CHAPTER XXXIV.
And so for Earle those Roman days ended, with the brief dream which he had indulged of finding in Claire's heart a response for the feeling that had arisen in his own. Yet no disappointment can be very keen when hope has not been very great, and Earle was well aware that he had never possessed any ground for hope. Kind and gentle as Claire had been, he was always conscious of something about her which seemed to set her at a remote distance,—an indefinable manner which had made him once call her "a vestal of art." He understood this now, but he had felt it before he understood it, and so the blow was not as heavy as it might have been if this underlying instinct had not existed. A vestal!—the expression had been well chosen; for there was indeed a vestal-like quality about her,—a vestal-like charm, which seemed to inspire thoughts of cloisteral tranquillity, and keep the fires of human passion at bay. This exquisite quality had been her chief attraction to Earle: its very unlikeness to the nature which had fascinated him, and from which he had recoiled, making its charm the greater; but even while it attracted, he had felt that it removed her from him and made hope wear the guise of presumption.
Now all hope was finally at an end; and, since it is in human nature to resign itself to the inevitable, the wound might be said to carry its own cure. Earle was aware of this, and he left Rome in no melodramatic spirit whatever; but feeling it best to go, in order to recover that calm and healthy control of himself and his own feelings which had been lacking with him since he first met Marion in Scarborough. As we know that nature abhors a vacuum, it is probable that his attachment to Claire arose partly from the disappointment of that prior attachment—from the need of the heart to put another object in the place of that which had been dethroned; but, leaving all analysis of the kind for the future, he quietly accepted the pain of the present and went away.
Marion had not the least doubt of the reason of his going, although no word fell from Claire on the subject. She said to herself that she was sorry—that she had hoped to know that Claire and himself were happy together, since they suited each other so well; but, although she was sincere in thinking this, there could be no doubt that, despite herself, she felt his departure to be a relief—that it relaxed a strain in which she held herself,—and that if a blank followed, a sense of peace, of release from painful conflict, also came. "I suffer through my own fault," she reflected; "therefore it is quite right that I should suffer." And such acceptance robbed the suffering of half its sting.
Two or three tranquil months followed—months during which the influences that surrounded her sank deep into Marion, and seemed to be moulding over again the passionate, impulsive nature. Claire was one of the foremost of these influences, as Marion herself was well aware; and more than once she thought that she would be content if she might spend her life near the friend who had always seemed to her the voice of her better self. She had begun to study art—having a very fair talent,—and one day as she sat working at a study she said to Claire, who was painting busily on the other side of the room:—
"If I can ever grow to be anything of an artist, what a pleasure it will be for us to live and work together! I cannot think of anything I should prefer to that."
Claire smiled a little. "Nevertheless," she said, "there may be something that you will prefer as time goes on, although our association is very pleasant—as pleasant to me as to you."
"Is there anything that you would prefer?" asked Marion; for something in the tone of the other struck her with surprise.
Claire did not answer for a moment. Then she said, quietly: "Yes. I must be frank with you. There is something I should prefer even to your companionship, even to art. I should prefer to go back to the convent that I have never ceased to regret."