Part 8 (1/2)

Besides he knew the penalty of all tender entanglements. Women treat love as if it were an extremely tenuous wire that can be drawn out indefinitely. This is a very expensive process. It costs us the most precious, the only irretrievable thing in the universe--time. And to him time was song; for money he did not care. The Lord had hallowed his lips with rhythmic speech; only in the intervals of his singing might he listen to the voice of his heart--strangest of all watches, that tells the time not by minutes and hours, but by the coming and going of love.

The woman beside him seemed to read his thoughts.

”Child, child,” she said, ”why will you toy with love? Like Jehovah, he is a jealous G.o.d, and nothing but the whole heart can placate him. Woe to the woman who takes a poet for a lover. I admit it is fascinating, but it is playing _va banque_. In fact, it is fatal. Art or love will come to harm. No man can minister equally to both. A genuine poet is incapable of loving a woman.”

”Pshaw! You exaggerate. Of course, there is a measure of truth in what you say, but it is only one side of the truth, and the truth, you know, is always Ja.n.u.s-faced. In fact, it often has more than two faces. I can a.s.sure you that I have cared deeply for the women to whom my love-poetry was written. And you will not deny that it is genuine.”

”G.o.d forbid! Only you have been using the wrong preposition. You should have said that it was written at them.”

Ernest stared at her in child-like wonder.

”By Jove! you are too devilishly clever!” he exclaimed.

After a little silence he said not without hesitation: ”And do you apply your theory to all artists, or only to us makers of rhyme?”

”To all,” she replied.

He looked at her questioningly.

”Yes,” she said, with a new sadness in her voice, ”I, too, have paid the price.”

”You mean?”

”I loved.”

”And art?”

”That was the sacrifice.”

”Perhaps you have chosen the better part,” Ernest said without conviction.

”No,” she replied, ”my tribute was brought in vain.”

This she said calmly, but Ernest knew that her words were of tragic import.

”You love him still?” he observed simply.

Ethel made no reply. Sadness clouded her face like a veil or like a grey mist over the face of the waters. Her eyes went out to the sea, following the sombre flight of the sea-mews.

In that moment he could have taken her in his arms and kissed her with infinite tenderness.

But tenderness between man and woman is like a match in a powder-magazine. The least provocation, and an amorous explosion will ensue, tumbling down the card-houses of platonic affection. If he yielded to the impulse of the moment, the wine of the springtide would set their blood afire, and from the flames within us there is no escape.

”Come, come,” she said, ”you do not love me.”

He protested.

”Ah!” she cried triumphantly, ”how many sonnets would you give for me?

If you were a usurer in gold instead of in rhyme, I would ask how many dollars. But it is unjust to pay in a coin that we value little. To a man starving in gold mines, a piece of bread weighs more than all the treasures of the earth. To you, I warrant your poems are the standard of appreciation. How many would you give for me? One, two, three?”