Beyond

“Thou hast my heart, and I am thine for ever —
To-night and for ever I am thine!
What is there left to me?  What have I but a heart that is broken?”

And the clear, heart-aching music mocking it all, down to those last words:

La commedia e finita!

While she was putting on her cloak, her eyes caught Summerhay’s. She tried to smile – could not, gave a shake of her head, slowly forced her gaze away from his, and turned to follow Winton.

At the National Gallery, next day, she was not late by coquetry, but because she had changed her dress at the last minute, and because she was afraid of letting him think her eager. She saw him at once standing under the colonnade, looking by no means imperturbable, and marked the change in his face when he caught sight of her, with a little thrill. She led him straight up into the first Italian room to contemplate his counterfeit. A top hat and modern collar did not improve the likeness, but it was there still.

“Well! Do you like it?”

“Yes. What are you smiling at?”

“I’ve had a photograph of that, ever since I was fifteen; so you see I’ve known you a long time.”

He stared.

“Great Scott! Am I like that? All right; I shall try and find YOU now.”

But Gyp shook her head.

“No. Come and look at my very favourite picture ‘The Death of Procris.’ What is it makes one love it so? Procris is out of drawing, and not beautiful; the faun’s queer and ugly. What is it – can you tell?”

Summerhay looked not at the picture, but at her. In aesthetic sense, he was not her equal. She said softly:

“The wonder in the faun’s face, Procris’s closed eyes; the dog, and the swans, and the pity for what might have been!”

Summerhay repeated:

“Ah, for what might have been! Did you enjoy ‘Pagliacci’?”

Gyp shivered.

“I think I felt it too much.”

“I thought you did. I watched you.”

“Destruction by – love – seems such a terrible thing! Now show me your favourites. I believe I can tell you what they are, though.”

“Well?”

“The ‘Admiral,’ for one.”

“Yes. What others?”

“The two Bellini’s.”

“By Jove, you ARE uncanny!”

Gyp laughed.

“You want decision, clarity, colour, and fine texture. Is that right? Here’s another of MY favourites.”

On a screen was a tiny “Crucifixion” by da Messina – the thinnest of high crosses, the thinnest of simple, humble, suffering Christs, lonely, and actual in the clear, darkened landscape.

“I think that touches one more than the big, idealized sort. One feels it WAS like that. Oh! And look – the Francesca’s! Aren’t they lovely?”

He repeated:

“Yes; lovely!” But his eyes said: “And so are you.”

They spent two hours among those endless pictures, talking a little of art and of much besides, almost as alone as in the railway carriage. But, when she had refused to let him walk back with her, Summerhay stood stock-still beneath the colonnade. The sun streamed in under; the pigeons preened their feathers; people passed behind him and down there in the square, black and tiny against the lions and the great column. He took in nothing of all that. What was it in her? She was like no one he had ever known – not one! Different from girls and women in society as – Simile failed. Still more different from anything in the half-world he had met! Not the new sort – college, suffrage! Like no one! And he knew so little of her! Not even whether she had ever really been in love. Her husband – where was he; what was he to her? “The rare, the mute, the inexpressive She!” When she smiled; when her eyes – but her eyes were so quick, would drop before he could see right into them! How beautiful she had looked, gazing at that picture – her favourite, so softly, her lips just smiling! If he could kiss them, would he not go nearly mad? With a deep sigh, he moved down the wide, grey steps into the sunlight. And London, throbbing, overflowing with the season’s life, seemed to him empty. To-morrow – yes, to-morrow he could call!

IV

After that Sunday call, Gyp sat in the window at Bury Street close to a bowl of heliotrope on the window-sill. She was thinking over a passage of their conversation.

“Mrs. Fiorsen, tell me about yourself.”

“Why? What do you want to know?”

“Your marriage?”

“I made a fearful mistake – against my father’s wish. I haven’t seen my husband for months; I shall never see him again if I can help it. Is that enough?”

“And you love him?”

“No.”

“It must be like having your head in chancery. Can’t you get it out?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Divorce-court! Ugh! I couldn’t!”

“Yes, I know – it’s hellish!”

Was he, who gripped her hand so hard and said that, really the same nonchalant young man who had leaned out of the carriage window, gurgling with laughter? And what had made the difference? She buried her face in the heliotrope, whose perfume seemed the memory of his visit; then, going to the piano, began to play. She played Debussy, McDowell, Ravel; the chords of modern music suited her feelings just then. And she was still playing when her father came in. During these last nine months of his daughter’s society, he had regained a distinct measure of youthfulness, an extra twist in his little moustache, an extra touch of dandyism in his clothes, and the gloss of his short hair. Gyp stopped playing at once, and shut the piano.

“Mr. Summerhay’s been here, Dad. He was sorry to miss you.”

There was an appreciable pause before Winton answered:

“My dear, I doubt it.”