"Am I showing the slightest consideration for you? Am I not showing the most cynical disregard of your welfare in life?"
"How?"
"By allowing you to throw yourself away upon me."
"It is no concern of yours what I do with myself. I do not intend you to have any voice in the matter. Besides--just be good enough to tell me, please!--suppose you made up your mind _not_ to allow me, how would you set about it?"
This was a poser, and the gentleman was practically obliged to acknowledge it. "I couldn't say off-hand," said he. "I should have to consult materfamiliases in Good Society, and look up precedents. Several will occur at once to the student of Lempriere, some of which might be more to the point than anything Holy Writ offers in illustration. But all the cases I can recall at a moment's notice are vitiated by the motives of their male actors. These motives were pure--they were pure self-indulgence. In fact, their attitude towards their would-be charmers had the character of a _sauve-qui-peut_. It was founded on strong personal dislike, and has lent itself to Composition in the hands of the Old Masters...."
"Now I don't know what you are talking about. Answer my question and don't prevaricate. How would you set about it?"
"How indeed?" There was a note of seriousness in Adrian's voice, and Gwen welcomed it, saying:--"That's right!--stop talking nonsense and tell me." It became more audible as he continued:--"You are only asking me because you know I cannot answer. Was ever a case known of a man who cried off because the lady's relatives thought she didn't care about him? What did he do? Did he write her a letter, asking her to consider everything at an end between them until she could produce satisfactory evidence of an unequivocal _sehnsucht_ of the exactly right quality--_premier cru_--when her restatement of the case would receive careful consideration? Rubbish!"
"Not rubbish at all! He wrote her that letter and she wrote back requesting him to look out for another young woman at his earliest convenience, because she wasn't his sort. She did, indeed! But she certainly was rather an unfortunate young woman, to be trothplight to such a very good and conscientious young man."
"_Rem tetigisti acu_," said Adrian. "Never mind what that means. It's Latin.... Well then!--it means you've hit it. The whole gist of the matter lies in my being neither good nor conscientious. I am a mass of double-dyed selfishness. I would not give you up--it's very sad, but it's true!--even for your own sake. I would not lose a word from your lips, a touch of your hand, an hour of your presence, to have back my eyesight and with it all else the world has to give, all else than this dear self that I may never see...."
"I'm glad you said _may_."
"Yes, of course it's _may_. We mustn't forget that. But, dearest, I tell you this, that if I were to get my sight again, and your august mammy's impression were to turn out true after all, and you come to be aware that, pity apart, your humble servant was not such a very...."
"What should you do if I did?"
"Shall I tell you? I should show the cloven foot. I should betray the unreasoning greed of my soul. I should never let you go, even if I had to resort to the brutality of keeping you to your word. I should simply hold on like grim death. Would you hate me for it?"
"N-no! I'm not sure that I should. We should see." Certainly the beautiful face that looked down at the eyes that could not see it showed no visible displeasure--quite the reverse. "But suppose I did! _Suppose_ is a game that two can play at."
"Very proper, and shows you understand the nature of an hypothesis. What should I do?... What _should_ I do?"
Gwen offered help to his perplexity. "And suppose that when _you_ came to see _your_ bargain you had found out your mistake! Suppose that Arthur's Bridge turned out all an Arabian Night! Suppose that the ...
well--satisfactory _personnel_ your imagination has concocted turned out to be that of a beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy! How then?"
Instead of replying, Adrian drew his hands gently over the face above him, caressingly over the glorious mass of golden hair and round the columnar throat Bronzino would have left reluctantly alone. Said Irene, from the other end of the room:--"Are you trying Mesmeric experiments, you two?"
"He's only doing it to make sure I'm not a beldam," said Gwen innocently. But to Adrian she added under her breath:--"It's only Irene, so it doesn't matter. Only it shows how cautious one has to be." The Baronet, attracted for one moment from his fascinating dice, contributed a fragment to the conversation, and died away into backgammon.
"Hey--eh!--what's that?" said he. "Mesmerism--Mesmerism--why, you don't mean to say you believe in _that_ nonsense!" After which Gwen and Adrian were free to go on wherever they left off, if they could find the place.
She found it first. "Yes--I know. 'Beldam, crone, hag, or dowdy!' Of course. What I mean is--if it dawned on you that you were mistaken about my identity ... I want you to be serious, because the thing is possible ... what would you do?"
"There are so many _supposes_. Suppose you hated me and I thought you a beldam! Practice would seem to suggest fresh fields and pastures new....
But oh, the muddy, damp fields and the desolate, barren pastures.... I know one thing I should do. I should wish myself back here in the dark, with my feet spoiling the sofa cushion, and my head in the lap of my dear delusion--my heavenly delusion. God avert my disillusionment! I would not have my eyesight back at the price."
"Don't get excited! Remember we are only pretending."
"Not at all! I am being serious, because the thing is possible. Do you know I can imagine nothing worse than waking from a dream such as I have dreamt. It would be really _the worst_--worse than if _you_ were to die, or change...."
"I can't see that."
"Clearly. I should not have the one great resource."
"What resource?... Oh, I see!--you are working round to suicide. I thought we should come to that."
"Naturally, one who is not alive to the purely imaginary evil of non-existence turns to his _felo de se_ as his sheet-anchor. Persons who conceive that the large number of non-existent persons have a legitimate grievance, on the score of never having been created at all, will think otherwise. We must agree to differ."
"But how very unreasonable of you not to kill yourself!--I mean in the case of my not--not visualising well...."
"Quite the reverse. Most reasonable. We are supposing three courses open to Destiny. One, to kill you, lawlessly--Destiny being notoriously lawless. Another to make you change your mind. A third to make me change mine. The reasonableness of suicide in the first case is obvious, if Death is not annihilation. I should catch you up. In the second, all the Hereafters in the Universe would be no worse for me than Life in the dark, without you, here and now. In the third case I should have no one but myself to thank for a weak concession to Destiny, and it would be most unfair to kill myself without your consent, freely given. And I am by no means sure that by giving that consent you would not be legally an accomplice in my _felo de se_. Themis is a colossal Meddlesome Matty with her fingers in every pie."
"Bother Themis! What a lot of nonsense! However, there was one gleam of reason. You are alive to the fact that I should not consent to your suicide. Or anyone else's. _I_ think it's wrong to kill oneself."
"So do I. But it might be a luxury I should not deny myself under some circumstances. I don't know that Hamlet would influence me. A certain amount of nervousness about Eternity is inseparable from our want of authentic information. I should hope for a healthy and effectual extinction. Failing that, I should disclaim all responsibility. I should point out that it lay, not with me, but my Maker. I should dwell on the fact that Creators that make Hereafters are alone answerable for the consequences; that I had never been consulted as to my own wishes about birth and parentage; and that I should be equally contented to be annulled, and, as Mrs. Bailey would have said, ill-convenience nobody...."
"Do you know why I am letting you go on?"
"Because of my Religious Tone? Because of my Good Taste? Or why?"
"Because I sometimes suspect you of being in earnest about suicide."
"I am quite in earnest."
"Very well, then. Now attend to me. I'm going to insist on your making me a promise."
"Then I shall have to make it. But I don't know till I hear it whether I shall promise to keep it."
"That's included."
"But no promise to keep my promise to keep it's included."
"Yes it is. If you keep on, I shall keep on. So you had better stop.
What you've got to promise is not to commit suicide under any circumstances whatever."
"Not under any circumstances whatever? That seems to me rather harsh and arbitrary."
"Not at all. Give me your promise."
"H'm--well!--I'm an amiable, tractable sort of cove.... But I think I am entitled to one little reservation."
"It must be a very little one."
"Anything one gives one's _fiancee_ is returned when she breaks one off.
When you break me off I shall consider the promise given back--cancelled."
"Ye-es! Perhaps that _is_ fair, on the whole. Only I think I deserve a small consideration for allowing it."
"I can't refuse to hear what it is."
"Give me that little bottle of Indian poison. To take care of for you, you know. I'll give it back if I break you off. Honour bright!"