CHAPTER XXV
It would be too strong an expression to say that after Stella's departure Julian suffered from reaction. He himself couldn't have defined what he suffered from, but he was uneasy.
He had given himself away to Stella as he had never in his wildest dreams supposed that one could give oneself away to a woman. But he wasn't worrying about that; he hadn't minded giving himself away to Stella.
Samson was the character in the Old Testament whom Julian most despised, because he had let Delilah get things out of him. What Samson had got back hadn't been worth it, and could probably have been acquired without the sacrifice of his hair. He had simply given in to Delilah because he had a soft spot for her; and Delilah quite blamelessly (from Julian's point of view) had retaliated by crying out, "The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!"
Julian had always felt perfectly safe with women of this type; they couldn't have entrapped him. But there wasn't an inch of Delilah in Stella. She had no Philistines up her sleeve for any of the contingencies of life and she had not tried to get anything out of Julian.
That was where his uneasiness began. He understood her sufficiently to trust her, but he was aware that beyond his confidence she was a mapless country; he did not even know which was water and which was land. His uncertainty had made him shrink from telling Stella about Eugénie Matisse.
If Marian had been sharp enough—she probably wouldn't have been—to guess that Julian knew the girl in the picture, she would have known, too, precisely what kind of girl she was, and she would have thought none the worse of Julian.
But he didn't know what Stella expected. He wasn't afraid that she would cast him off for that or any other of his experiences; then he would have told her. She would have forgiven him as naturally as she loved him; but what if her forgiveness had involved her pain?
He had spoken the truth when he told Stella that she had "put the fear of God into him." Julian had not known much about God before or anything about fear; but he was convinced now that the fear of God was not that God might let you down, but that you might let down God. He wanted to be as careful of Stella as if she had been a government secret.
Did she know in the least what she was in for. Or was she like an unconscious Iphigenia vowed off to mortal peril by an inadvertent parent?
He had done his best to make her realize the future, but there are certain situations in life when doing one's best to make a person aware of a fact is equivalent to throwing dust in his eyes. And Stella herself might by a species of divine fooling, have outwitted both himself and her. She might be marrying Julian for pity under the mask of love.
Her pity was divine, and he could stand it for himself perfectly; but he couldn't stand it for her. Why had she shivered when he had said he was going to bring her home? He cursed his helplessness. If he had not been crippled he would have taken her by surprise, and let his instincts judge for him; but he had had to lie there like a log, knowing that if he asked her to come to him, she would have blinded him by her swift, prepared responsiveness.
The moment on the downs hardly counted. She had been so frightened that it had been like taking advantage of her to take her in his arms.
The one comfort he clung to was her fierce thrust at his pride. He repeated it over and over to himself for reassurance. She had said, if he wouldn't marry her, he would make her morally a cripple. That really sounded like love, for only love dares to strike direct at the heart. If he could see her, he knew it would be all right; if even she had written (she had written, of course, but had missed the midnight post), he would have been swept back into the safety of their shared companionship. But in his sudden loneliness he mistrusted fortune. When a man has had the conceit knocked out of him, he is not immediately the stronger for it; and he is the more vulnerable to doubt not only of himself, but of others. The saddest part of self-distrust is that it breeds suspicion.
It would be useless to speak to his mother about it, for, though a just woman, she was predominantly his mother; she wanted Stella too much for Julian to admit a doubt of Stella's wanting him for herself. She would have tried to close all his questions with facts. This method of discussion appealed to Julian as a rule, but he had begun to discover that there are deeper things than facts.
Lady Verny was in London at a flower show, and Julian was sitting in the summer-house, which he was planning to turn into a room for Stella. His misgivings had not yet begun to interfere with his plans. He had just decided to have one of the walls above the water meadows replaced by glass when his attention was attracted by the most extraordinary figure he had ever seen.
