself; far less had she formed any designs. She was simply in joyful rebound from long suppression. Her spirit demanded plenty of fun, with perhaps a spice of mischief – mischief really harmless. So much seemed to her a debt long overdue from life and the world. Yet peril was there, unseen by herself. For there is peril when longings for fun and mischief centre persistently round one figure, finding in it, and in it only, their imagined realization.
But was peril the right word – was it the word proper to use at Shaylor's Patch? Being no fool, Stephen Aikenhead saw clearly enough the chance that a certain thing would happen – or was happening. But how should this chance be regarded? The law – formed by this and that influence, historical, social, and religious – had laid upon this young woman a burden heavier than she was able to bear. So Stephen started his consideration of the case. Retort – she ought to have been stronger! It did not seem a very helpful retort; it might be true, but it led nowhere. The law then had failed with the young woman. Now it said, "Well, if you won't do that, at least you shan't do anything else with my sanction – and my sanction is highly necessary to your comfort, certainly here, and, as a great many people believe, hereafter." That might be right, because it was difficult to deny the general proposition that laws ought to be kept, under pain of penalties. Yet in this particular instance there seemed something rather vindictive about it. It was not as if the young woman wanted to rob churches or pick pockets – things obviously offensive and hurtful to her neighbours. All she would want (supposing the thing did happen) would be to behave in a perfectly natural and normal fashion. All she would be objecting to would be a law-enjoined sterilization of a great side of her nature. She would be wronging her husband? If wrong there were, surely the substantial wrong lay in deserting him, not in making the best of her own life afterwards? She might have children – would they suffer? Living in the social world he did, Stephen could not see that they need suffer appreciably; and they were, after all, hypothetical – inserted into the argument for the sake of logical completeness. She would wound other people's convictions and feelings? No doubt, but that argument went too far. Every innovator, every reformer, nay, every fighting politician, does as much. The day for putting ring-fences round opinions, and threatening trespassers with prosecution, was surely over.
Well, then, would she hurt herself? The argument descended abruptly from the general to the particular. It left principle, and came to prudence, asking no longer what she had a right to do, but what she would be wise to do in her own interests. A man may hold a thing not wrong, and yet be a fool if he does it in a place where the neighbours are so sure of its iniquity that they will duck him in the horse-pond. But suppose him to be a mighty man of valour, whom nobody cares to tackle! He can snap his fingers at the neighbours and follow his own conscience or inclination, free from fear and heedless of disapprobation.
"That's as far as I can get," Stephen concluded, rubbing his forehead, as his habit was in moments of meditation. The conclusion did not seem wholly moral, or wholly logical, but it might work out fairly well in practice; government by the law – that is, the opinion of the majority – for the weak (themselves the majority), government by their own consciences and inclinations for the strong. Probably it was a rough statement of what generally happened, if the terms weak and strong might be taken to sum up the complex whole of a man's circumstances and character; both must by all means be considered.
But who are the strong? How can they judge of their prowess until they are in the thick of the fray? If it fails them then, it's too late – and away to the horse-pond! You do poor service to a friend if you flatter him in this matter. When he finds himself in the pond, he will not be so grateful for your good opinion.
Winnie came in, bright-eyed, softly singing, making for upstairs at a hasty pace.
"I shall be late for dinner!" she cried. "I met Mr. Ledstone, and he made me go for a little walk."
"Did you enjoy it?" asked Stephen politely.
"Yes, thank you, Stephen, very much."
She was gone. Stephen sighed. She had only one life – that was the unspoken plea of her youth, her beauty, and her new-born zest in living. Say what you like, the plea was cogent.
CHAPTER VII
A CODE AND A THEORY
To probe Godfrey