Part 6 (1/2)

The conversation that day was serious. Frans was in a dejected mood; it was easy for Mary to divine that they had been talking about her.

They all consequently felt a little awkward at first, until Alice turned the conversation on a topic from that morning's newspapers. Two murders, instigated by jealousy--one of them of the most terrible description--had horrified them all, but especially Frans. He maintained that the idea of the marriage relation peculiar to the Romance nations is still that of the age when the wife was the husband's property, and when, in consequence of this, unfaithfulness was punished by death.

Christianity, he allowed, in course of time, also made the husband the wife's property, especially in Roman Catholic countries. In these the spouses rivalled each other in killing--the wife the husband, the husband the wife. This a.s.sertion gave rise to an argument. Mary agreed that neither of the contracting parties owned the other. After marriage, as before, they were free individuals, with a right to dispose of themselves. Love alone decided. If love ceased, because development made of one or other a different being from what he or she was at the time of marriage; or if one of them met another human being who took possession of his or her soul and thoughts and changed the whole tenor of life, then the deserted spouse must submit--neither condemn nor kill. But Frans Roy and she disagreed when they discussed what ought to separate husband and wife--and still more when they came to what ought to keep them together. She was much more exacting than he. He suggested jokingly that her theory was: Married people have full liberty to separate, but this liberty they must not use. She declared his to be: Married people ought as a rule to separate; if they have no real reason, they can borrow one.

This conversation meant more to them than the words implied. It impressed him as a new beauty in her that she was queenly. This cast a new glory over all the rest.

The queenliness did not consist in desire to rule. It was purely self-defence; but the loftiest. Her whole nature was concentrated in it, luminously. ”Touch me not!” said eyes, voice, bearing. There was preparedness, undoubtedly, if need were, for the martyr's crown. She became much greater--but also more helpless. Such as she look too high and fall the first step they take. And great is generally their fall.

Frans gazed at her; he forgot to answer, forgot what she had said. He seemed to hear a voice calling: ”Protect her!” Chivalry entered into his love, and issued its high behests.

Mary saw him withdraw himself from their conversation; but this did not stop her; the subject was too absorbing. When he came back to it again he heard her divulging her inmost thoughts, undoubtedly with no idea that she was doing so. She told what she had thought ever since she could think on such subjects at all. It came as naturally to her to do so as to lift her dress where the road was dirty, or to swim when she could no longer keep her footing.--Individuality must be preserved, must grow, be neither curbed nor soiled. With this she began, with this she ended. But she was all the time conscious of a curious attraction towards Frans which led her to speak out. It was so long since they had been together. She did not know that the person who can draw forth our thoughts is, in the nature of things, a person who has power over us.

She only felt that she was obliged to speak--and to keep control over herself. A sweet feeling, which she experienced for the first time.

The conversation changed into talk which became ever more intimate, and lost itself at last in a silence of looks and long-drawn breaths. Alice had gone to her model. They became confused when they discovered that they were alone. They stopped talking and looked away from each other.

After short visits to one and another of the many works of art in the studio, their attention concentrated itself on a faun without arms. It stood laughing at them. They talked about this fragment of antique sculpture merely that there might not be silence. Where had it been found? To what age did it belong? It must surely have been an animal.

They spoke in subdued tones, with caressing voices, and unsteady eyes.

Nor were their feet steadier. They felt themselves lighter than before, as if they were in higher air. And it seemed to them as if their thoughts lay bare, and they themselves were transparent.

Presently Alice joined them again. She looked at them with eyes that awoke both. ”Have you done with marriage now?” she asked. It was about marriage they had been talking when she left them.

Mary remembered that she had an errand, and that her carriage was waiting. Frans Roy also remembered what he ought to be doing. They went off together, across the court and through the outer gate, to her carriage. But they could not strike the same tone as before, so they did not speak.

Hat in hand, Frans opened the carriage-door. Mary got in without raising her eyes. When, after seating herself, she turned to bow, the strongest eyes she had ever looked into were waiting for her--full of pa.s.sion and reverence.

Two hours later Frans was with Alice again. He could not remain longer alone with his heaven-storming hopes.

Where had he been in the interval? In town, buying a cast of Donatello's St. Cecilia. He had been obliged to compare. But Alice of course knew, he said, how wretchedly inferior Donatello's Cecilia was.

Alice began to be seriously alarmed. ”My dear friend, you will spoil everything for yourself. It is in your nature.”

He answered proudly: ”Never yet have I seriously set myself an aim which I have not accomplished.”

”I quite believe that. You can work, you can overcome difficulties, and you can also wait.”

”I can.”

”But you cannot suppress yourself; you cannot allow her to come to you.”

Frans was hurt. ”What do you mean, Alice?”

”I want to remind you, dear friend, that you don't know Mary; you don't know the world she lives in. You are a bear from the backwoods.”

”It may be that I am a bear. I don't deny that. But what if she should have become fond of a bear? One is not easily mistaken in such matters.”

He would not allow his high hopes to be cast down. He came beseechingly towards her--even tried to embrace her; he was given to hugging.

”Come now, Frans; behave yourself. And remember, this is the second time you have disturbed me.”

”You shall be disturbed. You shall not go on modelling your prisoner in there. Dear Alice, my own friend--you shall model my happiness.”