Part 43 (1/2)
”That was just it; you admired my pictures because they were painted by me, while you really ought to have admired me because I had painted the pictures.”
A look of amus.e.m.e.nt stole over Christopher's face. ”Then I fell short of your requirements, dear heart; for, as far as you and your works were concerned, I certainly never committed the sin of wors.h.i.+pping the creature rather than the creator.”
”But there was a time when I wanted you to do so.”
”As a matter of fact,” said Christopher thoughtfully, ”I don't believe a man who loves a woman can ever appreciate her genius properly, because love is greater than genius, and so the greater swallows up the less. In the eyes of the world, her genius is the one thing which places a woman of genius above her fellows, and the world wors.h.i.+ps it accordingly. But in the eyes of the man who loves her, she is already placed so far above her fellows that her genius makes no difference to her alt.i.tude. Thirty feet makes all the difference in the height of a weather-c.o.c.k, but none at all in the distance between the earth and a fixed star.”
”What a nice thing to say! I adore you when you say things like that.”
Christopher continued: ”You see, the man is interested in the woman's works of art simply because they are hers; just as he is interested in the rustle of her silk petticoat simply because it is hers. Possibly he is more interested in the latter, because men can paint pictures sometimes, and they can never rustle silk petticoats properly. You are right in thinking that the world adores you for the sake of your creations, while I adore your creations for the sake of you; but you must also remember that the world would cease to wors.h.i.+p you if your genius began to decline, while I should love you just the same if you took to painting sign-posts and ill.u.s.trating Christmas cards--even if you became an impressionist.”
”What a dear boy you are! You really are the greatest comfort to me. I didn't always feel like this, but now you satisfy me completely, and fill up every crevice of my soul. There isn't a little s.p.a.ce anywhere in my mind or heart or spirit that isn't simply bursting with you.” And Elisabeth laughed a low laugh of perfect contentment.
”My darling, how I love you!” And Christopher also was content.
Then there was another silence, which Christopher broke at last by saying--
”What is the matter, Betty?”
”There isn't anything the matter. How should there be?”
”Oh, yes, there is. Do you think I have studied your face for over thirty years, my dear, without knowing every shade of difference in its expression? Have I said anything to vex you?”
”No, no; how could I be vexed with you, Chris, when you are so good to me? I am horrid enough, goodness knows, but not horrid enough for that.”
”Then what is it? Tell me, dear, and see if I can't help?”
Elisabeth sighed. ”I was thinking that there is really no going back, however much we may pretend that there is. What we have done we have done, and what we have left undone we have left undone; and there is no blotting out the story of past years. We may write new stories, perhaps, and try to write better ones, but the old ones are written beyond altering, and must stand for ever. You have been divinely good to me, Chris, and you never remind me even by a look how I hurt you and misjudged you in the old days. But the fact remains that I did both; and nothing can ever alter that.”
”Silly little child, it's all over and past now! I've forgotten it, and you must forget it too.”
”I can't forget it; that's just the thing. I spoiled your life for the best ten years of it; and now, though I would give everything that I possess to restore those years to you, I can't restore them, or make them up to you for the loss of them. That's what hurts so dreadfully.”
Christopher looked at her with a great pity s.h.i.+ning in his eyes. He longed to save from all suffering the woman he loved; but he could not save her from the irrevocableness of her own actions, strive as he would; which was perhaps the best thing in the world for her, and for all of us. Human love would gladly s.h.i.+eld us from the consequences of what we have done; but Divine Love knows better. What we have written, we have written on the page of life; and neither our own tears, nor the tears of those who love us better than we love ourselves, can blot it out. For the first time in her easy, self-confident career, Elisabeth Farringdon was brought face to face with this merciless truth; and she trembled before it. It was just because Christopher was so ready to forgive her, that she found it impossible to forgive herself.
”I always belonged to you, you see, dear,” Christopher said very gently, ”and you had the right to do what you liked with your own. I had given you the right of my own free will.”
”But you couldn't give me the right to do what was wrong. n.o.body can do that. I did what was wrong, and now I must be punished for it.”
”Not if I can help it, sweetheart. You shall never be punished for anything if I can bear the punishment for you.”
”You can't help it, Chris; that's just the point. And I am being punished in the way that hurts most. All my life I thought of myself, and my own success, and how I was going to do this and that and the other, and be happy and clever and good. But suddenly everything has changed. I no longer care about being happy myself; I only want you to be happy; and yet I know that for ten long years I deliberately prevented you from being happy. Don't you see, dear, how terrible the punishment is? The thing I care for most in the whole world is your happiness; and the fact remains, and will always remain, that that was the thing which I destroyed with my own hands, because I was cruel and selfish and cold.”
”Still, I am happy enough now, Betty--happy enough to make up for all that went before.”
”But I can never give you back those ten years,” said Elisabeth, with a sob in her voice--”never as long as I live. Oh! Chris, I see now how horrid I was; though all the time I thought I was being so good, that I looked down upon the women who I considered had lower ideals than I had.
I built myself an altar of stone, and offered up your life upon it, and then commended myself when the incense rose up to heaven; and I never found out that the sacrifice was all yours, and that there was nothing of mine upon the altar at all.”
”Never mind, darling; there isn't going to be a yours and mine any more, you know. All things are ours, and we are beginning a new life together.”
Elisabeth put both arms round his neck and kissed him of her own accord.