Part 65 (1/2)
”If--if he were to die----” Hadria gave a low, horrified exclamation.
”Surely there is no danger of that!”
”Of course there is: he told me that he did not expect to recover.”
Valeria was crouching before the fire, with a look of blank despair.
Hadria, pale to the lips, took her hand gently and held it between her own. Valeria's eyes suddenly filled with tears. ”Ah, Hadria, you will understand, you will not despise me--you will only be sorry for me--why should I not tell you? It is eating my heart out--have you never suspected, never guessed----?”
Hadria, with a startled look, paused to consider, and then, stroking back the beautiful white hair with light touch, she said, ”I think I have known without knowing that I knew. It wanted just these words of yours to light up the knowledge. Oh, Valeria, have you carried this burden for all these years?”
”Ever since I first met him, which was just before he met his wife. I knew, from the first, that it was hopeless. He introduced her to me shortly after his engagement. He was wrapped up in her. With him, it was once and for all. He is not the man to fall in love and out of it, over and over again. We were alike in that. With me, too, it was once for all. Oh, the irony of life!” Valeria went on with an outburst of energy, ”I was doomed to doom others to similar loss; others have felt for me, in vain, what I, in vain, felt for him! I sent them all away, because I could not bring myself to endure the thought of marrying any other man, and so I pa.s.s my days alone--a waif and stray, without anything or anyone to live for.”
”At least you have your work to live for, which is to live for many, instead of for one or two.”
”Ah, that does not satisfy the heart.”
”What _does_?” Hadria exclaimed.
Anxiety about Professor Fortescue now made a gloomy background to the responsibilities of Hadria's present life. Valeria's occasional visits were its bright spots. She looked forward to them, with pathetic eagerness. The friends.h.i.+p became closer than it had ever been before, since Valeria had confided her sad secret.
”Yet, Valeria, I envy you.”
”Envy me?” she repeated blankly.
”I have never known what a great pa.s.sion like that means; I have never felt what you feel, and surely to live one's life with all its pettiness and pain, yet never to know its extreme experiences, is sadder than to have those experiences and suffer through them.”
”Ah, yes, you are right,” Valeria admitted. ”I would not be without it if I could.”
The thought of what she had missed was beginning to take a hold upon Hadria. Her life was pa.s.sing, pa.s.sing, and the supreme gifts would never be hers. She must for ever stand outside, and be satisfied with shadows and echoes.
”Are you very miserable, Hadria?” Valeria asked, one day.
”I am benumbed a little now,” Hadria replied. ”That must be, if one is to go on at all. It is a provision of nature, I suppose. All that was threatening before I went to Paris, is now being fulfilled. I can scarcely realize how I could ever have had the hopefulness to make that attempt. I might have known I could not succeed, as things are. How _could_ I? But I am glad of the memory. It pains me sometimes, when all the acute delight and charm return, at the call of some sound or scent, some vivid word; but I would not be without the memory and the dream--my little illusion.”
”Supposing,” said Valeria after a long pause, ”that you could live your life over again, what would you do?”
”I don't know. It is my impression that in my life, as in the lives of most women, all roads lead to Rome. Whether one does this or that, one finds oneself in pretty much the same position at the end. It doesn't answer to rebel against the recognized condition of things, and it doesn't answer to submit. Only generally one _must_, as in my case. A choice of calamities is not always permitted.”
”It is so difficult to know which is the least,” said Valeria.
”I don't believe there _is_ a 'least.' They are both unbearable. It is a question which best fits one's temperament, which leads soonest to resignation.”
”Oh, Hadria, you would never achieve resignation!” cried Valeria.
”Oh, some day, perhaps!”
Valeria shook her head. She had no belief in Hadria's powers in that direction. Hopelessness was her nearest approach to that condition of cheerful acquiescence which, Hadria had herself said, profound faith or profound stupidity can perhaps equally inspire.
”At least,” said Valeria, ”you know that you are useful and helpful to those around you. You make your mother happy.”