Part 78 (1/2)

”Oh, no, no,” cried Hadria in dismay, ”don't let me begin _already_ to impoverish other lives!”

Valeria remonstrated but Hadria persisted.

”At least I have learnt _that_ lesson,” she said. ”I should have been a fool if I hadn't, for my life has been a sermon on the text.”

Professor Fortescue gave a little frown, as he often did when some painful idea pa.s.sed through his mind.

”It is happening everywhere,” said Hadria, ”the poor, sterile lives exhaust the strong and full ones. I will not be one of those vampire souls, at least not while I have my senses about me.”

Again, the little frown of pain contracted the Professor's brow.

The dusk had invaded the dinner table, but they had not thought of candles. They went straight out to the still garden. Valeria had a fan, with which she vainly tried to overcome the expression of the atmosphere. She was very low-spirited. Hadria looked ill and exhausted.

Little Martha's name was not mentioned. It was too sore a subject.

”I can't bear the idea of leaving you, Hadria, especially when you talk like that. I wish, _how_ I wish, that some way could be found out of this labyrinth. Is this sort of thing to be the end of all the grand new hopes and efforts of women? Is all our force to be killed and overwhelmed in this absurd way?”

”Ah, no, not all, in heaven's name!”

”But if women won't repudiate, in practice, the claims that they hold to be unjust, in theory, how can they hope to escape? We may talk to all eternity, if we don't act.”

Hadria shrugged her shoulders.

”Your reasoning is indisputable, but what can one do? There _are_ cases----in short, some things are impossible!”

Valeria was silent. ”I have thought, at times, that you might make a better stand,” she said at last, clinging still to her theory of the sovereignty of the will.

Hadria did not reply.

The Professor shook his head.

”You know my present conditions,” said Hadria, after a silence. ”I can't overcome them. But perhaps some one else in my place might overcome them. I confess I don't see how. Do you?”

Valeria hesitated. She made some vague statement about strength of character, and holding on through storm and stress to one's purpose; had not this been the history of all lives worth living?

Hadria agreed, but pressed the practical question. And that Valeria could not answer. She could not bring herself to say that the doctor's warnings ought to be disregarded by Hadria, at the risk of her mother's life. It was not merely a risk, but a practical certainty that any further shock or trouble would be fatal. Valeria was tongue-tied.

”Now do you see why I feel so terrified when anyone proposes to narrow down his existence, even in the smallest particular, for my sake?” asked Hadria. ”It is because I see what awful power a human being may acquire of ravaging and of ruling other lives, and I don't want to acquire that power. I see that the tyranny may be perfectly well-intentioned, and indeed scarcely to be called tyranny, for it is but half conscious, yet only the more irresistible for that.”

”It is one's own fault if one submits to _conscious_ tyranny,” the Professor put in, ”and I think tyrant and victim are then much on a par.”

”A mere _demand_ can be resisted,” Hadria added; ”it is _grief_, real grief, however unreasonable, that brings people to their knees. But, oh, may the day hasten, when people shall cease to grieve when others claim their freedom!”

Valeria smiled. ”I don't think you are in much danger of grudging liberty to your neighbours, Hadria; so you need not be so frightened of becoming a vampire, as I think you call it.”

”Not _now_, but how can one tell what the result of years and years of monotonous existence may be, or the effect of example? How did it happen that my mother came to feel aggrieved if her daughters claimed some right of choice in the ordering of their lives? I suppose it is because _her_ mother felt aggrieved if _she_ ventured to call her soul her own.”

Valeria laughed.

”But it is true,” said Hadria. ”Very few of us, if any, are in the least original as regards our sorrowing. We follow the fas.h.i.+on. We are not so presumptuous as to decide for ourselves what shall afflict us.”

”Or what shall transport us with joy,” added Valeria, with a shrug.