Part 39 (2/2)

”Oh, my goodness,” she said out aloud, ”I'm caught! I'm chained! Louis was right when he said I didn't understand about these hungers. Oh, my goodness, it's like Louis's feet take him to a whisky bottle. My feet were simply coolly walking me off to waken him up.”

She sat motionless, scarcely breathing. Her heart began to thump unpleasantly and she felt a flush tingling down to her feet and to the tips of her fingers.

”If I hadn't torn my foot then I'd have given way to that blaze--and each time you give way to a thing it chains you a bit more! I'd never have had a chance to sit cool and think it out, because I'd have forgotten, before I knew where I was, that it needed thinking out at all. I'd have wakened him by now.”

This jerked her, wakened her, widened her. Swiftly she was able to see that Louis, on his whisky chase, de Quincy on his opium chase, King David, Solomon, Nelson, Byron and Kraill on their woman chase were not perhaps so fortunate as to get a nail jabbed in their feet, pulling them up sharp and giving them time to think.

”There I've been blaming them a bit--pitying them a lot! Heavens, I was _superior_!” she said.

The sun came up out of the sea and looked at her.

”Because I didn't know,” she told it. ”I was superior! Because I'd never felt the pull of a chain.”

She thought the sun took on a horribly knowing, superior expression.

Another rather shaking thought came. Since her recollection of the blameless fool that first night in Sydney she had sought the bookshops for the text of ”Parsifal” and had found it, a ragged copy for twopence, in a second-hand bookshop near the station. She had been puzzled when Parsifal, trying to free himself from the enchantment of the witch-woman's embrace, had suddenly been confronted by her exultant:

”And so then, with my kiss, The world's heart have I shewn thee?

In my soft arms enfolded Like to a G.o.d thou'llt deem thee.”

”Yes, that's it,” she cried. ”Oh, you old sun, listen to the speciousness of it all! Listen--I mustn't let Louis hear, because he'd be hurt. He isn't my Lover, my Knight at all. He's just the same thing to me as women used to be to the Knights--he's something to rescue, to deliver from bondage. And--just like those beautiful, soft women, he's--he's a sort of seduction to me. Oh--it's horrible!”

She waited a minute tensely. Thought always came to her in flashes.

”And so are all men. They're all in bondage.”

The sun seemed to have a big, fat, knowing face. One of his eyes winked at her.

”Here am I getting myself into a chain that's going to drag at me every time I'm fighting for him. This--this softness, this love-making and all the thrill of it--it's going to make holes in my armour and stuff them up with--_crepe de Chine_!”

She had seen _crepe de Chine_ yesterday for the first time; Mrs. King was making a blouse of it. Marcella had loved its fine sheen and delicacy. But it did not seem much use as armour.

”Here's this thing happened to wake me up, give me insight. There is the plausibleness of it, the temptation of it. I _know_ last night taught me things, millions of things. It promises to teach me more each time it's repeated. And each time it's repeated I get more and more _crepe de Chine_ patches on my armour. I get bowled over like a ninepin. How am I to know I'll not be permanently bowled over--till I get--like--like--” A long line of those people she had pitied for their weakness came to her.

”I nearly was this morning. If it hadn't been for that nice kind nail in the roof! Wagner knew all about this when he made the witch-woman realize that her kiss had unlocked all the world's wisdom for the fool.

And one can't help wondering how it is that a thing so natural and beautiful can be bad for one--”

She began to bite her thumb-nail fiercely and stopped, disgusted with herself, as she realized how she had often condemned Louis for exactly the same habit when he got perplexed.

”You see!” she told the sun desperately, ”even a little thing like that!

I do think we're censorious and cruel to each other.”

She began to walk about the roof. Her foot was bleeding neglected; at every step she left a little, red print unnoticed.

”Of course it's natural and beautiful--and abominably instructive! Where the wrong comes in is that it gets you down, beats you, takes hold of you. Eating bread would be wrong if you made an orgy of it. So would religion, or anything. All this time I've been posing as something so splendid, wanting to save Louis from Drink; I've been deceiving myself.

I've been in love with him. And it's the sort of love that would soon degenerate into an orgy--if I let it!”

She felt that she was so full of ideas that she was getting muddled, but one thing was very clear.

<script>