Part 14 (1/2)
”Don't be so hard on yourself, Nellie. I am sure it can be no great wrong you have done. Girls like you are too apt to be morbid. No doubt we all do it, whatever it is. I'm sure I shall not blame you when you tell me. Perhaps I shall say you are quite right--that is, if there is any right and wrong to it, and provided I know which is which, after I hear the whole story--as most likely I shall not. Right--”
And here the elder woman smiled a little satirically, and looked out of the window with a far-away gaze, as if she were retravelling through vast s.p.a.ces of time and experience far beyond anything her friend could comprehend.
The evening shadows had gathered, and cast, as they will, a spell of gravity and exchange of confidences over the two.
Presently the older woman began speaking again:
”Do you know, Nell, I was always a little surprised that Lord Byron, of all people, should have put it that way:
”I know the right, and I approve it too; Condemn the wrong--and yet the wrong pursue.
”_The_ right '--why, it is like a woman to say that. As if there were but one 'right,' and it were dressed in purple and fine linen, and seated on a throne in sight of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude! '_The right._'
indeed! Yes, it sounds like a woman--and a very young woman at that, Nellie.”
The girl looked with large, troubled, pa.s.sionate eyes at her friend, and then broke out into hot, indignant words--words that would have offended many a woman; but Florence Campbell only laughed, a light, queer little peal; tipped her chair a trifle farther back, put her daintily slippered feet on the satin cus.h.i.+on of the low window-seat, and looked at her friend, through the gathering darkness, from under half-closed eyelids.
Presently--this woman was always deliberate in her conversation; long silences were a part of her power in interesting and keeping the full attention of her listeners--presently she said:
”Of course you think so. Why shouldn't you? So did I--once. And do you know, Nellie, that sort of sentiment dies hard--_very_ hard--in a woman.
At your age--” Florence Campbell always spoke as if she were very old, although to look at her one would say that she was not twenty-eight.
These delicately formed Dresden-china women often carry their age with such an easy grace--it sits upon them so lightly--in spite of ill-health, mental storms, and moral defeats, that while their more robust sisters grow haggard and worn, and hard of feature and tone, under weights less terrible and with feelings less intense, they keep their grace and gentleness of tone in the teeth of every blast.
”At your age, dear, I would have scorned a woman who talked as I do now; and more than that, I would have suspected her, as you do not suspect me, of being a very dangerous and not unlikely a very bad person indeed--simply from choice. While you--you generous little soul--think that I am better than I talk.”
She laughed again, and s.h.i.+fted her position as if she were not wholly comfortable under the troubled gaze of the great eyes she knew were fastened upon her.
”You think I am better than my opinions. I know exactly what you tell yourself about me when you are having it out with yourself upstairs.
Oh, I know! You excuse me for saying this on the theory that it was not deliberate--was an oversight. You account for that by the belief that I am not well--my nerves are shaken. You are perfectly certain that _I_ am all right, no matter what I do, or say, or think.” She took her little friend's soft hand as it twisted nervously a ribbon in her lap, and held the back of it against her cheek, as she often did. ”But just suppose it were some one else--some other woman, Nellie, you would suspect her (no doubt quite unfairly) of all the crimes in the statute-books. Oh, I know, I know, child! I did--at your age--and, sad to relate, _I_ had no Florence Campbell to soften my judgments on even one of my s.e.x.”
She had grown serious as she talked, and her voice almost trembled. The instant she recognized this herself, she laughed again, and said gayly:
”Oh, I was a very severe judge--once--I do a.s.sure you, though you may not think so now.” She dropped her voice to a tone of mocking solemnity, not uncommon with her, and added: ”If you won't tell on me, I'll make a little confession to you, dear;” and she took both of the girl's hands firmly in her own and waited until the promise was given.
”I wouldn't have it get out for the world, but the fact is, Nell, I sometimes strongly suspect that, at your age, I was--a most unmitigated, self-righteous little prig.”
Nellie's hands gave a disappointed little jerk: but her friend held them firmly, laughed gayly at her discomfiture--for she recognized fully that the girl was attuned to tragedy--buried her face in them! for an instant, and then deliberately kissed in turn each pink little palm--not omitting her own. Then she dropped those of her friend, and leaned back against her cus.h.i.+ons and sighed.
Nellie was puzzled and annoyed. She was on the verge of tears.
”Florence, darling,” she said presently, ”if I did not know you to be the best woman in the world, I shouldn't know what to make of your dark hints, and of--and of you. You are always a riddle to me--a beautiful riddle, with a good answer, if only I could guess it. You talk like a fiend, sometimes, and you act like--an angel, always.”
”Give me up. You can't guess me. Fact is, I haven't got any answer,”
laughed Florence.
But the girl went steadily on without seeming to hear her: ”Do you know, there are times when I wonder if it would be possible to be insane and vicious, mentally and _verbally_, as it were, and perfectly sane and exaltedly good morally.”
Florence Campbell threw herself back on her cus.h.i.+ons and laughed gayly, albeit a trifle hysterically. ”Photograph taken by an experienced artist!” she exclaimed. ”You've hit me! Oh, you've hit me, Nell.” Then sitting suddenly bolt-upright, she looked the girl searchingly in the face, and said slowly: ”Do you know, Nellie, that I am sometimes tempted to tell the truth? About myself, I mean--and to _you_. Never on any other subject, nor to anybody else, of course,” she added dryly, in comedy tones, strangely contrasting with the almost tragic accents as she went on. ”But I can't. '_The_ truth!' Why, it is like _the_ right; I'm sure I don't know what it is; and it has been so long--oh, so cruelly long--since I told it, by word or action, that I have lost its very likeness from my mind. I have told lies and acted lies so long--”
Her friend's eyes grew indignant and she began to protest, but Florence ran on: ”I have evaded facts--not only to others, but to myself, until--until I'd have to swear out a search-warrant and have it served on my mental belongings to find out myself what I _do_ think or feel or want on any given subject.”