A Puritan Bohemia/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
Anne and Howard lingered in the Square after Mrs. Kent had passed. They watched a procession of women filing out of the Music Hall after a Bach recital.
"See," observed Howard. "There's the woman-question incarnate."
"That isn't the question. It's the answer," Anne replied.
"I feel sadly out of place here."
"You always were. Bohemia is no place for a man."
"Well, I am going away. My work is nearly done."
"Going away!" exclaimed Anne. "Just look at those women," she added quickly. "Don't they seem intelligent and self-reliant?"
"And forlorn," he responded ungallantly. "They always look as if they were going to some place very fast, but as if they didn't belong anywhere."
"What will become of your night school when you go away, and of your lecture course?"
"I don't know," said the young man with a sigh.
"You reformers are all singularly irresponsible," said Anne severely, "in regard to the new aspirations that you rouse. You create a demand for yourselves, and then you disappear. It's very bad political economy."
Looking down he thought he saw a slight quiver in her lip, and he exulted.
"Aren't you going to invite me up to see what you've done to the picture?" he asked, with Machiavelian intent.
"Certainly."
He held the great door open, then they climbed the stairs together. Howard's step was not yet firm.
He eyed the sailor's picture critically.
"That's better," he said. "You've got some of the man's real stupidity into it. Before, he realized too keenly his own pathos. But see! The background is mixed up with the shoulder. Put a single stroke here."
Anne obediently squeezed some Brussels brown from a tube and took up her brush.
"Will you come to the studio for a farewell supper before you go?"
"With pleasure," he responded. Then he muttered something under his breath.
"Don't do that. It isn't polite," said Anne.
"If it only weren't for your accursed theory," he groaned, with a sick man's impatience, "we could do our work together, sharing the failure and the success."
"Perhaps it is your philanthropic theory," suggested the girl.
"I'll give it up! I'll give up anything in theory or in practice if you will change your mind."
"Oh no you won't. I shouldn't respect you if you did."
"I didn't quite mean it," he confessed. "Only, most theories are trash when it comes to a question of living."
"You see," observed Anne, "I could never enter into that part of your work. I could not devote myself to you and the masses too."
"You devote yourself to me, and I'll take care of the masses," he answered, laughing.
"Let's never speak of it again," begged Anne.
"Well," said Howard, "I've found out one thing. The individual love isn't complete without the other. One must care for humanity more than"
"Why don't you go and say all these things to humanity?" murmured Anne.
"I shall, if you persist. I shall go to live in the slums, and shall turn every cent I've got into a workingmen's college."
"Do it!" cried the girl. "I like your doing these things. Only I sometimes think that there is the least bit of pose in your attitude."
"Perhaps there is," he answered humbly. "I am never quite my real self except when I am with you. But I give up the battle. Either you are incapable of a great devotion"
Anne's nostrils dilated.
"The meanest device of those who have not been able to stir your nature to its depths is to suggest that it has no depths," she remarked loftily.
"Oh, you have taken a vow, and you don't dare break it."
"I haven't!" cried Anne. "No woman ever makes a resolution like that without leaving a reserve clause in it. Only, you aren't in my reserve clause."
"Then it is just that old child-perversity of yours. You won't give up, simply because you do care. For I believe you do not know your own mind about the matter. You change your point of view so often. You give a different reason every time."
"I seem to be consistent in my decision," said Anne, painting steadily. "I have told you that I cannot serve two masters. Perhaps it is because I am a woman. Perhaps it is because I am I. And I've told you that my feeling is inadequate."
"You are trying to reason it all out," cried Howard impatiently. "Why don't you follow instinct?"
"I do. You feel that it is right, I feel that it is wrong. Why should your feeling prevail?"
"Don't be logical! Logic isn't becoming in a woman," he answered with a laugh.
Anne's face grew wistful.
"You see, it would be cruel to you to consent when I don't care enough. Besides," she added, with changing mood, "I told you long ago that I am a deliberate egoist."
"The only perfect egoism lies in self-surrender. One can't fulfil one's personality all alone."
"That," said Anne, "almost wins me."
Striding up and down, Howard watched her as she worked. The penetrating odour of violets filled the room. He would always remember her as she looked now.
"It all rested with you. You have decided it," he said vehemently. "If it is really better for you I am glad. But I don't believe that it is. And I sha'n't quite let you go. You can never get away from me. I shall haunt you. I'll be the blunder you will revert to, the unanswered question, the other possibility"
In his strong emotion he bent his head and kissed her.
"If you please 'm," said a polite little voice at the door, "I came to see if you wanted me to do any errands."
It was Annabel, gazing into the studio with fascinated eyes. The door had been left slightly open.
Anne's face was white when she said good-bye to Howard.
"If I ever wavered, now I am sure: I'll never surrender, never!"
In the fading light in the Square Howard Stanton saw upon his coat-sleeve a tiny fleck of brown paint.
"I'm a monumental fool," he said to himself.