The Greater Inclination

She stayed there for a long time, in the hypnotized contemplation, not of Mrs. Cope’s present, but of her own past.  Gannett, early that morning, had gone off on a long walk—­he had fallen into the habit of taking these mountain-tramps with various fellow-lodgers; but even had he been within reach she could not have gone to him just then.  She had to deal with herself first.  She was surprised to find how, in the last months, she had lost the habit of introspection.  Since their coming to the Hotel Bellosguardo she and Gannett had tacitly avoided themselves and each other.

She was aroused by the whistle of the three o’clock steamboat as it neared the landing just beyond the hotel gates.  Three o’clock!  Then Gannett would soon be back—­he had told her to expect him before four.  She rose hurriedly, her face averted from the inquisitorial facade of the hotel.  She could not see him just yet; she could not go indoors.  She slipped through one of the overgrown garden-alleys and climbed a steep path to the hills.

It was dark when she opened their sitting-room door.  Gannett was sitting on the window-ledge smoking a cigarette.  Cigarettes were now his chief resource:  he had not written a line during the two months they had spent at the Hotel Bellosguardo.  In that respect, it had turned out not to be the right milieu after all.

He started up at Lydia’s entrance.

“Where have you been?  I was getting anxious.”

She sat down in a chair near the door.

“Up the mountain,” she said wearily.

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

Gannett threw away his cigarette:  the sound of her voice made him want to see her face.

“Shall we have a little light?” he suggested.

She made no answer and he lifted the globe from the lamp and put a match to the wick.  Then he looked at her.

“Anything wrong?  You look done up.”

She sat glancing vaguely about the little sitting-room, dimly lit by the pallid-globed lamp, which left in twilight the outlines of the furniture, of his writing-table heaped with books and papers, of the tea-roses and jasmine drooping on the mantel-piece.  How like home it had all grown—­how like home!

“Lydia, what is wrong?” he repeated.

She moved away from him, feeling for her hatpins and turning to lay her hat and sunshade on the table.

Suddenly she said:  “That woman has been talking to me.”

Gannett stared.

“That woman?  What woman?”

“Mrs. Linton—­Mrs. Cope.”

He gave a start of annoyance, still, as she perceived, not grasping the full import of her words.

“The deuce!  She told you—?”

“She told me everything.”

Gannett looked at her anxiously.

“What impudence!  I’m so sorry that you should have been exposed to this, dear.”

“Exposed!” Lydia laughed.

Gannett’s brow clouded and they looked away from each other.

“Do you know why she told me?  She had the best of reasons.  The first time she laid eyes on me she saw that we were both in the same box.”

“Lydia!”

“So it was natural, of course, that she should turn to me in a difficulty.”

“What difficulty?”

“It seems she has reason to think that Lord Trevenna’s people are trying to get him away from her before she gets her divorce—­”

“Well?”

“And she fancied he had been consulting with you last night as to—­as to the best way of escaping from her.”

Gannett stood up with an angry forehead.

“Well—­what concern of yours was all this dirty business?  Why should she go to you?”

“Don’t you see?  It’s so simple.  I was to wheedle his secret out of you.”

“To oblige that woman?”

“Yes; or, if I was unwilling to oblige her, then to protect myself.”

“To protect yourself?  Against whom?”

“Against her telling every one in the hotel that she and I are in the same box.”

“She threatened that?”

“She left me the choice of telling it myself or of doing it for me.”

“The beast!”

There was a long silence.  Lydia had seated herself on the sofa, beyond the radius of the lamp, and he leaned against the window.  His next question surprised her.

“When did this happen?  At what time, I mean?” She looked at him vaguely.

“I don’t know—­after luncheon, I think.  Yes, I remember; it must have been at about three o’clock.”

He stepped into the middle of the room and as he approached the light she saw that his brow had cleared.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“Because when I came in, at about half-past three, the mail was just being distributed, and Mrs. Cope was waiting as usual to pounce on her letters; you know she was always watching for the postman.  She was standing so close to me that I couldn’t help seeing a big official-looking envelope that was handed to her.  She tore it open, gave one look at the inside, and rushed off upstairs like a whirlwind, with the director shouting after her that she had left all her other letters behind.  I don’t believe she ever thought of you again after that paper was put into her hand.”

“Why?”

“Because she was too busy.  I was sitting in the window, watching for you, when the five o’clock boat left, and who should go on board, bag and baggage, valet and maid, dressing-bags and poodle, but Mrs. Cope and Trevenna.  Just an hour and a half to pack up in!  And you should have seen her when they started.  She was radiant—­shaking hands with everybody—­ waving her handkerchief from the deck—­distributing bows and smiles like an empress.  If ever a woman got what she wanted just in the nick of time that woman did.  She’ll be Lady Trevenna within a week, I’ll wager.”

“You think she has her divorce?”

“I’m sure of it.  And she must have got it just after her talk with you.”

Lydia was silent.

At length she said, with a kind of reluctance, “She was horribly angry when she left me.  It wouldn’t have taken long to tell Lady Susan Condit.”

“Lady Susan Condit has not been told.”

“How do you know?”

“Because when I went downstairs half an hour ago I met Lady Susan on the way—­”

He stopped, half smiling.

“Well?”

“And she stopped to ask if I thought you would act as patroness to a charity concert she is getting up.”

In spite of themselves they both broke into a laugh.  Lydia’s ended in sobs and she sank down with her face hidden.  Gannett bent over her, seeking her hands.

“That vile woman—­I ought to have warned you to keep away from her; I can’t forgive myself!  But he spoke to me in confidence; and I never dreamed—­well, it’s all over now.”

Lydia lifted her head.

“Not for me.  It’s only just beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

She put him gently aside and moved in her turn to the window.  Then she went on, with her face turned toward the shimmering blackness of the lake, “You see of course that it might happen again at any moment.”

“What?”

“This—­this risk of being found out.  And we could hardly count again on such a lucky combination of chances, could we?”

He sat down with a groan.

Still keeping her face toward the darkness, she said, “I want you to go and tell Lady Susan—­and the others.”

Gannett, who had moved towards her, paused a few feet off.

“Why do you wish me to do this?” he said at length, with less surprise in his voice than she had been prepared for.

“Because I’ve behaved basely, abominably, since we came here:  letting these people believe we were married—­lying with every breath I drew—­”

“Yes, I’ve felt that too,” Gannett exclaimed with sudden energy.

The words shook her like a tempest:  all her thoughts seemed to fall about her in ruins.

“You—­you’ve felt so?”

“Of course I have.”  He spoke with low-voiced vehemence.  “Do you suppose I like playing the sneak any better than you do?  It’s damnable.”

He had dropped on the arm of a chair, and they stared at each other like blind people who suddenly see.

“But you have liked it here,” she faltered.

“Oh, I’ve liked it—­I’ve liked it.”  He moved impatiently.  “Haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she burst out; “that’s the worst of it—­that’s what I can’t bear.  I fancied it was for your sake that I insisted on staying—­because you thought you could write here; and perhaps just at first that really was the reason.  But afterwards I wanted to stay myself—­I loved it.”  She broke into a laugh.  “Oh, do you see the full derision of it?  These people—­the very prototypes of the bores you took me away from, with the same fenced—­ in view of life, the same keep-off-the-grass morality, the same little cautious virtues and the same little frightened vices—­well, I’ve clung to them, I’ve delighted in them, I’ve done my best to please them.  I’ve toadied Lady Susan, I’ve gossiped with Miss Pinsent, I’ve pretended to be shocked with Mrs. Ainger.  Respectability!  It was the one thing in life that I was sure I didn’t care about, and it’s grown so precious to me that I’ve stolen it because I couldn’t get it in any other way.”

She moved across the room and returned to his side with another laugh.

“I who used to fancy myself unconventional!  I must have been born with a card-case in my hand.  You should have seen me with that poor woman in the garden.  She came to me for help, poor creature, because she fancied that, having ‘sinned,’ as they call it, I might feel some pity for others who had been tempted in the same way.  Not I!  She didn’t know me.  Lady Susan would have been kinder, because Lady Susan wouldn’t have been afraid.  I hated the woman—­my one thought was not to be seen with her—­I could have killed her for guessing my secret.  The one thing that mattered to me at that moment was my standing with Lady Susan!”

Gannett did not speak.

“And you—­you’ve felt it too!” she broke out accusingly.  “You’ve enjoyed being with these people as much as I have; you’ve let the chaplain talk to you by the hour about ‘The Reign of Law’ and Professor Drummond.  When they asked you to hand the plate in church I was watching you—­you wanted to accept.”

She stepped close, laying her hand on his arm.

“Do you know, I begin to see what marriage is for.  It’s to keep people away from each other.  Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them—­children, duties, visits, bores, relations—­the things that protect married people from each other.  We’ve been too close together—­that has been our sin.  We’ve seen the nakedness of each other’s souls.”

She sank again on the sofa, hiding her face in her hands.

Gannett stood above her perplexedly:  he felt as though she were being swept away by some implacable current while he stood helpless on its bank.

At length he said, “Lydia, don’t think me a brute—­but don’t you see yourself that it won’t do?”

“Yes, I see it won’t do,” she said without raising her head.

His face cleared.

“Then we’ll go to-morrow.”

“Go—­where?”

“To Paris; to be married.”

For a long time she made no answer; then she asked slowly, “Would they have us here if we were married?”

“Have us here?”

“I mean Lady Susan—­and the others.”

“Have us here?  Of course they would.”

“Not if they knew—­at least, not unless they could pretend not to know.”

He made an impatient gesture.

“We shouldn’t come back here, of course; and other people needn’t know—­no one need know.”

She sighed.  “Then it’s only another form of deception and a meaner one.  Don’t you see that?”

“I see that we’re not accountable to any Lady Susans on earth!”

“Then why are you ashamed of what we are doing here?”

“Because I’m sick of pretending that you’re my wife when you’re not—­when you won’t be.”

She looked at him sadly.

“If I were your wife you’d have to go on pretending.  You’d have to pretend that I’d never been—­anything else.  And our friends would have to pretend that they believed what you pretended.”

Gannett pulled off the sofa-tassel and flung it away.

“You’re impossible,” he groaned.

“It’s not I—­it’s our being together that’s impossible.  I only want you to see that marriage won’t help it.”

“What will help it then?”

She raised her head.

“My leaving you.”

“Your leaving me?” He sat motionless, staring at the tassel which lay at the other end of the room.  At length some impulse of retaliation for the pain she was inflicting made him say deliberately: 

“And where would you go if you left me?”

“Oh!” she cried.

He was at her side in an instant.

“Lydia—­Lydia—­you know I didn’t mean it; I couldn’t mean it!  But you’ve driven me out of my senses; I don’t know what I’m saying.  Can’t you get out of this labyrinth of self-torture?  It’s destroying us both.”

“That’s why I must leave you.”

“How easily you say it!” He drew her hands down and made her face him.  “You’re very scrupulous about yourself—­and others.  But have you thought of me?  You have no right to leave me unless you’ve ceased to care—­”

“It’s because I care—­”

“Then I have a right to be heard.  If you love me you can’t leave me.”

Her eyes defied him.

“Why not?”

He dropped her hands and rose from her side.

“Can you?” he said sadly.

The hour was late and the lamp flickered and sank.  She stood up with a shiver and turned toward the door of her room.