The Common Law

"I don't know what you mean."

"I mean exactly what I say. You showed by your expression and your manner that our inspection of the picture and our questions and comments concerning it were unwelcome."

"I'm sorry I showed it…. But they were unwelcome."

"Will you tell me why?"

"I don't think I know exactly why—unless the portrait was a personal and private affair concerning only myself—"

"Louis! Has it gone as far as that?"

"As far as what? What on earth are you trying to say, Lily?"

"I'm trying to say—as nicely and as gently as I can—that your behaviour—in regard to this girl is making us all perfectly wretched."

"Who do you mean by 'us all'?" he demanded sullenly.

"Father and mother and myself. You must have known perfectly well that father would write to me about what you told him at Spindrift House a month ago."

"Did he?"

"Of course he did, Louis! Mother is simply worrying herself ill over you; father is incredulous—at least he pretends to be; but he has written me twice on the subject—and I think you might just as well be told what anxiety and unhappiness your fascination for this girl is causing us all."

Mrs. Collis was leaning far forward in her chair, forgetful of her pose; Neville stood silent, head lowered, absently mixing tints upon his palette without regard to the work under way.

When he had almost covered his palette with useless squares of colour he picked up a palette-knife, scraped it clean, smeared the residue on a handful of rags, laid aside brushes and palette, and walked slowly to the window.

It was snowing again. He could hear the feathery whisper of the flakes falling on the glass roof above; and he remembered the night of the new year, and all that it had brought to him—all the wonder and happiness and perplexity of a future utterly unsuspected, undreamed of.

And now it was into that future he was staring with a fixed and blank gaze as his sister's hand fell upon his shoulder and her cheek rested a moment in caress against his.

"Dearest child," she said tremulously, "I did not mean to speak harshly or without sympathy. But, after all, shouldn't a son consider his father and mother in a matter of this kind?"

"I have considered them—tried to."

Mrs. Collis dropped into an arm-chair. After a few moments he also seated himself listlessly, and sat gazing at nothing out of absent eyes.

She said: "You know what father and mother are. Even I have something left of their old-fashioned conservatism clinging to me—and yet people consider me extremely liberal in my views. But all my liberality, all my modern education since I left the dear old absurdities of our narrow childhood and youth, can not reconcile me to what you threaten us with—with what you are threatened—you, your entire future life."

"What seems to threaten you—and them—is my marriage to the woman with whom I'm in love. Does that shock you?"

"The circumstances shock me."

"I could not control the circumstances."

"You can control yourself, Louis."

"Yes—I can do that. I can break her heart and mine."

"Hearts don't break, Louis. And is anybody to live life through exempt from suffering? If your unhappiness comes early in life to you it will pass the sooner, leaving the future tranquil for you, and you ready for it, unperplexed—made cleaner, purer, braver by a sorrow that came, as comes all sorrow—and that has gone its way, like all sorrows, leaving you the better and the worthier."

"How is it to leave her?"

He spoke so naturally, so simply, that for the moment his sister did not recognise in him what had never before been there to recognise—the thought of another before himself. Afterward she remembered it.

She said quietly: "If Valerie West is a girl really sincere and meriting your respect, she will face this matter as you face it."

"Yes—she would do that," he said, thoughtfully.

"Then I think that the sooner you explain matters to her—"

He laughed: "I don't have to explain anything to her, Lily."

"What do you mean?"

"She knows how things stand. She is perfectly aware of your world's attitude toward her. She has not the slightest intention of forcing herself on you, or of asking your indulgence or your charity."

"You mean, then, that she desires to separate you from your family—from your friends—"

"No," he said wearily, "she does not desire that, either."

His sister's troubled eyes rested on him in silence for a while; then:

"I know she is beautiful; I am sure she is good, Louis—good in—in her own way—worthy, in her own fashion. But, dear, is that all that you, a Neville, require of the woman who is to bear your name—bear your children?"

"She is all I require—and far more."

"Dear, you are utterly blinded by your infatuation!"

"You do not know her."

"Then let me!" exclaimed Mrs. Collis desperately. "Let me meet her, Louis—let me talk with her—"

"No…. And I'll tell you why, Lily; it's because she does not care to meet you."

"What!"

"I have told you the plain truth. She sees no reason for knowing you, or for knowing my parents, or any woman in a world that would never tolerate her, never submit to her entrance, never receive her as one of them!—a world that might shrug and smile and endure her as my wife—and embitter my life forever."

As he spoke he was not aware that he merely repeated Valerie's own words; he remained still unconscious that his decision was in fact merely her decision; that his entire attitude had become hers because her nature and her character were as yet the stronger.

But in his words his sister's quick intelligence perceived a logic and a conclusion entirely feminine and utterly foreign to her brother's habit of mind. And she realised with a thrill of fear that she had to do, not with her brother, but with a woman who was to be reckoned with.

"Do you—or does Miss West think it likely that I am a woman to wound, to affront another—no matter who she may be? Surely, Louis, you could have told her very little about me—"

"I never mention you to her."

Lily caught her breath.