Mr Murk, recalling, on the morning after the storm, certain ultra-fervid expressions of remorse into which, during it, he had been betrayed, and realising, possibly, how of a saint and a sinner the latter had proved the blinder, turned the search-light of his recovered vision inwards, and examined his conscience like the most ruthlessly introspective Catholic. He worked out the sum of argument very coolly and carefully; and the result, condensed from many germinant postulates, showed itself arithmetically inevitable.
“If I intrigue, I sacrifice my independence, my free outlook, my peace of mind, my position in relation to my art—comprehensively, my principles.
“Enfin—on the other hand, I gain a very stomachy little white powder in a spoonful of jam.
“Taking one from four, therefore, I find myself debited with three charges that it is ridiculous to incur. Love, in short, is a creditor I have no desire to be called upon to compound with. I will cut my visit a little finer than I had intended, and go on to Paris at once. Perhaps—for I have not finished my Madonna, and the model curiously interests me—I will return to Méricourt by-and-by, when this shadow of a romance has drifted away with the cloud that threw it.”
Thus far only he temporised with his inclinations. For the rest, it appeared, he likened that which most men feel as a flame to an amorphous blot of darkness travelling across his sunlight. The point of view of the girl did not enter into his calculations. Possibly—most probably, indeed—he could not conceive himself inspiring a devouring passion. He knew innately, he thought, his limits—the length of his tether, moral, intellectual, and physical—and had never the least wish to affect, for the sake of self-glorification, a condition of mind or body that he was unable to recognise as his own. This led him to that serene appreciation of his personal capabilities that passes, in the eye of the world, for insufferable conceit. For to boast of knowing oneself is to assume a social importance on the strength of an indifferent introduction. Public opinion will never take one at one’s own valuation. It must be educated up to the point of one’s highest achievement. To say out, “I know I can do this thing,” is to deprive it (public opinion) of the right to exercise and justify itself.
Ned, however, would not over-estimate, nor would he (even nominally) cheapen himself as a bid to any man’s favour; and that, no doubt, would be sound equity in the impossible absence of inherent prejudice. But a judgment—in any world but a world of definite aurelian transitions—that holds itself infallible may err in the face of fifty precedents; and Ned’s, founded in this instance upon the self-precedent of sobriety, took no account of emotions that were completely foreign to his nature. In short, very honestly repudiating for himself any power of attraction, he failed to see that this very artlessness of repudiation was per se an attractive quality.
Now he put his resolution into force without compromise, and informed his host, during the second déjeuner, that he was on the prick of departure.
St Denys expressed no surprise, no concern, very little interest.
“Most certainly,” said he, “I applaud your attitude towards life. It exhibits what one may call an admirable cold cleanness. Probably, at this point, you are putting to your visit that period that most strictly conforms to the rules of moral punctuation. I have too complete a belief in the rectitude of your judgment to question that of your withdrawing yourself from Méricourt without superfluous ceremony. I envy you, indeed, your power of applying, without offence, to the oblique turns of circumstance that simple directness which is your very engaging characteristic. We, less fortunately endowed by nature, are for ever seeking those short cuts to a goal that delay us unconscionably, in everything but theory. You, monsieur, recognise instinctively that to fly straight for your mark is to reach your destination by the nearest route.”
“I am conscious of no particular coldness in my manner of regard,” said Ned good-humouredly. (He did not resent the implied sarcasm, nor did he allow it to affect his point of view. If he had given offence, it was simply by his literal construction of views he had been invited to share, and he could not admit the right of the dispenser of such views to put any arbitrary limit to another’s application of them.) “Unless, indeed,” he went on, “it argues a constitutional sang-froid to have decided, at the thinking outset of life, against the despotism of passion, and for a republic of senses, material, ethical, and intellectual.”