The Common Law

"I hope he won't knock for a long while," said Valerie, with a slight shiver. "There's so much I want to see first."

"You shall. We'll see everything together. We'll work hard, live frugally if you say so, cut out all frills and nonsense, and save and save until we have enough to retire on respectably. And then, like two nice old ladies, we'll start out to see the world—"

"Oh, Rita! I don't want to see it when I'm too old!"

"You'll enjoy it more—"

"Rita! How ridiculous! You've seen more of the world than I have, anyway. It's all very well for you to say wait till I'm an old maid; but you've been to Paris—haven't you?"

"Yes," said Rita. There was a slight colour in her face.

"Well, then! Why must I wait until I'm a dowdy old frump before I go? Why should you and I not be as happy as we can afford to be while we're young and attractive and unspoiled?"

"I want you to be as happy as you can afford to be, Valerie…. But you can't afford to fall in love."

"Why?"

"Because it will make you miserable."

"But it doesn't."

"It will if it is love."

"It is, Rita," said the girl, smiling out of her dark eyes—deep brown wells of truth that the other gazed into and saw a young soul there, fearless and doomed.

"Valerie," she said, shivering, "you won't do—that—will you?"

"Dear, I cannot marry him, and I love him. What else am I to do?"

"Well, then—then you'd better marry him!" stammered Rita, frightened.

"It's better for you! It's better—"

"For me? Yes, but how about him?"

"What do you care about him!" burst out Rita, almost incoherent in her fright and anger. "He's a man; he can take care of himself. Don't think of him. It isn't your business to consider him. If he wants to marry you it's his concern after all. Let him do it! Marry him and let him fight it out with his friends! After all what does a man give a girl that compares with what she gives him? Men—men—" she stammered—"they're all alike in the depths of their own hearts. We are incidents to them—no matter how they say they love us. They can't love as we do. They're not made for it! We are part of the game to them; they are the whole game to us; we are, at best, an important episode in their careers; they are our whole careers. Oh, Valerie! Valerie! listen to me, child! That man could go on living and painting and eating and drinking and sleeping and getting up to dress and going to bed to sleep, if you lay dead in your grave. But if you loved him, and were his wife—or God forgive me!—his mistress, the day he died you would die, though your body might live on. I know—I know, Valerie. Death—whether it be his body or his love, ends all for the woman who really loves him. Woman's loss is eternal. But man's loss is only temporary—he is made that way, fashioned so. Now I tell you the exchange is not fair—it has never been fair—never will be, never can be. And I warn you not to give this man the freshness of your youth, the happy years of your life, your innocence, the devotion which he will transmute into passion with his accursed magic! I warn you not to forsake the tranquillity of ignorance, the blessed immunity from that devil's paradise that you are already gazing into—"

"Rita! Rita! What are you saying?"

"I scarcely know, child. I am trying to save you from lifelong unhappiness—trying to tell you that—that men are not worth it—"

"How do you know?"

There was a silence, then Rita, very pale and quiet, leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and framing her face with her hands.

"I had my lesson," she said.

"You! Oh, my darling—forgive me! I did not know—"

Rita suffered herself to be drawn into the younger girl's impulsive embrace; they both cried a little, arms around each other, faltering out question and answer in unsteady whispers:

"Were you married, dearest?"

"No."

"Oh—I am so sorry, dear—"

"So am I…. Do you blame me for thinking about men as I do think?"

"Didn't you love—him?"

"I thought I did…. I was too young to know…. It doesn't matter now—"

"No, no, of course not. You made a ghastly mistake, but it's no more shame to you than it is to him. Besides, you thought you loved him."

"He could have made me. I was young enough…. But he let me see how absolutely wicked he was…. And then it was too late to ever love him."

"O Rita, Rita!—then you haven't ever even had the happiness of loving?

Have you?"

Rita did not answer.

"Have you, darling?"

Then Rita broke down and laid her head on Valerie's knees, crying as though her heart would break.

"That's the terrible part of it," she sobbed—"I really do love a man, now…. Not that first one … and there's nothing to do about it—nothing, Valerie, nothing—because even if he asked me to marry him I can't, now—"

"Because you—"

"Yes."

"And if you had not—"

"God knows what I would do," sobbed Rita, "I love him so, Valerie—I love him so!"

The younger girl looked down at the blond head lying on her knees—looked at the pretty tear-stained face gleaming through the fingers—looked and wondered over the philosophy broken down beside the bowed head and breaking heart.

Terrible her plight; with or without benefit of clergy she dared not give herself. Love was no happiness to her, no confidence, no sacrifice—only a dreadful mockery—a thing that fettered, paralysed, terrified.

"Does he love you?" whispered Valerie.

"No—I think not."

"If he did he would forgive."

"Do you think so?"