CHAPTER XXII—THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT

GASTON tried to wait in patience another week for a word from the woman he loved, and when the last mail came and brought no letter for him, he found himself face to face with the deepest soul crisis of his life.

After all, thoughts are things. The report of her social frivolities at first made little impression on him. But the thought had fallen in his heart, and it was growing a poisoned weed.

It is possible to kill the human body with an idea. The fairest day the spring ever sent can be blackened and turned from sunshine into storm by the flitting of a little cloud of thought no bigger than a man’s hand.

So Gaston found this report of dancing and flirting in a gay society by the woman whom he had enthroned in the holy of holies of his soul to be destroying his strength of character, and like a deadly cancer eating his heart out.

He sat down by his window that night, unable to work, and tried to reconcile such a life with his ideal.

“Why should I be so provincial!” he mused. “The thing only shocks me because I am unused to it. She has grown up in this atmosphere. To her it is a harmless pastime.”

Then he took out of his desk her picture, lit his lamp and looked long and tenderly at it, until his soul was drunk again with the memory of her beauty, the warm touch of her hand, and the thrill of her full soft lips in the only two kisses he had ever received from the heart of a woman.

Then, the vision of a ball-room came to torture him. He could see her dressed in that delicate creation of French genius he had seen her wear the memorable night at the Springs. The French know so deeply the subtle art of draping a woman’s body to tempt the souls of men. How he cursed them to-night! He could see her bare arms, white gleaming shoulders, neck, and back, and round full bosom softly rising and falling with her breathing, as she swept through a brilliant ball-room to the strains of entrancing music.

He knew the dance was a social convention, of course. But its deep Nature significance he knew also. He knew that it was as old as human society, and full of a thousand subtle suggestions,—that it was the actual touch of the human body, with rhythmic movement, set to the passionate music of love. This music spoke in quivering melody what the lips did not dare to say. This he knew was the deep secret of the fascination of the dance for the boy and the girl, the man and the woman. How he cursed it to-night!

His imagination leaped the centuries that separate us from the great races of the past who scorned humbug and hypocrisy, and held their dances in the deep shadows of great forests, without the draperies of tailors. These men and women looked Nature in the face and were not afraid, and did not try to apologise or lie about it. He felt humiliated and betrayed.

He thought too of her wealth with a feeling of resentment and isolation. Taken with this social nightmare it seemed to raise an impossible barrier between them. He knew that in the terrible quarrel she had with her father on their first clash, he had sworn if she disobeyed him to disinherit her. She had answered him in bitter defiance. And yet time often changes these noble visions of poverty and strenuous faith in high ideals. Wealth and all its good things becomes with us at last habit. And habit is life.

Could it be possible she had weakened in resolution of loyalty when brought face to face with the actual breaking of the habits of a lifetime? Might not the three forces combined, the habit of social conventions, the habit of luxury, and the habit of obedience to a masterful and lovable father, be sufficient to crush her love at last? It seemed to him to-night, not only a possibility, but almost an accomplished fact.

At one o’clock he went to bed and tried to sleep. He tossed for an hour. His brain was on fire, and his imagination lit with its glare. He could sweep the world with his vision in the silence and the darkness. Yes, the world that is, and that which was, and is to come!

He arose and dressed. It was half-past two o’clock. He knew that this was to be the first night in all his life when he could not sleep. He was shocked and sobered by the tremendous import of such an event in the development of his character. He had never been swept off his feet before. He knew now that before the sun rose he would fight with the powers and princes of the air for the mastery of life.

He left his room and walked out on the road to the Springs over which he had gone so many times in childhood. The moon was obscured by fleeting clouds, and the air had the sharp touch of autumn in its breath. He walked slowly past the darkened silent houses and felt his brain begin to cool in the sweet air.

The last note he had received from her weeks ago was the brief one announcing the new break in the poor little correspondence she had promised him. The last paragraph of that note now took on a sinister meaning. He recalled it word by word:

“I feel like I can not trifle with you in this way again. It is humiliating to me and to you. I can see no light in our future. I release you from any tie I may have imposed on your life. I feel I have fallen short of what you deserve, but I am so situated between my mother’s failing health and my father’s will, and my love for them both, I can not help it. I will love you always, but you are free.”

Was not this a kindly and final breaking of their pledge to one another? Yet she had not returned the little medal he had given her with that exchange of eternal love and faith. Could she keep this and really mean to break with him finally? He could not believe it.

His whole life had been dominated by this dream of an ideal love. For it he had denied himself the indulgences that his college mates and young associates had taken as a matter of course. He had never touched wine. He had never smoked. He had never learned the difference between a queen and jack in cards. He had kept away from women. He had given his body and soul to the service of his Ideal, and bent every energy to the development of his mind that he might grasp with more power its sweetness and beauty when realised.

Did it pay? The Flesh was shrieking this question now into the face of the Spirit?

He had met the One Woman his soul had desired above all others. There could be no mistake about that. And now she was failing him when he had laid at her feet his life. It made him sick to recall how utter had been his surrender.

Why should he longer deny the flesh, when the soul’s dream failed the test of pain and struggle?

Was it possible that he had been a fool and was missing the full expression of life, which is both flesh and spirit?

The world was full of sweet odours. He had delicate and powerful nostrils. Why not enjoy them? The world was full of beauty ravishing to the eye. He had keen eyes trained to see. Why should he not open his eyes and gaze on it all? The world was full of entrancing music. He had ears trained to hear. Why should he stuff them with dreams of a doubtful future, and not hear it all? The world was full of things soft and good to the touch. Why should he not grasp them? His hands were cunning, and every finger tingled with sensitive nerve tips. The world was full of good things sweet to the taste, why should he not eat and drink as others, as old and wise perhaps?

Was a man full-grown until he had seen, felt, smelled, tasted, and heard all life? Was there anything after all, in good or bad? Were these things not names? If not, how could we know unless we tried them? What was the good of good things?

“Am I not a narrow-minded fool, instead of a wise man, to throttle my impulses and deny the flesh for an imaginary gain?” he asked himself aloud.

She had written he was free.

“Well, by the eternal, I will be free!” he exclaimed, “I will sweep the whole gamut of human passion and human emotion. I will drink life to the deepest dregs of its red wine. I will taste, feel, see, touch, hear all! I will not be cheated. I will know for myself what it is to live.”

When he woke to the consciousness of time and place, he found he was seated at the Sulphur Spring where it gushed from the foot of the hill, and that the eastern horizon was grey with the dawn.

A sense of new-found power welled up in him. He had regained control of himself.

“Good! I will no longer be a moping love-sick fool. I am a man. To will is to live, to cease to will is to die. I have regained my will,—I live!”

He walked rapidly back to town with vigourous step. His mind was clear.

“I will never write her another line until she writes to me. I will not be a dog and whine at any rich man’s door or any woman’s feet. The world is large, and I am large. I will be sought as well as seek. Besides, my country needs me. If I am to give myself it will be for larger ends than for the smiles of one woman!”

And then for two weeks he entered deliberately on a series of dissipations. He left Hambright and sought convivial friends on the sea coast. He amazed them by asking to be taught cards.

He swept the gamut of all the senses without reserve, day after day, and night after night.

At the end of two weeks he found himself haunting the post-office oftener, with a vague sense of impending calamity.

“The thing’s all over I tell you!” he said to himself again and again. And then he would hurry to the next mail as eagerly as ever. As the excitement began to tire him, the sense of longing for her face, and voice, and the touch of her hand became intolerable.

“My God, I’d give all the world holds of sin to see her and hear one word from her lips!” he exclaimed as he locked himself in his room one night.

“Why didn’t she answer my last letter?” he continued. “Ah, that was the best letter I ever wrote her. I put my soul in every word. I didn’t believe the woman lived who could read such confessions and such worship without reply; Surely she has a heart!”

When he went to the post-office next day he got a letter forwarded from Hambright by the Preacher. It was postmarked Narragansett Pier, and addressed in a bold masculine hand he had never seen before.

He tore it open, and inside found his last letter to Sallie Worth, returned with the seal unbroken. He sprang to his feet with flashing eyes, trembling from head to foot.

“Ah! they did not dare to let her receive another of my letters! So a clerk returns it unopened,” he cried.

And a great lump rose in his throat as he thought of the scenes of the past two weeks. The old fever and the old longing came rushing over his prostrate soul now in resistless torrents: “How dare a strange hand touch a message to her! I could strangle him. We will see now who wins the fight.” He set his lips with determination, packed his valise, and took the train for home without a word of farewell to the companions of his revels.

When he reached Hambright he felt sure of a letter from her. A strange joy filled his heart.

“I have either got a letter or she’s writing one to me this minute!” he exclaimed.

He went to the post-office in a state of exhilaration. The letter was not there. But it did not depress him.

“It is on the way,” he quickly said.

For two days, he remained in that condition of tense nervous excitement and expectation, and on the following day he opened his box and found his letter.

“I knew it!” he said with a thrill of joy that was half awe at the remarkable confirmation he had received of their sympathy.

He hurried to his office and read the big precious message.

How its words burned into his soul! Every line seemed alive with her spirit. How beautiful the sight of her handwriting! He kissed it again and again. He read with bated breath. The address was double expressive, because it contained the first words of abandoned tenderness with which she had ever written to him, except in the concealed message dotted in the note that broke their earlier correspondence.

“My Precious Darling:—I have gone through deep waters within the last three weeks. I became so depressed and hungry to see you, I felt some awful calamity was hanging over you and over me, and that it was my fault. I could scarcely eat or sleep.

“I felt I should go mad if I did not speak and so I told Mama. She sympathised tenderly with me but insisted I should not write. She is so feeble I could not cross her. But Oh! the agony of it! Sometimes I saw you drowning and stretching out your hands to me for help.

“Sometimes in my dreams I saw you fighting against overwhelming odds with strong brutal men, whose faces were full of hate, and I could not reach you.

“I was nervous and unstrung, but you can never know how real the horror of it all was upon me.

“I made up my mind one night to telegraph you. I heard some one talking inside Mama’s room. I gently opened the door between our rooms, and she was praying aloud for me. I stood spellbound. I never knew how she loved me before. When at last she prayed that in the end I might have the desire of my heart, and my life be crowned with the joy of a noble man’s love, and that it might be yours, and that she should be permitted to see and rejoice with me, I could endure it no longer.

“Choking with sobs I ran to her kneeling figure, threw my arms around her neck and covered her dear face with kisses.

“I could not send the message I had written after that scene.

“The next day Papa came, and she told him in my presence, ‘Now, General I have carried out your wishes with Sallie against my judgment. The strain has been more than you can understand. I give up the task. You can manage her now to suit yourself.’

“There was a firmness in her voice I had never heard before. He noted it, and was startled into silence by it. He had a long talk with me and repeated his orders with increasing emphasis.

“The next day I was unusually depressed. I did not get out of bed all day. At night I went down to supper. The clerk at the desk of the hotel called me and said, ‘Miss Worth, I have a terrible sin to confess to you. I’m a lover myself, and I’ve done you a wrong. I returned to a young man yesterday a letter to you by request of the General. Forgive me for it, and don’t tell him I told you.’

“That night Papa and I had a fearful scene. I will not attempt to describe it. But the end was, I said to him with all the courage of despair: I am twenty-one years old. I am a free woman. I will write to whom I please and when I please and I will not ask you again. It is your right to turn me out of your house, but you shall not murder my soul!

“Then for the first time in his life Papa broke down and sobbed like a child. We kissed and made up, and I am to write to you when I like.

“Forgive my long silence. Write and tell me you love me. My heart is sick with the thought that I have been cowardly and failed you. Write me a long letter, and you can not say things extravagant enough for my hungry heart.

“I feel utterly helpless when I think how completely you have come to rule my life. I wish you to rule it. It is all yours”——

And then she said many little foolish things that only the eyes of the one lover should ever see, for only to him could they have meaning.

When he finished reading this letter, and had devoured with eagerness these foolish extravagances with which she closed it, he buried his face in his arms across his desk.

A big strong boastful man whose will had defied the world! Now he was crying like a whipped child.