Part 23 (1/2)
”You told me once, when you didn't know I cared,” agreed Stella. ”I understand your feeling that about a woman who didn't care or who only cared a little, but not about a woman who really cares.”
”But, my dear child,” said Julian, ”that's what just makes it utterly impossible. I can't understand how I ever was such a selfish brute as to dream of taking Marian. I was ill at the time, and hadn't sized it up; but if you think I'm going to let _you_ make such a sacrifice, you're mistaken. I'd see you dead before I married you!”
Stella's eyebrows lifted, but she did not seem impressed.
”I think,” she said gently, ”you talk far too much as if it had only got to do with you. Suppose I don't wish to see myself dead?”
”Well, you must try to see the sense of it,” Julian urged. ”You're young and strong; you ought to have a life. I'm sure you love children. You like to be with me, and all that; you're the dearest companion a man ever had. It isn't easy, Stella, to say I won't keep you; don't make it any harder for me. I've looked at this thing steadily for months. I don't mind owning that I thought you might get to care if I tried hard enough to make you; but, darling, I honestly didn't try. You can't say I wasn't awfully disagreeable and cross. I knew I was done for long ago, but I thought you were all right. You weren't like a girl in love, you were so quiet and--and sisterly and all that. If I'd once felt you were beginning to care in that way, I'd have made some excuse; I wouldn't have let it come to this. I'd rather die than hurt you.”
”Well, but you needn't hurt me,” said Stella, ”and neither of us need die. It's not your love that wants to get rid of me, Julian; it's your pride. But I haven't any pride in that sense, and I'm not going to let you do it.”
”By Jove! you won't!” cried Julian. His eyes shot a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt at her. It struck him that the still little figure by his side was extraordinarily formidable. He had never thought her formidable before.
He had thought her brilliant, intelligent, and enchanting, not formidable; but he had no intention of giving way to her. Formidable or not, he felt quite sure of himself. He couldn't let her down.
”The sacrifice is all the other way,” Stella went on. ”You would be sacrificing me hopelessly to your pride if you refused to marry me simply because some one of all the things you want to give me you can't give me. Do you suppose I don't mind,--mind for you, I mean, hideously,--mind so much that if I were sure marrying you would make you feel the loss more, I'd go away from you this minute and never come near you again? But I do not think it will make it worse for you. You will have me; you will have my love and companions.h.i.+p, and they are--valuable to you, aren't they, Julian?”
Julian's eyes softened and filled.
”Yes,” he muttered, turning his head away from her; ”they're valuable.”
”Then,” she said, ”if you are like that to me, if I want you always, and never anybody else, have you a right to rob me of yourself, Julian?”
”If I could believe,” he said, his voice shaking, ”that you'd never be sorry, never say to yourself, 'Why did I do it?' But, oh, my dear, you know so little about the ordinary kind of love! You don't realize a bit, and I do. It must make it all so confoundedly hard for you, and I'm such an impatient chap. I mightn't be able to help you. And you're right: I'm proud. If I once thought you cared less or regretted marrying me, it would clean put the finish on it. But you're not right about not loving you, Stella, that's worse than pride; loving you makes it impossible. I can't take the risk for you. I'll do any other mortal thing you want, but not that!”
”Julian,” asked Stella in a low voice, ”do you think I am a human being?”
”Well, no!” said Julian. ”Since you ask me, more like a fairy or an elf or something. Why?”
”Because you're not treating me as if I were,” said Stella, steadily.
”Human beings have a right to their own risks. They know their own minds, they share the dangers of love.”
”Then one of 'em mustn't take them all,” said Julian, quickly.
”How could one take them all?” said Stella. ”I have to risk your pride, and you have to risk my regret. As a matter of fact, your pride is more of a certainty than a risk, and my regret is a wholly imaginary idea, founded upon your ignorance of my character. Still, I'm willing to put it like that to please you. You have every right to sacrifice yourself to your own theories, but what about sacrificing me? I give you no such right.”
For the first time Julian saw what loving Stella would be like; he would never be able to get to the end of it. Marriage would be only the beginning. She had given him her heart without an effort, and he found that she was as inaccessible as ever. His soul leaped toward this new, unconquerable citadel. He held himself in hand with a great effort.
”What you don't realize,” he said, ”is that our knowledge of life is not equal. If I take you at your word, you will make discoveries which it will be too late for you to act upon. You cannot wish me to do what is not fair to you.”
”I want my life to be with you,” said Stella. ”Whatever discoveries I make, I shall not want them to be anywhere else. You do not understand, but if you send me away, you will take from me the future which we might have used together. You will not be giving me anything in its place but disappointment and utter uselessness. You'll make me--morally--a cripple. Do you still wish me to go away from you?”
Julian winced as if she had struck him.
”No, I'll marry you,” he said; ”but you've made me furiously angry.
Please go home by yourself. I wonder you dare use such an ill.u.s.tration to me.”
Stella slipped over the verge of the hollow. She, too, wondered how she had dared; but she knew quite well that if she hadn't dared, Julian would have sent her away.