Part 48 (2/2)
”They always seemed to me to be torn by jealousy,” she said, ”and often to suffer from the mania of persecution! Really, they are like a race apart.”
And the conversation turned to jealousy. Braybrooke said he had never suffered from it, did not know what it was. And they smiled at him, and told him that then he could have no temperament. Craven declared that he believed almost the whole human race knew the ugly intimacies of jealousy in some form or other.
”And yourself?” said Miss Van Tuyn.
”I!” he said, and looking up saw Lady Sellingworth's brilliant eyes fixed on him.
”Do you know them?”
”I have felt jealousy certainly, but never yet as I could feel it.”
”What! You are conscious of a great capacity for feeling jealous, a capacity which has never yet had its full fling?” said the girl.
”Yes,” he said.
And his lips were smiling, but there was a serious look in his eyes.
And they discussed the causes of jealousy.
”We shall see it to-night on the stage in its professional form,” said Craven.
”And that is the least forgivable form,” said Lady Sellingworth.
”Jealousy which is not bound up with the affections is a cold and hideous thing. But I cannot understand a love which is incapable of jealousy. In fact, I don't think I could believe it to be love at all.”
This remark, coming from those lips, surprised Braybrooke. For Lady Sellingworth was not wont to turn any talk in which she took part upon questions concerned with the heart. He had frequently noticed her apparent aversion from all topics connected with deep feeling. To-night, it seemed, this aversion had died out of her.
In answer to the last remark Miss Van Tuyn said:
”Then, dear, you rule out perfect trust in a matter of love, do you? All the sentimentalists say that perfect love breeds perfect trust. If that is so, how can great lovers be jealous? For jealousy, I suppose--I have never felt it myself in that way--is born out of doubt, but can never exist side by side with complete confidence.”
”Ah! But Beryl, in how many people in the course of a lifetime can one have _complete confidence_ I have scarcely met one. What do you say?”
She turned her head towards Braybrooke. He looked suddenly rather plaintive, like a man who realizes unexpectedly how lonely he is.
”Oh, I hope I know a few such people,” he rejoined rather anxiously.
”I have been very lucky in my friends. And I like to think the best of people.”
”That is kind,” said Lady Sellingworth. ”But I prefer to know the truth of people. And I must say I think most of us are quicksands. The worst of it is that so often when we do for a moment feel we are on firm ground we find it either too hard for our feet or too flat for our liking.”
At that moment she thought of Sir Seymour Portman.
”You think it is doubt which breeds fascination?” said Craven.
”Alas for us if it is so,” she answered, smiling.
”The human race is a very unsatisfactory race,” said Miss Van Tuyn. ”I am only twenty-four and have found that out already. It is very clever of the French to cultivate irony as they do. The ironist always wears clothes and an unders.h.i.+rt of mail. But the sentimentalist goes naked in the east wind which blows through society. Not only is he bound to take cold, but he is liable to be pierced by every arrow that flies.”
”Yes, it is wise to cultivate irony,” said Lady Sellingworth.
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